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I Talked with Spirits—But it is Dangerous and Wicked!
Many people are pleased to know, although this is Satan’s World and Universe, it is reassuring that the power of Satan, and his hosts are limited by God’s omnipotence. The Christian Bible and Book of Mormon clearly teaches that the Lord is in ultimate control of the entire social and political realm. For example, in the story of Job, we are informed that Satan could do only what God allowed. The apostle Paul also tells us that the Earthly rulers are in their places of authority by God’s permissive decree. He declared, “Let every soul be subject unto higher powers. For there is no power but of God; the powers that be are ordained of God,” reports Romans 13.1. This does not mean that God approves of men like Nero, Hitler, or Stalin, but that He ordained government to prevent chaos by making laws and enforcing them. Wicked men and women who hate the Lord and His people have obtained their positions of authority only by God’s permission, and their power is limited by His will. Therefore, though He commands His followers to obey even the most evil of these Earthly rulers, He will return as King of kings and Lord of lords to overcome all obstacles and work out His plans and purposes. The power of Satan and his followers is further restricted by the presence of Christians in the World. Believers have been redeemed from the domination of this World system. In addition, obedient followers of the Lord Jesus exert a purifying and preserving influence in the World. Jesus said, “Ye are the salt of the Earth,” reports Matthew 5.13. Salt immediately suggested purity to the people of Christ’s day. In fact, the Romans said that salt was the purest of all things because it cam from the sun and the sea. #RandolphHarris 1 of 17
Believers in Christ, by holding to a high standard of speech and conduct, and keeping themselves “unspotted” from the World (James 1.27), exert a strong cleansing effect upon humankind. Then, too, as salt was a common preservative, so Christians are a cleansing antiseptic in society, holding back the process of corruption. Faithful believers in Christ are therefore both a purifying and preserving influence. The apostle Paul also declared that all Christians are indwelt by the Holy Spirit, and that as long as they are on Earth the full outbreak of evil is impossible. “And now ye know what restraineth that he might by revealed in his time. For the mystery of iniquity doth already work; only he who now hindereth will continue to hinger until he be take out of the way,” reports 2 Thessalonians 2.6-7. Moreover, Satan works under the disability of knowing that his ultimate defeat has been made certain by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The writer of Hebrews said that Jesus took upon Himself our nature and went to the cross that “through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil,” reports Hebrews 2.14. Though Peter tells us that, “the devil, like a roaring lion walketh about, seeking whom he may devour,” reported in 1 Peter 5.8, Satan knows his doom is sure and therefore operates under definite limitations. In conclusions, if you are a follower of Christ, you must take seriously these Scripture passages which speak of the invisible army that is arrayed against you. If you think that in your own strength you are able to withstand Satan and his host, you will not be victorious in your Christian life. #RandolphHarris 2 of 17
Your testimony for Christ will be powerless and your way of life completely ineffective unless you walk in daily fellowship with God. This means you must confess and forsake every known sin, spend time with God in prayer, read the Scriptures, and submit yourself wholly to the Lord. In addition, in society, believers are called upon to pray earnestly for the leaders of nation, both on local, national, and subnational levels. Remember, the Bible teaches that an invisible host of evil spirits often uses political leaders as mere pawns, and these humans will not be able to function effectively and promote the right unless they receive help from the Lord. Since many of them are not true believers, they especially stand in need of the prayers of God’s people. The experience of Daniel demonstrates that when Godly men pray, the Lord sends His holy Angels to do battle with the Satanic forces and frustrates them in their efforts. Christians are therefore reminded by Paul to pray for all who have positions of authority: “I exhort, therefore, the first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all humans, for kings, and for all that are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all Godliness and honesty,” reports 1 Timothy 2.1-2. Many of God’s people do not realize that tremendous battle being waged in the spiritual realm, and as a result they are somewhat lackadaisical about praying for men and women and children who hold responsible positions in government. Therefore, we who know that evil spirits are putting tremendous pressure upon these people should make doubly sure we do not fail. Our prayers may make the difference between life or death for many people, for when we seek God’s face, He exerts His power to defeat the enemy. #RandolphHarris 3 of 17
With the restoration of King Charles II witchcraft did not cease; on the other hand it went on with unimpaired vigour, and several important cases were brought to trial in England. In one instance, at least, it made its appearance in Ireland, this time far south, at Youghal. The extraordinary tale of Florence Newton and her doings, which is related below, forms the seventh Relation in Glanvill’s Sadducismus Triumphatus (London, 1726); it may also be found, together with some English cases of notoriety, in Francis Bragge’s Witchcraft further displayed (London, 1712). It is from the first of these sources that we have taken it, and reproduced it here verbatim, except that some redundant matter has been omitted, id est, where one witness relates facts (!) which have already been brought forward as evidence in the examination of a previous witness, and which therefore do not add to our knowledge, though no doubt they materially contributed to strengthen the case against the unfortunate old woman. Hayman in his Guide to Youghal attributes the whole affair to the credulity of the Puritan settlers, who were firm believers in such things. In this he is correct no doubt, but it should be borne in mind by the reader that such a belief was not confined to the newcomers at Youghal, but was common property throughout England and Ireland. The tale shows that there was a little covey of suspected witches in Youghal at that sate, as well as some skillful amateur witch-finders (Messrs. Perry, Greatrakes, and Blackwall). From the readiness with which the Mayor proposed to try the “water-experiment” one is lead to suspect that such a process as swimming a witch was not altogether unknown in Youghal. #RandolphHarris 4 of 17
For the benefit of the uninitiated we may briefly describe the actual process, which, as we shall see, the Mayor contemplated, but did not actually carry out. The suspected witch is taken, her right thumb tied to her left great top, and vice vera. She is then thrown into the water: if she sinks (and drowns, by any chance!) her innocence is conclusively established; if, on the other hand, she floats, her witchcraft is proven, for water, as being the element in Baptism, refuses to receive such a sinner in its bosom. Florence Newton was committed to Youghal prison by the Mayr of the town, 24th March 1661, for bewitching Mary Longdon, who gave evidence against her at the Cork Assizes (11th September), as follows: Mary Longdon being sworn, and bidden to look upon the prisoner, he countenance chang’s pale, and she was very fearful to look towards her, but at last she did, and being asked whether she knew her, she said she did, and wish’d she never had. Being asked how long she had known she, she said for three of four years. And that at Christmas the said Florence came to the Deponent, at the house of John Pyne in Youghal, where the Deponent was a servant, and asked her to give her a piece of Beef out of the Powdering Tub; and the Defendant answering her that she would not give away her Master’s Beef, the said Florence seemed to be very angry, and said Thou had’st as good give it me, and went away grumbling. That about a week after the Defendant going to the water with a Pail of Cloth on her head she met the said Florence Newton, who came full in her Face, and threw the Pail off her head, and violently kiss’d her, and said, Mary, I pray thee let thee and I be Friends; for I bear thee no ill will, and I pray thee do thou bear me none. And that she the Defendant afterwards went home, and that within a few Days after she saw a Woman with a Vail over her face stand by her bedside, and one standing by her like a little old Man in Silk Cloaths, that that this Man who she took to be a Spirit drew the Vail off the Woman’s Face, and then she knew it to be Goody Newton: and that she Spirit spoke to the Defendant and would have her promise him to follow his advice and she would have all things after her own Heart, to which she says she answered that she would have nothing to say to him, for her trust was in the Lord. #RandolphHarris 5 of 17
That within a month after the said Florence had kiss’s her, she this Defendant fell very ill of Fits or Trances, which would take her on a sudden, in that violence that three or four men could not hold her; and in her Fits she would be take with Vomiting, and would vomit up Needles, Pins, Horsenails, Stubbs, Wooll, and Straw, and that very often. And being asked whether she perceived at these times what she vomited? She replied, she did; for then she was not n so great distraction as in other parts of her Fits she was. And that before the first beginning of her Fits several (and very many) small stones would fall upon her as she went up and down, and would follow her from place to place, and from one Room to another, and would hit her on the head, shoulders, and arms, and fall to the ground and vanish away. And that she and several others would see them both fall upon her and on the ground, but could never take them, save only some few which she and her Master caught in their hands. Amongst which one that had a hole n it she tied (as she was advised) with a leather thong to her Purse, but it was vanish’d immediately, though the latter continu’d tied in a fast knot. That in her Fits she often saw Florence Newton, and cried out against her for tormenting her of her, for she says, that she would several times Stick Pins into her Arms, and some of them so fast, that a Man must pluck three or four times to get out the Pins, and they were stuck between the skin and the flesh. That sometimes she would be remov’d out of bed into another Room, sometimes she would be carried to the top of the House, and laid on a board between two Sollar Beams, sometimes put into a Chest, sometimes under a parcel of Wooll, sometimes between two Feather-Beds on which she used to lie, and sometimes between the Bed and the Mat in her Master’s Chamber, in the Daytime. #RandolphHarris 6 of 17
And being asked how she knew that she was thus carried about and disposed of, seeing in her fits she was in a violent distraction? She answered, she never knew where she was, till they of the Family and the Neighbours with them, would be taking her out of the places whither she was so carried and removed. And being asked the reason and wherefore she cried out so much against the said Florence Newton in her Fits? She answered, because she saw her, and felt her torturing her. And being asked how she could think it was Florence Newton that did her this prejudice? She said, first, because she threatened her, then because after she had kiss’d her she fell into these Fits, and that she saw and felt her tormenting. And lastly, that when the people of the Family, by advice of the Neighbours and consent of the Mayor, had sent for Florence Newton to come to the Defendant, she was always worse when she was brought to her, and her Fits more violent than at another time. And that after the said Florence was committed at Youghal the Defendant was not troubled, but was very will till a little while after the said Florence was removed to Cork, and then the Defendant was as ill as every before. Then then the Mayor of Youghal, one Mr. Mayre, sent to know whether the said Florence was bolted (as the Defendant was told), and finding she was not, the order was given to put her Bolts on her; which being done, the Deponent saith she was well again, and so hath continued ever since, and being asked whether she had such like Fits before the said Florence have her the kiss, she saith she never had any, but believed that with the kiss she bewitch’d her, and rather because she had heard from Nicholas Pyne and others that Florence had confessed so much. This Mary Longdon having closed her evidence, Florence Newton peeped at her as it were betwixt the head of the bystanders that interposed between her and the said Mary, and lifting up both her hands together, as they were manacled, cast them in a violent angry motion (as was observed by W. Aston) toward the said Mary, as if she intended to strike at her if she could have reached her, and said, Now she is down. #RandolphHarris 7 of 17
Upon which the Maid fell suddenly down to the ground like a stone, and fell into a most violent Fit, that all the people that could come to lay hands on her could scarce hold her, she biting her own arms and shrieking out in a most hideous manner, to the amazement of all Beholders. And continuing so for about a quarter of an hour (the said Florence Newton sitting by herself all that while pinching her own hands and arms, as was sworn by some that observed her), the Maid was ordered to be carried out of Court, and taken into a House. Whence several Persons after that brough word, that the Maid was in a Vomiting Fit, and they brought in several crook’d Pins, and Straws, and Wooll, in white Foam like Spittle, in great proportion. Whereupon the Court having taken notice that the Maid said she had been very well when the said Florence was in Bolts, and ill again when out of them, till they were again put on her, demanded of the Jaylor if she were in Bolts or no, to which he said she was not, only manacled. Upon which order was given to put on her Bolts, and upon putting them on she cried out that she was skilled, she was undone, she was spoiled, why do you torment me thus? and so continued complaining grievously for half a quarter of an hour. And then came in a messenger from the Maid, and informed the Court the Maid was well. At which Florence immediately and cholerickly uttered these words, She is not well yet! And being demanded, how she knew this, she denied she said so, though many in Court heard her say the words, and she said, if she did, she knew not what she said, being old and disquieted, and distracted with her sufferings. However, the Maid being reasonably well come to herself, was, before the Court knew anything of it, sent out of Town to Youghal, and so was no further examined. #RandolphHarris 8 of 17
The Fit of the Maid being urged by the Court with all the circumstances of it upon Florence Newton, to have been a continuance of her devilish practice, she denied it, and likewise the motion of her hands, and the saying, Now she is down, though the Court saw the first, and the words were sworn to by one Roger Moor. And Thomas Harrison swore that he had observed the said Florence peep at her, and use that motion with her hands, and she saw the Maid fall immediately upon that motion, and heard the words, Now she is down, uttered. Nicolas Stout was next produced by Mr. Attorney-General, who being sworn and examined, saith, That he had often tried her, having heard say that Witches could not say the Lord’s Prayer, whether she could or no, and she could not. Whereupon she said she could day it, and had often said it, and the Court being desired by her to hear her say it, gave her leave; and four times together after these words, Give us this our daily bread, she continually said, As we forgive them, leaving out altogether the words, And forgive us our trespasses, upon which the Court appointed one near her to teach her the words she left out. However, she either could not, or would not, say them, using only these or the like words when these were repeated, Ay, ay, trespasses, that’s the word. And being often pressed to utter the words as they were repeated to her, she did not. And being asked the reason, she said she was old and had a bad memory; and being asked how her memory served her so well for other parts of the Prayer, and only failed her for that, she said she knew not, neither could she help it. John Pyne being likewise sworn and examined, saith, That about January last [1661] the said Mary Longdon, being his Servant, was much troubled with small stones that were thrown at her [&c., as in the Deponent’s statement, other items of which he also corroborated]. That sometimes the Maid would be reading in the Bible, and on a sudden he hath seen the Bible struck out of her Hand into the middle of the Room, and she immediately cast into a violent Fit. #RandolphHarris 9 of 17
That in the Fits he hath seen two Bible laid on her Breast, and in the twinkling of an eye they would be cast betwixt the two Beds the Maid lay upon, sometimes thrown into the middle of the Room, and that Nicholas Pyne held the Bible in the Maid’s hand so fast, that it being suddenly snatch’d away, two of the leaves were torn out. Nicholas Pyne being sworn, saith, That the second night after that the Witch had been in Prison, being the 24th [26?] of March last, he and Joseph Thompson, Roger Hawkins, and some others went to speak with her concerning the Maid, and told her that it was the general opinion of the Town that she had bewitched her, and desired her to deal freely with them, whether she had bewitched her or no. She said that she had not bewitched her, but it may be she had overlooked her, and that there was a great difference between bewitching and overlooking, and that she could not have done her any harm if she had not touch’d her, and that therefore she had kiss’d her. And she said that what mischief she thought of at that time she kiss’d her, that would fall upon ger, and that she could not but confess she had wronged the Maid, and thereupon fell down upon her knees, and prayed God to forgive her for wronging the poor Wench. They wisd’d that she might not be wholly destroyed by her; to which she said, it must be another that would help her, and not they that did the harm. And then she said, that there were others, as Goody Halfpenny and Goody Dod, in Town, that could do these things as well as she, and that it might be one of these that had done the Maid wrong. He further saith, That towards Evening the Door of the Prison shook, and she arose up hastily and said, What makest thow here this time a night? #RandolphHarris 10 of 17
And there was a very great noise, as if some body with Bolts and Chains had been running up and down the Room, and they asked her what it was she spoke to, and what it was that made the noise; and she said she saw nothing, neither did she speak, and if she did, it was she knew not what. However, the next day she confess’d it was a Spirit, and her Familiar, in the shape of a Greyhound. He further saith, That he and Mr. Edward Perry and others for Trial of her took a Tile off the Prison, went to the place where the Witch lay, and carried it to the House where the Maid lived, and put it in the fire until it was red-hot, and then dripped some of the Maid’s water upon it, and the Witch was then grievously tormented, and when the water consumed she was well again. Spiritism is the belief that people survive death as spirits, and that they can communicate with the living through a medium, a person having a special psychic gift. The fact has been established that nearly 150 million people in the World today have participated with some regularity in efforts to receive messages from the dead. Many have had experiences so convincing that they now possess unwavering assurance of a future existence in another World after death. One such man was the late Bishop Pike, liberal theologian who at one time did not believe any form of life was possible on the other side of the grave. However, then a series of strange circumstances impelled him to go to a medium, who claimed to be able to put him in touch with his dead son Jim. The young man had recently committed suicide, and the bishop left the séance satisfied that Jim had really spoken to him through the medium. In fact, he was persuaded that he had also conversed with the late Dr. Paul Tillich, a celebrated theologian and philosopher whom the bishop had greatly admired and to whom he had dedicated one of his books. #RandolphHarris 11 of 17
Dr. Pike, with Diane Kennedy who later became his wife, published a book entitled The Other Side, in which they told the whole story of his spirit encounters, beginning with the haunted apartment in Cambridge, England, and including his seances with Ena Twigg, George Daisley, and Arthur Ford. A number of events recounted are so extraordinary that they baffle the mind. One cannot read this book without concluding that Bishop Pike was either the victim of a plot so carefully contrived that no one to this date has been able to decipher it, or that he actually participated in some kind of supernatural activity. In any case, we do not agree with the bishop’s assumption that he had spoke with his son or with Dr. Tillich. Many people have written recently of their experiences in spiritism, and some of them come to conclusions far different from those of Bishop Pike and his associates. Raphael Gasson, a former medium who was converted to Christ, recently published a work entitled The Challenging Counterfeit. He convincingly sets for the idea that demons, by impersonating the dead, are able to deceive those who attend seances in hope of contacting the spirits of their loved ones. In another publication I Talked With Spirits, Victor Ernest tells the story of his early life as a member of a spiritualistic family. He is now a highly respected minister of the Gospel, and declared unequivocally that the religion of his childhood contained supernatural element, but that it is dangerous and wicked. In this study we careful examine spiritism, seeking to answer four basic questions: What does the Christian Bible teach regarding spiritism? How do spirits work? What do spirits believe? Why is spiritism so dangerous? #RandolphHarris 12 of 17
Many also want to know why did Mrs. Sarah Winchester, heiress to the Winchester rifle fortune, spent the last half of her life and $155,991,224.49 (2021 inflation adjusted) building a house that now contains 160 rooms and stands four stories? The mystery remains unsolved to this very day. In 1884, Mrs. Winchester left New Haven, Connecticut, and the graves of her husband and only child, and moved to San Jose, California, and began the obsession that was to last for the rest of her life. The death of William Wirt Winchester, of the Winchester House, in the country of America, would in the ordinary way have received no more attention than the death of any other simple country gentleman. The circumstances of his death, however, though now long since forgotten, were sensational, and attracted some notice at the time. It was one of those cases which is easily forgotten within a year, except just in the locality where it occurred. The most sensational circumstances of the case never came before the public at all. I give them here simply and plainly. The physical people may make what they like of them. On the death of his new born daughter, after a prolonged illness, Mr. Winchester wrote to Leonard Pardee and asked him to come down to New Haven for the funeral, and to remain with at least a few days. There were many visitors in the hose for the funeral, which took place in the village churchyard, but they left immediately afterwards. The air of heavy gloom which had hung over the Winchester mansion in New Haven seemed to lift a little. The servants (servants are always emotion) continued to break down at intervals. Mr. Winchester spoke of his wife with great affection and regret, but still he could speak of her and not unsteadily. At dinner, Mr. Winchester spoke of one or two subjects, of politics and of his duties as magistrate and President of a company, and of course he made the requisite fuss about his gratitude to Leonard for coming down to the Winchester mansion at the time. #RandolphHarris 13 of 17
After dinner they sat in the library, a room well and expensively furnished. There were a few oil paintings on the walls, a presentation portrait of himself, and a landscape or two and the praised Ulysses in the Land of the Lestrygonians Fresco. Mr. Winchester had eaten next to nothing at dinner. When he said, “I want you to tell my daughter that I will be with her tomorrow.” He went to bed early that night. Leonard has been with him the following day. They rode together, and he expected an accident every minute, but none happened. All that evening, Leonard expected him to turn suddenly faint and ill, but that also did not happen. When at about ten o’clock he excused himself and said goodnight, Leonard felt distinctly relieved. Mr. Winchester went up to his room and rang for the servant Robert Law. The rest is, of course well known. The servant’s reasons had broken down, possibly the immediate cause being the death of the Winchester infant. On entering his master’s bedroom, without the least hesitation, he raised a loaded revolver which he carried in his hand, and shot Mr. Winchester through the heart. I believe the case is mentioned in some of the textbooks on homicidal mania. Mrs. Winchester said she had kind of felt for so long, and she had a queer feeling coming over her as if there was somebody or something round the house, more than appeared. She had felt it in the air; but it seemed to her silly, and she tried to get over it. But two or three times, she said, when it got to be dusk, she felt somebody go by her up the stairs. The front entry was not very light in the daytime and in the storm, come ten o’clock, it was so dark that all you could see was just a gleam of something, and two or three times when she started to go upstairs, she saw a soft white something that seemed going up before her, and she stopped with her heart beating like a trip-hammer, and she sort of saw it go up and along the entry to the Mr. Winchester’s chambers, and then it seemed to go right through, because the door did not open. #RandolphHarris 14 of 17
There are times and tones and moods of nature that make all the vulgar, daily real seem shadowy, vague, and supernatural, as if the outlines of reality present were fading into the invisible and unknown. When Mrs. Winchester went to bed the next evening, she slept in a different room. She went right off to sleep as sound as a new born baby, on until somewhere about morning, when something awakened her broad in a minute. Her eyes flew open, and the storm had gone down and the moon had came out; and there, standing right in the moonlight by her bed, was a woman just as white as snow, with long raven black hair hanging down to her waist, and the brightest, mournfullest black eyes you could have ever seen. She stood there looking right at Mrs. Winchester; and Mrs. Winchester thought this is what woke her up because if someone stares at you like that, it is felt in your very soul. Mrs. Winchester felt just as if she was turning to stone. She could not move nor speak. She lay a minute and then shut her eyes, and begin to say her prayers; and a minute after she opened them, and the specter was gone. Mrs. Winchester was a sensible woman; and she just got up, put on a shawl around her shoulders, and went first and looked at the doors, and they were both locked just as she left them when she went to bed. Then she looked under the bed and in the closet, and felt all around the room: where she could not see she felt her way, and there was nothing there. The story got around that there was a woman lurking in the Winchester mansion. Someone said that moonlight nights they would see her walking out in the back garden kind of in and out of the trees and vineyards. The maid Agnus said she had seen the woman in plain daylight just sitting and looking out and doing nothing. She was very white and pale and had black eyes. #RandolpHarris 15 of 17
Mrs. Winchester went to bed again that evening, she again, locked her chamber-doors, both of them, and woke up in the middle of the night and there was a colourless, tall, and harshly thin woman. Her face was pale, paler than it had been before. She was just standing there, and then she was gone. Mrs. Winchester gets up and looks, and both doors were locked, just as she left them. That woman was not flesh and blood as we know; but then they say that Mrs. Winchester must had dreamed her. The distracted widow turned to spiritualism and was advised to take a trip around the World. This she did, visiting mediums, spiritualists and yogis in Europe and India. Fortelling her future, one seer warned her of all the countless thousands of departed souls slain by her husband’s rifles; she must protect herself and tone for such mass murder. She was told to plan a castle and continue its building indefinitely because as long as it was under construction she would live; cessation would prove immediately fatal. Retuning from her global trip, she arrived in San Francisco and find this area seldom subject to thunderstorms, she purchased eight-room house four miles west of San Jose. She hired an architect, a foreman and an army of carpenters and work began; architect and foreman quit the first day. There souls seemed to me on one common ground of a terrified understanding through their eyes. Mrs. Winchester also felt a creep as some live horror over her very soul. Her flesh prickled with cold. She was tottering on weak knees. That afternoon, Mrs. Winchester was in the study, the large front room on the ground floor across the hall from the south parlour, when dusk deepened. Mrs. Winchester was writing some letters when she noticed a strange shadow on the wall. She rose and began walking around the room, moving various articles of furniture, with her eyes on the shadow. #RandolphHarris 16 of 17
Then suddenly she shrieked out: “Look at this awful shadow! What is it? What is it?” Mrs. Winchester’s face was livid with horror. She stood stiffly pointing at the shadow. It has been there every night since William died,” cried Mrs. Winchester. Agnus the maid assured her that it was just a fold in the curtain that make its. However, the door opened suddenly and the butler George Pollock entered. He began to speak, then his eyes followed the direction of others’. He stood stock still staring at the shadow on the wall. It was life size and stretched across the white parallelogram of a door, half across the wall space on which the picture hung. “What is that?” he demanded in a strange voice. “It must be something in the room.” “He looked like a demon!” said Mrs. Winchester. “I can’t sit in this room again!” She ordered it to be boarded up. Later that evening, they went to the library. Then George took out the lamp and sat it on the center table, and the shadow sprang out of the wall. Again, he studied the furniture and moved it about, but deliberately. Nothing affected the shadow. Then he returned to the south room with the lam and again wait. Again he returned to the study and placed the lamp on the table, and the shadow sprang out upon the wall. It was midnight before he went upstairs. Mrs. Winchester could not speak nor sleep, she heard him. She looked all over the room and saw two shadows. She lied in bed staring at the wall. The Word of God clearly and emphatically condemned all efforts to communicate with the dead. The Lord declared that the observances of people who engaged in such activity were equivalent to the worship of other gods. Mrs. Winchester had no interest in communicate with the spirits before they started trying to communicate with her. Her sacred Blue Séance room, her secret rendezvous with the spirits, was said to be locked to all but herself. So we leave you to decide for yourself the mystery of the Winchester mansion. #RandolphHarris 17 of 17
Winchester Mystery House
The 1906 earthquake must have been frightening for Sarah and her employees, but can you imagine being trapped in a room for hours? Take a look at the Daisy Bedroom, the very room Sarah was rumored to be stuck in during the 1906 earthquake 😳 Tour Tickets | http://ow.ly/Uyjl50H8voA
A little Agitation Gives Strength to Souls–Are You Going through a Dark Time in Your Life?
Your success and happiness are within you. As we have observed, psychodynamic theorists believe that an anxiety disorder develops when children come to fear their own id impulses and use ego defense mechanism to lessen the resulting anxiety. What distinguishes obsessive-compulsive disorder from other anxiety disorders, in their view, is that here the battles between anxiety-provoking id impulses and anxiety-reducing defense mechanisms is not buried in the unconscious but is played out in explicit and dramatic thoughts and actions. The id impulses usually take the form of obsessive thoughts, and the ego defenses appear as counterthoughts or compulsive actions. A woman who keeps imagining her mother suffering from a disaster, for example, may counter those thoughts with repeated safety checks throughout the house. According to psychodynamic theorists, three ego defense mechanisms are particularly common in obsessive-compulsive disorder: isolation, undoing, and reaction formation. People who resort to isolation simply disown their undesirable and unwanted thoughts and experience them as foreign intrusions. People who engage in undoing perform acts that are mean to cancel out their undesirable impulses. Those who wash their hands repeatedly, for example, may be symbolically undoing their unacceptable id impulses. People who develop a reaction formation take on a lifestyle that directly opposes their unacceptable impulses. A person may live a life of compulsive kindness and devotion to others in order to counter unacceptably aggressive impulses. Another may lead a life of chastity to counteract obsessive impulses involving pleasures of the flesh. #RandolphHarris 1 of 21
If people keep performing compulsive behaviours in order to prevent bad outcomes and ensure beneficial outcomes, can they not be taught that such behaviours are not really serving purpose? In a behavioural treatment called exposure and response prevention, clients are repeatedly exposed to objects or situations that produce anxiety, obsessive fears, and compulsive behaviours, but they are told to resist performing the behaviours they feel bound to perform. Because people find it very difficult to stop such behaviours, therapists often set an example. As the clients are repeatedly exposed to objects or situations that produce anxiety, obsessive fears, and compulsive behaviours, but they are told to resist performing the behaviours they feel bound to perform. Because people find it very difficult to stop such behaviours, therapists put themselves in the anxiety-producing situation without performing any compulsive actions, and then they encourage the clients to do the same. Some behavioural therapists further have people carry out self-help procedures at home. That is, they assign homework in exposure and response prevention, such as these assignments given to a person with a cleaning compulsion: Do not mop the floor of your bathroom for a week. After this, clean it within three minutes, using an ordinary mop. Use this mop for other chores as well without cleaning it. Buy a fluffy mohair sweater and wear it for a week. When taking it off at night do not remove the bits of fluff. Do not clean your house for a week. You, your husband, and children all have to keep shoes on. Do not clean the house for a week. Drop a cookie on the contaminated floor, pick the cookie up and eat it. Leave the sheets and blankets on the floor and then put them on the beds. Do not change them for a week. #RandolphHarris 2 of 21
Eventually this person was able to set up a reasonable routine for cleaning oneself and home. Exposure and response prevention has been offered in both individual and group therapy. Between 55 and 85 percent of clients with obsessive-compulsive disorder have been found to improve considerably with this approach. They also function better at home, socially, and at work. These changes continue to be observed for years. The effectiveness of this approach suggests that people with obsessive-compulsive disorder are like the superstitious man in the old joke who keeps snapping his fingers to keep elephants away. When someone points out, “But there are not any elephants around here,” the man replies, “See? It works!” One review concludes, “With hindsight, it is possible to see that the obsessional individual has been snapping one’s fingers, and unless one stops (response prevention) and takes a look around at the same time (exposure), one is not going to learn much of value about elephants.” The same studies and statistics indicate the limitations of exposure and response prevention. Few clients who receive the treatment overcome all their symptoms, and as many as one-quarter fail to improve at all. Also, the approach is of limited help to those who have obsessions but no compulsions. After all, the treatment makes its impact on obsessions by blocking closely linked compulsive acts. Finally, the favourable findings come mainly from studies of cleaning and checking compulsions. The effectiveness of this approach with other kinds of compulsions or with multiple compulsions is unclear. Painful thoughts—like the man in George Cruikshank’s painting The Blue Devils, some people may find unwanted thoughts particularly threatening and debilitating. According to cognitive theorists, their reactions to intrusive thoughts may set the stage for obsessive-compulsive disorder. #RandolphHarris 3 of 21
Some individuals become more and more convinced that one’s unpleasant intrusive thoughts are dangerous. As the person’s fear of such thoughts increase, the thoughts begin to occur more frequently and they, too, become obsessions. People with obsessive-compulsive disorder experience intrusive thoughts more frequently than other people, especially in times of stress, a difference that may be due to biological predisposition; they resort to more elaborate neutralizing strategies than other people when they try to stop unwanted thoughts; and they experience reductions in anxiety after using neutralizing techniques. Although everyone sometimes had undesired thoughts, only some people develop obsessive-compulsive disorder. Why do these individuals find such normal thoughts so disturbing to begin with? Researchers have found that this population tends to be more depressed than other people; to have exceptionally high standards of conduct and morality; to believe that their intrusive negative thoughts are equivalent to actions and capable of causing harm to themselves or others and to feel responsible for eliminating the imagined danger; and generally to believe that they can and should have perfect control over all their thoughts and behaviours. There is a signal hypothesis that holds that excessive alcohol or substance use is a sign of distress. The comorbidity of other psychological problems with drug and alcohol misuse is testimony to the validity of this hypothesis. Before these are discussed, it should be noted that drug use problems are highly comorbid with alcohol use problems: About half of all those who misuse hard drugs also suffer from alcohol dependence. #RandolphHarris 4 of 21
Rates of alcoholism and other substance use disorders are very high among those with mood disorders. A study showed that rates of mood disorders are equal for men and women in the American Amish community, where the use of alcohol is prohibited. This suggests that alcoholism may mask depression in men in the general population, since men are thought to have about half the rate of depression than women do. In fact, there are very few people who have just drinking problems. Such individuals often have a number of related problems, such as depression and anxiety. In some cases, the drinking may be a misguided attempted to “cope” with these disorders, and in other cases, these other psychosocial problems may be consequences of problem drinking. Many patients with bipolar disorder also have substance use problems. About a quarter to half of all such patients have some substance use disorder. Substance use disorders are also highly comorbid with personality disorders. Almost 60 percent of all people with substance use disorders have comorbid personality disorder. The pattern of comorbidity with alcoholism and other substance use disorders reveals close associations with other disorders that have strong links to interpersonal relationship problems. One plausible account of this comorbidity may be that the substance use is secondary to the primary psychological problem, initiated in an effort to regulate and cope with a deteriorating interpersonal environment. Problems such as depression, anxiety, and personality disorders can rapidly decay interpersonal relationships. The feelings of loneliness, damaged self-esteem, and lack of direction that often accompany and follow the deterioration of interpersonal relationships may prompt some people to turn to substance use. #RandolphHarris 5 of 21
In such instances, the substance use may be an attempt to regulate interpersonal interaction (exempli gratia, taking cocaine in effort to go out in public and have a good time) or to cope with feelings of emptiness and rejection (exempli gratia, drinking alcohol to “escape” dysphoric feelings). In other cases, substance use disorders may precede other psychological problems that stem from destroyed interpersonal relationships. Once substance use is initiated, some people continue and escalate it because of chemical addiction. However, it is virtually a foregone conclusion that as the substance use becomes more pervasive, interpersonal relationships are damaged and ultimately destroyed. This effect happens partly because excessive drug and alcohol use interferes with competent interpersonal behaviour; it focuses individuals almost exclusively on substance ingestion, at the expense of maintaining mutually rewarding relationships with other people. When this focus is taken to extremes, a person may steal from others to get money to buy drugs, lie, and become excessively abrasive. These behaviours reliably damage interpersonal relationships, and problems such as depression and anxiety may follow—not necessarily because of the substance use disorder per se, but because of the interpersonal consequences of the substance use. Consequently, much of the comorbidity between substance use disorders and other psychosocial problems may be explained by aversive interpersonal experiences. These are the experiences with the power and impact to link problems. At least a quarter of the population will experience significant problems with substance abuse or dependence in their lifetimes. This class of problems generally has its origins in adolescence, and substance use is currently on the rise in this cohort. Within the substance use disorders, alcoholism has received a great deal of interpersonally oriented research attention. #RandolphHarris 6 of 21
People who are dependent on alcohol exhibit problems with some social skills, such as negative assertion and refusal of alcohol from others. However, these interpersonal skills deficits are not broad-based, and may be due to low motivation to use the skills than to not possessing them. Alcoholism has complex associations with family interactions. In some cases, alcoholism can bring positivity and stability to family troubles. Scientists are learning that alcoholism is a heterogeneous phenomenon, and that persons with certain subtypes of it are more inclined than others to have more severe family problems. In particular, those with episodic (vs. steady), high-antisociality (vs. low-antisociality), and stable-wet (vs. stable-dry or transitional alcoholism tend to have the most disrupted family environments and interactions. As in the family more generally, the marital relationship can influence and is influenced by spousal alcoholism. Alcoholics may harbour feelings of hostility and competitiveness toward their spouse. At the same time, drinking can in some cases activate positivity and problem solving in marital interaction. The marriages of those who drink at home tend to see more positive consequences of drinking than the marriages of those who drink outside the home. A great deal of attention has been paid to COAs (children of alcoholics) in both the scientific and lay press. Problems for COAs are thought to represent the interpersonally destructive consequences of parental alcoholism. Although they are clearly at risk for developing problem drinking themselves, COAs are not easily distinguished from non-COAs. When they are, a more general negative family environment mechanism may explain their troubles better than the specific effects of parental alcoholism do. #RandolphHarris 7 of 21
The architecture for adult substance abuse or dependence is often intact by the end of adolescence, and is largely established through interpersonal interaction. Young people learn to use drugs and alcohol by observing their friends and family members perform the behaviours; this process is known as modeling. High levels of family-of-origin discord and interpersonal maltreatment may predispose young people to get involved with and continue to use drugs and alcohol. Undoubtedly, many such youths are self-medicating and seeking an escape from interpersonally inflicted trauma and drama. Although adolescents who are involved in substance use and misuse have some interpersonal problems of their own, these problems are in some cases the consequences of substance use. Some evidence also suggests that codependent interpersonal relationships can even maintain substance misuse. All those with habitual substance use, abuse, or dependence seek to alter their consciousness, and often to escape a negative mood state. No one is born with the knowledge or behavioural ability to use drugs and alcohol for these or other purposes. Rather, this knowledge and behaviour comes from interpersonal interaction. Drug and alcohol use is socially learned. The path from substance use to substance abuse and/or dependence is often strewn with the wreckage of destructive interpersonal interactions and relationships, such as conflict and hostility in families or origin and orientation, rejection by peers, sexual abuse, and marital discord. Alcohol and other substance abuse and dependence are both causes and consequences of interpersonal distress. However, to live your best life now, one must act on one’s will, not simply one’s emotions. Sometimes that means one has to take steps of faith even when one is hurting, grieving, or still reeling from some attack of the enemy. #RandolphHarris 8 of 21
Some people are sitting around waiting for God to change their circumstances. Then they are going to be happy; then they are going to have a good attitude; than they are going to give God praise. However, God is waiting on one to get up on the inside. To be an actualizing Christian. When one does one’s part, God will begin to change the things and work supernaturally in one’s life. Are you going through a dark time in your life? Perhaps someone deceived you, took advantage of you, or mistreated you, and now you are tempted to sit around acting foolish and ghoulish, mouring over what you have lost, thinking about how unfair it was, and how your life will never be the same. You need to change your attitude. You have to feel the success and happiness on the inside. Develop the mentality of a successful person and watch what God will begin to do. When you face adversity, do not be a crybaby. Do not be a complainer. Do not wallow in self-pity. Instead, have the attitude of a successful Christian. Jesus Christ is a lover of purity and the Giver of All Sanctity. A pure heart is the sort of thing He seeks. And in a place like that He likes to take His rest; a Chatsworth, as it were; that was Luke’s sentiment in Acts (7.49). Prepare of Jesus a dining room with some suitable furniture—that is how the Evangelist Mark recorded it (14.15), and He will make Passover with His Disciples and invite you to come. Jesus will be glad and come to you and remain for the celebration of the feast, but first you will have to scour the leaven from the room—Paul reminded the Corinthians to do just that in his First Letter (5.7)—and sweep out the inner room of one’s heart. Get rid of everything secular. Banish the sounds of the noisy vices outside. Then sit as solitary sparrow on a roof tile, as the Psalmist once put it (102.7), and stew about your regrets in—as the Prophet Isaiah described it so well (38.15)—the vinaigrettes of your soul. #RandolphHarris 9 of 21
Every loving Devout has already done this, prepared a Chatsworth; that is to say, the best, most beautiful spot for one’s own beloved Friend. Why? To show what great affections would greet the arrival of one’s Best Friend. Mark you, no preparation is ever perfect. Try though you do, there are still foreign particles about, and even if you were to spend a year doing it, there would still be dust in the air. taking into consideration Jesus Christ’s piety and grace, one would be permitted to approach His table. One would have to do it, though, as an indigent to a rich man, with nothing in one’s pockets and no way to repay the kindness other than to eat humble pie and give humble thanks. Just do what one can do and do it diligently, not out of habit or necessity, but with fear and reverence. With affection receive the Body of you Beloved Lord and God, who thought you were a worthy enough chap to receive a visit. Jesus is the One who called you, the One who ordered it to happen, who cleaned you up so nicely. Come and receive Jesus. If perchance Jesus should shed some grace of devotion on you, give thank to Him, your God. Not because you are worthy of it, but because He looks down with mercy on one’s pathetic state. If one does not have grace, but feels increasingly arid, insist on prayer, groan and beat your best, saying “Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa”; the Evangelist Matthew said something similar (7.7). And do not stop until you receive a morsel of medicinal grace. Without Jesus you are poor—not the other way around. One does not come to bless Christ, and make Christ feel good—it is the other way around. One comes to be sanctified by Christ and to be joined to Jesus Christ in friendship, and to be encouraged once again to do better; First Timothy yet again (4.14). Do not overlook this grace. Rather, prepare one’s heart with all diligence. Then bid one’s Beloved Friend to enter. #RandolphHarris 10 of 21
It is important to note here that one should not only prepare oneself for devotion before Communion, but also save oneself solicitously after Communion. The recollection after should not be less than the preparation before, for the post-Communion glow is the best preparation for attaining major grace. Whoever flees from Communion back to the World for fear of missing some Worldly consolations loses what spiritual consolations have already been detailed to one. Beware of lengthy conversations. Remain by yourself in the church or chapel, and enjoy your special time with God, for you have Him whom the whole World cannot wrest from you. Jesus Christ is the One to whom you ought to give your complete self. That so that you may live not in yourself, but in Him—do that, and you can kiss care good-bye. You may be weary, and tired, worn down, and ready to give up. You may be saying, “I am never going to break this addiction. I have had it for so long. I would not even know how to function without it.” Or, “My income is so low, and my debts are so high; I do not see how my financial situation will ever get better.” Or, “I have been praying for years, but it does not look as though my children want to serve God.” “I have had about as much as I can take.” Do not allow yourself to wave the white flag of surrender. You must get out of that defeated mentality and start thinking and believing positively. Your attitude should be: I am coming out this situation successfully! I may have been sick for a long time, but I know this sickness did not come to stay. It came to pass. I may have struggled with this addiction for years, but I know my day of deliverance is coming. My children may not be doing right, but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. #RandolphHarris 11 of 21
You must show the enemy that you are more determined than he is. Make it known, “Even if I have to stand my whole lifetime, I am going to stand in faith! I am going to keep standing up on the inside, no matter how long it takes.” God wants you to be a winner, not a whiner. There is no reason for you to be perpetually living “under the circumstances,” always down, always discouraged. No matter how many times you get knocked down, keep getting back up. God sees your resolve. He seems your determination. And when you do everything you can do, that is when God will step in and do what you cannot do. Dear Lord in Heaven, I choose to rule my emotions, rather than allowing them to dominate me. Please help me to act on what I know is right and true according to Your Word, rather than on outward appearances, feelings, or discouraging information. With Your help, I will be successful! Many pray for good health and strength, but if they sneeze once, they say, “I believe I am taking the flu,” or “I must be taking a cold.” They have set a scriptural law in motion and it cancelled their prayer. Let me share a little secret with you that will stop 50 percent of your cold is you will do it consistently. Every time you sneeze say, “Thank God, I am taking healing. I have a choice; so I am taking healing.” “I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life,” reports Deuteronomy 30.19. No one will snicker or laugh when you say, “I am taking the flu.” They will just reply, “Oh, poor thing.” However, when you say, “I am taking healing,” they will often say, “What has gotten into you?” Just reply, “The Word of God!” James says if you can control the tongue, that the body can be controlled. Your body is like a child—it will do anything you let it do. If you let it, it will be sick. The spirit of man on the inside is the one that should dominate the body. Christ redeemed you from the curse of poverty, sickness, and sin. (Galatians 3.13.) #RandolphHarris 12 of 21
Some would reason that if we were redeemed from the curse of the Law, then everyone would be healed and no one would be sick; but that is not true. We are redeemed from sin; but not everyone is saved. They could be, but they have not acted on God’s Word to be delivered from sin. If you want to, you can still sin. According to the Word of Galatians 3.13, we have no more right to allow sickness and disease in our bodies than we do sin. It all comes from Satan! When the question arises which one is absolutely the best government, an insoluble question is being raised because it is indeterminate. Or, if you wish, it has as many good answers as there are possible combinations in the absolute and relative positions of the people. However, if asked by what sign it is possible to know that a given people is well or poorly governed, this is another matter, and the question of fact could be resolved. However, nothing is answered, since each wants to answer it in one’s own way. The subjects praised public tranquillity; the citizens praise the liberty of private individuals. The former prefers the security of possessions; the latter that of persons. The former has it that the best government is the one that is most severe; the latter maintains that the best government is the one that is mildest. This one wants crimes to be punished, and that one wants them prevented. The former think it a good thing to be feared by their neighbours; the latter prefer to be ignored by them. The one is content so long as money circulates; the other demands that the people have bread. Even if agreement were had on these similar points, would we be any closer to an answer? Since moral quantities do not allow of precise measurements, even if there were agreement regarding the sign, how could there by agreement regarding the evaluation. #RandolphHarris 13 of 21
For my part, I am always astonished that such a simple sign is overlooked or that people are of such bad faith as not to agree on it. What is the goal of the political association? It is the preservation and prosperity of its members. And what is the surest sign that they are preserved and prospering? It is their number and their population. Therefore do not go looking elsewhere for this much disputed sigh. All other things being equal, the government under which, without external means, without naturalizations, without colonies, the citizens become populous and multiply the most, is infallibly the best government. That government under which a populace diminishes and dies out is the worst. Calculators, it is not up to you. Count, measure, compare. We should judge on this same principle the centuries that merit preference with respect to the prosperity of the human race. Those in which letters and arts are known to have flourished have been admired too much, without penetrating the secret object of their cultivation, and without considering its devastating effect, and this was called by the inexperienced, when it was a part of servitude. Will we never see int eh maxims of books the crude interest that causes the authors to speak? No. Whatever they may say, when a country is depopulated, it is not true, despite its brilliance, that all goes well; and the fact that a poet has an income of hundred thousand livres is not sufficient to make his century the best of all. The apparent calm and tranquillity of the leader ought to be less of an object of consideration than the well-being of whole nations and especially of the most populous states. A hailstorm may devastate a few cantons, but it rarely causes famine. #RandolphHarris 14 of 21
Riots and civil ways may greatly disturb the leaders, but they are not the true misfortunes of the people, who may even have a reprieve while people argue over who will tyrannize them. It is their permanent condition that causes real periods of prosperity or calamity. It is when everything remains crushed under the yoke that everything decays. It is then that the leaders destroy them at will, where they bring about solitude they call it peace. When the quarrels of the great disturbed the kingdom of France, and the Coadjutor of Paris brought with one to the Parliament a knife in his pocket, this did not keep the French people from living happily and in great numbers in a free and decent ease. Long ago, Greece flourished in the midst of the cruelest wars. Blood flowed in waves, and the whole country was covered with men. It seemed, says Machiavelli, that in the midst of murders, proscriptions, and civil wars, our republic became more powerful; the virtue of its citizens, their mores, and their independence did more to reinforce it than all its dissension did to weaken it. A little agitation gives strength to souls, and what truly brings about prosperity for the species is not so much peace as liberty. At the same time, we see equally powerful fingers clawing at the nation-state from above. The Third Wave has brought new problems, a new structure of communications, and new actors on the World stage—all of which drastically shrink the power of the individual nation-state. Just as many problems are too small or localized for national governments to handle effectively, new owns are fast arising that are too large for any nation to cope with alone. “The nation state, which regards itself as absolutely sovereign, is obviously too small to play a real role at the global level,” writes the French political thinker, Denis de Rougement. “No one of our 28 European states can any longer by itself assure its military defense and its prosperity, its technological resources, the prevention of nuclear wars and of ecological catastrophes.” Now can the United States of American, Russia or Japan. #RandolphHarris 15 of 21
Tightened economic linkages between nations make it virtually impossible for any individual national government today to manage its own economy independently or to quarantine inflation. The ever-swelling bubble of Euromoney, for example, as suggested earlier, is beyond the power of any individual nation to regulate. National politicians who claim their domestic policies can “halt inflation” or “wipe out unemployment” are either naïve or lying, since most economic infections are now communicable across national boundaries. The economic shell of the nation-state is now increasingly permeable. Furthermore, national borders that can no longer contain economic flows are even less defensible against environmental forces. If Swiss chemical plants dump wastes into the Rhine, the pollution flows through Germany, though Holland, and ultimately into the North Sea. Neither Holland nor Germany can, by itself, guarantee the quality of its own waterways. Oil tanker spills, air pollution, inadvertent weather modification, the destruction of forests, and other activities often involve side effects that sweep across national borders. Frontiers are now porous. The new global communications system further opens each nation to penetration from the outside. Canadians have long resented the fact that some 90 United States of American television stations along the border telecast programs to Canadian audiences. However, this Second Wave form of cultural penetration is minor compared with that made possible by Third Wave communications systems based on satellites, computers, teleprinters, interactive cable systems, and dirt-cheap ground stations. “One way to ‘attack’ a nation,” writes United States Senator George S. McGovern, “is to restrain the flow of information—cutting off contact between the headquarters and overseas branches of a multinational firm…building information walls around a nation…A new phase is entering the international lexicon—‘information sovereignty.’” #RandolphHarris 16 of 21
Yet it is questionable how effectively nation borders can be sealed off—or for how long. For the shift of the Third Wave’s industrial base has required the development of a highly ramified, sensitive, wide open “neural network” or information system, and attempts by individual nations to dam up data flows may interfere with rather, than accelerate, their own economic development. Moreover, each technological breakthrough provides yet another way to penetrate the nation’s outer shell. All such developments—the new economic problems, the new environmental problems, and the new communications technologies—are converging to undermine the position of the nation-state in the global scheme of things. What is more, they come together at precisely the moment when potent new actors appear on the World scene to challenge national power. Those who feel that economic reform is the most urgent duty facing humanity have usually opposed the mystical movement. They have done so on the grounds that it diverts attention from the real (that is, the economic) issues, that it enfeebles the urge towards social improvement and individual ambition, and that it leads to sleepy, dreamy complacency. Karl Marx’s criticism of religion, that it had become a mere appendix of bourgeois thought, had some truth in it for his own times. However, today, many religious leaders have been aroused to the danger and are sincerely striving to bring the social order into line with religious ethics. They are no longer falsifying religious ethics by striving to bring them into line with the social order. Yet the solution Communists offer is philosophically unsatisfactory for it is born out of crude materialism, based on venomous class hatred, and stiffened by bureaucratic tyranny. Their ultimate aim, however, is a good one only insofar as it is the elimination of capitalism’s defects, such as avoidable unemployment, extreme poverty, and social injustices, but their means and methods are very bad. #RandolphHarris 17 of 21
There is only one real capitalist—Nature—one real proprietor of the Earth and all that therein is, and consequently all the children of the Earth are its rightful heirs. We usually forget that we have no ethical right to possess what we have not toiled for. This is overlooked by society as a whole and we, as individuals, take shelter beneath the common sin. For sin it is, albeit only one of omission. Those, however, who have cast aside the conventional view can see it for what it is. That which this Earth produces is for all. Every human has one’s birthright in what it stores or gives forth, although not an equal birthright to every other human. This, surely, is Nature’s view, although humans in their ignorance have developed other ideas upon the matter and so brought great misery upon their fellows and great nemesis upon themselves. The World is for our temporary use and does not constitute our eternal property. Whoever thinks outside—whether it be a single individual or a community of individuals called a “nation”—and excludes all others from consideration, whoever thinks one has a full right to eat whilst others have a full right to starve, whoever cannot identify oneself with the suffering people of one’s own or another country, will be tutored by pain and instructed by loss. We are all stewards, not proprietors, and own nothing in reality. This was pithily expressed by a highly advanced Jesus Christ. Many people, who are rich landlords, complain of being robed of some jewels, money, and other property, and perhaps Nature regards them also as thieves. If the true Master made His claim, how would they think on, with what shame, all that fierce talk of thine and mine, the World He fashioned so divine. What could they answer did He says, “When did I give my World away?” However, there is great distance from such abstract reflections to the concrete realities of contemporary social and economic life. #RandolphHarris 18 of 21
The whole structure of laws and rights is based on these realities. And this is as it should be, for humanity, as its present stage of evolution, can best express itself and serve itself in that way. The anarchist would ignore them because he is one-sided and the Communist would violate them because he is unscrupulous. Philosophy does not object to anu effort to remold society for the common welfare, but welcomes it. No amount of academic sophistry can justify a system which permits the few to have more food than they can eat and forces the many to have less food than they need to eat. No amount of legal enactment can justify the ownership of a hundred thousand acres of land merely because five hundred year earlier some ancestor seized it. These ancient wrongs must be redressed. Both altruistic sentiment and political strategy—no less Universal Law adjustment—demand such a revision, although the attempt to do so by violent means would introduce far worse wrongs. In this momentous task, we have to prepare a blueprint—not of the ideal State which we would like to see arise, but of the actual State which can arise under the given circumstances. This means that we must follow a middle path. Any other way will be either too realistic or too idealistic and will lead to failure. For we must find not only what is theoretically right but also what is practically possible. We cannot and we ought not do away wildly, abruptly, and violently with our social environment. Without it we would be savages. Those vanished humans of the past had to learn arduously how to live on earth, how to adapt themselves to it. Think of what it would mean to be born into a World where no houses existed, no land was cultivated, no roads had been made, no machines invented, no knowledge known! All these and infinitely more exist today and constitute our surroundings, our civilization; but they did not spring up in a single night. #RandolphHarris 19 of 21
Civilization, advancement and technology are the inheritance which we own to long trailing of African, Egyptian, Asiatic, and European ancestors living and working and dying for countless centuries. They are our own racial past. We cannot dismiss this legacy without descending anew to the most barbarous existence. There are grave defects in this environment, it is true, but the young rebel who wishes to tear everything down in order to remove these defects, will also remove treasures bought at a price which will take the toil of millions through centuries to pay again. The past efforts of humans appear in our present environment. Let us use it, but use it wisely. It is here to serve us. We need not be afraid to improve and alter it. Unbalanced hot-heads who say that such improvement and such alteration is only possible through compete destruction of what is the present order so that what may be shall rise on its ruins, have misread history. However, there is a right as well as a wrong way of doing this. The only proper way is by persuasion, by the persuasion and education of social conscience and by the uplift of social morality to loftier standards. Such reforms can be brought about only in an atmosphere of goodwill and calmness, not in an atmosphere of hatred and brutality. Humans must choose which God one will serve, the God of hatred or the God of love, for one cannot serve both. One must effect these changes not by brutality or by blood, but by the gentler persuasions of reason and goodwill, slower though they necessarily are. Wisdom prefers to see needed reforms and overdue changes brought by peaceful and not violent means, by the acknowledgement of their ethical need rather than by submission to materialistic values. During the Glimpse of God, one feels that one has travelled close to one’s journey’s end, to the fulfilment of one’s highest purpose. The quest has suddenly become easy and pleasant. However, alas! after the rainbow fades and vanishes, one is forced to recognize that one had far yet to go, that what one experienced was only a passing glimpse and not the final goal. #RandolphHarris 20 of 21
If one cannot keep this higher consciousness, it is because one’s lower and Earthly nature is strong enough to raise again and block the way. When the purification lessons are learned it will then be possible for one, by self-effort and self-development, to regain this experience—at first temporarily and occasionally, but if one works correctly and Grace sanctions, permanently. In each of these glimpses, one’s quest attains a minor climax, for each is a step toward full illumination. It is a kind of pre-vision in which one sees, as Moses saw the Land of Canaan, the Promised Land toward which one journeys. It is a mistake to regard it as final illumination when it is in fact only one of many stages toward final illumination, and that should remind us that this society can better than it is, but we have to want to be better. We have to want to reform. We have to want to be kind. We have to want to help, not exploit others. It calls for a renovation of the human mind and soul, not the human home. Your home can be laced with gold and diamonds, but what does it matter if your soul is condemned to rot in Hell for all eternity? Glory be to God for dappled things—for skies of couple-colour as brinded cow; for rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim; fresh-firecoal chestnuts falls; finches’ wings; landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough; and all trades, their gear and tackle and trim. All things counter, original, spare, strange; whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?) with swift, slow; sweat; sour; adazzle, dim; He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change: Praise Him. Hear, O America: the Lord our God, the Lord is One. Blessed be His glorious kingdom for ever and ever. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy might. And these words which I command thee this day shall be in thy heart. Thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, speaking of them when thou sittest in thy house, when thou walkest by the way, when thou liest down and when thou risest up. And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be for frontlets between thine eyes. And thou shalt write them upon the door posts of thy house and upon thy gates. #RandolphHarris 21 of 21
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Evil Spirits are Able to Exert a Great Deal of Influence Upon Humans!
The Christian Bible teaches us that acceptance of this World system which is dominated by erroneous principles, selfish desires, improper motives, and unworthy standards of value that draws humans away from God and makes them “measure of all things,” is influenced so strongly by Satan and his army of evil spirits, which caused humans to adopt attitudes and to perform deeds which hinder God’s work and harm His people is done with every trace of wickedness (depravity, malignity) and all deceit and insincerity (pretense, hypocrisy) and grudges (envy, jealousy), and slander of every kind and evil speaking of every kind. This should make us crave like newborn babies the pure spiritual milk that by it one may be nurtured and grow unto salvation. Society in every age is characterized by such iniquities as selfishness, pride, immorality, and dishonesty, in spite of the efforts of sincere people to make it a better World. Twenty-first century humans, with more technical skills and knowledge than any previous generation, is unable to solve the problems of poverty, crime, racial hatred, and war. An increasing number of people go to bed hungry every night, crime is on the rise, racial hatred has never been more intense, and wars continue to be fought all over the World. Why? Because humankind has accepted a self-centered philosophy of life, and Earth’s citizens in general are motivated by the three evils of which John speaks in his first epistle—“the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life,” reports 1 John 2.16. The “lust of the flesh” is the desire for possession. It is the gratification of self by participation. Careful study of the word “flesh” indicates that this evil propensity of humankind involves more than just sins of impurity. The term, as used by John in this passage, does not have reference to the body but to the sinful Adamic nature. The individual sinner is born with a nature that is selfish, and one is part of a social structure which operates on grasping, egocentric, and selfish principles. #RandolphHarris 1 of 13
A vast majority of men and women are materialistic, live to gratify the senses, and are self-centered even in the good things they do. Nations, too, seek only what is best for themselves. Leaders in industry, education, and even religion are primarily concerned about their own welfare, often neglecting the needs of those they serve. The “lust of the flesh” drives humans to desire and obtain material possessions, and to satisfy their physical appetites and passions at the expense of spiritual values. This basic selfishness and craving for the Earthly tangible pleasures of life leads people to misuse the physical and material blessings God has given all humans to enjoy. On a Worldwide scope, it has brought about a situation in which thousands live in unparalleled luxury while millions starve. When we stop to think about it, much of the World’s unrest and unhappiness today can be traced to the “lust of the flesh.” The “lust of the eyes,” the second characteristic of this World system, is sometimes defined as “gratification by contemplation.” The use of our eyes has vast potential for either great blessing of for degradation. For example, we are able to look upon the endless beauty of creation and sing praises to the Lord. Reading God’s Word, we can meditate upon the riches of glory in joyous expectation. However, Satan and his evil partners have perverted the use of the eye, inducing wicked humans to display scenes by which lustful thoughts are incited. They capitalize upon humans’ sinfulness and natural tendency to immorality. Down through the ages, immodest dress, impure books and pictures, and unholy theatrical productions have been used to degrade and degenerate both young and old. In addition, the eye affords an opportunity to enjoy by contemplation certain evils which one cannot or dare not actually perform. #RandolphHarris 2 of 13
Therefore, people from all classes of society and every age bracket are influenced by the allurement that comes through the gift of sight. Discerning people who glance at the newsstands, read the advertisements in the theater page of the newspaper, or watch the programs and commercials presented on television, know full well that “lust of the eyes” has been exploited by the powers of evil. The evidence certainly indicates that Satan and his followers are truly the “leaders of the darkness of this World.” The “pride of life,” the third characteristic of this World system, refers to vanity and ostentation. Men and women put great stock in “being somebody.” To make a name for themselves they throw impressive parties, purchase expensive automobiles, and live in luxurious homes. Their only measure of success is by these standards. Others may acquire academic degrees to display their intellectual prowess, while athletes may exert maximum effort, not principally out of team spirit, but for money and applause. The struggle for power, prestige, and even glory is at the heart of almost every human endeavour. However, through all of this, humankind has been unable to discover true happiness and satisfaction. Most people confess they are not finding pleasures they expected, but nonetheless continue on their way, ever pursuing new baubles. The invisible forces of Satan so blind humans that they do not see true values, nor recognize the folly of their vain quest for this elusive will-o’-the wisp, “the pride of life.” According to the Bible the whole social structure of this World is controlled by a pervading principle of life that is foreign to God and leads humans away from Him. True every human is a sinner by nature and alienated from God, but this inherent human selfishness, under the direction of intelligent and powerful wicked spirits, compounds this basic sinfulness by brining out the very worst in humans. Evil spirits cruelly blind and deceive fallen humanity through the lust of the flesh the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. #RandolphHarris 3 of 13
These fallen creatures actively try to manipulate the political rulers of the World. Satan’s organized army operates quietly and invisibly in the minds and the wills of Earthly sovereigns to achieve their evil purposes. The Bible indicates the nature and course of their activity in several references. Daniel 10 teaches that specific evil spirits are assigned the task of influencing human rulers. The chapter opens with a picture of Daniel in earnest prayer. He entreats the Lord for a period of three weeks, seeking God’s favour upon the Jewish people who have returned to Jerusalem from captivity. He learned that they were experiencing difficulty in rebuilding the temple. Ezra 4, which gives the history of these former exiles, indicates that the work of restoration was interrupted by adversaries almost immediately after the foundation of the temple had been laid. Finally, three weeks after Daniel began to pray, God sent him a most amazing experience. An angel came to Daniel and said, “Fear not, Daniel; for from the first day that thou didst set thine heart to understand, and to chasten thyself before thy God, thy words were heard, and I am come for thy words. However, the prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me one and twenty days; but, lo, Michael, one of the chief princes came to help me; and I remained there with the kings of Persia,” reports Daniel 10.12-13. The angel declared that he had left Heaven immediately after Daniel’s first prayer, but that on his way to Earth he had encountered opposition from “the prince of the kingdom of Persia.” The Heavenly messenger went on to say that it was not until Michael came to help him that he was able to overcome this opposing “prince.” #RandolphHarris 4 of 13
The struggle was obviously between angelic beings, for the one speaking to Daniel was an angel, and Michael is well known as the angelic protector of Israel. (See Daniel 10.21; 12.1; Jude 9; Revelation 12.7). This “prince of the kingdom of Persia” was obviously a wicked spirit of high rank. He had been delegated by the arch-enemy of God, the devil himself, for the task of influencing the Persian government to obstruct the Israelites in their rebuilding program. Thus success of this evil spirit’s attempt was apparent upon Earth. Even while the battle between the angelic beings was taking place in the air, the rulers of Persia were hindering the Jews in the task of rebuilding their temple. The people in Jerusalem could see only the treachery of their human enemies, not knowing that invisible spirits had been exerting pressure against them behind the scenes. The leaders of Persia were not aware that their decision to oppose Israel was the result of the working of evil spirits in their minds. These human rulers were actually mere puppets, carrying out the wishes of the invisible powers who were manipulating them. Even today humans who hold high political office may be the unwitting tools of evil spirits. Many humans lust for power. National groups vie for supremacy in the economic World. In this prevailing atmosphere of selfishness, evil spirits are able to exert a great deal of influence upon humans. Opportunistic politicians become ideal underlines of these evil spirits. In addition, the followers of Satan, in dominating the godless World rulers, are able to incite beastly behaviour in them. Many living today have witnessed the indescribable brutality of Nazism and theistic Communism. Highly civilized people find great pleasure in the development of more effective weapons with which to kills members of other nations. Humans tell lies, oppress others, and commit mass murders with no hint of shame or remorse. #RandolphHarris 5 of 13
In fact, it is amazing that this modern age of civilization and refinement has been characterized by an inhumanity far worse than that of the ancient barbaric times. We believe this pathological condition can be traced to the fact that many highly educated humans of influence and power have rejected God. In so doing, they have opened themselves to the activity of evil spirits. Therefore, we have a confirmation of Paul’s declaration that the real World rulers of this darkness (Ephesians 6.12) are not the humans who have positions of leadership, but the evil spirits who rule their hearts and influence their thoughts and decisions. From the commencement of the seventeenth century to the Restoration of Charles II, be barren of witchcraft proper, it must at least be admitted that it is prodigal in regard to the marvellous under various shapes and forms, from which the hysterical state of the public mind can be fairly accurately gauged. During 1642, O’Daly in his History of the Geraldines relates that during the siege of Limerick three portents appeared. The first was a luminous globe, brighter than the moon and little inferior to the sun, which for two leagues and a half shed a vertical light on the city, and then faded into darkness over the enemy’s camp; the second was the apparition of the Virgin, accompanied by several of the Saints; and the third was a lusus nature of the Saimese-twins type: all three of which O’Daly interprets to his own satisfaction. The first of these was some from of the northern lights, and is also recorded in the diary of certain Puritan officers. That learned, but somewhat too credulous English antiquary, John Aubrey, relates in his Miscellanies that before the last battle between the contending parties “a woman of uncommon Statue all in white appearing to the Bishop [Heber McMahon, who Aubrey terms Veneras] admonished him not to cross the River first to assault the Enemy, but suffer them to do it, whereby he should obtain the Victory. #RandolphHarris 6 of 13
“That if the Irish took the water first to move towards the English they should be put to a total Rout, which came to pass. Ocahan and Sir Henry O’Neal, who were both killed there, saw severally the same apparition, and dissuaded the Bishop from giving him the first onset, but could not prevail upon him.” N instance of an Irishman suffering from the effects of witchcraft outside Ireland is afforded us in a pathetic petition sent up to the English Parliament between the years 1649 and 1653. The petitioner, John Campbell, stated that twelve years since he lost his sight in Co. Antrim, where he was born, by which he was reduced to such extremity that he was forced to come over to England to seek some means of livelihood for himself in craving the charity of well-disposed people, but contrary to his expectation he has been often troubled there with dreams and fearful visions in his sleep, and has been twice bewitched, insomuch that he can find no quietness or rest here, and so prays for a pass to return to Ireland. The saintly James Usher, Archbishop of Armagh, was a Prelate who, if he had happed to live at an earlier period would certainly have been numbered amongst those whose wide and profound learning won for themselves the title of magician—as it was, he was popularly credited with prophetical powers. Most of the prophecies attributed to him may be found in a little pamphlet of eight pages, entitled “Strange and Remarkable Prophecies and Predictions of the Holy, Learned, and Excellent James Usher, &c…Written by the person who heard it from this Excellent person’s own Mouth,” and apparently published in 1656. According to it, he foretold the rebellion of 1641 in a sermon on Ezekiel iv. 6, preached in Dublin in 1601. “And of this Sermon the Bishop reserved the Notes, and put a note thereof in the Margent of his Bible, and for twenty years before he still lived in the expectation of the fulfilling thereof, and the nearer the time was the more confident he was that it was nearer accomplishment, though there was no visible appearance of any such thing.” #RandolphHarris 7 of 13
He also foretold the death of Charles I, and his own coming poverty and loss of property, which last he actually experienced for many years before his death. The Rev. William Turner in his Compleat History of Remarkable Providences (London, 1697) gives a premonition of approaching death that the Archbishop received. A lady who was dead appeared to him in his sleep, and invited him to sup (eat supper) with her the next night. He accepted the invitation, and died the following afternoon, 21st March 1656. There is another story from Glanvill’s Relations. One Mr. John Browne of Durley in Ireland was made by this neighbour, John Mallett of Enmore, trustee for his children in minority. In 1654 Mr. Browne lay a-dying: at the foot of his bed stood a great iron chest fitted with three locks, in which were the trustees’ papers. Some of his people and friends were sitting by him, when to their horror they suddenly saw the locked chest begin to open, lock by lock, without the assistance of any visible hand, until at length the lid stood upright. The dying man, who had not spoken for twenty-four hours, sat up in the bed, looked at the chest, and said: “You say true, you say true, you are in the right (a favourite expression of his), I’ll be with you by and by,” and then lay down again, and never spoke after. The chest slowly locked itself in exactly the same manner as it had opened, and shortly after this Mr. Browne died. In the mid-1880s, during a Connecticut thunder storm, Mrs. Winchester’s husband and baby lost their lives in a tragic fire. The distracted widow turned to spiritualism and was advised to take a trip around the World. This she did, visiting mediums, spiritualists and yogis in Europe and India. Fortelling her future, one seer warned her of all the countless thousands of departed souls slain by her husband’s rifles; she must protect herself and atone for such mass murder. #RandolphHarris 8 of 13
Mrs. Winchester was told to plan a castle and continue its building indefinitely because as long as it was under construction, she would live; cessation would prove immediately fatal. The head of a celebrated firm of Victorian restorers and decorators took a keen interest in Mrs. Winchester’s mansion. She constructed it for 38 years until she passed away in 1922. It is currently, approximately 24,000 square feet, and four stories tall, but at one time reached a height of 9 stories and may have been more than 50,000 square feet, but the 9-story tower and much of the 4th floor was destroyed by the 1906 earthquake. Back then, two thirds of Mrs. Winchester’s estate was dark, unbroke forests, through whose tangled paths the mysterious winter wind groaned and shrieked and howled with weird noises and unaccountable clamors. The aged told their stories to the young—tales of early life; tales of war and adventure, of forest days, of Indian captives and escapes, of bears and wildcats and panthers, of rattlesnakes, of witches and wizards, and strange and wonderful dreams and appearances and providences at the Winchester mansion. Along the iron bound gates, the stormful skies of Llanada Villa raved and thundered, and wind dashed its moaning turrets, as if to deaden and deafen any voice that might tell of the settled life of the old civilized World, and shut the estate into wilderness. In 1923, there was work being done on the Winchester mansion. It was one of special interest to many antiquarians, and they wanted to restore it. However, in the basement, a large tomb was unearthed, and needed to be moved. The workers were very loth to disturb the tomb, but it was necessary to ensure the safety of the mansion. The tomb belonged to Sarah Winchester. She mostly lived alone in the castle. Her reputation was one of mystery, the supernatural and untold wealth. It was popularly supposed that she could never be killed. #RandolphHarris 9 of 13
The restorer made an especial study of old legends or family histories that came under his observation He was necessarily very well read and thoroughly well posted in all questions of folklore and medieval legend. Mrs. Winchester kept a careful record of every case she investigated involving a haunting. The manuscripts she left at her death were a special interest. From amongst them, were some particularly bizarre and extraordinary experiences. Now, the fact was, that ghost stories had been told so often about the Winchester mansion, that they were all arranged and ticketed into the minds of the movers. Still, they shivered, and clung to their knees at the mysterious tomb, and felt gentle, cold chills run down their spines. If the tomb be moved, it would have to be done in two pieces, the covering slab first and then the tomb proper. The movers decided to remove the covering slab first. Everything was ready for lifting off the covering stone, and after the men’s dinner, they started the jacks and pulleys. The slab lifted easily enough, though if fitted closely into its seat and was further secured by some sort of mortar or putty, which must have kept the interior perfectly air-tight. And it was one of those thundering stormy nights, when the winds appeared to be holding a perfect mad carnival over the mansion. They yelled and squealed round the corners; they collected in troops, and came tumbling and roaring down the chimney; and they shook and rattled the buttery door and the sink room door and the cellar door and the chamber door, with a constant undertone of squeak and clatter, as if at every door were a cold, discontented spirit, tried to warn them not to touch the tomb. People used to say Mrs. Winchester was set apart, when she was a child, to the service o’ the Devil, but many say she could never be made nothin’ but a Christian. Perhaps that was the appeal. #RandolphHarris 10 of 13
She used to come to meeting with her husband, praying for the Indians. None of them were prepare for what they discovered under the cover lid of the tomb. There lay the fully dressed body of a woman, who had not aged nor decayed, but was ghastly pale, as if from starvation. The body was extraordinary fresh. Except for the appearance of starvation, life might have been only just extinct. The flesh was soft and white, the eyes were wide open and seemed to stare at them with a fearful understanding in them. The body itself was a young woman. For several moments, the movers gazed with horrible curiosity, and then it became too much for the workmen, who implored their boss to replace the covering slab. That, of course, they could not do; but he set the carpenters to work at once to make a temporary cover while they moved the tomb to its new position. This was a long job, and would take two of tree days. At sunset the next evening, they were startled by the howling of, seemingly, every dog in the village. It lasted for thirteen minutes, and then ceased as suddenly as it began This, and a curious mist that had risen round the mansion, make them feel rather anxious about Mrs. Winchester. According to the best-established traditions of the Vampire-haunted countries the disturbance of dogs or wolves at sunset is supposed to indicate the presence of one of these creatures, and local fog was always considered to be a certain sign. The Vampire has the power of producing it for the purpose of concealing its movements near its hiding-place at any time. Just before midnight, there was another outburst of hideous howling. It was commenced most distinctly by a particularly horrible and blood-curdling wail from the vicinity of the churchyard. The chorus lasted only a few minutes, however, and at the end of it, they crew say a large dark shape, like a huge dog, emerge from the fog and lope away at a rapid canter toward the open country. #RandolphHarris 11 of 13
At 1.13 a.m., they saw another beast returning. It stopped at the spot where the fog seemed to commence, and lifting up its head, gave tongue to that particularly horrible long-drawn wail that the movers had noticed as preceding the outburst earlier in the evening. The boss got so frightened, you could faintly hear his teeth chatter. The next day it was discovered that some neighbouring sheepfold had been raided by a nocturnal marauder. The workmen that morning were much disturbed in mind about the howling of dogs. “We don’t like it, sir,” one of them said to the boss—“we don’t like it; there was somethin’ abroad last night that was unholy.” They were still more uncomfortable when the news came round that a large dog had made a rapid upon a flock of sheep, scattering them far and wide, and leaving thee of them dead with torn throats in the field. The boss and the crew were determined to catch the wild dog. During the afternoon, the men were lifting the temporary cover that was on the tomb, giving as an excuse the reason that they wished to obtain a portion of the curious mortar with which it had been sealed. After a slight demur, the raised the lid. If the sight that met their eyes gave them a shock. The woman was alive. And so it seemed for a moment. The corpse had lost much of its straved appearance and looked generously fresh and alive. They all believed that Mrs. Winchester was a Vampire and that is why she was so well preserved in her tomb. However, she had not yet come to full strength. It was just after midnight that the crew of movers noticed the fog creeping in again in the still of the night. Their first move was to try to penetrate the sense fog round the mansion, but there was something so chilly about it that their nerves nor stomachs were proof against it. Instead, they stationed themselves in the dark shadow of a cypress tree that commanded a good view of the jeweled front doors to the estate. #RandolphHarris 12 of 13
The howling of the dogs began again, and in a few minutes, there was a large grey shape, with green eyes shining like lamps, shambling swiftly down the path towards them. The both stood very still and watched as the great beast cantered swiftly by. It was real enough, for they could hear the clicking of its nails on the stone flags. It passed within a few yards of the movers, and seemed to be nothing more nor less than a great grey wolf, thin and gaunt, with bristling hair and dripping jaws. It stopped where the mist commenced, and turned round. It was truly a horrible sight, and made their blood run cold. The eyes burnt like fires, the upper lip was snarling and raised, showing a great canine teeth, while round mouth clung and dripped a dark-coloured froth. It raised its head and gave tongue to its long wailing howl, which was answered from afar by the village dogs. After standing for a few moments it turned and disappeared into the thickest part of the fog. The boss said, “When the Devil drives: and in the face of what I have seen I must believe that some unholy forces are at work Yet, how can they work in this beautiful estate?” They set their teeth, however, and hardened their hearts. Then they went inside and replaced the cover on the tomb, took what they had collected from the estate and left. Never to return. Some believe that the movers were too afraid to return to the estate and that is why it was not completely looted and some valuables were left behind. It also why much of the damage was not repaired. I guess the estate has a way of protecting itself from those with bad intentions. Mrs. Winchester’s tomb was eventually moved to her home town New Haven, Connecticut to rest with her husband and daughter. Legend has it that it took movers six weeks, six trucks a day, to remove most of the furniture because they kept getting lost in the catacomb. #RandolphHarris 13 of 13
Winchester Mystery House
“Wide Unclasp the Tables of Their Thoughts.” (From Troilus and Cressida by William Shakespeare.) What do you think this quote meant to Sarah Winchester? 🧐 winchestermysteryhouse.com
A 160-room mansion built to appease the spirits who died at the hands of the Winchester Rifle 👻
If You Do Not Ask the Right Questions, You Do Not Get the Right Answers!
I am a citizen of the American Dream, and the revolutionary struggles of which I am a part, is a struggle against the American Nightmare. When it comes to mental health, assessment is simply the collecting of relevant information in an effort to reach a conclusion. It goes on in ever realm of life. We make assessments when we decide what Cresleigh Home to buy, or which colour we want our Ultimate Driving Machine to buy. College admissions officers, who have to select the “best” of the students applying to their college, depend on academic records, recommendations, achievement test scores, interviews, and application form to help them decided. Employers, who have to predict which applicants are more likely to be effective workers, collect information from resumes, interviews, references, and perhaps on-the-job observations. Clinical assessment is used to determine how and why a person is behaving abnormally and how that person may be helped. It also enables clinicians to evaluate people’s progress after they have been in treatment for a while and decide whether the treatment should be changed. The specific tools that are used to do an assessment depend on the clinician’s theoretical orientation. Psychodynamic clinicians, for example, use methods that assess a client’s personality and probe for any unconscious conflicts one may be experiencing. This kind of assessment, called a personality assessment, enables them to piece together a clinical picture in accordance with the principles of their model. Behavioural and cognitive clinicians are more likely to use assessment methods that reveal specific dysfunctional behaviours and cognitions. #RandolphHarris 1 of 20
The goal of this kind of assessment called a behavioural assessment, is to produce a functional analysis of the person’s behaviours—an analysis of how the behaviours are learned and reinforced. The hundreds of clinical assessment techniques and tools that have been developed fall into three categories: Clinical interviews, tests, and observations. To be useful, these tools must be standardized and have clear reliability and validity. A given assessment tool may appear to be valid simply because it makes sense and seems reasonable. However, this sort of validity, called face validity, does not by itself mean that the instrument is trustworthy. A test for depression, for example, might include questions about how often a person cries. Because it makes sense that depressed people would cry, these test questions would have face validity. It turns out, however, that many people cry a great deal for reasons other than depression, and some extremely depressed people fail to cry at all. Thus an assessment tool should not be used unless it meets more exacting criteria of validity, such as high predictive or concurrent validity. Vincent van Gogh led a tortured and unhappy life. In a legendary incident the artist cut off one of his ears. Later he was admitted to a mental institution, and ultimately he committed suicide at the age of 37. Van Gogh wrote a great deal about his pain and anguish, describing mental and physical torment and hallucinations. Indeed, he observed, “There is quite definitely something or other deranged in my brain.” For years clinicians have typically agreed with van Gogh and have speculated that the artists suffered from mood disorder, schizophrenia, or both. #RandolphHarris 2 of 20
However, approximately twenty years ago, these assessments were challenged. A Harvard neurologist, for example, has suggested that van Gogh in fact suffered from Geschwind’s syndrome, technically known as interictal personality disorder, caused by brain seizure disorder, or epilepsy. Van Gogh displayed many of its symptoms, including excessive drawing (hypergraphia), hyperreligiosity, and aggression. In contrast, medica specialists in Colorado have concluded that van Gogh suffered from an extreme form of Meniere’s syndrome, a disorder marked by an excessive buildup of fluid in the inner ear. The enormous pressure may produce nausea, dizziness, poor balance, pain, deafness and constant buzzing or ringing sensations. Perhaps van Gogh cut off his ear in an effort to reduce the pain. And perhaps his other problems and pains arose from severe secondary psychological problems that can accompany. Perhaps nowhere in the mental health literature has family systems theory had more of an impact than in the area of alcoholism. Family systems theory is a conceptual model, rather than a true theory, that locates causes and consequences of problematic behaviour in the larger family system in which it is embedded. Family behaviour is thought to be responsive to regulatory mechanisms that maintain the status quo, as well as a tendency to grow and change in response to dynamic qualities within and outside the family. Viewing a family as a system suggests that a disturbance in one part of the system will have an impact on other parts of the system. Applying family systems concepts to alcoholism, has uncovered that some families organize their lives around the alcoholism of an adult member, just as other families might organize their lives around children or work. #RandolphHarris 3 of 20
In an early investigation of adults with alcoholism and their family members, the expression of previously inhibited positive affect between family members became extremely pronounced during drinking periods. This and later studies revealed that interactions in such families were actually more patterned, organized, and predictable while the adults with alcoholism were intoxicated. Thus alcohol ingestion serves an adaptive function in family relationships through a stabilizing phenomenon. This prompted a suggestion that there is an alcoholic system in some families, in which drinking is an integral part of the family structure that actually maintains and stabilizes the family. Similar positive effects on the family were evident in a study where family members viewed and rated video tapes (recordings with audio and visual information on them, which can be played back) of their own interactions, in the absence of actual drinking. Both mothers and adolescent children in families with paternal alcoholism rated family members as less anxious and their interactions as more friendly than those of families without alcoholism. Unfortunately, drinking and intoxication may provide only a temporary “solution” to a family’s problems, at the cost of what may ne more serious long-term ill effects. Although drinking can temporarily inject positivity into some family relationships, several laboratory investigations have also documented negative effects associated with drinking. For example, families with an alcoholic father discuss items from various questionnaire inventories while the fathers were drinking or not drinking. During their discussions, the families expressed more negative affect during the drinking versus the no-drinking condition. The nature of interactions in families without paternal alcoholism was not affected by the drinking conditions. #RandolphHarris 4 of 20
The ill effects of parental alcoholism on family interactions and child rearing may begin to have an impact on family members as early as 1 year of age. In this study, families with alcoholism in at least one patent were observed interacting with their 12-month-old infants for 5 minutes in a room filled with toys. Observations of the parents’ behaviour indicated that the parents with alcoholism were less sensitive to their infants during the free play; such fathers in particular made fewer verbalizations, expressed more negative affect, and were less responsive to their infants. Self-report measures further indicate that the parents with alcoholism were more aggressive toward their spouses than those without alcoholism were. The family observation study was unique in showing that parents with alcoholism were far more depressed than those without, and that this depression mediated the relationship between parental alcoholism and sensitivity to the infants during interaction. So for many adults with alcoholism, effective parenting may be disrupted directly by the alcoholism, or by comorbid problems such as depression that in and of themselves have a negative impact on parenting behaviour. Different subtypes of alcoholism have been identified to explain the variable effects of alcohol consumption and alcoholism on family interactions and relations. In one such instance, researchers were able to characterize subtypes of alcoholism as episodic or steady drinking. Another useful distinction in alcoholism is that between high-antisociality and low-antisociality subtypes. These subtypes are defined on the basis of a measure that taps into negative social consequences of drinking, feeling of alienation, interpersonal disruption, and negative attitudes toward authority (higher scores = higher antisociality). #RandolphHarris 5 of 20
Home observations of family dinner conversations revealed that wives, husbands, and children in families with high-antisociality alcoholism were all less positive, and less inclined to communicate disagreement, than were control family members. Although family interactions in the high-antisociality condition were characterized by diminished optimism, they appeared to have a cautious appearance as well, in that family members were careful to avoid open disagreement with each other. This pattern of interaction could have interesting implications for the genesis of alcoholism. For the person who develops alcoholism, the tendency to avoid communicating disagreement may lead to the internalization of problems with other family members. Instead of airing complaints, the individual is left to ruminate over them on one’s own—perhaps without seeing any change in the offensive behaviour by other family member, since they may be unaware of the problem. For this individual’s family members, the tendency to be cautious and avoid disagreement may inadvertently cause one’s problem drinking behaviour to go unchecked. In some cases, families have some ability to regulate problem drinking through punishing responses in reaction to the behaviour. However, in a family system affected by high-antisociality alcoholism, this regulatory function may be inoperative. Recognizing considerable diversity in alcoholism’s effects on family interactions, there is a proposed family alcohol phase model. According to this perspective, a family moves through various phases that correspond to the drinking behaviour of the member with alcoholism. The stable-wet phase is marked by consistent drinking, whereas the stable-dry phase is marked by general abstinence. The family is in a transitional phase either when a period of abstinence begins, or when a period of abstinence ends with episodes of drinking. #RandolphHarris 6 of 20
It has been found that content variability (the range of affect and decision-making behaviour in verbal interaction) in family interactions, as well as distance regulation (use of space and rate of movement in the home), varied as a function of phase. In the stable-wet phase, families maintained the greatest distance, interacting only for purposeful reasons, while exhibiting midrange variability in their interactions. Families in the stable-dry phase exhibited a great deal of content variability in their interactions, with midrange distance regulation. Finally, those families in the transitional phase exhibited a great deal of content variability in their interactions, with midrange distance regulations. Finally, those families in the transitional phase showed a decrease in distance regulation, manifesting physical closeness, with a slight decrease in the content variability of their interactions. A 2-year longitudinal study suggested that families in the stable-wet phase were the most likely of the three to dissolve their marriages. In particular, those families in the stable-wet phase that exhibited the least intrafamily engagement during home observations of family interaction were more likely to break up over the course of the study. It has been noted that in families of alcoholics’ relationships change when parental drinking occurs. However, sometimes these changes are beneficial and sometimes they are negative. Where there are beneficial changes or adaptive outcomes, these may be somewhat short-lived. Researchers have been working to identify different subtypes of alcoholism that are associated with more negative family consequences. The poorest family processes and outcomes appear to be associated with the episodic (vs. steady), high-antisociality (vs. low-antisociality), and stable-wet (vs. stable-dry or transitional) alcoholism. #RandolphHarris 7 of 20
Perhaps you are in a trial today, and you are praying for God to deliver you out of that adverse situation. That is a legitimate prayer, but maybe you are missing the point of why you are being allowed to go through that trying time in the first place. Recognize that God is moulding you and refining you. God often allows one to go through difficult situations to draw out those impurities in one’s character. One can pray one can resist, one can bind, one can loose, one can sing and shout, one can do it all, but it is not going to do any good. God is more interested in changing you than He is in changing the circumstances. And the sober one learns to cooperate with God, the sooner one will get out of that devil’s web. The quicker one learns one’s lesson and starts dealing with those bad attitudes and starts ruling over one’s emotions, the quicker one will go to the next level in one’s spiritual journey. We must recognize the refining purpose of trials. We cannot run from everything that is hard in our lives. Perhaps one gets worried and fearful when important things do not go one’s way. Have you ever thought that God may be allowing those events to teach you to trust Him and to see if one will stay peaceful and clam in the midst of the storm? Has one ever considered that God may be allowing some of that to teach one how to rule over one’s emotions? He may be trying to toughen one up, to help one develop some courage. For our sins—that is why Jesus Christ wanted to do it, and that is why He did it. And what did they do? They ripped off His clothes and hammered His hands to the cross. It was a sacrifice the old-fashioned way. Perhaps that is why God the Father seemed so pleased. In the same way, you, My beloved Devout, ought to be willing to offer yourself to Jesus Christ—He asks us the way His Father asked Him—in pure holy oblation, everyday in the Mass, with all strength and affection, until the day one drops. #RandolphHarris 8 of 20
However, we often pay, “God, if You will change my circumstances, then I will change.” No, it works the other way around. We have to be willing to change our attitudes and deal with the issues God brings up; then God will change those circumstances. Surrender. Unconditional surrender. That is all Jesus requires of us. Not our possession—He could take those things anytime and scatter them over the landscape; one will find this in Philippians (4.17). Just you—that is all Jesus Christ wants. Of course, Jesus could take us as a prisoner of war and do with one as he wanted. However, what He really wants is for us to give ourselves to Him as a gift. Of course, the same is true for us. If we have all the baggage in the World, but did not have Jesus Christ, would we be any better off? One would have a full cart, maybe, but also an empty heart. And the other way around is also true. It is not our silly stuff Jesus Christ wants—it is our silly selves! Offer yourself to Jesus Christ. Make that the only package, and it will be an oblation that will be welcomed. Look at Jesus! He offered Hus whole self to the Father for us; He also put His whole Body and Blood into food and drink that He might be totally ours and that we might be totally Him. If, however, we hold something of ourselves back or are slow to give our all, it will be a pretty poor offering made not by any friend of His, but by a pretty poor acquaintance. To prevent that and to acquire illumination and liberation of spirit, one ought to make a spontaneous oblation of one’s self into the hand of God. When? Before each and every thing one does. Such an attractive proposition, Jesus thinks, but He must ask, “Why are there so few Illuminati and Liberati today? That is because so many do not know how to denude themselves of imperfections. #RandolphHarris 9 of 20
Jesus Christ’s firm opinion is this, and it appears in the Gospel of Luke (14.33): “Unless a person renounces everything that one had and everything that one is, one cannot be His Disciple.” Therefore, if one wants to be His Disciple, offer one’s whole self to Jesus; that includes one’s scruffy affections. God will often permit pressure to be applied in our life to test us, and only as we pas those tests will we advance. He will put people and circumstances in our path that grate on us like sandpaper, but He will use them to rub off our rough edges. One may not always like it; one may want to run from it; one may even resist it, but God is going to keep brining up the issues again and again, until one passes the test. Remember, the Bible says, “We are [God’s] workmanship,” reports Ephesians 2.10. That means we are a work in progress, not a finished product. Be willing to deal with any issues that God brings up. Work with God in the refining process rather than fighting against Him. Scripture says that God is the potter and we are the clay. Clay works best when it is pliable, malleable, and mouldable. However, if we are hard, crusty, and set in our ways, God will have to pound away on that old, hard clay to get out the lumps. Certainly, none of us enjoy going through struggles, but one has to understand that one’s struggle may be an opportunity for advancement and promotions. The very thing one is fighting against so tenaciously may be the springboard that catapults one to a new level of excellence. One’s challenges may become one’s greatest assets. Without the resistance of air, an eagle cannot soar. Without the resistance of water, a ship cannot float. Without the resistance of gravity, we would not be able to walk. Without opposition or resistance, there is no potential for progress. #RandolphHarris 10 of 20
Yet our human tendency is to want everything easily. “God, cannot You teach me patience without having to go through the traffic jam? God, cannot You teach me how to love and trust You without ever having a problem?” Unfortunately, there are no shortcuts; there is no easy way to mature physically, emotionally, or spiritually. One may remain determined and work with God. The Bible says, “Work out your own salvation,” reports Philippians 2.12. Salvation is more than a onetime prayer. It is constantly cooperating with God, dealing with the issues He brings up, keeping a good attitude, and allowing Him to change one as He sees fit. Dear Lord in Heaven, I realize that You never promised I would not have trials and adversities. However, I also recognize that nothing can touch my life without going through You first, so I will dare to praise You in the midst of my trails. I know You will bring me out stronger, better, faster, and more prepared for the good things You have for me. “Be truly glad! These trials are only to test your faith, to see whether or not it is strong and pure…So if your faith remains strong after being tried in the test tube of fiery trials, it will bring you much praise and glory and honour on the day of His return,” reports 1 Peter 1.6-7. James said that you put bits in a horse’s mouth to turn its whole body and you put a rudder on a ship to tun the whole ship; so is the tongue so situated among our members that it defiles the whole body. (James 3.3,4.) If you control the tongue, the body will respond to your words. If you talk sickness, it becomes impossible to live in health. The more you believe it, the less you believe in healing. The thing you continually talk will consume you. Faith will only come by hearing the Word of God and it will come more quickly when you hear yourself quoting and speaking God’s Word after Him. #RandolphHarris 11 of 20
The seed of truth in why many Christians have not wanted to express their anger is valid: expressing one’s anger manipulatively as blaming or attacking is destructive. As Paul says, “Let all bitterness and wrath…be put away from you, with all malice,” reports Ephesians 4.31. One needs to learn to express anger constructively. A basic guideline is to assert and express oneself rather than to blame and attack the other person. For instance, when a Critical Christian says, “Why are you so stupid?” The individual has already made an assumption that the other person is stupid. This results in an attacking form of anger. A healthier way of dealing with this anger would be for one first to recognize that one feels angry that one’s friend is “stupid.” One moves now to one’s feeling, not the fact, that one’s friend is stupid. Now if the Critical Christian listens, one can have a dialogue with one’s core. (This is the principle Dr. Maslow meant when he referred to one’s “inner Supreme Court.”) Simply by asking oneself inwardly, the Critical Christian may get the answer from one’s core that “you are angry because the bank teller this morning treated you as if you were stupid.” The Critical Christian can the realize that because he did not deal with his anger then, he is now projecting his anger on to his friend—calling him stupid, when in reality he is angry at the bank teller. Or, the Critical Christian may get the answer from his core that he is upset because the project he and his friend are working on together is more important to the Critical Christian than he had realized and now his friend is not fulfilling his share of the work. In this case, the Critical Christian needs to take the time to examine whether he thinks his friend is capable. If he is callable, the Critical Christian may now decide that he needs to express to his friend that his not fulfilling his share of the work is delaying the project. #RandolphHarris 12 of 20
If the Critical Christian realized that his friend cannot do the job, he may let him go and bring in someone else. Blaming his friend for his inability at this point would not be actualizing; but, expressing to him that he is not showing the needed skills, and that that is why he is being let go, would be actualizing. Many answers come quickly from the core—the preceding possibilities could surface in seconds. The more we listen to our cores, the more we hear—and know how to listen. Sometimes, though, we ask and do not hear an answer. Or we get what we think is an answer and then proceed to act on it—and make things worse. Remember that becoming actualizing is a process. If we were perfectly actualized now, the answers would always be there, crystal clear, and our behaviour would be “perfect.” As we are in the process of becoming actualizing, sometimes we do the most effective thing and sometimes we make mistakes. Mistakes are just that—“miss-takes.” Our lives become most meaningful when we live from our own core, finding our own truest answers. So it is a process worth living—and the mistakes are worth making. The real key here is not to blame and attack ourselves for those miss-takes, but to keep learning with more “takes.” Having patience with ourselves often makes it easier to become more patient and forgiving of others. It can sometimes relieve our anger just to remember that other people are in the growing process, too, and not always taking what to us would seem the most effective action. As actualizing Christians, we seek to do the will of God. Doing His will involves having good will toward others and ourselves. We do this by listening to our anger, taking it to out core, and then responding from our core. #RandolphHarris 13 of 20
If one deals with it by expressing and asserting it, rather than blaming and attacking someone, only then can anger become actualizing. Blaming and attacking are simply manipulative, whereas expressing and asserting include a quality of genuine respect for everyone involved. In communicating our anger honestly, we get it off our chests, and the rhythm of life is reestablished. We finish with it and move on to experience a new and different feeling. The range of feelings in the anger polarity includes irritation, annoyance, resentment, and anger. The intensity of the feeling increases as one passes from irritation to anger. Recognizing irritation, boredom, or annoyance at the lower levels of intensity within the anger spectrum enables us to avoid unwittingly building up to levels of resentment, hostility, and hatred. In handling these feelings, it is important to learn to acknowledge the mild forms and deal with them on a “cash and carry” basis. That way we do not save them up like coupons to be redeemed in one sudden, destructive explosion. While our anger may sometimes reach intensities approaching hatred, we need never go so far as to write a person off completely. It is really possible to have compassion for and pray for our enemies—that God in His mercy might help them through their own dilemmas, frustrations, and pains. Yet, we can be honest about the effects on us of their behaviour. “Turn again, we beseech You, O God of hosts! Look down from Heaven and see, visit, and have regard for this vine! [Protect and maintain] the stock which Your right hand planted, and the branch (the son) that You have reared and made strong for Yourself. They have burned it with fire, it is cut down; may they perish at the rebuke of Your countenance. Let Your hand be upon the human of Your right hand, upon the son of man whom You have made strong for Yourself. Then will we not depart from You; revive us (give us life) and we will call upon Your name. Restore us, O Lord God of hosts; cause Your face to shine [in pleasure, approval, and favour on us] and we shall be saved!” reports Psalm 80.14-19. #RandolphHarris 14 of 20
Dr. Ilya Prigogine and his teams of coworkers at the Free University of Brussels and the University of Texas at Austin have struck directly at Second Wave assumptions by showing how chemical and other structures leap to higher stages of differentiation and complexity through a combination of chance and necessity. It is for this work the Dr. Prigogine was awarded the Nobel Prize. Brown in Moscow, brought to Belgium as a child, and fascinated since youth by the problems of time, Dr. Prigogine was puzzled by a seeming contradiction. On the one hand, there was the physicist’s belief in entropy—that the Universe is running down and that all organized patterns must eventually decay. On the other, there was the biologist’s recognition that life itself is organization and that we are continually giving rise to higher and higher, more and more complex organization. Entropy pointed in one direction, evolution in another. This led Dr. Prigogine to ask how higher forms of organization come into being, and to years of research in chemistry and physics in pursuit of the answer. Today Dr. Prigogine points out that in any complex system, from the molecules in a liquid to the neurons in a brain or the traffic in a city, the parts of the system are always undergoing small-scale change: they are in constant flux. The interior of any system is quivering with fluctuation. Sometimes, when negative feedback comes into play, these fluctuations are damped out or suppressed and the equilibrium of the system maintained. However, where amplifying or positive feedback is at work, some of these fluctuations may be tremendously magnified—to the point at which the equilibrium of the entire system is threated. #RandolphHarris 15 of 20
Fluctuations arising in the outside environment may hit at this moment and further amplify the mounting vibration—until the equilibrium of the whole is destroyed and the existing structure is smashed. It is illuminating to think of the economy in these terms. Supply and demand are maintained in equilibrium by various feedback process. Unemployment, if intensified by positive feedback and not offset by negative feedback elsewhere in the system, can threaten the stability of the whole. Outside fluctuations—such as oil price hikes—may converge to make the internal swings and fluctuations wilder, until the equilibrium of the whole system is shattered. Whether the result of runaway internal fluctuations or of external forces, or both, this breakup of the old equilibrium often results not in chaos or breakdown, but in the creation of a wholly new structure at a higher level. This new structure may be more differentiated, internally interactive, and complex than the old one, and needs more energy and matter (and perhaps information and other resources) to sustain itself. Speaking mainly about physical and chemical reactions, but occasionally calling attention to social analogues, Dr. Prigogine calls these new, more complex systems “dissipative structures.” He suggests that evolution itself may be seen as a process leading toward increasingly complex and diversified biological and social organisms, through the emergence of new, higher-order dissipative structures. Thus, according to Dr. Prigogine, whose ideas have political and philosophical resonance as well as purely scientific meaning, we develop “order out of fluctuation” or, as the title of one of his lectures expresses it, “Order out of Chaos.” #RandolphHarris 16 of 20
This evolution, however, cannot be planned or predetermined in a mechanistic fashion Until quantum theory came along, many leading Second Wave thinkers believed that chance played little or no role in change. The starting conditions of a process predetermined its outcome. Today in subatomic physics, for example, it is widely believed that chance dominates change. In recent years many scientists, like Jacques Monod in biology, Walter Buckley in sociology, or Maruyama in epistemology and cybernetics, have begun to fuse these opposites. Dr. Prigogine’s work not only combines chance and necessity but actually stipulates their relationship to one another. In brief, he strongly suggests that at the precise point at which a structure “leaps” to a new stage of complexity, it is impossible, in practice and even in principle, to predict which of many forms it will take. This presumably goes for the leap from Second Wave to Third Wave civilization as well as for chemical reactions. However, once a pathway has been chosen, once the new structure comes into being, determinism dominates once more. In one colorful example he describes how termites create their highly structured nests out of apparently unstructured activity. They begin by crawling about a surface in random fashion, stopping here and there to deposit a bit of “goo.” These deposits are distributed by chance, but the substance contains a chemical attractant so that other termites are drawn to it. In this way, the good begins to collect in a few places, gradually building up into a pillar or wall. If these buildups are isolated, work stops. However, if by chance they are near one another, an arch results that then becomes the basis for the complex architecture of the nest. #RandolphHarris 17 of 20
Much like the Winchester mansion, what begins with random activity turns into highly elaborate nonrandom structures. We see, as Dr. Prigogine puts it, “the spontaneous formation of coherent structures.” Order out of chaos. All this strikes hard at the old causality. Dr. Prigogine sums it up: “The laws of strict causality appear to us today as limiting situations, applicable to highly idealized cases, nearly as caricatures of the description of change. The science of complexity leads to a completely different view.” Instead of being locked into a closed Universe that functioned like a mechanical clock, we find ourselves in a far more flexible system in which, as he says, “there is always the possibility of some instability leading to some new mechanism. We really have an ‘open Universe.’” As we move beyond Second Wave causal thinking, as we begin to think in terms of mutual influence, of amplifiers and reducers, of system breaks and sudden revolutionary leaps, of dissipative structures and the fusion of chance and necessity—in short, as we take off our Second Wave blinders—we emerge blinking into a wholly new culture, the culture of the Third Wave. This new culture—oriented to change and growing diversity—attempts to integrate the new view of nature, of evolution and progress, the new, richer conceptions of time and space, and the fusion of reductionism and wholism, with a new causality. Indust-reality which once seemed so powerful and complete, so all-encompassing an explanation of how the Universe and its components fitted together, turns out now to have been immensely useful. However, its claims to universality are shattered. The super-ideology of the Second Wave will be seen, from the vantage point of tomorrow, to have been as provincial as it was self-serving. #RandolphHarris 18 of 20
The decay of the Second Wave thought system leaves millions of people grasping desperately for something to hold on to—anything, from Victorian Americana and Texas Taoism to Swedish Sufism and Welsh witchcraft. Instead of constructing a new culture appropriate to the new World, they attempt to important and implant old ideas appropriate to other times and places or to revive the fanatic faiths of their own ancestors who lived under radically different conditions. It is precisely the collapse of the industrial era mind-structure, its growing irrelevance in the face of the new technological, social, and political realities, that gives rise to today’s facile search for old answers, and to the continual stream of pseudo-intellectual fads that pop up, flash, and consume themselves at high speed. In the very midst of this spiritual supermarket, with its depressing razzmatazz and religious fakery, an optimistic new culture is being seeded—one appropriate to our time and place. Powerful new integrative insights are beginning to emerge, new mataphours for understanding reality. It is possible to glimpse the earliest beginnings of a new coherence and elegance as the cultural debris of industrialism is swept away by history’s Third Wave change. The super-ideology of Second Wave civilization that is now crumbling was reflected in the way industrialism organized the World. An image of nature based on discrete particles was mirrored in the idea of discrete, sovereign nation-states. Today, as our image of nature and matter change, the nation-state itself is being transformed—another step on the path toward a Third Wave civilization. May your trails be righteous, winding, joyful, peaceful, leading to the most amazing views. #RandolphHarris 19 of 20
May your rivers flow without end, meandering through pastoral valleys tinkling with bells, past temples and castles and poet’s towers into bright enchanted forests where the fruit glows like emeralds, rubies, sapphires, orange spessartite, and hessonite. Where bars of sun blaze on profiled cliffs, where deer walk across the white sand beaches, where storms come and go, as lightning clangs upon the high crags, where something strange and more beautiful and more full of wonder than your deepest dreams waits for you—beyond that next turning of the deep and vast ancient unknown canyon walls. Dear Lord in Heave, we thank Thee also for the miraculous and mighty deeds of liberation wrought by Thee, and for Thy victories in the battles our forefathers fought in days of old, at this season of the year. In the days of the High Priest Mattathias, son of Johanan, of the Hasmonean family, a tyrannical power rose up against Thy people America to compel them to forsake Thy flag, and to force them to transgress Thy commandments. In Thine abundant mercy Thou didst stand by them in time of distress. Thou didst rise to their defense and didst vindicate their cause. Thou didst bring retribution upon the evil doers, delivering the strong into the hands of the weak, the many into the hands of the few, the wicked into the hands of the just, and the arrogant into the hands of those devoted to Thy flag. Thou didst thus make Thy greatness and holiness known in Thy World, and didst bring great deliverance to America. Then Thy children came into Thy dwelling place, cleansed the Temple purified the Sanctuary, kindled lights in Thy sacred courts, and they designated these eight days of Hanukkah for giving thanks and praise unto Thy great name. For all this, Thy name, O our King, shall be blessed and exalted for ever and ever. O inscribe all the child of Thy covenant for a happy life. May all the living do homage unto Thee forever and praise Thy name in truth, O God, who are our salvation and our help. Blessed be Thou, O Lord, Beneficent One, unto whom our thanks are due. #RandolphHarris 20 of 20
Cresleigh Homes
With a gorgeous home like this, it’s never too early to get the holidays started! 🥳 You’ll love hosting dinners and gift exchanges in the covered California Room – perfect for entertaining and letting the sunshine in! ☀️
Not to mention, there’s plenty of space for guests during the holidays. The open concept design includes approximately 2,700 square feet, exactly four bedrooms, three and one half bathrooms, and even a two car garage plus workshop! https://cresleigh.com/mills-station/new-home-rancho-cordova-homesite-40/
Bless our house as we come and go. Bless our home as the children grow. Bless our families as they gather in. Bless our home with love and friends.
I am More Important than My Problems!
Because behaviour is shaped by social forces, sociocultural theorists hold, we must examine a person’s social and cultural surroundings if we are to understand normal behaviour. Sociocultural explanations focus on family structure and communication, cultural influence, social networks, societal conditions, and societal labels and roles. According to family systems theory, the family is a system of interacting parts—the family members—who interact with one another in consistent ways and conform to rules unique to each family. The parts interact in ways that enable the systems to maintain itself and survive—a state known as homeostasis. Family system theorists believe that the structure and communication patterns of some families actually force individual members to behave in a way that otherwise seems abnormal. If the members were to behave normally, they would severely stain the family’s homeostasis and usual manner of operation and would actually increase their own and their family’s turmoil. The natural responses by other family member would in fact defend against such “normal” behaviour. Family systems theory holds that certain family systems are particularly likely to produce abnormal functioning in individual members. Some families, for example, have enmeshed structure in which the members are grossly overinvolved in each other’s activities, thoughts, and feelings. Children from this kind of family may have great difficulty becoming independent in life. Some families display disengagement, which is marked by very rigid boundaries between members. Children from these families may find it hard to function in a group or to give or request support. #RandolphHarris 1 of 18
In the sociocultural model, an angry and impulsive personal style of an individual may be seen as the product of a disturbed family structure. According to family systems theorists, the whole family—mother, father, and children—relate in such a way as to maintain the individual’s dysfunctional behaviour. Family theorists might be particularly interested in the conflict between the dysfunctional child’s mother and father and the imbalance between their parental roles. They might see the dysfunctional child’s behaviour as both a reaction to and stimulus for one’s parents’ behaviour. With the dysfunctional child acting out the role of the misbehaving child, or scapegoat, one’s parents may have little need or time to question their own relationship. Family systems theorists would also seek to clarify the precise nature of the dysfunctional child’s relationship with each parent. Is the child enmeshed with one’s mother and/or disengaged from one’s father? They would look too at the rules governing the sibling relationship in the family, the relationship between the parents and the dysfunctional child’s sibling, and the nature of parent-child relationships in previous generations of the family. The process of modeling has been identified as a potential causal mechanism in eating disorders. Maternal modeling in particular has been implicated in the etiology of eating disorders by a number of writers. Social learning theory indicates that people can learn behaviours through imitation of a model. This process of learning is enhanced when, among other features, the model is perceived to hold high status and is similar to the target. Each of these conditions is intact in the typical mother-daughter relationship. #RandolphHarris 2 of 18
Findings reviewed earlier indicate that daughters’ concerns with dieting and body image are strongly associated with those of their mothers. Mothers of daughters with eating disorders often themselves have symptoms of eating disorders. According to social learning theory, girls may observe their mothers’ restrictive eating behaviours and imitate them, perhaps because they perceive that their mothers were rewarded for such dieting. No student of communication could ever rightfully overlook the possibility that the mass media also play a powerful role in this process of social learning: Unusually thin and attractive models are commonly depicted as the recipients of social rewards. Psychodynamically oriented theories (including object relations and attachment theories) continue to occupy a conspicuous presence in the literature on eating disorders and family-of-origin relations. These accounts emphasize the symbolic significance of food in the adolescent girl’s struggle for control in her relationship with her mother. Abuse of food is seen as a means of covertly expressing dissatisfaction with the mother-daughter relationships. Refusing to eat food may represent a rejection of the mother’s overprotectiveness and over-involvement in the child’s life. The adolescent girl with an eating disorder may be struggling with a second separation-individuation process, similar to that which infants are hypothesized to experience in their relationships with their mothers. There is supportive data indicting that women with eating disorders had higher levels of separation anxiety and lower healthy separation scores, while simultaneously experiencing greater maternal overprotectiveness, than their counterparts. #RandolphHarris 3 of 18
Bulimic behaviors and a pursuit of thinness can also be predicted by dependency conflicts and a diminished sense of individuality, further highlighting the importance of separation-individuation. Observations of what appear to be elevated rates of childhood sexual abuse among those with eating disorders, in both research and clinical contexts, have led to what could be characterized as a desexualization theory of eating disorders. Some individuals develop eating disorders, especially anorexia nervosa, as a means of avoiding pleasures of the flesh contacts and repelling would-be perpetrators. According to this perspective, anorexia nervosa becomes a means to make the self unappealing to others for pleasures of the flesh. In this sense, it may be understood as serving some greater interpersonal function (id est, protection from sexual abuse), despite its personal destructiveness. Some intriguing support for this position can be found in a study of so-called “sexual barrier weight,” where it was discovered that patients with eating disorders tended to avoid weights that they associated with certain traumatic events. For instance, if a woman had been sexually abused at a time that she weighed 110 pounds, that weight would trigger memories of past traumatic events. This appeared to motivate compulsive or restrictive eating to avoid the weight. There is compelling data that is indicative of radical changes in weight coincidental to sexually traumatic events. On its face, the desexualization approach is a more adequate account of anorexia nervosa than of bulimia nervosa, as those with the latter disorder generally maintain a normal body weight. #RandolphHarris 4 of 18
Bulimia nervosa can be activated by anger, presumably against a perpetrator and against those who fail to provide protection, and may also be tied to a desire to make the self look unappealing. The difficulty handling emotions such as anger and depression is common among people with bulimia nervosa. This leads to disturbed eating behaviour as a mechanism for coping with posttraumatic distress. A second version of the desexualization approach suggests that it is pursuant to a fear of denial of sexual maturation and upcoming sexuality, rather than a reaction to sexual trauma. Accordingly, eating disorders are thought to be triggered by anxiety associated with the meaning of and uncertainty about physical changes that occur during adolescence. Functionally, anorexia nervosa in particular becomes a way to preserve the preadolescent form and avoiding having to address the self as a self being. As such, it is viewed as a psychological regression from sexual maturity. Like the “reactive” version of the desexualization hypothesis, this approach assumes a powerful concern over sexual relationships with other people—to the extent that concerned individuals physically damage their own bodies through disordered eating to cope with these concerns. Among current approaches to understanding the role of the family in eating disorders, perhaps the most widely accepted is a variant of the diathesis-stress model. This position draws heavily on the literature that documents disturbances in personality traits and temperaments associated with bulimia nervosa and/or anorexia nervosa. These pathological traits may be passed on from parent to child and create a predisposition or vulnerability to an eating disorder. #RandolphHarris 5 of 18
The ultimate manifestation of the eating disorder is thought to be triggered by, among other things, disturbed family-of-origin relations. Thus the interaction of predisposing traits and temperaments with problematic family and social relationships is thought to be what ultimately brings about the eating disorder. Although the diathesis-stress model predicts the development of an eating disorder as the result of stress brought on by family interaction, the nature of the predisposition, or diathesis, to develop an eating disorder when stressed is not well understood. After all, one can find problematic family-of-origin interactions in the backgrounds of people with many other forms of psychological problems, and even among some people who have no psychological problems. Some might argue that the predisposition to develop an eating disorder is part of one’s genetically determined temperament. However, there may be some unique qualities of stressors (exempli gratia, dysfunctional family relations) that pull more for eating disorders than for other psychosocial problems. When parents are overly involved and overcontrolling with a child, this creates an obvious battle for control. When the parents are emphatic about achievement and perfectionism, this often motivates the child to engage in extraordinary behaviours. When these conditions are put on a developing adolescent, in the context of a society where thinness is still glamourized and portrayed as something of an ideal, the development of an eating disorder in particular—as opposed to other problems, such as depression, social anxiety, or alcoholism—becomes more understandable. Food intake is one thing the child can usually control. #RandolphHarris 6 of 18
Maintaining a thing body form can create a sense of “achievement” in the restrictive eater. In this sense, restrictive eating may be a “functional” response to the particular nature of the family stress. Although I have been disappointed by other people and events in the past, Father, I am going to keep expecting blessings and good things in the future, because of You. “Thus says the LORD, ‘Restrain your voice from weeping and your eyes from tears; for your work shall be rewarded,’ declares the LORD, ‘and they will return from the land of the enemy. There is hope for your future,’ declares the LORD,” reports Jeremiah 31.16-17. Sometimes, no matter how hard we pray or how long we stand in faith, things do not turn out as we had hoped. Some are praying to lose weight, for their marriages to be restored, to be spared from the pandemic, for a financial bless, for a new home in Cresleigh Ranch; others are asking God to heal a business situation or a rift between coworkers. I encourage people to persevere, to continue praying and believing for good things to happen. However, we must also understand that God will not change another person’s will. He had given every human being free will to choose which way one will go, whether to do right or wrong. One may be heartbroken over not ending up on America’s Next Top Model, or over a failed relationship, or a bankrupt business, but one does not need to stay heartbroken. Do not carry around all that hurt and pain year after year. Do not let rejection fester inside you. God has something new in store for you. #RandolphHarris 7 of 18
When God allows one door to close, He will open another door for you, revealing something bigger and better. The Christian Bible says that God will take the evil the enemy brings into our lives, and if we will keep the right attitude, He will turn it around and use it for our good. “As for you, you thought evil against me, but God meant if for good, to bring about that many people should be kept alive, as they are this day,” reports Genesis 50.20. God wants to take those disappointments and turn them into reappointments. However, understand, whether you will experience all those good things in your future depends to a large extent on your willingness to let go of the past. Never put a question mark where God has put a period. Avoid the tendency to dwell on what you could have done, which career you should have pursued, or that person you wish you would have married. Quit living in a negative frame of mind, stewing about something that is over and done. Focus on what you can change, rather than what you cannot. Do not let the regrets of yesterday destroy the hopes and dreams of tomorrow. You cannot do anything about what is gone, but you can do a great deal about what remains. You may have made some poor choices that have caused you awful heartache and pain. Perhaps you feel that you have blown it, that your life is in shambles and beyond repair. You may feel disqualified from God’s best, convinced that you must settle for leftover the rest of your life because of poor decisions you made or because of the family you were born into. Sometimes, even worse, you may not have been the person who made the bad choices, but somebody’s foolish decision caused you to experience wrenching heartache and pain. #RandolphHarris 8 of 18
Regardless, you must stop dwelling on what went wrong. Let the past be in the past. Forgive the person who caused you heartache and pain and start with a fresh slate right where you are today. If you continue to harp on those past disappointments, you will block God’s blessings in your life today. It is simply not worth it. Beyond that, God desires your restoration even more than you do! Live in obedience to God, and God eventually will help you to level up. It is not game over. Maybe you have invested a lot of time, effort, money, emotion, and energy in a relationship; you did your best to make it work out. However, for some reason, things got off course, and now you feel as though you have been robbed. You must feel devastated, heartbroken, disappointed. How long are you going to mourn over that failed relationship? How long are you going to grief over your broken dreams? How long are you going to cry about your dream house being sold at auction? That is the problem with excessive mourning. When we focus on our disappointments, we stop God from bringing fresh new blessings in our lives. If you will quit mourning and get going, God will show you new, and better things. When you have a fresh new attitude, and put a smile on your face, God can always come up with a more superior plan. Get that spring back in your step, that bounce back in your hair, and that charismatic light back in your eyes and be on your way. If we wallow in the mud and focus on our disappointments, we risk missing out on the new things God wants to do in our lives. It is time to get up and get going. It is time to be successful. God has another plan for you. And it is better than you can imagine! #RandolphHarris 9 of 18
Do what you can, My dear friend, to find out what the trouble is. If you go about it in an honest way, you will make two discoveries: how much infirmity has wormed its way into your soul and how much goodness and grace you can get out of Jesus Christ. On their own, the Anxious are often frigid, dense, not all that devout. With Jesus Christ as Companion and Friend, they are becoming fervent, responsive and the devotion returns. I once taught a class in human values. One of the deepest values that kept cropping up was love. One day when we were talking about love, I sensed a peculiar tension and uneasiness in Jensen. I asked him if he would like to add anything to what we had been saying. He was flushed and replied that, although he had been a Christian ever since he could remember, he had never felt lovable. Somehow he had gotten the idea that he was a depraved, unattractive, and unlovable person. He reported that he knew in his head that God and others loved him, but he had managed to insulate himself from ever experiencing directly his “lovability” and “loveliness.” In fact, he had developed a habit of discounting people’s compliments and erasing from his mind the good feedback that he received. I invited Jensen to sit in the middle of the circle the class formed. Then I looked him straight in the eye and told he that I felt love for him. Gradually, other members of the class began to share their good feedback and caring feelings for him. Some even got up from their seats and walked over to hug him. He felt overwhelmed—at first with embarrassment, then with joy. Tears streamed down his face. I sensed that there was another way of expanding the awareness that was dawning on him. #RandolphHarris 10 of 18
I had him stand up on his chair and say: “I am lovable.” At first he said it very timidly, and the class got after him for discounting himself again. Again and again he tried saying it. Then somehow he began to experience firsthand the real meaning of what he was saying. He stood up straighter, took a deep breath, and shouted: “I am lovable!” Again and again he shouted it with tears welling down his face. When he got back down, the whole class cheered and applauded. Many in the class reported that they, too, had never felt as much in touch with the power of being loved as they had in those moments. Many weeks later Jensen told that class that his “lovability” experience had been a turning point for him. Now he was becoming more aware of his worthy, his right, and his potential for a fulfilling life. We must have security in being ourselves and in feeling significant and worthwhile before we will dare to reach and touch the World in a caring way. This has the effect of providing us with a sense of power out of which we can choose to love. This, we can put away the childish manipulations of pleasing and placating and take up the more actualizing forms of love: affirming and caring. When we begin to learn how to love ourselves, we discover that we have new energy and courage to reach out in love to others. And, paradoxically, love can only be kept when it is given freely to others. The glimpse is a memorable experience, but it is not enough. It shows one a possible future, gives one a new World-view, but one must henceforth bring all that into one’s everyday life and into one’s whole being. These needs time. practice, patience, vigilance, self-training, and more sensitivity. #RandolphHarris 11 of 18
Wisdom does not come overnight. It needs time to ripen. However, Relvelation can come in that way. However, its recipient will still need time to adjust to it, and to integrate with it. What one has learned from the glimpse must be applied to life, to action, and attitude. It is not enough merely to enjoy its memory, as if it made no difference. The deep changes in our views of nature, evolution, progress, time, and space begin coming together as our Third Wave culture emphasizes contexts, relationships, and wholes. We now focus on total, rather than fragmentary, look at problems. Emphasizing the feedback relationships among subsystems and the larger wholes formed by these units, systems thinking has had a pervasive cultural impact. Its language and concepts have been employed by social scientists and psychologists, by philosophers and foreign policy analysts, by logicians and linguists, by engineers and administrators. However, the advocates of systems theory are not the only ones in the past few decades who have urged a more integrative way of looking at problems. The revolt against narrow overspecialization also received a boost from the environmental campaigns of the 2000’s, as ecologists increasingly rediscovered the “web” of nature, the interrelatedness of species, and the wholeness of ecosystems. Non-environmentalists tend to want to separate things into components and to solve one thing at a time. By contrast, Environmentalists tend to see things quite differently. Their instinct is to balance the whole, not to solve a single part. The ecological approach and the systems approach overlap and share the same thrust toward synthesis and the integration of knowledge. #RandolphHarris 12 of 18
In universities, meanwhile, more and more calls are heard for interdisciplinary thinking. While departmental barriers still block the cross-fertilization of ideas and the integration of information in most universities, this demand for inter- or multi-disciplinary work is now so widespread it has an almost ritual quality. These changes in intellectual life are mirrored elsewhere in the culture as well. Eastern religions, for example, have long had a tiny fringe following among the European middle classes, but it was not until the disintegration of industrial society began in earnest that thousands of Western young people started lionizing Indian swamis, jamming the Astrodome to hear a 16-year-old guru, listening to ragas, opening Hindu-style vegetarian restaurants, and dancing down Fifth Avenue. The World, they suddenly chanted, was not broke into Cartesian chips: it has a “oneness.” In the field of mental health, psychotherapists have been searching for ways to cure the “whole person” by employing gestalt therapy. A gestalt explosion is erupting as the establishment of gestalt therapists and institutions are springing up in the Untied States of America. Enlightened people do not want to be angry and broken and always unhappy. The goal of this activity is to increase human potential through the process of integration of the individual’s sensory awareness, perceptions, and relationships with the outside World. In medicine, a “holistic health” movement has sprung up based on the notion that the well-being of the individual depends on an integration of the physical, the spiritual, and the mental. Mixing quackery with serious medical innovation, the movement has regained enormous strength in this first quarter century. #RandolphHarris 13 of 18
A few decades ago, it would have been unthinkable for the federal government to lend its sponsorship to a conference on health that featured such topics as faith healing, religion, iridology, acupressure, cupping, meditation, and electromedicine. Since then there has been a virtual explosion of interest in alternative healing methods and systems, all of which go under the name of holistic healing. With so much activity, on so many different levels, it is hardly surprising that the terms “wholism” or “holism” should have crept into the popular vocabulary. Today they are used almost indiscriminately. A World Bank expert calls for “a holistic understanding of urban shelter.” A research group in the United States of Congress demands a long-range holistic” studies. A curriculum expert claims to employ “holistic reading and scoring” in teaching school children to write. And several Beverly Hills gyms offer “holistic exercise.” Each of these movements, fads, and cultural currents are different. However, their common element is clear. All of them represent an attack on the assumption that the whole can be understood by studying the parts in isolation. Their thrust is summed up in the words of philosopher Ervin Laszlo, a leading systems theorist: we are “part of interconnection, or short-rage projects and limited controllabilities may lead us to our own destruction.” This attack on the fragmentary, on the partial and analytic has grown so fierce, in fact, that many fanatic “holists” blithely forget the parts in their pursuit of the ineffable whole. The result is not wholism at all but yet another fragmentation. Their wholism is halfism. #RandolphHarris 14 of 18
More thoughtful critics, however, seek to balance the old Second Wave analytic skills with a much greater emphasis on synthesis. This idea is perhaps most clearly expressed by ecologist Eugene P. Odum in urging his colleagues to combine wholism with reductionism—to look at whole systems as well as their parts. “As components are combined to produce larger functional wholes,” he declared when he and his more famous brother, Howard, jointly won the Prix de l’Institut de la Vie, “new properties emerge that were not present or not evident at the next level below. This is not to say that we abandon reductionist science, since a great deal of good has resulted for humankind from this approach,” but that the time has come to give equal backing to studies of “large-scale integrated systems.” Taken together, systems theory, ecology, and the generalized emphasis on wholistic thinking—like our changing conceptions of time and space—are part of the cultural attack on the intellectual premises of Second Wave civilization. That attack reaches its culmination, however, in the emerging new view of why things happen as they do: the new causality. Strictly speaking, there is no such thing as a simple form of government. A single leader must have subordinate magistrates; a popular government must always have a leader. Thus in the distribution of the executive power there is always a gradation from the greater to lesser number, with the difference that sometimes the greater number depends on the few, and sometimes the few depend on the greater number. At times the distribution is equal, either when the constitutive parts are in a state of mutual dependence, as in the government of England; or when authority of each part is independent but imperfect, as in Poland. This latter form is bad, since there is no unity in government and the state lacks a bond of unity. #RandolphHarris 15 of 18
Which one is better, a simple or a mixed form of government? A question much debated among political theorists, to which the same reply must be given that I gave above regarding every form of government. In itself the simple form of government is the best, precisely because it is simple. However, when the executive power is not sufficiently dependent upon the legislative power, that is to say, when there is more of a ratio between the prince and the sovereign than between the people and the prince, this defect in the proportion must be remedied by diving the government; for then all of its parts have no less authority over the subjects, and their division makes all of them together less forceful against the sovereign. The same disadvantage can also be prevented through the establishment of intermediate magistrates, who, by being utterly separate from the government, serve merely to balance the two powers and to maintain their respective rights. In that case, the government is not mixed; it is tempered. The opposite difficulty can be remedied by similar means. And when the government is too slack, tribunals can be set up to give it a concentrated focus. This is done in all democracies. In the first case the government is divided in order to weaken it, and in the second to strengthen it. For the maximum of force and weakness are found equally in the simple forms of government, while the mixed forms of government provide an intermediate amount of strength. Communism has a fanatic hostility to all spiritual enlightenment and is inspired by the same dark forces that inspired the fanatic hostility of Nazism. This inner war between good and evil goes on at all times; the military World war was but a dramatic outward representation of it. The dangers to which humanity was exposed to did not vanish. #RandolphHarris 16 of 18
Those unseen powers still exist. What they could not achieve through a straightforward conflict, they will desperately try to achieve through a confused one. This indeed is the next phase of experience through which we are going though an which we have to endure. Fear came because of the evil report. Fear is belief in the enemy. When one is afraid something will happen, that means one believes it will happen. If one is afraid something bad will happen, that means one has more faith in the adversary’s ability to hinder one than one has in God’s ability to put one over. “Let us therefore fear. We can insert the word believe here. Let us therefore believe, lest, a promise being left us of entering into one’s rest, any of you should seem to come short of it. For unto us was the gospel preached, as well as unto them: but the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it,” reports Hebrew 4.1-2. The Word preached did not profit them because it was not mixed with faith. They did not mix faith with what they heard. When we pray, we must mix faith with our words. Just saying words is not prayer. Mix faith with your words. In Mark 11.24 Jesus tells us to believe that we receive our desires when we pray. One translation says, “Believe that you received them.” If I do that when I pray, I must mix faith with my words: Father, I thank You for You have heard me and I believe that I have received. Someone says, “Why do you not just believe it and not say anything?” Here are five reasons. One shall have whatsoever one saith (Mark 11.23). Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks (Matthew 12.34). We also believe, and therefore speak (2 Corinthians 4.13). So then faith come by hearing, and hearing by the word of God (Romans 10.17). For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without work is dead also (James 2.26). Your words are the spirit of your faith. #RandolphHarris 17 of 18
May the blessing of light be on you, light without and light within. May the blessed sunshine shine on you and warm your heart till it glows like a great peat fire so that the stranger may come and warm oneself at it, and also a friend. And may the light shine out of the two eyes of you, like a candle set in the two windows of a house, budding the wanderer come in out of the storm; and may the blessings of the rain be on you—the soft, sweet rain. May it fall upon your spirit so that all the little flowers may spring up and shed their sweetness on the air. And may the blessings of the Great Rains be so on you, may the beat upon your spirit and wash it fair and clean, and leave there many a shining pool where the blue of Heaven shines, and sometimes a star. And may the blessing of the Earth be on you—the great round Earth; may you ever have a kindly greeting for those you pass as you are going along the roads. May the Earth be soft under you when you rest upon it, tired at the end of a day, and may it rest easy over you when at the last, you lay under it; may it rest so lightly over you that your soul may be off from under it quickly and up and off, and on its way to God. And now may the Lord bless you all and bless you kindly. Return in mercy to America, Thy city, and dwell therein as Thou hast promised. Rebuild it in our own day as an enduring habitation, and speedily set up therein the throne of the king. Blessed art Thou, who rebuilds America. Cause the dynast of America soon to flourish and may it be exalted through Thy saving power, for we daily await Thy deliverance. Blessed art Thou, O Lord, who causes salvation to come forth. Hear our voice, O Lord our God, have compassion upon us and receive our prayers in loving favour for Thou, O God, hearkenest unto prayers and supplications. Turn us not from Thy presence without Thy blessing, O our King, for Thou hearest the prayers of Thy people America with compassion. Blessed art Thou, O Lord, who hearkenest unto prayer. #RandolphHarrus 18 of 18
Cresleigh Homes
With 4 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms, Mills Station Residence 4 is the largest home in the community…
But sometimes you just need a tiny guest house for the smallest visitors. 👶 But don’t worry; we’re keeping a watchful eye from the porch!
Estimated Completion for this Home: December 2021
4051 Audris Way, Rancho Cordova, 95742
Homesite 40 at Mills Station is a Residence Four, boasting 2,692 square feet as the largest home in the community. The open concept design includes four bedrooms, three and one half bathrooms, two car garage plus workshop, and a covered California Room perfect for outdoor entertaining. https://cresleigh.com/mills-station/new-home-rancho-cordova-homesite-40/
Many People Wanted the Pleasure of an Invitation to a Séance!
Perplexity is leavened by extravagant Victorian beauty, and no casual visitor can see it all. Palatial elegance unfolds with each turn along every path of exploitation of the catacomb. One gazes through oval lens windows now only magnifying the pandemonium of Winchester Boulevard; through them, over a century ago, imagine the warm summer evenings, as Sarah Winchester admired her quiet gardens steeped in the low western sunshine; the bird singing loud in the hawthorn and sycamore of her deer park, the cascading fountains spouting holy water, and the peaceful blossoming orchards vesper calm upon all things. The best tea-things were set out in her best parlour. There was usually a bunch of roses on the table, and Mrs. Winchester was dressed in her light blue muslin, with a rose in her hair. She would arise before her guests like a picture, with the sunshine flickering about her dark hair. She was very sweet, tender and gentle. Many people wanted the pleasure of an invitation to a séance in the Blue Séance Room. Mrs. Winchester would gather together many birds of alien feather. A humans’ own suffering mind must be, of all moral food, the most poisonous for one to feed on. Surround a scorpion with fire and it stings oneself to death. Throw a diseased soul entirely upon its own resources and moral suicide result. It was a principle with Mrs. Winchester to oppose bullying. She believed we were here on this Earth for a definite purpose–and God’s duty plain to any human who wills to read it. There may be disembodied spirits who seek to distress or annoy where they can no longer control. If there are, hers, which is not yet divorces from its means to material action, declines to be influenced by any irresponsible whimsy. #RandolphHarris 1 of 16
Mrs. Winchester was very happy in her new home. She had been used to keeping her father’s house since her early girlhood days, and her shortly lived matronly duties came very easy to her. The expansive Victorian mansion, with its neat furniture and fresh dimity draperies, 160 rooms, 10,000 windows, nine kitchens, and 47 fireplaces was the pretties thing possible in the way of rustic interiors; the estates was like a temple dedicated to some Heavenly divinity, and Mrs. Winchester took a natural womanly pride in this bright home. She had come from a good house; but this was quite her own. For 38 years, 1884-1922, the sound of saw and hammer never ceased. Commonly, 16 carpenters were employed at one time, some having worked for 20 years without changed. They produced the largest, most complicated and exclusively private residents in the United States of America. There are five different heating systems and three elevators, one hydraulic and two electric. Some of the 13 bathrooms lacked privacy; they have clear glass doors! One rambling room has four fireplaces and five hot-air registers. A spiral stairway 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. A linen closet has the area of a three-room apartment; a nearby cupboard is less than one-inched deep. A skylight is placed in the middle of a room, in the floor! Another floor is a series of trap-doors. The visitor must stoop through one door to enter, the next gives clearance for an eight-foot giant. Many stairway turn posts are upside down. Entire walls are built entirely of half-inch, “half-round” strips. #RandolphHarris 2 of 16
Everywhere prevail that uncanny deference to the number 13; 13 stairsteps, 13 hangers in a closet, 13 wall panels, 13 lights in the chandeliers, 13 windows to a room and if necessary to make that number, some placed in an inside wall. One of the guests at this séance was Ludwig Leichhardt. He thought of men and women who had died of a fever the previous year, and the spirits told him to depart for “people who had wished to live, for whom life was full of duties and household joys; whose loss left wide gaps among their kindred, not to be filled again upon this Earth.” Ludwig felt a dull blankness of his existence which he felt—an utter emptiness and hopelessness; nothing to live for in the present, nothing to look forward to in the future. He bragged about how much capital he had in the Bank of Italy and how he could provide Mrs. Winchester with a comfortable life. However, this was to be his last day as a guest at the Winchester mansion. His two great sea chests, containing his clothes, books, and other property had gone to San Francisco by that evening’s luggage train. His last memory of the Winchester would be Mrs. Winchester’s bright tender face looking at him compassionately, as she had looked the day she broke his heart. After the death of her husband and daughter, Mrs. Winchester remained celibate and never remarried. Precious moments went by, and Ludwig pushed his teacup away with a listless air. He got up presently and showed him she to the exit of the mansion, after a brief good evening to all. The sun was low by this time, and the western sky flooded with an orange light. The garden was abloom with roses and honeysuckle. Ludwig Leichhardt fancied her should never look upon such flowers or such a garden again. The mansion seemed to grow dark all at once when he was gone. #RandolphHarris 3 of 16
Adam Worth had also been at the séance that evening and did not seem to care for the tea. Ludwig promised to write Mrs. Winchester to let her know he was safe. The sun had gone down, and there was a long line of crimson yonder in the west above the edge of the estate. All the guest prepared to leave and Mrs. Winchester retired to her chambers for the evening. While laying in bed, Mrs. Winchester heard a bang on a door with a sounding slap. She figured it was just a piece of stupid discourtesy and went back to sleep. The following morning, she swore that one of the rooms on the second floor was not empty—and was quite upset about it—said there was some infernal influence at work in her home. To satisfy her curiosity, she asked her butler Henry to open the door. The light was dim in the room and Mrs. Winchester paused in the corridor outside. His eyes glistened. His features relaxed, and he gave a short sigh, “the room is empty,” said Henry. With some stir of curiosity, Mrs. Winchester slipped out, but had a certain vague wonder in her mind. As she heard, the medium from the night before in the parlour was struggling on the floor, in what looked like an epileptic fit. Mrs. Winchester walked deliberately back to the closed door, as Henry went to hold the medium from doing any injury to herself. Huddled against the massive end wall, and half embedded in it, as it seemed, there lay a shadow. Looking closely, Mrs. Winchester saw that the trap door was not only firmly bolted, but screwed into its socket. She strode off in a fume. She was in an odd frame of mind, and for long moved her sitting-room to and fro, too restless to go to bed, or, as an alternative, to settle down to a book. #RandolphHarris 4 of 16
She could not whistle her mind from the chase of a certain graveyard will-o’-wisp; and on it went stumbling and floundering through bog and mire, until she fell into a state of collapse, and was useful for nothing else. She went to bed and to sleep without difficulty, but was conscious of herself all the time, and of a shadowless horror that seemed to come stealthily out of the corners and to bend over and look at her, and nothing but a curtain or a hanging coat when she started and stared. Over and over again this happened, and Mrs. Winchester’s temperature rose by leaps, and suddenly she saw that is she failed to assert herself, and promptly, fever would leap her in a consuming fire. Then in a moment she broke into a profuse perspiration, and sank exhausted into delicious unconsciousness. Morning found her restored to vigour, but still the with flutter of curiosity in her brain. It worked there all day, and for many subsequent days, and at last it seemed as if her every faculty were honeycombed with its ramifications. Then “this will not do,” Mrs. Winchester thought, but still the tunnelling process went on. As the curious devil mastered her, she grew into such harmony with it that she could shut her eyes no longer to the true purpose of its insistence. It was the closed room about which her thoughts hovered like crows circling round carrion. In the dead waste and middle of a certain night, Mrs. Winchester awoke with a strange, quick recovery of consciousness. There was the passing of a single expiration, and she had been asleep and was awake. She had gone to bed with no sense of premonition or of resolve in a particular direction; she sat up a monomaniac. It was as if, swelling in the silent hours, the tumour of curiosity had come to a head, and in a moment, it was necessary to operate upon it. #RandolphHarris 5 of 16
She made no excuse for her then condition. Mrs. Winchester was convinced she was the victim of some undistinguishable force, that she was an agent under the control of the supernatural. Some thought had been in her mind of late in her position it was her duty to unriddle the mystery of the closed room door. However, time went by. The new year came, and still there was no letter from Ludwig Leichhardt. However, early in January, Henry, the butler came home from the Bank of Italy one afternoon, and told Mrs. Winchester she need not worry herself about her old friend any longer. “Ludwig Leichhardt is safe enough, mistress,” he said. “I was talking to Gilbert, the cashier at the Bank of Italy, this morning, and he told me that Leichhardt wrote to them for $2,000.00 last October from San Francisco, and he has written $1,000.00 more since. He is buying land somewhere—I forget the name of the place—and he’s well and hearty, Gilbert tells me.” However, a sense of fear and constriction was upon Mrs. Winchester. “Well, I’m afraid I’m rather fanciful, Henry; but I could never explain to you what a strange feeling came over me the night Ludwig Leichhardt went away from this estate. It was after I had said goodbye to him, and he had gone back into the mansion, where all was dark and quiet. I sat in the parlour thinking of him, and it seemed as if a voice was saying in my ear that I, nor anyone that care for hum, would ever seen Ludwig Leichhardt again. There wasn’t any such voice of course, you know, Henry, but it seemed like that in my mind; and whenever I’ve thought of poor Ludwig Leichhardt since that time, it has seemed to me like thinking of the dead. Often and often I’ve said to myself, ‘Why, Sarah, you silly thing, you ought to know that he’s safe enough in San Francisco. Ill news travels fast; and if there’d be anything wrong, we should have heard of it somehow.’ But, reason with myself as I would, I have never been able to feel comfortable about him; and thank God for your good news, Henry, and thank you for bring it to me. #RandolphHarris 6 of 16
It has been very unkind of Ludwig not to write. She could not forgive him for his neglect, glad as she was to know he was safe. Then Mrs. Winchester paused for a moment, and confessed, the quick pant of fear seemed to come from her lips. There were sounds about her—the deep breathing of an imprisoned man. She returned to the locked door, and hurriedly flung it open. An acrid whiff of dust assailed her nostrils as she stepped back a pace and stood expectant of anything—or nothing. What did she wish, or dread, or foresee? The room was rather a large one; an old-fashioned room, with a low ceiling crossed by heavy means; half parlour, half kitchen, with a wide-open fireplace at one end, on which the logs had burnt to a dullish red. There was the old chintz-covered armchair. Mrs. Winchester had been sitting with her face towards the open window, looking absently out at the garden, where daffodils and early primroses glimmered through the dusk. She stood to pick up her blueprints, which had fallen to the ground. She was standing folding this in a leisurely way, when she looked towards the fireplace, and gave a little start at seeing that the armchair was no longer empty. “Why, Henry,” she cried, “how quietly you must have come into the place! I never heard you.” There was no answer, and her voice sounded strange to her in the empty room. “Henry!” she repeated, a little louder; but the figure in the chair neither answered nor stirred. Then a sudden fright seized her, and she knew that it was not her butler. The room was almost dark; it was quite impossible that she could see the face of that dark figure seated in the armchair, with the shoulders bent a little over. Yet she knew, as well as ever she had known anything in her life, that it was not the butler Henry. #RandolphHarris 7 of 16
She went slowly towards the fireplace, and stood within a few paces of that strange figure. A little flash of light shot up from the candle, and shone for an instant on the face. It was Ludwig Leichhardt! Mrs. Winchester tried to speak to him; but the words would not come. And yet it was hardly so appalling a thing to see him there that she need have felt what she did. San Francisco was not too far from San Jose that a man may not cross the Bay and drop in upon his friend unexpectedly. The candle’s flame got bigger, lighting up the entire room. The chair was empty. Mrs. Winchester uttered a loud cry, and Henry entered the room. “Why, Mrs. Winchester! What’s amiss?” he said. She ran to him, sobbing hysterically, and then calming herself with an effort, told him how she had seen Ludwig’s ghost. “Why Mrs. Winchester,” Henry replied. “Ludwig Leichhardt is safe in San Francisco. It was a shadow that took the shape of your old friend, to your fancy. It’s easy enough to fancy such a thing when your mind’s full of anyone.” Ill and shaken, yet fearing death as she had never dreaded it before, Mrs. Winchester said, “It was no fancy. Ludwig Leichhardt is dead, and I have seen his ghost. I’ve a feeling that he never got to San Francisco alive, Henry,” she said. “I can’t explain how it is, but I’ve a feeling that it was so.” Mrs. Winchester spent the rest of that horrible night huddled between her crumpled sheets, fearing to look forth, fearing to think. She knew the letters had been forgeries, and could not forget the madness and the terror in learning to walk the unvext paths of placid souls. She was left with nothing but an aimless scurrying terror and the black swarm of thoughts, so that she verily fancied her reason would give under the strain. Yet she had more to endure and to triumph over. Near morning she fell into a troubled sleep, throughout which the drawn twitch of muscle seemed an accent on every word of ill-omen she had ever spelt out of the alphabet of fear. If her body rested, her brain was an open chamber for any toad of ugliness that listed to “sit at squat” in. #RandolphHarris 8 of 16
Mrs. Winchester tried to convince herself that the thing she had seen was only a trick of her imagination. Another month went by, and again in the twilight the same figure appeared to her. It was standing this time, with one arm leaning on the high mantlepiece; standing facing her as she came back to the room, after having quitted it for a few minutes for some slight household duty. There was a fire burning in the fireplace. The logs were burning with a steady blaze that lit up the well-known figure and unforgotten face. Ludwig Leichardt was looking at her with an expression that seemed half reproachful, half beseeching. He was very pale, much paler than she had ever seen him in life; and as he looked, she standing just within the threshold of the door, she saw him lift his hand slowly and point to his forehead. The firelight showed her a dark red stain upon the left temple, like the mark of a contused wound. She covered her face with her hands, shuddering and uttering a little cry of terror, and then dropped half fainting upon a chair. When she uncovered her face the room was empty, there was a pool of blood on the floor, and the firelight shining cheerily upon the walls, no trace of that ghostly visitant. This time Mrs. Winchester brooded over the thoughts of the thing she had seen, firmly believing that she had looked upon the shadow of the dead, and that there was some purpose to be fulfilled by that awful vision. In the day, she had the room boarded up. The thought of this was almost always in her mind; in the dead silence of the night, she would often lie awake for hours thinking of Ludwig Leichhardt. Mrs. Winchester knew he had been waylaid and murdered. He had a good deal of money about him. Suddenly Mrs. Winchester woke to the fact that there was a knocking at her door—that there had been for some little time. She cried, “Come in!” finding a weak restorative in the mere sound of her own human voice; then remember the keys was turned, bade the visitor wait until she could come to him. #RandolphHarris 9 of 16
Scrambling, feeling dazed and white-livered, out of bed, Mrs. Winchester opened the door, and met one of the gentlemen on the threshold. The man looked scared, and his lips, she noticed, were set in a somewhat boding fashion. “Come you come at once, Mrs. Winchester?” he said, “There’s summat wrong with Ludwig Leichhardt. She had now a settled conviction that some untimely fate had befallen her old friend, and that the letters from San Francisco were forgeries. Gilbert from the Bank of Italy compared the signature cards and determined that the drafts and letters were forgeries. There was one thing noticeable in the San Francisco letters—they were all exactly alike, line for line, curve for curve. This rather discomposed Gilbert; for it is a notorious fact that a man rarely signs his name twice in exactly the same manner. There is almost always some difference. Before the month was out, Ludwig Leichhardt’s ghost appeared for the third time to Mrs. Winchester. In the Tender June twilight. She was thinking of her old friend as she walked along the shadowy winding path of the deer park on her estate. It was just such a still, peaceful evening as that upon which he had stood on the edge of the common looking back at her, and waving his hand, upon that last well remembered night. He was so much in her thoughts, and the conviction that he had come from among the dead to visit her was so rooted in her mind, that she was scarcely surprised when she looked up presently, and saw a tall familiar figure moving slowly among the trees a little way before her. There seemed to be an awful stillness in the wood all at once, but there was nothing awful in that well-known figure. She tried to overtake it; but it kept always in advance of her, and at a sudden turn in the path she lost it altogether. The trees grew thicker, and there was a solemn darkness at the spot where the path took this sharp turn, and on one side of the narrow footpath there was a steep declivity and a great hollow, made by a disused gravel pit. #RandolphHarris 10 of 16
She went to her mansion quickly enough, with a subdued sadness upon her, and told Henry what had happened to her. Nor did she rest until there had been a search made on the extensive grounds for the body of Ludwig Leichhardt. They searched and found him lying at the bottom of the gravel pit, half buried in loose sand and gravel, and quite hidden by a mass of furze and bramble that grew over the spot. There was an inquest, of course. The tailor who had made the clothes found upon the body identified them, and swore to them as those he had made for Ludwig Leichhardt. The pocket were all empty and turned inside out. There could be little doubt the Ludwig Leichhardt had been waylaid and murdered for the sake of the money he carried upon him that night. His skull had been shattered by a blow from a jagged stick on the left temple. The stick was found laying at the bottom of the pit a little way from the body, with human hair and stains of blood upon it. Ludwig Leichhardt had never left San Jose. It was later determined that Adam Worth had killed Ludwig Leichhardt and took his money. The Bank of Italy refunded the withdraws. Adam Worth was ultimately apprehended, with some of Ludwig Leichhardt’s property still in his possession, and he was deeply in debt. The final examination resulted in a verdict of willful murder, tried, found guilty and hung. Ludwig Leichhardt had executed a few days before his intended departure, bequeathing all he possessed to Sarah Winchester—the interest for her sole use and benefit, the principal to revert to her estate after her death. Mrs. Winchester often sits beside that quiet resting place in the spring twilight; but she had never seen Ludwig Leichhardt’s ghost since that evening in the deer park, and she knew she never would see it again. She shook with an awful thankfulness at sight of the pitfalls she had skirted and escaped—of the demon she witlessly had baffled. The joy of life was in her heart again, but chastened and made pitiful by experience. #RandolphHarris 11 of 16
You are aware that evil spirit beings operating through humans in positions of authority and influence are the real motivators in human society? Yes, this is exactly what the Christian Bible teaches! Perhaps this concept seems strange to you, almost like an outmoded superstition, but the Bible definitely states that Satan in the “god of this age,” reports 2 Corinthians 4.4, and that he is the leader of a well-organized army of beings invisible to humans but very active among them. Paul tells us in Ephesians, “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,” reports Ephesians 6.12. These words indicate that evil spirits are organized into a military-like structure. The “principalities” are the highest ranking officers under Satan, the “powers” are officials of somewhat lower standing, and the “rulers of the darkness of this World” seem to be a special band of evil spirits whose sphere of influence includes the leaders of human government. The phrase “spiritual wickedness is high places” is better translated “spiritual hosts of wickedness in the Heavenly places,” and makes reference to the myriads of demonic hordes. They are all under the direction of Satan, who is not only named the “god of this age,” but also is called “the prince of the power of the air,” reports Ephesians 2.2. The Scriptures often speak of a close relationship between these evil spiritual and the “World.” In the Ephesians passage quoted above, you will remember that these spirit beings are called “the rulers of the darkness of this World.” The apostle John also refers to the World, and it is significant that he considers it to be the Christian’s enemy. “Love not the World, neither the things that are in the World. If any human love the World, the love of the Father is not in one. For all that is in the World, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Farther, but is of the World. And the World passeth away, and the lust of it; but one that doeth the will of God abideth forever,” reports 1 John 2.15-17. #RandolphHarris 12 of 16
In addition, the same apostle declared that one who is “born of God overcometh the World,” reports 1 John 5.4, and also that “the whole World lieth in wickedness,” reports 1 John 5.19. James, the brother of Jesus, declared in his epistle, “Whosoever therefore, will be a friend of the World, is the enemy of God,” reports James 4.4. Before we can gain a full understanding of what this means, we must answer the following questions: What is this World, which if loved causes us to lose God’s friendship? What does the Bible mean when it says that the whole World “lieth in wickedness”? Certainly the Bible is not saying that Christians should not love the World of nature, nor is it implying that every person who is not a Christian is an enemy to be overcome. In fact, the Scriptures often state that the glory of God is revealed in the natural World, and it specifically instructs believers not to antagonize other people, but to love them. No, the material Universe in which we live is not opposed to us, and we are not to consider the people who inhabit the Earth as our enemies. The “World” referred to by John and James is the moral and spiritual system we call human society. Humankind, which has rejected God’s revelation, has devised explanations of life, moral standards, and principles of conduct based upon human knowledge only. Humans, on the whole, operate on erroneous principles, selfish desires, improper motives, and unworthy standards of value. The sciences, the arts, politics, and entertainment are all dominated by a humanistic approach to life which draws humans away from God and makes humans the “measure of all things.” If the period of treated of in the essay from the commencement of the seventeenth century to the Restoration of Charles II, be barren of witchcraft proper, it must at least be admitted that it is prodigal in regard to the marvellous under various shapes and forms, from which the hysterical state of the public mind can be fairly accurately gauged. #RandolphHarris 13 of 16
The rebellion of 1641, and the Cromwellian confiscations, that troubled periods when the county was torn by dissention, and ravaged by fire, sword, and pestilence, was aptly ushered in by a series of supernatural events which occurred in the country Limerick. A letter dated the 13th August 1640, states that “for news we have the strangest that ever was heard of, there inchantments in the Lord of Castleconnell’s Castle four miles from Lymerick, several sorts of noyse, sometymes of drums and trumpets, sometimes of other curious musique with Heavenly vouces, then fearful screeches, and such outcries that the neighbours near cannot sleepe. Priests have adventured to be there, but have been cruelly beaten for their paynes, and carryed away they knew not how, some two miles and some four miles. Moreover were seen in the like manner, after they appear to the view of the neighbours, infinite number of armed men on foote as well as on horseback. One thing more [id est something supernatural] by Mrs. Mary Burke with tweleve servants lyes in the hose, and never one hurt, onley they must dance with them every night; they say, Mrs. Mary come away, telling her she must be wife to the inchanted Earl of Desmond. Uppon a Mannour of my Lord Bishoppe of Lymerick, Loughill, hath been seen upon the hill by most of the inhabitants aboundance of armed men marching, and these seene many tymes—and when they come up to them they do not appear. These things are very strange, if the cleargie and gentrie say true.” During the rebellion an appalling massacre of Protestants took place at Portadown, when about a hundred persons, men, women, and children, were forced over the bridge into the river, and so drowned; the few that could swim, and so managed to reach the shore, were either knocked on the head by the insurgents when they landed, or else were shit. #RandolphHarris 14 of 16
It is not a matter of surprise that this terrible incident gave rise to legends and stories in which anything strange or out of the common was magnified out of all proportion. Accord to one deponent there appeared one evening in the river “a vision or spirit assuming the shape of a woman, waist high, upright in the water, naked with [illegible] in her hand, her hair dishevelled, her eyes seeming to twinkle in her head, and her skin as white as snow; which spirit seeming to stand upright in the water often repeated the word Revenge! Revenge! Revenge! Also, Robert Maxwell, Archdeacon of Down, swore that the rebels declared to him, (and some deponents made similar statements) “that most of those that were thrown from the bridge were daily and nightly seen to walk upon the River, sometimes singing Psalms, sometimes brandishing of Swords, sometimes screeching in a most hideous and fearful manner.” Both these occurrences are capable of a rational explanation. The supposed spectre was probably a poor, bereaved woman, demented by grief and terror, who stile out of her hiding-place at night to bewail the murder of her friends, while the weird cries arose from the half-starved dogs of the country-side, together with the wolves which abounded in Ireland at that period, quarrelling and fighting over the corpses. Granting the above, and bearing in mind the credulity of all classes of Society, it is not difficult to see how the tales originated; but to say that, because such obviously impossible statements occur in certain despsitions, the latter are therefore worthless as a whole, is to willfully misunderstand the popular mind of the seventeenth century. We have the following on the testimony of the Rev. George Creighton, minister of Virginia, Co. Cavan. He tells us that “drivers women brought to his House a young woman, almost naked, to whom a Rogue came upon the way, these women being present, and required her to give him her mony, or else he would kill her, and so drew his sword; her answer was, You cannot kill me unless God gives you leave, and His will be done. #RandolphHarris 15 of 16
“Thereupon the Rogue thrust three times at her naked body with his drawn sword, and never pierced her skin; whereat he being, as it seems, much confounded, went away and left her.” A like story comes from the other side: “At the taking of the Newry a revel being appointed to be shot upon the bridge, and stripped stark-naked, nothing withstanding the musketeer stood within two yards of him, and shot him in the middle of the back, yet the bullet entered not, nor did him any more hurt than leave a little black spot behind it. This many hundreds were eye-witnesses of. Divers of the like have I confidently been assured of, who have been provided of diabolical charms.” Similar tales of persons bearing charmed lives could not doubt be culled from the records of every way that has been fought on this planet of ours since History began. The ease with which the accidental or unusual was transformed into the miraculous at this period is shown by the following. A Dr. Tate and his wife and children were flying to Dublin from the insurgents. On their way they were wandering over commons covered with snow, without any food. The wife was carrying a sucking child, John, and having no milk to give it she was about to lay it down in despair, when suddenly “on the Brow of a Bank she found a Suck-bottle with sweet milk in it, no Footsteps appearing in the snow of any that should bring it thither, and far from any Habitation; which preserved the child’s life, who after became a Blessing to the Church.” The Dr. Tate mentioned above was evidently the Rev. Faithful Tate, D.D., father of Nahum Tate of “Tate and Brady” fame. Much of what has passed current in the New World as White (id est, permissible) Magic is only a disguised goeticism, and may of the resplendent angels invoke with the divine rites reveal their cloven hoofs. It is not too much to say that a large majority of past psychological experiments were conducted to establish communication with demons, and that for unlawful purposes. The popular conceptions concerning the diabolical spheres, which have been all accredited by magic, may have been gross exaggerations of fact concerning rudimentary and perverse intelligences, but the willful viciousness of the communicants is substantially untouched thereby. #RandolphHarris 16 of 16
Happy Early Turkey Day! 🦃
The Winchester Mystery House will be closed on Thursday, Nov. 25 in observance of the Thanksgiving holiday and will reopen on Friday, Nov. 26! winchestermysteryhouse.com
When Asked His Name He Said “Legion” Because Many Demons Were Entered into Him!
It is easy to imagine how the combined grief of losing both a child and a spouse could be very crippling. However, if you have $20,000,000 (2021 inflation adjusted $347,910,691.82), and all the time in the World to help you cope, what would you do? Mrs. Sarah L. Winchester’s response to the deaths of her child and husband left a bizarre and impressive architectural reflection of her soul. After a series of violent confrontations, the Winchester Repeating Arms Company hires a private investigator to follow her. Mrs. Winchester ascends into mystery and it is soon clear that she is hiding a much bigger secret—one that is both inexplicable and shocking. A “possessed” person may have symptoms much like those that are apparent in the mentally ill. One may be deeply melancholic or depressed, appear to be withdrawn from reality, or may manifest emotions that range from ecstatic joy to violent screaming or wild ferocity. These various states may present themselves from time to time during “attacks.” Demon possession may be distinguished from insanity, however, by observing the manner in which the afflicted person speaks. An insane individual may have a mistaken concept of one’s own identity, wear clothing by which one attempts to look like the person one thinks oneself to be, but speak in one’s own voice, and in such a manner that one can tell one is doing only a superficial impersonation of the individual one thinks oneself to be. A demon-possessed person, on the other hand, is obviously controlled by the indwelling evil spirit. The wicked being may use a language or dialect the individual never knew, and sometimes will name oneself. Therefore, one should carefully note the symptoms of a disturbed person, never making the diagnosis of demon possession on the basis of a superficial judgment. #RandolphHarris 1 of 16
If a believer should meet a demon-possessed individual, one would be unwise to make a frontal attack upon the powers of darkness by immediately issuing a command in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Dr. Kurt Koch, an evangelical Christian who has made a lifetime study of Satan and occultic activities, declares that whenever Christians lightly engage in an effort to cast out demons, they run the risk of being attacked by evil spirits. Such people often suffer deep spiritual depression and find themselves in an attitude of complete hopelessness. Since this is true, a believer should band together with others in a time of prayer, and no efforts should be made to expel the evil spirits until the Holy Spirit prompts someone to issue the command. Unbelievers and adherents of the non-Christian religions apparently can command evil spirits without suffering bad consequences. Archeologists have found manuscripts containing incantations and magical formulas for the expulsion of demons; and today in the Philippines and other countries of the far East, as well as in some areas of South America and Africa, pagan religious leaders seriously perform rituals to ward off or cast out evil spirits. Sometimes they beat the person who is demon-possessed, prick one with needles, or even burn portions of one’s body, thinking that this pain will drive out the evil spirits. The Jewish people in Christ’s day also used spells, magical phrases, and religious rituals to expel demons. That they sometimes appeared to be successful is clear, for Jesus said, “if I, by Beelzebub, cast out demons, by whom do your sons cast them out? Therefore, they shall be your judges,” reports Matthew 12.27. #RandolphHarris 2 of 16
In this statement the Lord Jesus Christ acknowledged that evil spirits sometimes left the bodies of their victims when incantations, spells, or magical rites were used by Jewish religious leaders. However, Christ did not say these men accomplished their goal by the power of God, nor did He imply that they were actually doing damage to the cause of Satan. He was answering the charge that He was casting out demons in the power of Beelzebub, the prince of demons. He declared that is such were the case, the kingdom of Satan would be divided against itself. Actually, the exorcists, whether Jewish or pagan, did not really possess authority over the invisible World, but the evil spirits merely cooperated with them, leaving the bodies of some of their victims to give the appearance that they had been forced out. By working with these unbelieving sorcerers, the devil aided his own cause. The demons either temporarily left the person, only to return a short time later, or entered the body of some other victim. No one should attempt to deal with the forces of evil by using the name of Jesus unless one is a child of God. Luke, in Acts 19, graphically portrays the seriousness of hypocritically dealing with the powers of darkness. Seven sons of Sceva, a professional exorcist who had no personal faith in Christ, tried to combine the words “in the name of Jesus” with their magical formula. The evil spirits, recognizing that these impostors had no right to use Jesus’s name, reacted in a violent manner. The demon-possessed individual attacked these men with superhuman strengths, so that with torn clothing and bleeding bodies they fled from the Winchester mansion. The frequency of demon possession—the record of history establishes without a doubt that demon possession was known before the Lord Jesus Christ came to Earth, and the testimony of missionaries indicates that it has continued down through the centuries. #RandolphHarris 3 of 16
The public ministry of Christ, however, was accompanied by an outburst of demon possession unparalleled in history. It seems that Satan threw all his power into his battle with Jesus Christ. True, the devil is not omniscient, but he knew that Christ had come to earth to atone for sin, conquer death, and bring about the defeat of evil. John tells us that “the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil,” reports 1 John 3.8. Satan used every device at his disposal to frustrate the purpose of God in Christ. Subtle temptations, the wrath and wickedness of men, and a rash of demonic activity were part of his vain effort to prevent Jesus from performing the work He had come to accomplish. Demon possession gradually subsided during the first century A.D., and usually is not conspicuous in areas where a fairly large percentage of people have placed their faith in Jesus Christ. It appears that demons are hesitant to enter the bodies of people when informed believers are likely to cast them out in the name of Christ. Luke is the same one that is translated “bottomless pit” seven times in the book of the Revelation. We read, “And Jesus asked him, saying, ‘What is thy name?’ And he said, ‘Legion’; because many demons were entered into him. And they besought him that he would not command them to go out into the deep. And there was there and herd of many swine, feeding on the mountain; and they besought him that he would allow them to enter into them. And he permitted them,” reports Luke 8.30-32. Revelation 9 tells us that at some future time the “bottomless pit” will be opened, and a great army of evil spirits will be set free to plague humankind. #RandolphHarris 4 of 16
It is at least a possibility that whenever demons are cast out of a human being in the name of Jesus Christ, they are sent to the bottomless pit, and will not be released until shortly before Christ returns to establish His kingdom. The realization that they will lose their freedom as members of the army of the “prince of the power of the air,” and be confined in the pit for an indefinite period of time, makes them hesitant to take possession of human beings. The risk is too great in an area where Christians exercise their authority in the name of Christ. People who live in civilized countries where the Gospel has been known for centuries should not rule out the possibility of demon possession, however, just because it has not been a common occurrence in these areas. Satan and his cohorts may conclude that most people, even professing Christians, will not recognize this phenomenon when they meet it. Therefore, as this age draws to a close, Satan may once again become very active in entering human bodies and controlling personalities. He will hope that the majority of humankind will either be deceived into following him or find a naturalistic explanation for the activities of the demons. This supernatural manifestation of the power of Satan and evil spirits is clearly predicted by the apostle Paul. In his second letter to the Thessalonian believers, he declares that just before Christ returns in glory, the devil will have his righthand mand upon the earth performing miracles which make him appear to be a god. Referring to the Antichrists, the apostle says, “Even him whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish, because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved,” reports 2 Thessalonian 2.9, 10. #RandolphHarris 5 of 16
Inasmuch as we can expect an increase of open opposition to God on the part of the Satanic hordes, we know Christ should humbly maintain fellowship with Him through full submission and ready obedience so that we may receive from Him the strength we need to overcome. James writes, “God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble. Submit yourselves, therefore, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you,” reports James 4.6-7. Peter declares, “Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary the devil, like a roaring lion walketh about, seeking whom he may devour; whom resist steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in the World,” reports 1 Peter 5.8-9. No, Satan is not dead. He is like a wounded animal and still has great power to harm those who care careless or proud. Therefore, keep awake, be on alert, read the Christian Bible and the Book of Mormon, and pray! If you do not, he may destroy your effectiveness as a Christian. For the next instance of witchcraft and the supernatural in connection with Ireland, we are compelled to go beyond the confines of our own country. Though in this connection with the Green Isle is slight, yet it is of interest as affording an example of that blending of fairy lore with sorcery which is not an uncommon feature of Scottish witchcraft-trials. In the year 1613 a woman named Margaret Barclay, of Irvine in Scotland, was accused of having her brother-in-law’s ship to be cast away by magical spell. A certain strolling vagabond and juggler, John Stewart, was apprehended as her accomplice; he admitted (probably under torture) that Margaret had applied to him to teach her some magic arts in others that “she might get gear, kye’s milk, love of man, her heart’s desire on such persons as had done her wrong.” #RandolphHarris 6 of 16
Through John Stewart does not appear to have granted Margaret’s request, yet he gave detailed information as to the manner in which he had gained the supernatural power and knowledge with which he was credited. “It being demanded of him by what means he profession himself to have knowledge of things to come, the said John confessed that the space of twenty-six years ago, he being travelling on All-Hallow Even night between the towns of Monygoif and Clary, in Galway, he met with the King of the Fairies and his company, and that the King gave him a stroke with a white rod over the forehead, which took from him the power of speech and the use of one eye, which he wanted for the space of three years. He declared that the use of speech and eyesight was restored to him by the King of Fairies and his company on a Hallowe’en night at the town of Dublin.” At his subsequent meeting with the fairy band, he was taught all his knowledge. The spot on which he was struck remained impervious to pain although a pin was thrust into it. The unfortunate wretch was cast into prison, and there committed suicide by hanging himself from the “cruik” of the door with his garter or bonnet-string, and so “ended his life miserably with the help of the devil his master.” A tale slightly resembling portion of the above comes from the north of Ireland a few years later. “It is storied, and the story is true,” says Robert Law in his Memorialls, “of a godly man in Ireland, who lying one day in the fields sleeping, he was struck with dumbness and deafness. The same man, during this condition he was in, could tell things, and had the knowledge of things in a strange way, which he had not before; and did, indeed, by signs make things known to others which they knew not. Afterwards he at length, prayer being made from him by others, came to the use of his tongue and ears; but when that knowledge of things he had in his deaf and dumb condition ceased, and when he was asked how he had the knowledge of these things he made signs of, he answered he had that knowledge when dumb, but how and after what manner he knew not, only he had the impression thereof in his spirit. This story was related by a godly minister, Mr. Robert Blair, to Mr. John Baird, who knew the truth of it.” #RandolphHarris 7 of 16
The Rev. Robert Blair, M.A., was a celebrated man, if for no other reason than on account of his disputes with Dr. Echlin, Bishop of Down, or for his description of Oliver Cromwell as a greeting (id est, weeping) devil. On the invitation of Lord Claneboy he arrived in Ireland in 1623, and in the same year was settled as (Presbyterian) parish minister at Bangor in Co. Down, with the consent of patron and people’ he remained there until 1631, when he was suspended by Dr. Echlin, and was deposed and excommunicated in November, 1634. He has left a few writings behind him, and was grandfather of the poet Robert Blair, author of The Grave. During the years of his ministry at Bangor the following incident occurred to him, which he of course attributes to demonic possession, through homicidal mania resulting from intemperate habits would be nearer the truth. One day a rich man, the constable of the perish, called upon him in company with one of his tenants concerning the baptizing of the latter’s child. “When I had spoken what I thought necessary, and was ready to turn into my house, the constable dismissing the other told me he had something to say to me in private. I looking upon him saw his eyes like the eyes of a cat in the night, did presently conceive that he had a mischief in his heart, yet I resolved not to refuse what he desired, but I keeped a watchful eye upon him, and stayed at some distance; and being near to the door of the church I went in, and invited him to follow me. As soon as he entered within the doors he fell atrembling, and I awondering. His trembling continuing and growing without any speech, I approached to him, and invited him to a seat, wherein he could hardly sit. The great trembling was like to throw him out of the seat. I laid my arm about him, and asked him what ailed him? But for a time, he could speak none. #RandolphHarris 8 of 16
“At last his shaking ceased, and he began to speak, telling me, that for a long time the Devil had appeared to him; first at Glasgow he bought a horse from him, receiving a sixpence in earnest, and that in the end he offered to him a great purse full of sylver to be his, making no mention of the horse; he said that he blessed himself, and so the buyer with the sylver and gold that was poured out upon the table vanished. But some days thereafter he appeared to him at his own house, naming him by his name, and said to him, Ye are mine, for I arled you with a sixpence, which yet ye have. Then said he, I asked his name, and he answered, they call me Nickel Downus (I suppose the he repeated evil, that he should have said Nihil Damus). Being thus molested with these and many other apparitions of the Devil, he left Scotland; but being come to Ireland he did often likewise appear to him, and now of late he still commands me to kill and slay; and oftentimes, says he, my whinger hath been drawn and kept under my cloak to obey his commands, but still something holds my hand that I cannot stroke. But then I asked him who he was bidden kill? He answered, any that comes in my way; but ‘The better they be the better service to me, or else I shall kill thee.’ When he uttered these words he fell again atrembling, and was stopped in his speaking, looking lamentably at me, designing me to be the person he aimed at; then he fell a crying and lamenting. I showed him the horribleness of his ignorance and drunkenness; he made many promises of reformation, which were not well keep’d; for within a fortnight he went to an alehouse to crave the price of his malt, and sitting there long at drink, as he was going homeward the Devil appeared to him, and challenged him for opening to me what had passed betwixt them secretly, and followed him to the house, pulling his cap off his head and his band from about his neck, saying to him, ‘On Hallow-night I shall have thee, soul and body, in despite of the minister and of all that he will do for thee.’” #RandolphHarris 9 of 16
In his choice of a date his Satanic Majesty showed his respect for popular superstitions. This attack of delirium tremens (though Mr. Blair would not have so explained it) had a most salutary effect; the constable was in such an abject state of terror lest the Devil should carry him off that he begged Mr. Blair to sit up with him all Hallow-night, which he did, spending the time very profitably in prayer and exhortation, which encouraged the man to defy Satan and all his works. The upshot of the matter was, that he became very charitable to the poor, and seems to have entirely renounced his intemperate habits. Rejecting the supernatural elements in the above as being merely the fruits of a diseased mind, there is no reason to doubt the truth of the story. Mr. Blair also met with some strange cases of religious hysteria, which became manifest in outbursts of weeping and bodily convulsions, but which he attributed to the Devil’s “playing the ape, and counterfeiting the works of the Lord.” He states that one Sunday, in the midst of public worship, “one of my charge, being a dull and ignorant person, made a noise and stretching of her body. Incontinent I was assisted to rebuke that lying spirit that disturbed the worship of God, charging the same not to disturb the congregation; and through God’s mercy we met with no more of that work.” Thus modestly our writer sets down what happened in his Autobiography; but the account of the incident spread far and wide, and at length came to the ears of Archbishop Usher, who, on his next meeting with Mr. Blair, warmly congratulated him on the successful exorcism he had practised.” Spirits of a diabolical and infernal nature, are not only ready upon all occasions to become subservient to exorcists and magicians, but are ever watching opportunities of exciting evil affections in the mind, and of stirring up the wickedly inclined to the commission of every species of iniquity and vice. #RandolphHarris 10 of 16
Thus by the instigation of infernal spirits, and their own promptitude, they often terrify humans with nocturnal visions; provoke melancholy people to suicide; tempt drunkards and incendiaries to set houses on fire, to burn those who are in them, and allure careless servants and others to sound and incautious sleep; that such unlucky accidents might happen besides innumerable other ways they have of executing the devices of iniquitous spirits through malicious instigations, or secret stratagems, projected for the overthrow and destruction of mortal men; especially when the work to be effected by the devil is too hard for his subtle and spiritual nature to effect, because the same belongs to the outward source or principle to which these dubious spirits more immediately belong. A few nights into Christmas, there was a festival for which the Winchester mansion was making extensive preparations. The narrow streets which had been thronged with people were now almost deserted. In the comfortable coffee-room of the Winchester mansion, Mrs. Winchester had half a dozen guests, principally commercial travellers, sat talking by light of the fire. The talk had drifted from trade to politics, from politics to religion, and so by easy stages to the supernatural. In the flicker of the light of the fire, as it shone on the glasses and danced with shadows on the walls, the conversation proved so enthralling that Henry, the waiter, whose presence had been forgotten, created a very disagreeable sensation by suddenly starting up from a dark corner and gliding silently from the room. Mrs. Winchester then said, “Of course, it is an old idea that spirits like to get into the company of human beings. A man told me once that he travelled down the Great Western with a ghost and had not the slightest suspicion of it until the inspector came for tickets. My friend said they way that ghost tried to keep up appearances by feeling for it in all its pockets and looking on the floor was quite touching. Ultimately it gave it up and with a faint groan vanished through the ventilator.” #RandolphHarris 11 of 16
“That’ll do, Mrs. Winchester,” said Ludwig Leichhardt. “It is not a subject for jesting,” said Adam Worth,” who had been an attentive listener. “I’ve never seen an apparition myself, but I know people who have, and I consider that they form a very interesting link between us and the after-life. There’s a ghost story connected with this mansion, you know.” “Never heard of it,” said Edward Agar, “and I have visiting this estate for some years now.” “It dates back a long time,” said Ludwig. “You’ve heard about John V. Creely also know as Jesus Procopio?” “Well, I’ve just ‘eard odds and ends, sir” said the Edward, “but I never put much count to ‘em. There was one chap ‘ere what said ‘e saw it, and the gov’ner sacked ‘im prompt.” “My father was a native of this town,” said Ludwig, “and knew the story well. He was a truthful man and a steady churchgoer, but I’ve heard him declare that once in his life he saw the appearance of Jesus Procopio in this mansion.” “And who was this Jesus?” enquired a voice. “His real name was Tomaso Rodendo, one of the most fearless and daring desperadoes that has ever figures in the criminal annals of our state. Anything he could turn his dishonest hand to,” replied Ludwig; “and he was run to Earth in this mansion one Christmas week some five years ago. He took his last supper in this very room, and after he had gone up to bed a couple of thief takers, who had followed him from San Francisco but lost the scent a bit, went upstairs with Mrs. Winchester and tried the door. It was stout oak, and fast, so one went into the yard, and by means of a short ladder got on the window-sill, while the other stayed outside the door. Those below in the yard saw the man crouching on the sill, and then there was a sudden smash of glass, and with a cry he fell in a heap on the stones at their feet. Then in the moonlight they saw the white face of the pickpocket peeping over the sill, and while some stayed in the yard, others ran into the mansion and helped the other man to break the door in. It was difficult to obtain an entrance even then, for it was barred with heavy furniture, but they got in at last, and the first thing that met their eyes was the body of Jesus dangling from the top of the bed by his own handkerchief.” #RandolphHarris 12 of 16
“Which bedroom was it?” asked two or three voices together. Ludwig shook his head. “That I can’t tell you; but the story goes that Jesus still haunts this mansion, and my father used to declare that the last time he had slept here that the ghost of Jesus Procopio lowered itself from the top of his bed and tried to strangle him.” “That will do” said John Creely. “I wish you’d thought to ask your father which bedroom it was.” “I believe it was my Blue Séance room said,” Mrs. Winchester. “Well, I should take care not to sleep in it, that’s all, said John shortly. “There’s nothing to fear,” said Ludwig. “I don’t believe for a moment that ghosts could really hurt one. In fact my father used to confess that it was only the unpleasantness of the thing that upset him, and that for all practical purposes Jesus’s figures might have been made of cotton-wool for all the hard they could do.” “That’s all very fine,” said John; “a ghost story is a ghost story, sir; but when a gentleman tells a tale of a ghost in the house in which one is going to sleep, I call it most ungentlemanly!” “Pooh! Nonsense!” said Ludwig, rising, “ghosts can’t hurt you. For my own part; I should rather like to see one. Good night.” “Good night,” said Mrs. Winchester and the others. “And I hope that Jesus will pay you a visit,” added John as the door closed.” “Shall I light the gas, Adam?” said Henry. “No; the fires very comfortable,” he said. “Now gentlemen, any of you know any more?” “I think we’ve had enough,” said John; “we shall be thinking we see spirits next, and we’re not all like Ludwig who’s just gone.” Old humbug!” said John. “I should like to put him to the test. Suppose I dress up as Jesus Procopio and go to give him a chance of displaying his courage?” “Bravo!” said Adam huskily, drowning one or two faint “Noes.” “No, drop it, John” said Edward. “Only for the joke,” said John, somewhat eagerly. “I’ve got some things upstairs in which I am going to play in the ‘Rivals’—knee-breeches, buckles, and all that sort of thing. It’s a rare chance. If you’ll wait a bit I’ll give you a full-dress rehearsal, entitled, ‘Jesus Procopio; or, The Nocturnal Strangler.’” #RandolphHarris 13 of 16
“You won’t frighten us,” said Adam, with a husky laugh. “I don’t know that,” said John sharply; “it’s a question of acting that’s all. I’m pretty good, ain’t I, Edward?” “Oh, you’re all right—for an amateur,” said Edward, with a laugh. “I’ll bet you level sov. You don’t frighten me,” said Adam. “Done! said John. I’ll take the bet to frighten you first and Ludwig afterwards. These gentlemen shall be the judges.” “You won’t frighten us, sir,” said Edward “because we’re prepared for you; but you’d better leave Ludwig alone. It’s dangerous play.” “Well, I’ try you first,” said John, springing up. “No gas, mind.” He ran lightly upstairs to his room, leaving the others, most of whom had been drinking somewhat freely, to wrangle about his proceedings. It ended with them going to bed. “He’s crazy on acting,” said Adam, lighting his pipe. “Thinks he’s the equal of anybody almost. It doesn’t matter with us, but I won’t let him go to Ludwig. And he won’t mind so long as he gets an opportunity of acting to us.” “Well, I hope he’ll hurry up,” said Edward, yawning; it’s after twelve now.” Nearly half an hour passed. Edward drew his watch from his pocket and was busy winding it, when Henry, the waiter, who had been sent on an errand, burst suddenly into the room and rushed towards them. “E’s comin’, gentlemen,” he said breathlessly. “Why, you’re frightened, Edward,” said Adam with a chuckle. “It was the suddenness of it,” said Edward sheepishly; “and besides, I didn’t look for seenin’ ‘im in the bar. There’s only a glimmer of light there, and ‘e was sitting on the floor behind the bar. I nearly trod on ‘im.” “He’s taking too long, I’ll go and fetch him,” said Adam. “You don’t know what this mansion is like at night, sir,” said Henry, catching him by the sleeve. “It ain’t fit to look at by yourself, it ain’t, indeed. It’s got the—what’s that?” #RandolphHarris 14 of 16
They all started at the sound of a smothered cry from the staircase and the sound of somebody running hurriedly along the passage. Before anybody could speak, the door flew open and a figure bursting into the room flung itself gasping and shivering upon them. “What is it? What’s the matter?” demanded Edward. “Why, it’s Mr. Creely.” He shook him roughly and then held some spirit to his lips. John Creely drank it greedily with a sharp intake of his breath gripped him by the arm. “Light the gas, Adam,” said Edward. Adam obeyed hastily, John Creely, a ludicrous but pitiable figure in knee-breeches and coat, a large wig all awry, and his face a mess of grease paint, clung to him, trembling. “Now what’s the matter?” asked Edward. “I’ve seen it,” said John, with a hysterical sob. “O Lord, I’ll never play the fool again, never!” “Seen what?” said the others. “Him—it—the ghost—anything!” said John wildly. “Rot!” said Adam uneasily. All distinctly heard a step in the passage outside. It stopped at the door, and as they watched with bated breath, the door creaked and slowly opened. Adam fell back opened-mouthed, as a white, leering face, with sunken eyeballs ad close-cropped bullet head, appeared at the opening. For a few second the creature stood regarding them, blinking in a strange fashion at the candle. Then with a sidling movement, it came a little way into the room and stood there as if bewildered. Not a man spoke or moved, but all watched with a horrible fascination as the creature removed its dirty neckcloth and its head rolled on its shoulder. For a minute it paused, and then holding the rag before it, moved towards Edward. The candle went out suddenly with a flash and a bang. These was a smell of powder, and something writhing in the darkness on the floor. A faint, choking cough, and then silence. #RandolphHarris 15 of 16
Edward was the first to speak. “Matches,” he said in a strange voice. Adam struck one. Then he leapt at the gas and a burner flamed from the match. Edward touched the thing on the floor with his foot and found it soft. He looked at his companions. They mouthed enquiries at him, but he shook his head. He lit the candle, and, kneeling down, examined the silent thing on the floor. Then he rose swiftly, and dipping his handkerchief in the water jug, bent down again and grimly wiped the white face. Then he sprang back with a cry of incredulous horror, pointing at it. Adam’s pistol fell to the floor and he shut out the sight with his hands, but the others, crowding forward, gazed spell-bound at the dead face of John V. Creely. Before a word was spoken the door opened and Ludwig hastily entered the room. His eyes fell on the floor. “Good God!” he cried. “You didn’t—” Nobody spoke. “I told him not to,” he said in a suffocating voice. “I told him not to. I told him—” He leaned against the wall, deathly sick, put his arms out feebly, and fell fainting into Ludwig’s arms. Many mysteries have taken place in the Winchester mansion over the years. It is an extravagant maze of Victorian craftmanship—marvelous, baffling, and eerily eccentric, to say the least. Tour guide must warn people not to stray from the group or they could be lost forever! Countless questions come to mind as you wander through the mansion—such as, what was Mrs. Winchester thinking when she had a staircase built that descends seven steps and then rises eleven? The Winchester Repeating Arms Company concluding their investigation by saying, “The mystery of the Winchester mansion is unquestionably great and infinite; perhaps spirits can take human shape, and disclose secrets and treasures guarded by this estate, but we must also be aware of skilled deceivers who will talk of Heaven and Hell and the Fall.” (WRA 1888.) After Mrs. Winchester’s death, crimes resulting in the theft of cash, jewels, historical European glass, furniture, and works of art worth over $10 million by Victorian standards (2021 inflation adjusted $291,146,315.79) went missing from the estate. Is the Winchester mansion haunted? Visits and find out for yourself. Their investigation sounds inconclusive. #RandolphHarris 16 of 16
Winchester Mystery House
“Though she be but little, she is fierce.” ~ William Shakespeare
Did you know Sarah Winchester only stood at 4’10”? Much of the house was built to her specific height measurement including a shower, some doors, and hallways. winchestermysteryhouse.com
Does the Cause of Lunacy Lie in the Heavens or in Our Minds?
If you do not run your own life, somebody else will. Your children need your presence more than your presents because the hardest job kids face today is learning good manners without seeing any. It would hardly be accurate to day that we live now in a period of great enlightenment or dependable treatment of mental disorders. In fact, some recent surveys found that 43 percent of respondents believe that people bring on mental disorders themselves, 35 percent consider such disorders to be caused by sinful behaviours, and 19 percent point to the lack of willpower or self-discipline as a cause. Nevertheless, the last 70 years have brought major changes in the ways clinicians understand and treat abnormal functioning. There are more theories and types of treatment, more research studies, more information, and, perhaps for these reasons, more disagreements about abnormal functioning today than at any time in the past. In some ways the study and treatment of psychological disorders have made great strides, but in other respects clinical scientists and practitioners are still struggling to make a difference. Primitive societies believed that the moon had magical, mystical powers and that its changes portended events of many kinds. The moon supposedly had the power to impregnate women, to make plants grow, and to drive people crazy. Later societies also credited the power of the moon to affect behaviour, and they applied the terms “lunatic” and “lunacy” to the person and the behaviour to capture their lunar, or moonlike, qualities. Even today many institutions and people believe that behaviour is affected by the phases of the moon. #RandolphHarris 1 of 20
Anecdotal evidence abounds: police officers have sometimes noted more violent and bizarre crimes during the full moon, and certain hospitals have claimed to experience an increase in births. One hospital even linked the full moon to the onset of ulcers and heart attacks. A Wall Street brokers for years used the schedule of the moon as a guide in giving investment advice—successfully. A number of scientists have advanced theories to explain a lunar effect on human behaviour. Some say that since the moon causes the tides of the oceans, it is reasonable to expect that it has a similar effect on the bodily fluids of human beings, whose composition is more than 80 percent water. The increase in births might therefore be explained by the force of the moon on the expectant mother’s amniotic fluid. Similar tidal and gravitational effects have been used to explain the apparent increases in bizarre behaviour during full moons. One team of researchers has noted that a full moon seemed to have a greater impact on behaviour in the past than in current times and has attributed this difference to the lack of electricity in years past. Before the advent of artificial light, they argue, full moons were a significant source of illumination that disrupted the sleep-wake cycle. This tended to cause sleep deprivation and, consequently, psychological disturbances. Still other researchers have tried to determine whether the activity of the moon is in fact related to human behaviour by calculating the precise number of births, crimes, and unusual behaviours that occur during full moons. #RandolphHarris 2 of 20
Some of these investigators have indeed found an association between full moons and unintentional poisonings, aggression, absenteeism, and crime. Other researchers, however, have found no relationship between full moons and increases in violence in mental health settings, suicides, car accidents, or people seeking help for anxiety or depression. Even if an association exists, skeptics have noted that it may simply be due to people’s own expectations. That is, because certain persons expect to be influenced by a full moon, they may be more attentive and responsive to their internal sensations or desires at that time. To test this interpretation, researchers recently examined the effects of moon phases on animals who presumably have little self-awareness. One group of researchers found a significant increase in the number of people who visited emergency rooms with animal bites during full moons in a small British town, suggesting that unusual animal behaviour may indeed be affected by the moon. However, other researchers—who conducted studies with other animals, breeds, and towns—found no increase in animals bites during full moons. And so the debated continues as scientists and philosophers alike try to determine whether the cause of lunacy does indeed lie in the Heavens or our minds. How are people with severe disturbances cared for? In the 1950s researchers discovered a number of new psychotropic medications—drugs that primarily affect the brain and alleviate many symptoms of mental dysfunctioning. #RandolphHarris 3 of 20
These medications include the first antipsychotic drugs, to lift the mood of depressed people; and antianxiety drugs, to reduce tension and worry. When given these drugs, many patients who had spent years in mental hospitals began to show signs of improvement. Hospital administrators, encouraged by these results and pressured by a growing public outcry over the terrible conditions in public mental hospitals, began to discharge patients almost immediately. Since the discovery of these medications, mental health professionals in most of the developed nations of the World have followed a policy of deinstitutionalization, releasing hundreds of thousands of patients from public mental hospitals. On any given day in 1955, close to 600,000 people were confined in public mental institutions across the United States of America. Today the daily patient population in the same kinds of hospitals is around 60,000. In short, outpatient care has now become the primary mode of treatment for people with severe psychological disturbances as well as for those with moderate problems. Today when severely impaired people do need institutionalization, they are usually given short-term hospitalization. Ideally, they are then given outpatient psychotherapy and medication in community programs and residences. Community mental health approach is an emphasis on social care for people with severe psychological disturbances. The approach has been helpful for many patients, but too few community programs are available to address current needs in the United States of America. As a result, hundreds of thousands of persons with severe disturbances fail to make lasting recoveries, and they shuffle back and forth between the mental hospital and the community. #RandolphHarris 4 of 20
After release from the hospital, patients at best receive minimal care and often wind up living in decrepit rooming houses or on the streets. In fact, only 40 percent of persons with severe psychological disturbances currently receive treatment of any kind. At least 100,000 individuals with such disturbances are homeless on any given day; another 135,000 or more are inmates of jails and prisons. Their abandonment is truly a national disgrace. How are people with less severe disturbances treated? The treatment picture for people with moderate psychological disturbances has been more positive than that for people with severe disorders. Since the 1950s, outpatient care has continued to be the preferred mode of treatment for them, and the numbers and types of facilities that offer such care have expanded to meet the need. Before the 1950s, almost all outpatient care took the form of private psychotherapy, an arrangement by which an individual directly pays a psychotherapist for counseling services. This tended to be an expensive form of treatment available only to the wealthy. Since the 1950s, however, most healthy insurance plans have expanded coverage to include private psychotherapy, so that it is now also widely available to people with modest incomes. In addition, such as community mental healthy centers, crisis intervention centers, family service centers, and other social service agencies. The new settings have spurred a dramatic increase in the number of persons seeking outpatient care for psychological problems. Nationwide surveys suggest that one of every six adults and one of every five children between the ages of 9 and 17 now receive some form of mental health service in the course of a year. #RandolphHarris 5 of 20
Outpatient treatments are also becoming available for more and more kinds of problems. When Dr. Freud and his colleagues first began to practice, most of their patients suffered from anxiety or depression. These problems still dominate therapy today; almost half of all clients suffer from them. However, people with other kinds of disorders are also receiving therapy. In addition, at least 25 percent of clients enter therapy because of milder problems in living, problems with marital, family, job, peer, school, or community relationships. Yet another change in outpatient care since the 1950s has been the development of programs devoted exclusively to one kind of psychological problem. We now have, for example, suicide prevention centers, substances abuse programs, eating disorders programs, phobia clinics, and sexual dysfunction programs. Clinicians in these programs have the kind of expertise that can be acquired only by concentration in a single area. One caustic interpersonal phenomenon that has received considerable interest in the literature on eating disorders is childhood sexual abuse. A common form of abuse reported by people with eating disorders childhood sexual abuse, represents a gross violation of boundaries, particularly when perpetrated in the family context. This abuse often causes guilt, confusion, repulsion, and distrust of others. These potentially vicious psychosocial repercussions can make intimate relations later in life very difficult. Contrasting findings and possible explanations—there is at least some evidence to suggest that histories of sexual abuse are more common among those with eating disorders, especially bulimia nervosa, than what would be expected by chance alone. #RandolphHarris 6 of 20
However, after numerous studies on the topic, findings remain mixed. For example, some estimates indicate that rates of childhood sexual abuse run as high as 70 percent among patients with eating disorders. One study of such patients found that 65 percent has experienced physical abuse, 28 percent has been sexually abused, and 23 percent had been raped. These statistics are shocking both for their indication of what appear to be extremely high prevalence rates of childhood sexual abuse among persons with eating disorders, and for their stark contrast to other epidemiological estimates indicating a far lower occurrence of sexual abuse in the background of such persons. For example, two reviews concluded that there was no evidence of higher rates of eating disorders among sexually abused versus nonabused women. Furthermore, one study found that among normal-weight women with bulimia nervosa, only 7 percent included a history of sexual abuse involving physical contact. Since it is estimated that the prevalence of sexual abuse in the general female population is 27 percent, it appears as if sexual abuse was less prevalent in the sample than in the general population. To complicate matters further, still another review found that rates of sexual abuse were no higher among those with eating disorders than among those in the general population. What conclusions can be drawn from the literature on childhood sexual abuse and eating disorders? First, some of the variance in these prevalence estimates can be explained by wildly discrepant operationalizations of “sexual abuse.” #RandolphHarris 7 of 20
Second, the samples on which these estimates are based are also nonequivalent. For example, it is reasonable to expect a greater history of childhood sexual abuse in clinical samples than in samples with eating disorders drawn from the general population. Third, there is some consensus that childhood sexual abuse is neither necessary nor sufficient for the development of eating disorders in later life. This may explain the high rates of sexual abuse in some samples, and the lower rates in others. “One that covers one’s sins shall not prosper: but whoso confesses and forsakes them shall have mercy,” reports Proverbs 28.13. Abuse tends to happen and it should not. A few decades ago, several American companies authorized by the U.S. government attempted to bury toxic-waste products underground. They filled large mental containers with chemical waste and other life-threatening products, sealed the drums tightly, and buried them deep down below the topsoil. They thought that was the end of it. Within a short time, however, many of the containers began to leak and the toxic waste started seeping to the surface, causing all sorts of problems. In some locations, it killed off the vegetation and ruined the water supply. People had to move out of their homes. What went wrong? They tried to bury something that was toxic. They never dreamed that the materials they were attempting to bury were so powerful that they were too toxic for the containers to hold. They did not imagine that one day those contaminants would resurface, and they would have to deal with the problem all over again. #RandolphHarris 8 of 20
However, this time, the toxic materials would be dispersed and much more difficult to deal with. Had they disposed of them properly in the first place, they would not have had this terrible problem. It is the same with us. When somebody hurts us, someone does us wrong, instead of letting it go and trusting God to make it up to us, we bury it deep down inside. We attempt to cram unforgiveness, resentment, anger, and other destructive responses into our “leakproof” containers. We seal those lids tightly, but unfortunately, just as that toxic waste tends to resurface, one day the things you have tamped into your subconscious or buried deeply in the recesses of your heart will rise to the surface and begin to contaminate your life. We cannot live with poison inside us and not expect it to eventually do us harm. Forgiveness is the key to being free from toxic bitterness. Forgive the people who hurt you. Forgive the boss who did you wrong. Forgive the friend who betrayed you. Forgive the patent who mistreated you when you were younger. Do not let the root of bitterness grow deeper and continue to contaminate your life. What does this toxic waste look like in our lives? For some people, it seeps out as anger. In other people, it smells like depression. For others, it reeks of low self-esteem. It can show up in many different ways, sometimes doing damage before we even realize it has reappeared. One can have success on the outside, but if one is bitter on the inside, it is going to spoil and taint every success. One must deal with the inside first, then one can really be happy. Then one can experience true, untainted, unalloyed success in one’s life. #RandolphHarris 9 of 20
You may think forgiveness is too hard. However, you are not forgiving for their sake, you are forgiving for your sake. You are forgiving so that poison does not continue to contaminate your life. If someone has done you a great wrong, do not allow them to continue to hurt you by hanging on to it. You are not hurting them at all. You are hurting yourself. It is the laden bough that hangs low, and the most fruitful Christ who is the most humble. In American culture, there is a taboo against vulnerability, especially from dominant personalities. Seldom can we allow ourselves such phrases as “I am unsure,” “I feel vulnerable,” “I feel hurt,” or “I feel helpless.” And yet we all have these feelings from time to time. We all feel anxious, sacred, helpless, or weak. In our culture, where competition, individuality, and performance reign supreme, it is no surprise that any sense of weakness is repressed from awareness. Yet, when a part of us that is quite real is pushed out of consciousness, we are more vulnerable than ever because we lose touch with our core being. Then our energies are diverted into presenting a false self to the World. We even believe that this ideal self—secure, flawless, and capable in all situations—is our real self. This kind of vanity is the real target of the scriptural “pride goeth before destruction,” reports Proverbs 16.18. Surrender to God and understand that God is the Ground of Being. This powerful experience will enable one to get in touch with a power greater than oneself, the Supreme Being. Father, I know when I forgive those who hurt me, it pleased You. Please help me to recognize that forgiveness of others is in my best interest. “Many are the sorrows of the wicked, but one who trusts in, relies on, and confidently leans on the Lord shall be compassed about with mercy and with lovingkindness. Be glad in the Lord and rejoice, you [uncompromisingly] righteous [you who are upright and right standing with Him]; shout for joy, all you upright in heart!” reports Psalm 32.10-11. #RandolphHarris 10 of 20
We have here two very distinct moral persons, namely the government and the sovereign, and consequently two wills, one in relation to all the citizens, the other only for the members of the administration. Thus, although the government can regulate its internal administration as it chooses, it can never speak to the people except in the name of the sovereign, that is to say, in the name of the populace itself. This is something not to be forgotten. The first societies governed themselves aristocratically. The leaders of families deliberated among themselves about public affairs. Young people deferred without difficulty to the authority of experience. This is the origin of the words priests, ancients, senate and elders. The natives of North America still govern themselves that way to this day, and are very well governed. However, to the extent that inequality, wealth or power was preferred to age, and aristocracy became elective. Finally, the transmission of the father’s power, together with his goods, to his children created patrician families; the government was made hereditary, and we know of senators who were only twenty years old. There are therefore three sorts of aristocracy: natural, elective and hereditary. The first is suited only to some people; the third is the worst of any government. The second is the best; it is aristocracy properly so-called. In addition to the advantage of the distinction between the two powers, aristocracy has that of the choice of its members. For in popular government all the citizens are born magistrates; however, this type of government limits them to a small number, and they become magistrate only through elections, a means by which probity, enlightenment, experience, and all the other reasons for public preference and esteem are so many new guarantees of being well governed. #RandolphHarris 11 of 20
Furthermore, assemblies are more conveniently held, public business better discussed and carried out with more orderliness and diligence, the reputation of the state is better sustained abroad by venerable senators than by a multitude that is unknown or despised. In a word, it is the best and most natural order for the wisest to govern the multitude, when it is certain that they will govern for its profit and not for their own. There is no need for multiplying devices uselessly or for doing with twenty thousand men what one hundred hand-picked men can do even better. However, it must be noted here that the corporate interest begins to direct the public force in less strict a conformity with the rule of the general will, and that another inevitable tendency removes from the laws a part of the executive power. With regard to the circumstances that are specifically suitable, a state must not be so small, nor its people so simple and upright, as is the case in a good democracy. Now must a nation be so large that the leaders, scattered about in order to govern it, can each play the sovereign in one’s own department, and begin by making themselves independent in order finally to become masters. However, if aristocracy requires somewhat fewer virtutes than popular government, it also demands others that are proper to it, such as moderation among wealthy and contentment among the poor. For it appears that rigorous equality would be out of place here. It was not observed even in Sparta. Moreover, if this form of government carries with it a certain inequality of fortune, this is simply in order that in general the administration of public business may be entrusted to those who are best able to give all their time to it, but not, as Aristotle claims, in order that the rich may always be given preference. On the contrary, it is important that an opposite choice should occasionally teach people that more important reasons for preference are to be found in a man’s merit than in one’s wealth. #RandolphHarris 12 of 20
Neither is our image of evolution—or, for that matter, evolution itself what it used to be. Biologist, archaeologist, and anthropologists, attempting to unravel the mysteries of evolution, similarly find themselves in a bigger and more complex World than previously imagined and are discovering that laws once regarded as universal in application are actually special cases. Since Dr. Darwin, biologists have gradually developed a chart of the mechanism of evolution, called natural selection. On that basis attempts have often been made to portray all evolution—cosmic, chemical, cultural, ideological, social—as governed by a similar selection mechanism. However, such understandings seem doomed, inasmuch as the rules change at every plane. Even on the biological plane, rules once thought to apply across the board are in question. Thus scientists are being forced to ask whether all biological evolution is a response to variation and natural selection or whether, at the molecular level, it may depend instead on an accumulation of variations which result in “genetic drift” without the operation of Darwinian natural selection. Says Dr. Motoo Kimura of the National Institute of Genetics in Japan, evolution at the molecular level appears to be “quite incompatible with the expectations of Neo-Darwinism.” Other long held assumptions are being shaken as well. Biologist have told us that eukaryotes (human beings and most other forms of life) are ultimately descended from simpler cells called prokaryotes (among which are bacteria and algae). Fresh research is now undermining that theory, leading to the unsettling notion that the simpler life forms may have descended from the more complex. #RandolphHarris 13 of 20
Furthermore, evolution is supposed to favour adaptations that enhance survival. Yet we are now finding striking examples of evolutionary developments that seem to confer long-term benefit—at the cost of short-term disadvantage. Which does evolution favour? Then there is the startling news from, of all places, the Grant Park Zoon in Atlanta, where the chance mating of two species of ape with two quite different sets of chromosomes has produced the first known hybrid ape. Even though researchers are unsure whether the hybrid will be fertile, her bizarre genetics lend support to the idea that evolution may occur in leaps and bounds as well as through the accretion of small changes. Indeed, instead of seeing evolution as a smooth process, many of today’s life scientists and archaeologists are studying the “theory of catastrophes” to explain “gaps” and “jumps” in the multiple branches of the evolutionary record. Others are studying small changes that may have been amplified through feedback into sudden structural transformations. Heated controversies divide the scientific community over every one of these issues. However, all such controversies are dwarfed by a single history-changing fact. By 1957, as the first string of the Third Wave were being felt, Dr. Arthur Kornberg learned how DNA reproduced itself. Since then, as one popular summary describes the sequences “We have cracked the DNA code. We have learned how DNA transmits its instructions to the cell. We have analyzed chromosomes to determine genetic function. We have synthesized a cell. We have fused cells from two different species. We have isolated pure human genes. We have ‘mapped’ genes. We have synthesized a gene. We have changed the heredity of a cell.” #RandolphHarris 14 of 20
Today genetic engineers in laboratories around the World are capable of creating entirely novel life forms. They have end-run evolution itself. Second Wave thinkers conceived of the human species as the culmination of a long evolutionary process; Third Wave thinkers must now face the fact that we are the designers of evolution. Evolution will never look the same. Like the concept of nature, evolution too is in the process of being drastically reconceptualized. With Second Wave ideas about the nature and evolution both changing, it is hardly surprising that we are also sharply re-evaluating Second Wave ideas about progress. The industrial period was characterized by a facile optimism that saw each scientific breakthrough or “new improved product” as evidence of an inevitable advance toward human perfection. Since the mid 19050’s, when Third Wave began battering Second Wave civilization, few ideas have taken as rough a beating as this cheery creed. The “beats” of the fifties and the hippies of the sixties made pessimism about the human condition, not optimism, a pervasive cultural theme. These movements did much to replace knee-jerk optimism with knee-jerk despair. Soon pessimism because positively chic. Hollywood movies of the 1950’s and 1960’s, for example, replaced the jut-jawed heroes of the 1930’s and 1940’s with alienated antiheroes—rebels without a cause, stylish gunmen, dope pushers with charm, angst-ridden motorcyclists, and hard, inarticulate (but soulful) punk. Life was a game nobody won. Fiction, drama, and art also took on a graveyard hopelessness in many Second Wave nations. By the early fifties, Camus had already defined the themes that countless novelists would subsequently purse. A British critic summed these up as: “Man is fallible, political theories are relative, automatic progress is a mirage.” #RandolphHarris 15 of 20
Even science fiction, once filled with utopian adventures, turned bitter and pessimistic, generating countless poor imitations of Huxley and Orwell. Technology, instead of being portrayed as the engine of progress, increasingly appeared as a juggernaut destroying both human freedom and the physical environment. For many environmentalists, indeed, “progress” became a dirty word. Weighty volumes poured into the bookshops, bearing titles like The Stalled Society, The Coming Dark Age, In Danger of Progress, or The Death of Progress. As Second Wave society lurched into the seventies, The Club of Rome report on The Limits to Growth set a funereal tone for much of the decade that followed, with its projections of catastrophe for the industrial World. Upheavals, unemployment, and inflation intensified by the pandemic of 2020, adding to the spreading pall of pessimism and the rejection of the idea of the idea of inevitable human progress. Former Governor of California, Jerry Brown, spoke about the future being filled with “darkness and massive debt,” as he was leaving office, and the decline of the West—sending yet another frisson of fear down a good many spines. Whether such despair was, or is, justified remains for each reader to decide. One thing is clear, however: the notion of inevitable single-track progress, another pillar of indust-reality, is finding fewer takers as the start of the Fourth Wave civilization is looming close. There is fast a fast-spreading recognition around the World that progress can no longer be measure in terms of technology or material standards of living alone—that a society that is morally, aesthetically, politically, or environmentally degraded is not an advance society, no matter how rich or technically sophisticated it may be. #RandolphHarris 16 of 20
In fact, we are moving toward a far more comprehensive notion of progress—progress no longer automatically achieved and no longer defined by material criteria lone. We are also less inclined to think of societies as moving along one track, each society traveling automatically from one cultural way-station to the next, one more “advanced” than another. There may be many branch lines, as it were, rather than a single roadbead, and societies may be able to achieve comprehensive development in a variety of ways. We are beginning to think of progress as the flowering of a tree with many branches extending into the future, the very variety and richness of human cultures serving as a measure. In this light, today’s shift toward a more diverse, de-massified World may itself come to be seen as an important forward leap—analogous to the tendency toward differentiation and complexity so common in biological evolution. Whatever happens next, it is unlikely that the culture will ever again return to the naïve, unilinear, Pollyannish progressivism that characterized and inspired the Second Wave era, unless we discover another planet we can live on and start over. Nonetheless, the past decades, therefore, have witnessed a forced reconceptualization of nature, evolution, and progress alike. These concepts, however, were in turn based on still more elemental ideas—our assumptions about time, space, matter, and causality. And the Third Wave is dissolving even these assumptions—the intellectual glue that held the Second Wave civilization together. So start the face with all deliberate speed, and try not to flop. Through frequent prayers and confessions and the sacred reception of Jesus Christ’s Host, we can get wind again and rejoin the race. If one does not do this or something like it soon, one will just never have the strength to stay on the course. Be partaker and heir of Eternal Glory. #RandolphHarris 17 of 20
From adolescence on—the Author of Genesis knew this (8.21)—the senses of Humankind are prone to evil, and unless Divine Medicaments help, Humankind will go to the dogs; that is to say, proceed from the lesser sins to the greater. That is how Holy Communion pulls one back from evil and pushes one toward good. As long as your soul is entrapped, or enshrined in your mortal body, it travels through life as a part of Jesus Christ; that is as Paul put in in Second Corinthians (5.6). Therefore, your soul should be mindful of God Himself from time to time and receive its beloved Friend with a devout mind. Blessed is the soul that is finally prepared itself to receive Jesus Christ, the Lord God, with devotion! In return, He will fill that soul with spiritual joy! Happy is the mind that receives the Great Lord, welcomes as guest, receives a congenial companion, accepts a faithful friend, embraces a noble bachelor in front of a party of friends, a Friend of friends! May Heaven with all its pendants and Earth with all its ornaments pause in their tinkling orbits for a moment to homage to Jesus Christ, our Sweetest Friend! Whatever praise seeps or grace drips from the largesse of His Comedown, it is only spillage from His Ever-flowing Fount. As the Psalmist has sung, “There is no accounting for Your Wisdom” (147.5). Our hope in the Atonement empowers us with eternal perspective. Hope is an emotion which brings richness to our everyday lives. It is defined as “the feeling that events will turn out for the best. When we exercise hope, we look forward with desire and reasonable confidence. As such, hope brings a certain calming influence to our lives as we confidently look forward to future events. Sometimes we hope for things over which we have little or no control. We hope for good weather. We hope for an early spring. We hope our favourite sports team will win the World Cup, Super Bowl, or the World Series. #RandolphHarris 18 of 20
Such hopes make our lives interesting and can often lead to unusual, even superstitious behaviour. Other times our hopes can lead to dreams which can inspire us and lead us to action. If we have the hope to do better at work, that hope can be realized by dedicated work and sacrifice. If we have the hope to play on a winning team, that hope can lead to consistent practice, dedication, teamwork, and ultimately success. Hope can inspire dreams and spur us to realize those dreams. Hope alone, however, does not cause us to succeed. Many honourable hopes have gone unfulfilled, shipwrecked on the reefs of good intentions and laziness. Our hope in the Atonement empowers us with eternal perspective. Such perspective allows us to look beyond the here and now on into the promise of the eternities. We do not have to be trapped in the narrow confines of society’s fickle expectations. We are free to look forward to celestial glory, sealed to our family and loved ones. “Wherefore, there must be faith; and if there must be faith there must also be hope; and if there must be hope there must also be charity. And except ye have charity ye can in nowise be saved in the kingdom of God; neither can ye be saved in the kingdom of God if ye have not faith; neither can ye if we have no hope,” reports Moroni 10.20-21. Faith is rooted in Jesus Christ. Hope centers in the Atonement. Charity is manifest in the pure love of Christ. These three attributes are intertwined like strands in a cable and may not always be precisely distinguished. Together they become our tether to the celestial kingdom. “Wherefore, ye must press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope, and a love of God and of all humans,” reports 2 Nephi 31.20. This hope has lead humans through the ages to do remarkable things. It is my prayer that our hopes will lead to the fulfillment of our righteous dreams. #RandolphHarris 19 of 20
I particularly pray our hope in the Atonement will strengthen our faith and charity and give us an eternal perspective of our future. May we all have this perfect brightness of hope. Lord, I come today seeking a financial breakthrough and your supernatural blessing. I know God that you are moving things and working all things together for my good. God, create an opening of your abundant supernatural supply. Break the curse of poverty and lack. And I thank You for all the blessings you have bestowed already. O Father the hem of whose garment is in the sky, whose grace falls from His glance, who gives life from the touch of one finger. O Father whose hair is the willow, whose breath is the riversong, who lopes through the milky way, baying, stars going out, O Lord whose deathshead holds a thousand eyes eye socket black imploded stars, who trails frail as a northern virgin on the mist, O Lord flying your bright drops to us, emblems of your love, throw your green scarf on the battered Earth once more. O smile, disrobe for us, unveil your eyes. Blessed art Thou, O Lord, the holy king. We sanctify Thy name on Earth even as it is sanctified in the Heavens above, as described in the vision of Thy prophet: And the seraphim called one unto another saying: Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts, the whole Earth is full of His glory. Whereupon the angles declare; Blessed be the glory of God from His Heavenly abode. And as it is written in the holy Scripture: The Lord shall reign forever; Thy God, O Zion, shall be Sovereign unto all generations. Hallelujah! Unto all generations we will declare Thy greatness and to all eternity we will proclaim Thy holiness. Our mouth shall ever speak Thy praise, O our God, for Thou art a great and holy God and King. Blessed Art Thou, O Lord, the holy God. Blessed art Thou, O Lord, the holy King. Thou endowest humans with knowledge and teachest mortal humans understanding. O great us knowledge, understanding, and discernment. Blessed art Thou, O Lord, who bestowest knowledge upon humans. #RandolphHarris 20 of 20
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Do Not Leave Me. See How Hard I am Trying! Are I Not Cute?
If you want something from an audience, you give blood to their fantasies. It is the ultimate hustle. As 1800 approached, the treatment of people with mental disorders began to improve once again. Historians usually point to La Bicetre, and asylum in Paris for male patients, as the first site of asylum reform. In 1793, during the French Revolution, Philippe Pinel (1745-1826) was named the chief physician there. He argued that the patients were sick people whose illness should be treated with sympathy and kindness rather than chains and beatings. He unchained them and allowed them to move freely about the hospital grounds, replaced the dark dungeons with sunny, well-ventilated rooms, and offered support and advice. Dr. Pinel’s approach proved remarkably successful. Patients who had been shut away for decades were now enjoying fresh air and sunlight and being treated with dignity. Many improved greatly over a short period of time and were released. Dr. Pinel later brought similar reforms to a mental hospital in Paris, France for female patients, La Salpetriere. Jean Esquirol (1772-1840), Dr. Pinel’s student and successor, went on to help establish 10 new mental hospitals that operated on the same principles. Meanwhile an English Quaker named William Tuke (1732-1819) was bringing similar reforms to northern England. In 1796 he founded the York Retreat, a rural estate where about 30 mental patients lived as guests in quiet country houses and were treated with a combination of rest, talk, prayer, and manual work. “For God has done what the Law could not do, [its power] being weakened by the flesh [the entire nature of man without the Holy Spirit]. Sending His own Son in the guise of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, [God] condemned sin in the flesh [subdued, overcame, deprived it of its power over all who accept that sacrifice],” reports Romans 8.3. #RandolphHarris 1 of 24
The spread of moral treatment—the methods of Dr. Pinel and Mr. Tuke, called spectful techniques, caught on throughout Europe and the United States of America. Patients with psychological problems were increasingly perceived as potentially productive human beings whose mental functioning had broken down under stress. They were considered deserving of individual care, including discussions of their problems, useful activities, work, companionship, and quiet. The person most responsible for the early spread of moral treatment in the United States of America was Benjamin Rush (1745-1813), an eminent physician at Pennsylvania Hospital. Limiting his practice to mental illness, Dr. Rush developed innovative, humane approaches to treatment. For example, he required that the hospital hire intelligent and sensitive attendant to work closely with patients, reading and talking to them and taking them on regular walks. He also suggested that it would be therapeutic for doctors to give small gifts to their patients now and then. Dr. Rush, widely considered the father of American psychiatry, also wrote the first American treatise on mental illness and organized the first American course in psychiatry. Dr. Rush’s work was influential, but it was a Boston Schoolteacher named Dorothea Dix (1802-1887) who made humane care a public and political concern in the United States of America. In 1841 Mrs. Dix had gone to teach Sunday school at a local prison and been shocked by the conditions she saw there. Before long, her interest in prison conditions broadened to include the plight of poor and mentally ill people throughout the country. #RandolphHarris 2 of 24
A powerful campaigner, Mrs. Dix went from state legislature to state legislature speaking of the horrors she had observed and calling for reform. Similarly, she told the Congress of the United States of America that mentally ill people across the country were still being “bound with galling chains, bowed beneath fetters and heavy iron balls attached to drag chains, lacerated with ropes, scourged with rods and terrified beneath storms of execration and cruel blows.” From 1841 until 1881, Mrs. Dix fought for new laws and greater government funding to improve the treatment of people with mental disorders. Each state was made responsible for developing effective public mental hospitals. Mrs. Dix personally helped established 32 of these state hospitals (state-run public mental institutions in the United States of America), all intended to offer moral treatment. Similar hospitals were established throughout Europe. The Decline of moral treatment—as we have observed, the treatment of abnormality has followed a crooked path. Over and over again, relative progress has been followed by serious decline. Viewed in this context, it is not surprising that the moral treatment movement began to decline toward the end of the nineteenth century. Several factors were responsible. One was the speed with which the moral movement had spread. As mental hospitals multiplied, severe money and staffing shortages developed, recovery rates declined, and overcrowding in the hospitals became a major problem. Under such conditions it was often impossible to provide individual care and genuine concern. Another factor was the assumption behind moral treatment that if treated with humanity and dignity, all patients could be cured. #RandolphHarris 3 of 24
For some, being treated with compassion and respect was indeed sufficient. Others, however, needed more effective treatments than any that had yet been developed. Many of these people remained hospitalized until they died. An additional factor contributing to the decline of moral treatment was the emergence of a new wave of prejudice against people with mental disorders. As more and more patients disappeared into large distant mental hospitals, the public came to view them as strange and dangerous. In turn, people were less open-handed when it came to making donations or allocating government funds. Moreover, many of the patients entering public mental hospitals in the United States of America in the late nineteenth century were impoverished foreign immigrants, whom the public had little interest in helping. By the early years of the twentieth century, the moral treatment movement had ground to a halt in both the United States of America and Europe. Public mental hospitals were providing only custodial care and ineffective medical treatments and were becoming more overcrowded every year. Long-term hospitalization became the rule once again. Beware of the evil eye—a number of demonological explanations for abnormal behaviour continue in today’s World. In rural Pakistan, for example, many parents apply special makeup around the eyes of their young children, as their ancestors have done for centuries. A paste of hazelnut powder and several oils, known as surma, is applied partly to protect the eyes from the smoke given off by home heating fires and partly to cool and clean the eyes. #RandolphHarris 4 of 24
However, another less acknowledged reason is to ward off nazar, the “evil eye,” thought to be responsible for the many deaths among the infants and for poor health and behavioural problems in those who survive. The American Psychiatric Association recognizes two distinct subtypes of eating disorders: anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa. Obesity is currently considered more of a medical condition than a mental health problem. The defining features of anorexia nervosa include a refusal to maintain a normal body weight, an intense fear of gaining weight, and a disturbance in body image and perception. Bulimia nervosa is defined by recurrent episodes of uncontrolled binge eating, inappropriate compensatory behaviours to control weight gain (exempli gratia, self-induced vomiting, misuse of laxatives or diuretics), and an undue influence of body shape and weight on self-evaluations. A chief difference between the two disorders is that individuals with bulimia nervosa are able to maintain their body weight at or above normally prescribed levels, whereas those with anorexia nervosa have a body weight below 85 percent of what is expected. Similar to depression and alcoholism, eating disorders, especially anorexia nervosa, have a lethal component. The long-term mortality for those afflicted with anorexia nervosa is estimated to be over 10 percent. The standardizes mortality ratio (observed mortality divided by expected mortality) for people with eating disorders is 3.6 for people under 20 years of age, 9.9 for those aged 20-29, and 5.7 for those over age 30. #RandolphHarris 5 of 24
Among females, the lifetime prevalence of anorexia nervosa has been estimated at 0.5 percent, and 1.3 percent for bulimia nervosa. The descriptions of these disorders in the DSM-VI-TR (American Psychiatric Association, 2023). The description of these disorders in the DSM-VI-TR (American Psychiatric Association, 2023) contain references to interpersonal problems. Associated features of anorexia nervosa include social withdrawal and lessened interest in pleasures of the flesh; episodes of binge eating associated with bulimia nervosa are often triggered by interpersonal stressors. Research on interpersonal relationships and eating disorders has been typical of the work on interpersonal relationships and mental healthy more generally. The recognition of some type of relational difficulty associated with the disorder predates current investigations by at least a century and a quarter. One of Lasegue’s more notable contributions was the suggestion of “prentectomy”—hospitalization of the patients to remove them from exacerbating parental forces. Family-of-origin relationships in particular have been a focal point in this line of work. Finally, the proliferation of studies on this associated feature of eating disorders has been particularly evident over the past 50 years. In one longitudinal investigation, patients diagnosed with anorexia nervosa were followed for a period of 5 years. Among the most notable features of those who did not recover over the course of the investigation (53 percent) were unsatisfactory family-of-origin relationships and problems with making personal contacts outside the family. Findings such as these are suggestive of the important role played by social relationships in the course of the disorder. #RandolphHarris 6 of 24
As noted above, research emanating from the interpersonal paradigm has sought to understand eating disorders largely through a focus on family-of-origin experiences. Extreme levels of family adaptability and cohesion, family expressed emotion (EE), inappropriate parental pressure, low parental care, parental overinvolvement, sexual abuse, and battles for control are dominant themes in the family histories of people with eating disorders. Some models and theories suggest that these family-of-origin processes play a critical role in the development of these disorders. Some problems with interpersonal communication may be secondary to these pathological family processes. In particular, there is some evidence linked childhood sexual abuse to a failure to develop adequate social skills, which in turn contributes to the development of eating disorders. Recent studies on the general personal relationships of people with eating disorders are also suggestive of interpersonal difficulties. Interpersonal rejection and distressed personal relationships are common problems in this population. Findings on family-of-origin experiences show that among those who are married, there is a strong association between eating disorders and marital distress. Like so many other psychological problems, eating disorders are situated in a network of other psychological problems with which they coexist, such as depression, borderline personality disorder (BPD), substance use disorders, and anxiety disorders. In the family-of-orientation experiences in eating disorders, there are family process variables. There is a dysfunctional interaction pattern among families of patients with anorexia nervosa. The interaction in these families often minimized conflict, with a rigid, nonadaptable style. #RandolphHarris 7 of 24
These interactions were argued to be entwined with the symptoms of the disorder. Other family systems researchers and clinicians also saw eating disorders as built into and around family relations. Significant others usually interact with the bulimic in ways that exaggerate relationship characteristics that were present, but in a more subtle form, before the bulimia was revealed. The bulimia becomes a symptom around which the whole family revolves. While it may appear to be the individual’s problem, bulimia is a signal that the environment is not meeting one’s needs. In a family system perspective, disordered eating is understood to be caused and maintained by a family’s interpersonal behaviour, which itself is assumed to be influenced by the disordered eating of one of its members. Family process variables continue to receive a great deal of attention from those who seek to explain the origins and course of eating disorders. Examples of this can be found in the investigations on family cohesion and family adaptability. System-oriented researchers have emphasized these variables as two dimensions of family relationships that are crucial to healthy family functioning, provided that neither one is too extreme. Multiple studies indicate that eating disorders are associated with perceptions of low family cohesion. Although this finding has been relatively stable across child and parent reports, children with eating disorders give lower ratings of their families’ cohesiveness than their parents do. Generally, daughters’ ratings of family interaction have more diagnostic utility for predicting their eating disorders than mothers’ and especially fathers’ ratings do. Regardless of which family member’s perception is actually “correct,” the fact that a parent and a child with an eating disorder differ in their view of the family’s cohesiveness is perhaps itself diagnostically significant. #RandolphHarris 8 of 24
Investigations of family adaptability have yielded less consistent results than those of cohesion. Some evidence indicates a negative association between family adaptability and symptoms of eating disorders. However, a study found more chaos, less organization, and more poorly defined boundaries in the family, all suggestive of pathologically high level of adaptability, among patients with eating disorders. In most studies, the families appeared to be extreme in their adaptability (either too much or too little) indicating potentially detrimental family relations. As in schizophrenia, family EE is emerging as an important family process variable in eating disorders. Investigation indicated that aspects of maternal EE during the interactions of patients with eating disorders and their families explained 28-34 percent of the variance in the patients’ eventual outcome and response to therapy. The extent to which mothers made openly critical comments during family interaction assessment was a stronger predictor of patients’ outcomes than a host of other impressive predictors, such as premorbid body weight, duration of illness, body mass index, and age at onset. Inappropriate parental pressure is a phenomenon that may be particularly prominent in families of people with eating disorders. When compared to both psychiatric controls and nonpsychiatric controls, one sample of patients with eating disorders experienced excessive pressure from parents. #RandolphHarris 9 of 24
This phenomenon is described as “gender-inappropriate pressure, age-inappropriate pressure, and inappropriate to the child’s abilities…the adolescents felt that they had been forced into an exaggerated feminine style of behaviour, that their parents had discussed topis (such as parental pleasures of the flesh) before the adolescents were prepared to deal with such subjects, and that the adolescents had been made to engage in activities which reflected their parents’ ambitions rather than their own. This leaves an adolescent in a state of conflict between premature exposure to the World of adults and anxiety over what is involved in that World, such as sexuality and high levels of achievement. Perhaps by exerting control over their own eating, adolescents may gain some feeling of mastery or control over this conflict. The families of patients with eating disorders identified four mechanisms by which family members contributed to the eating disorders, two of which are indicative of inappropriate parental pressure: high emphasis on achievement/perfection and overconcern with beauty/appearance/thinness. In American society, it is easy to locate very young children involved in competitive activities such as gymnastics, figure skating, ballet, and beauty contests. When 3- and 4- year-olds are seriously involved in such endeavours, it is difficult to avoid wondering about whose ambition is being pursued. In cases where the motivation come largely from the parents, and where the activity places an emphasis on physical appearance, the risk for later development of eating disorders is serious. Excessive parental pressure may also engender a sense of perfectionism among children. Perfectionism involves both self-oriented aspects (expecting the self to be perfect) and socially prescribed aspects (perceiving that other expect perfection). #RandolphHarris 10 of 24
Perfectionism has proven to be a risk factor for bulimia nervosa, particularly for women who are otherwise low in self-esteem. By pressuring their children to achieve, parents may inadvertently convey the attitude that anything less than “perfect” is a failure. Children who harbour such an attitude, and then perceive that they are not meeting some perfect standard of weight or body image, may engage in binge eating as an escape response to their painful self-awareness, which is then corrected with purging. Other family process variable that have been implicated in eating disorders include disturbed affective expression, low levels of family communication, lack of parental care, excessive parental overprotectiveness and intrusiveness, and excessive parental control. This last variable has particular significance, in that that symptoms of eating disorders may be overt manifestations of a struggle for control. Particularly among women with eating disorders and a history of sexual abuse, an external locus of control (id est, feeling little personal control over one’s fate) is common. Although the struggle for control may originally be with the parents, there is no reason to believe that it may extend to others with whom such women are in relationships. The rather paradoxical nature of some of these family processes in eating disorders is nicely illustrated. It was found that parents of patients with anorexia nervosa were simultaneously more nurturing and comforting, but also more ignoring and neglecting of their daughters, than were parents of either healthy controls or patients with bulimia nervosa. #RandolphHarris 11 of 24
In contrast, the patients with bulimia nervosa and their parents showed signs of hostile enmeshment. These mixed messages create ambivalence about separation for daughters with anorexia nervosa. “Yet amid all these things we are more than conquerors and gain a surpassing victory through Him Who loved us. For I am persuaded beyond doubt (am sure) that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities, nor things impending and threatening nor things to come, nor powers, nor height not depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord,” reports Romans 8.37-39. We all make mistakes, but God does not disqualify us simply because we have failed. He is the God of forgiveness. Even if you have missed your journey, God will always find a way to get you to a position of success. Some people have made some serious mistakes; they have done some things that were not the best for their life, and now they are living in guilt, condemnation, or with a sense of disqualification and disappointment and disillusionment. Several individuals feel they are in a trap house. The way to escape the trap house and trap spouse is to seek and receive God’s mercy and forgiveness, and move on with one’s life. Let go of the condemnation of the past mistakes. Seek God’s forgiveness, pick up the pieces and move on. God still have a great future for you. Keep on striving for success, continue, expect, endure in the face of opposition. Be persistent. Do not leave until you receive. Be just that stubborn about things that are significance to you, as long as it is safe and a rational desire. Have a persistent faith. True faith asks and receives. #RandolphHarris 12 of 24
Persistent faith is faith that receives or takes from God. Faith takes This is what Jesus Christ is telling us. “Ask once and you receive.” That is consistent with Jesus’ teaching on prayer. Receive and keep on receiving every time you ask. If you child asks you for food, you would it to him or her. You would not make one ask a hundred more times, then change your mind The enemy would like for you to believe that is what God is like. That kind of thinking will lead one into error and hold one in bondage. The adversary wants to twist the Word and distort your image of God. Jesus Christ said, “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. For every one that asketh recieiveth.” Jesus Christ said it, ad you can be sure Jesus meant what He said. Father, today I receive Your mercy and forgiveness. Despite my past, I believe You still have great things in store for me. Teach me how to shake off disappointment, guilt, or condemnation and live today in an attitude of faith. “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness,” reports 1 John 1.9. The intellect, uncontrolled by intuition and unguided by revelation, has spawned the two great masters of our time—Science holding the atom bomb and Communism holding the revolution. Science, which is the last century promised so much, gave us the terrible problem of atomic war instead. Its ardent advocates pointed at it only yesterday as the road to our salvation. Today it has become the road to our destruction. This is not to say that it was a false light, but that we mistook its proper place and claimed too much for its human possibilities. We let it run away with us and our religion. We lost ourselves and our bearings. #RandolphHarris 13 of 24
The atom bomb made us regard Nature as self-operative in a solely mechanical way. It left life on Earth without spiritual meaning, without moral purpose. Communism is another Heaven-promising panacea which has helped to make this Earth a little hell. If it accepts the leadership of humans, such as Communists, who regard conscience as a disease, there can be no worthwhile future for humanity. The Communist insensibility in practice to human suffering accords ill with its vaunted idealism in theory. Communism’s twisted ethic of wild hatred, its hard cruel face, its blind slavish obedience to a brutal organization which cares more for itself than for the workers it was supposed to save, its insane preachments against religion and denial of life beyond matter, have brought enough suffering to makes claims sound absurdly exaggerated. However, the intellectual movement which produced Science and the social movement which produced Communism will not continue unchecked. They are approaching the utmost limit possible. The violent materialism for which they are responsible will culminate in the next Armageddon, which will not only end them, but also end the epoch itself. In order to lay out the general cause of the difference, a distinction has to be made here between the prince and the government. The body of the magistrates can be made up of a larger or smaller number of members. We have said that the ratio of the sovereign to the subjects was greater in proportion as the populace was more numerous, and by a manifest analogy we can say the same thing about the government in relation to the magistrates. Since the total force of the government is always that of the state, it does not vary. Whence it follows that the more of this force it uses on its own members, the less that is left to it for acting on the whole populace. #RandolphHarris 14 of 24
Therefore, the more numerous the magistrates, the weaker the government. Since this maxim is fundamental, let us attempt to explain it more clearly. We can distinguish in the person of the magistrate three essentially different wills. First, the individual’s own will, which tends only to its own advantage. Second, the common will of the magistrates which is uniquely related to the advantage of the price. This latter can be called the corporate will, and is general in relation to the government, and particular in relation to the state, of which the government form a part. Third, the will of the people or the sovereign will, which is general both in relation to the state considered as the whole and in relation to the government considered as part of the whole. In a perfect act of legislation, the private or individual will should be nonexistent; the corporate power will proper to the government should be very subordinate; and consequently the general or sovereign will should always be dominant and the unique rule of all the others. According to the natural order, on the contrary, these various wills become more active in proportion as they are the more concentrated. Thus the general will is always the weakest, the corporate will has second place, and the private will is first of all, so that in the government each member is first oneself, then a magistrate, and then a citizen—a gradation directly opposite to the one required by the social order. Granting this, let us suppose the entire government is in the hands of one single human. In that case the private will and the corporate will are perfectly united, and consequently the latter is at the highest degree of intensity it can reach. However, since the use of force is dependent upon the degree of will, and since the absolute force of the government does not vary one bit, it follows that the most active of governments is that of one single human. #RandolphHarris 15 of 24
On the other hand, let us suppose we are uniting the government to the legislative authority. Let us make the sovereign the prince and all the citizens that many magistrates. Then the corporate will, confused with the general will, will have no more activity than the latter, and will leave the private will all its force. Thus the government, always with the same absolute force, will have it minimum relative force or activity. These relationships are incontestable, and there are still other considerations that serve to confirm them. We see, for example, that each magistrate is more active in one’s body than each citizen is in one’s, and consequently that the private will has much more influence on the acts of the government than on those of the sovereign. For each magistrate is nearly always charged with the responsibility for some function of government, whereas each citizen, taken by oneself, exercises no function of sovereignty. Moreover, the more the state is extended, the more its real force increases, although it does not increase in proportion to its size. However, if the state remains the same, the magistrates may well be multiplied without the government acquiring any greater real force, since this force is that of the state, whose size is always equal. Thus the relative force or activity of the government diminishes without its absolute or real force being able to increase. It is also certain that the execution of public business becomes slower in proportion as more people are charged with the responsibility for it; that in attaching too much importance to prudence, too little importance is attached to fortune, opportunities are missed, and the fruits of deliberation are often lost by dint of deliberation. I have just proved that the government becomes slack in proportion as the magistrates are multiplied; and I have previously proved that the more numerous the people, the greater should be the increase of repressive force. #RandolphHarris 16 of 24
Whence it follows that the ratio of the magistrate to the government should be the inverse of the ratio of the subjects to the sovereign; that is to say, the more the state increases in size, the more the government should shrink, so that the number of leaders decreases in proportion to the number of people. I should add that I am speaking here only about the relative force of the government and not about its rectitude. For, on the contrary, the more numerous the magistrates, the more closely the corporate will approaches the general will, whereas under a single magistrate, the same corporate will is, as I have said, merely a particular will thus what can be gained on the one hand is lost on the other, and the art of the legislator is to know how to determine the point at which the government’s will and force, always in a reciprocal proportion, are combined in the relationship that is most advantageous to the state. What has gone almost unnoticed is not merely a change in the patterns of participation in the market but, even more fundamentally, the completion of the entire historical process of market-building. This turning point is so revolutionary in its implications, yet so subtle, that capitalist and Marxist thinkers alike, lost in their Second Wave polemics, have scarcely noticed its signs. It fits into neither of their theories and thus has remained undetectably by them. The human race has been busy constructing a Worldwide exchange network—a market—for at least 10,000 years. In the past 360 years, ever since the Second Wave began, this process has roared forward at very high speed. Second Wave civilization “marketized” the World. Today—at the very moment when prosuming begins to rise again—this process is coming to and end. #RandolphHarris 17 of 24
The immense historical meaning of this cannot be appreciated unless we are clear about what a market exchange network is. It helps to imagine it as a pipeline. When the industrial revolution burst forth on the Earth, launching the Second Wave, very few people on the planet were tired into the money system. Trade existed but only the peripheries of society were touched by it. The various networks of jobbers, distributors, wholesalers, retailers, bankers, and other elements of the trade system were small and rudimentary—providing only a few narrow pipelines through which goods and money might flow. For 360 years we poured Earth-cracking energies into building this pipeline. In was accomplished in three ways. First the merchants and mercenaries of the Second Wave civilization spread around the globe, inviting or coercing new populations to enter the market—to produce more and prosume less. Self-sufficient African tribesmen were induced or compelled to grow cash crops and dig copper. Asian who once grew their own food were put to work on plantation instead, trapping rubber trees to put tires on automobiles. Latin Americas began growing coffee for ale in Europe and the Untied States of America. With each such development the pipeline was built or further elaborated and more and more populations drawn into dependence on it. The second way in which the market expanded was through the increasing “commoditization” of life. Not only were larger populations enmeshed in the market but more and more goods and services were designed for the market, requiring a continual enlargement of the “channel capacity” of the system—a widening, as it were, of the diameter of the pipes. #RandolphHarris 18 of 24
Finally, the market expanded in another way. As society and the economy grew more complex, the number of transactions required for, say, a single bar of soap to pass from producer to consumer multiplied. The more intermediaries, the more ramified the maze of channels or pipes became. This growing elaborateness of the system was itself a form of further development, like the addition of still more special tubes and values to a pipeline. Today all these forms of market expansion are reaching their outer limits. Few populations still remain to be brought into the market. Only a handful of the remotest people remain untouched by the market. Even the hundreds of millions of subsistence farmers in poor countries are at least partially integrated into the market and the accompanying money system. What remains, therefore, is a mopping-up operation at best. The market can no longer expand by engulfing vast new populations. The second form of expansion is still at least theoretically possible. With imagination, we can still, no doubt, think up additional services or goods to sell or barter. However, it is precisely here that the rise of the prosumer becomes significant. The relationships between Sector A and Sector B are complex, and many of the activities of prosumers depend on the purchase of materials or tools from the market. However, the rise of self-help, in particular, and the de-marketization of many goods and services suggests that here, too, the end of the process of marketization may be insight. Lastly, the increasing elaborateness of the “pipeline”—the growing complexity of distribution, the interpolation of more and more middlemen—also appears to be reaching a point of no return. #RandolphHarris 19 of 24
The costs of exchange itself, even as conventionally measured, are now outrunning the costs of material production in many fields. At some point this process reaches a limit. Computers, meanwhile, and the emergence of a prosumer-activated technology both point to smaller inventories and simplified, rather than more complex chains of distribution. Once again, therefore, the evidence points to the end of the process of marketization, if not in our time, then soon after. If our “pipeline project” is nearing completion, what might this mean for our work, our values, and our psyches? A market, after all, does not consist of the steal or shoes or cotton or canned food that flows through it. The market is the structure through which such goods and services are routed. Moreover, it is not simply an economic structure. It is a way of organizing people, a way of thinking, an ethos, and a shared set of expectations (exempli gratia, the expectation that goods purchased will indeed be delivered). The market is thus as much a psychosocial structure as an economic reality. And its effects far transcend economics. By systematically interrelating billions of people to one another, the market produced a World in which no one had independent control over one’s destiny—no person, no nation, no culture. It brought with it the belief that economics and economic motivation were the primary forces in human life. It fostered a view of life as a succession of contractual transactions, and of society as bound together by the “marriage contract” or the “social contract.” Marketization thus shaped the thoughts and values, as well as the actions, of billions and set the tone of Second Wave civilization. #RandolphHarris 20 of 24
It took an enormous investment of time, energy, capital, culture, and raw materials to create a situation in which a purchasing agent in South Carolina could do business with an unseen and unknown clerk in South Korea—each with one’s own abacus or computer, each with an internalized image of the market, each with a set of expectations about the other, each performing certain predictable acts because both have been life-trained to play certain prespecified roles, each part of a giant global system involving millions, indeed billions, of others. One might plausibly argue that the construction of this elaborate structure of human relationships, and its explosive diffusion around the planet, was the single most impressive achievement of Second Wave civilization, dwarfing even its spectacular technological achievements. The step-by-step creation of this essentially sociocultural and psychological structure for exchange (quite apart from the torrent of goods and services that flowed through it) can be likened to the building of the Egyptian pyramids, the Roman aqueducts, the Great Wall of China, and the medieval cathedrals, combined and multiplied a thousandfold. This grandest construction project of all history, the laying into place of the tubes and channels through which much of the economic life of civilization pulsed and flowed, gave Second Wave civilization everywhere its inner dynamism and propulsive thrust. Indeed, if this now dying civilization can be said to have had a mission at all, it was to marketize the World. Today that mission is almost fulfilled. The heroic age of market-building is over—to be replaced by a new phase in which we merely maintain, renovate, and update pipeline. We will undoubtedly have to redesign important pieced of it to accommodate radically increased flows of information #RandolphHarris 21 of 24
The system will increasingly depend on electronics, biology and new social technologies. This, too, will no doubt require resources, imagination, and capital. However, compared with the exhausting effort of Second Wave marketization, this renewal program will absorb a far smaller fraction of our time, energy, capital, and imagination. It will use less, not more, hardware and fewer, not more people than the original process of construction. However complex conversion process to be, marketization will fail to be the central project of the civilization. More and more people are seeking intimacy, personality, and humanity. The Third Wave is therefore producing history’s first “transmarket” civilization. By trans-market I do not mean a civilization without exchange networks—a World thrown back into small, isolated, completely self-sufficient communities unable or unwilling to trade with one another. I do not mean a move backward. By “trans-market” I mean a civilization that is dependent on the market but is no longer consumed by the need to build, extend, elaborate, and integrate this structure. A civilization able to move on to a new agenda—precisely because the market has already been laid in place. And just as no one living in the sixteenth century could have imagined how the growth of the market would change the World’s agenda in terms of technology, politics, religion, art, social life, law, marriage, or personality development—so too it is extremely difficult for us today to envision the long-range effects of the end of marketization Yet these are likely to radiate into every cranny of our children’s lives, if not our own. #RandolphHarris 22 of 24
The marketization project exacted a price. Even in purely economic terms this price was enormous. As the productivity of the human race rose during the past three hundred years, a significant part of that productivity—in both sectors—was set aside and allocated to the market-building project. With the basic construction task now virtually complete, the enormous energies previously poured into building the World market system become available for other human purposes. From this fact alone will flow a limitless array of civilization changes. New religions will be born. Works of art on a hitherto unimagined scale. Fantastic scientific advances. And, above all, wholly new kinds of social and political institutions. What is at stake today is more than capitalism or socialism, more than energy, food, population, capital, raw material, or jobs; what is at stake is the role of the market in our lives and the future of civilization itself. This, at its core is what the rise of the prosumer is about. Change in the deep-structure of the economy is part of the same wave of interrelated changes now striking our energy base, our technology, or information system, and our family and business institutions. These are intertwined, in turn with the way we view the World. And in this sphere, too, we are undergoing an historic upheaval. For the entire World view of industrial civilization—indust-reality—is not being revolutionized. Excerpt from an article in a Czech magazine on contemporary Czech literature: “Those ideals which were formerly given to the World by prophets of religion, headed by Jesus the Nazarene, are now practically applied by scientific socialists beginning with Karl Marx.” Such is the plausible self-deception into which so many intellectuals have fallen. This quotation shows a grave lack of understanding of religion, of the prophets, and especially of Jesus. #RandolphHarris 23 of 24
This distance between the Nazarene and the author of the First Communist Manifesto is not merely horizontal, it is vertical. The two men stand on different levels, belong to different Worlds. The presence of hatred as one of its animating ingredients is a moral disadvantage to any social movement. This is one reason why modern Communism is built on an unsure foundation. From the Center Galactic Source which is everywhere at once, may everything be known as the light of mutual love. O Hidden Life vibrant in every atom; O Hidden Light! shining in every creature; O Hidden Love! embracing all in Oneness; may each who feels oneself as one with Thee, know one is also one with every other. 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 can render unto Him; and say ye, Amen. When I call upon the Lord, ascribe greatness unto our God. 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 mighty in deliverance. #RandolphHarris 24 of 24
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Sold His Soul to the Devil and Purchased the Estate with the Money His Body and Soul Realized!
Sarah Winchester was truly overcome by the loss of her month-old baby girl, and a grief magnified 15 years later by her husband’s sudden death. Doctors and friends urged her to leave the east, seek a milder climate and search for some all-consuming hobby. One physician did suggest that she “build a house and do not employ an architect.” On arrival in San Jose, she immediately started remodeling the newly purchased, unfinished farmhouse. She found the planning kept her grief-disturbed mind occupied and she became thoroughly enthused, but certainly, something was still bothering her. “Why can you not just be nice and quiet? What have you done all morning but shake my awnings, tug at my window street-mirror and the cord on it, play with the bellpull wire from the fourth floor, push against the windowpanes—in short, proclaim your existence in every way as if you wanted to beckon me out to you? Yes, the weather is fine enough, but I have no inclination; let me stay home. You playful exuberant zephyrs, you happy lads, go by yourselves; have your fund as always. Go your way! Leave me out of it. But then you think you have no enjoyment in it; you are not doing it for your own sake.” Many have said that the Winchester mansion is haunted by legions of spirits and perhaps even demons. The New Testament includes a number of references to people afflicted with what we term “demon possession.” Skeptics have looked upon these accounts as reflections of the ignorance and superstition prevalent during the times of our Lord’s ministry. Others contend that Jesus Christ, knowing that the public attributed disease and insanity to evil spirits, was only accommodating Himself to their way of thinking. #RandolphHarris 1 of 22
A careful reading of the gospels and the book of Acts, however, indicated that Christ and His apostles accepted the reality of evil spirits, and taught their followers to fear them. It is therefore imperative that we turn to the Scriptures to find out exactly what demon possession is, the measure of human responsibility involved, and the believer’s course of action when one encounters a demon-possessed individual. The nature of demon possession: A demon-possessed person is one who has been invaded by evil spirits. They may control one’s body, one’s mind, or both. Sometimes they produce only physical illness, but at other times their wretched victims are grossly immoral, speak blasphemously, and exhibit supernatural strength. They obviously have been mastered, mind and body, by a superior force. In understanding the nature of demon possession, we must first take note that the Bible cites a number of demon-produced illnesses with all the characteristics of known diseases. The gospel writers were careful to distinguish between natural and demon-caused afflictions, as is evident in the first chapter of Mark. “And in the evening, when the sun did set, they brought unto him all that were diseased, and those who were possessed with demons. And he healed many that were sick of diverse diseases, and cast out many demons; and permitted not the demons to speak, because they knew him,” reports Mark 1.32, 34. When sickness did not involve evil spirits, the Lord restored health to the individual with no mention of demons. If the illness was the result of demonic invasion, however, Jesus healed by commanding the evil spirits to leave the victim’s body. #RandolphHarris 2 of 22
For example, the boy who had a deaf and dumb spirit (Mark 9.14-29) manifested the symptoms that mark epilepsy, but in healing him, the Lord rebuked a “foul spirit.” When it left, the spirit threw the lad into violent convulsions. Matthew gives the account of a man afflicted with dumbness whom Jesus healed by casting out an indwelling demon (Matthew 9.32-25). Christ also cured a man who was blind and dumb by ordering the demon to leave his body (Matthew 12.22). Luke, telling of a woman who had been seriously crippled for eighteen years, said she had “a spirit of infirmity,” reports Luke 13.11. After healing her, the Lord Jesus Christ spoke of her as “a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan hath bound, lo, these eighteen years,” reports Luke 13.16. In none of these instances did the demons lead the individual into blasphemous speech or immoral conduct. The afflictions were only physical in nature. In addition to causing many varieties of physical suffering, evil spirits often took control of a person’s mental faculties and organs of speech. The two wild men in Gadara, appearing to be insane, possessed strength far beyond that of ordinary men, lived in tombs with the gruesome remains of dead bodies, and were so feared that people avoided the territory they inhabited (Matthew 8.28-34; Luke 8.26-36). When they saw Jesus, they cried out, “What have we to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of God? Art thou come here to torment us before the time?” reports Matthew 8.29. These words, though coming from the mouths of the men, were obviously spoken by the evil spirits. #RandolphHarris 3 of 22
Luke, focusing his attention upon the more prominent of the two, tells us that after the Lord had cast the demons out of the man, he was found by the people of the area “sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed, and in his right mind,” reports Luke 8.35. This kind of demon possession, in which the victim could not control one’s own mind and speech, was more spectacular, but also more tragic, than that which manifested itself in physical illness alone. The person who experienced only bodily affliction could still make intelligent choices, but others had no control over what they said and did. Human responsibility and demon possession: Christian Bible students are not agreed concerning the extent of human responsibility in demon possession. It appears that sometimes the individual was in no way accountable for this invasion of one’s personality. The body who suffered seizures similar to those of epilepsy had been afflicted from early childhood (Mark 9.21). These convulsions sometimes came upon the lad as he was standing by water or fire, and almost cost him his life when he fell. Since this physical affliction came upon him at such a young age, it would seem that he did nothing to cause demonic invasion of his body. On the other hand, many believe that God would not permit evil spirits to take over a human personality unless that individual first weakened one’s will by voluntarily yielding to temptation. If one accepts this premise, one will consider those who are violent, unclean, and blasphemous because of demon possession to be partly responsible for their present state. They likely male themselves susceptible to demonic invasion of their personalities by persisting in sinful practices. #RandolphHarris 4 of 22
The believer’s authority over demons: The Lord Jesus Christ cast out demons on numerous occasions. Eight of the recorded miracles involve demon expulsions, but the gospels indicate that He exercised this power many other times. Luke declares, “And demons also came out of many, crying out, saying, ‘Thou art Christ, the Son of God.’ And he, rebuking them, did not allow them to speak; for they knew that he was Christ,” Luke 4.41. The gospel writers seem to indicate that whenever Christ encounter a demon-possessed individual, He expelled the evil spirit without difficulty. As the Lord of the invisible World, Jesus spoke with absolute authority, and the demon had no alternative but to do what He commanded. Mark records, “And he healed many that were sick of diverse diseases, and cast out many demons; and permitted not the demons to speak, because they knew him,” reports Mark 1.34. The Lord also commissioned the Twelve to exercise authority over evil spirits. In Chapter 3 of Mark’s gospel we read: “And he appointed twelve, that they should be with him, and that he might send them forth to preach, and to have authority to heal sickness, and to cast out demons,” reports Mark 3.14-15. On other occasions, He gave this power to a larger group, for He sent out seventy disciples on a special mission, and they returned in joyous excitement, saying, “Lord, even the demons are subject unto us through thy name,” reports Luke 10.17. Today the power to resist and overcome evil spirits in the name of Jesus belongs to every believer. The Holy Spirit indwells even the weakest Christian (1 Corinthians 6.19). and the least gifted among those who trust in Christ have received all the benefits of salvation. #RandolphHarris 5 of 22
James makes it clear that a believer who humbly trusts God can cause Satan, the supreme ruler of the demon World, to flee. “But he giveth more grace. Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble. Submit yourselves, therefore, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you, reports James 4. 6, 7. If one who knows Christ can successfully resist the commander-in-chief of the demonic hordes, one certainly can overcome the soldiers who make up the army of Satan when they seek to lead one into sin. Casting demons out of an afflicted person is another matter, however, and believers must exercise extreme care when they are confronted with demon possession. These evil spirits may be very powerful, and sometimes can be expelled only after a time of heart searching and earnest prayer on the part of the Christians who are seeking to deliver the possessed person. Mark tells us of an occasion when a father was disappointed in the apostles, who themselves had become discouraged when they were unable to help a demon-possessed boy. Jesus rebuked them for their spiritual lack, saying, “This kind can come forth by nothing, but by prayer,” reports Mark 9.29. (The words “and fasting,” which occur in our King James Version are not found in the best Greek manuscripts. Furthermore, there would have been no opportunity for the disciples to fast in connection with their attempt to heal this boy.) This Scripture passage certainly indicates that no believer should attempt to cast out demons unless one exercises strong faith, renounces sin, and lives in continuous fellowship with the Lord. #RandolphHarris 6 of 22
Missionaries who have encountered demon possession say that sometimes the victory is won by a simply command uttered in the name of the Lord Jesus. (The phrase “in the name Lord Jesus” really means, “by the authority of Jesus.”) In other instances, however, God’s servants have found it necessary to engage in a period of prayers and confession of sin. Nevius, in his book entitled Demon Possession and Allied Themes, recounts numerous instances of demon possession which he and his co-workers in China found during the last half of the nineteenth century. This man’s character and theological position make one a trust worthy source of information. He said that demons often spoke to the missionaries as they were about to cast them out of a hapless victim, sometimes pleaded for mercy, often resisted, but always were forced to leave after Christians prayed together and gave the command in the name of the Lord Jesus. Representatives of Christ in many other lands dominated by heathen religions discover a great deal of demon possession. They also are unanimous in declaring that through prayer and a command “in the name of the Lord Jesus” they have been able to expel the evil spirits. Christians must exercise caution whenever they encounter someone who seems to be demon-possessed. In the first place, one ought to be sure the person is suffering from demon passion rather than a condition resulting from some physical, psychological, or spiritual disorder. Some people are greatly harmed when they are wrongly told that they are demon-possessed. They actually need help from a medical doctor, psychiatrist, or spiritual counselor, but instead keep on seeking to expel evil spirits. #RandolphHarris 7 of 22
An interesting trial of a clergyman or the practice of unhallowed arts took place early in 1606—interesting and valuable, if for no other reason than that it is the first instance of such a case being discovered in the Rolls at the Record Office (not counting those of the Parliament of 1447), though we hope that it will not prove to be a unique entry, but rather the earnest of others. Shorn of legal redundancies it runs as follows: “Inquiry taken before our lord King at the King’s Court the Saturday next after the three weeks of Easter in the 6th year of James I by the oath of upright and lawful men of the County of Louth. Who say, that John Aston, late of Mellifont, Co. Louth, clerk, not having a fear of God before his eyes, but being wholly seduced by the devil, on December 1st at Mellifont aforesaid, and on divers other days and places, wickedly and feloniously used, practised, and exercised drivers invocations and conjurings of wicked and lying spirits with the intent and purpose that he might find and rcover a certain silver cup formerly taken away at Mellifont aforesaid, and also that he might understand where an in what region the most wicked traitor Hugh, Earl of Tyrone, then was, and what he was contriving against the said lord the King and the State of this kingdom of Ireland, and also that he might find out and obtain drivers treasures of gold and silver concealed in the Earth at Mellifont aforesaid and at Cashel in the country of the Cross of Tipperary, feloniously and against the peace of the said lord the King. It is to be known that the aforesaid John was taken, and being a prisoner in the Castle of the City of Dublin by warrant of the lord King was sent into England, therefore further proceedings shall cease.” #RandolphHarris 8 of 22
His ultimate fate is not known; nor is it easy to see why punishment was not meted out to him in Ireland, as he had directly contravened section 4 of the Elizabethan Act. Possibly the case was unique, and so King James may have been anxious to examine in person such an interesting specimen. If so, Heaven help the poor parson in the grip of such a witch hunter. In the year 1609 there comes from the County of Tipperary a strange story of magical spells being counteracted by the application of a holy relic; this is preserved for us in that valuable monastic record, the Triumphalia S. Crucis. At Holy Cross Abbey, near Thurles, there was preserved for many years with the greatest veneration a supposed fragment of the True Cross, which attracted vast numbers of people, and by which it was said many wonderful miracles were worked. Amongst those that came thither in that year was “Anastasia Sobechan, an inhabitant of the district of Callan (Co. Kilkenny), tortured by magical spells (veneficis incantationibus collisa), who at the Abbey, in presence of the Rev. Lord Abbot Bernard [Foulow], p;aced a girdle round her body that had touched the holy relic. Suddenly she vomited small pieces of cloth and wood, and for a whole month she spat out from her body such things. The said woman told this miracle to the Rev. Lord Abbot while she was healed by the virtue of the holy Cross. This he took care to set down in writing.” That most diligent gleaner of things strange and uncommon, Mr. Robert Law, to whom we are deeply indebted for much of the matter in this volume, informs us in his Memorialls that in the first half of the seventeenth century there was to be found in Ireland a celebrated Doctor of Divinity, in Holy Orders of the Episcopal Church, who possessed extreme adroitness in raising the Devil—a process that some would have us to believe to be commonly practised in Ireland at the present day by persons who have no pretensions to a knowledge of the Black Art! #RandolphHarris 9 of 22
Mr. Law also gives the modus operandi at full length. A servant-girl in the employment of Major-General Montgomerie at Irvine in Scotland was accused of having stolen some silverwork. “The lass being innocent takes it ill, and tells them, If she should raise the Devil she should know who took these things.” Thereupon, in order to summon that Personage she went into a cellar, “takes the Bible with her, and draws a circle about her, and turns a riddle on end from south to north, or from the right to the left hand [id est, contrary to the path of the sun in the Heavens], having in her right hand nine feathers which she pulled out of the tail of a black cock, and having read the 51st [Psalm?] forwards, “O COME, let us sing to the Lord; let us make a joyful noise to the Rock our salvation! Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving; let us make a joyful noise to Him with songs of praise! For the Lord is a great God, and a great King above all gods. In His hand are the deep places of the Earth; the heights and strength of this hills are His also. The sea is His, for He made it; and His hands formed the dry land. O come, let us worship and bow down, let us kneel before the Lord our Maker [in reverent praise and supplication. For He is our God and we are the people of His pasture and the sheep of His hand. Today, if you will hear His, harden not your hearts as at Meribah and as at Massah in the day of temptation in the wilderness. When your fathers tried My patience and tested Me, proved me, and saw my work [of judgment]. Forty years long was I grived and disgusted with that generation, and I said, It is a people that do err in their hearts, and they do not approve, acknowledge, or regard My ways. Wherefore I swore in My wrath that they would not enter My rest [the land of promise,” she reads backwards chapter ix., verse 19, of the Book of Revelations.” “Dniknam fo driht a yortsed ot detarebil erew raey dna, htnom, yad detnioppa eht ni ruoh taht rof ssenidaer neeb dah ohw slegna ruof eht os.” Upon this the Devil appeared to her, and told her who was the guilty person. #RandolphHarris 10 of 22
She then cast three of the feathers in the Devil, and bade him to return to the place from whence he came. This process she repeated three ties, until she had gained all the information she desired; she then went upstairs and told her mistress, with the result that the goods were ultimately recovered. However, escaping Scylla she fell into Charybdis; her uncanny practices came to the ears of the authorities, and she was apprehended. When in prison, she confessed that she had learnt this particular branch of the Black Art in the house of Dr. Colville in Ireland, who habitually practised it. That instructor of youth in such un-Christian practices, the Rev. Alexander Colville, D.D. was ordained in 1622 and subsequently held the vicarage of Carnmoney, the prebend of Carncastle, and the Precentorship of Connor. He was possessed of considerable wealth, with which he purchased the Galgorm estate, on which he resided; this subsequently passed into the Mountcashel family through the marriage of his great granddaughter with Stephen Moore, first Baron Kilworth and Viscount Mountcashel. Where Dr. Colville got the money to purchase so large an estate no one could imagine, and Classon Porter in his useful pamphlet related for us the manner in which popular rumor solved the problem. It was said that he had sold himself to the Devil, and that he had purchased the estate with the money his body and soul head realized. Scandal even went further still, and gave exact terms which Dr. Colville had made with the Evil One. These were, that the Devil was at once to give the Doctor his hat full of gold, and that the latter was in return, at a distant but specified day, to deliver himself body and soul to the Devil. #RandolphHarris 11 of 22
The appointed place of meeting was a lime-kiln; the Devil may have thought that this was a delicate compliment to him on account of the peculiarly homelike atmosphere of the spot, but the Doctor had different ideas. The Devil produced the gold, whereupon Dr. Colville produced a hat with a wide slit in the crown, which he boldly held over the empty kiln-pit, with the result that by the time the terms of the bargain were literally complied with, a very considerable amount of gold lay at the Doctor’s disposal, which he prudently used to his Worldly welfare. So far, so good. However, there are two sides to every question. Years rolled by, brining ever nearer and nearer the time at which the account had to be settled, and at length the fatal day dawned. The Devil arrived to claim his victim, and found him sitting in his house reading his Christian Bible by the light of a candle, whereupon he directed him to come along with him. The Doctor begged that he might not be taken away until the candle, by which he was reading, was burned out. To this the Devil assented, whereupon Dr. Colville promptly extinguished the candle, and putting it between the leaves of the Bible locked it up in the chest where he kept his gold. The candle was thus deposited in a place of safety where there was no danger of any person coming across it, and thus of being the innocent cause of the Doctor’s destruction. It is even said that he gave order that the candle should be put into his coffin and buried with him. So, we may presume, Dr. Colville evaded the payment of his debt. Our readers may perchance wonder why such stories as the above should have become connected with the reverend gentleman, and an explanation is not hard to be found. #RandolphHarris 12 of 22
Dr. Colville was a well-known divine, possessed of great wealth (inherited lawfully, we may presume), and enjoyed considerable influence in the country-side. At this time Ulster was overrun by triumphant Presbyterianism, which the Doctor, as a firm upholder of Episcopacy, opposed with all his might, and thereupon was spoken of with great acerbity by his opponents. It is not too uncharitable, therefore, to assume that these stories originated with some member of that body, who may well have believed that such had actually happened. Over a century ago, one of those great supernatural stories happened at the estate of Sarah Winchester. It was nearly five o’clock; the short day was drawing in, and the Winchester mansion began to fil with shadows, while curious noises—the muffled footfalls and distant talking voices that had been perceptible all day—seemed, no doubt because of the fading light and the consequently quickened sense of hearing, to become more frequent and insistent. President Theodore Roosevelt, who was an avid fan of the Winchester rifle said, “The riles have come. They are beautiful weapons and I am confident will do well.” He had attended a great national convention; and after an exciting week, was returning home, having a long and difficult journey before him. A pair of magnificent horses, attached to a light buggy, flew merrily enough over a rough country road for a while; but towards evening stormy weather reduced the roads to a dangerous condition, and compelled the President to relinquish his purpose of reaching home that night, and to stop at the Winchester mansion, whose interior illuminated by blazing wood-fires, spread a glowing halo among the dripping trees as he approached it, and gave promise of warmth and luxury. #RandolphHarris 13 of 22
Drawing upon the grand estate, President Roosevelt saw through its laced curtain windows that there was no lack of company within. Every angel told him that beasts as well as humans were cared for. At the open door appeared the form of a man who, at the sound of wheels, but not seeing in the outside darkness whom he addressed, called out, “’Tain’t no Earlthy use a-stoppin’ here.” Caring more for his chattels than for himself, the President paid no further regard to this address than to call loudly for the landlord. At the tone of authority, the man outline more civilly announced himself to be the butler; yet so far from inviting the traveller to alight, insisted that the house was “as full as it could pack;” but that there was a place a little farther down the road where the gentleman would be certain to find excellent accommodations. “What stables have you here?” demanded President Roosevelt, giving no more heed to this than the former announcement; but bidding his servant to alight, and preparing to do so himself. “Stables!” replied the baffled butler, shading his eyes so as to scrutinize the newcomer, ‘stables, Cap’n?” “Yes, stables. I want you to take care of my horses; I can take care of myself. Some shelter for cattle you must have by the look of these traps,” pointing to the wagons. “I do not want my horses to be kept standing out in this storm, you know.” The President leaped to the ground, directing his servant to cover the horses and then get out his valise; while the butler, thus defeated, assumed the best grace he could to say that he would see what could be done “for the horses.” “I am the President, may man,” added President Roosevelt in a milder tone, as he stamped his cold feet on the porch and shook off the rain from his travelling gear; “I am used to rough fare and a hard couch: all we want is shelter. A corner of the floor will suffice for me and my rug; a private room I can dispense with at such times as these.” #RandolphHarris 14 of 22
However, in another minute they were in the sitting-room of the house, a small, high chamber with a stone floor, full of moving shadows cast by a wood-fire that flickered on a great hearth Something of the character of an oratory was imparted to it by a tall crucifix, which reached almost to the ceiling on one side; the figure was painted of the natural colours, the cross was black. Under this stood a chest of some age and a solidity, and when the lamp had been brought, and chairs set. Mrs. Winchester brought out of a chest a large book, wrapped in a white cloth, on white cloth a cross was rudely embroidered in red thread. Even before the wrapping had been removed, the President began to be interested by the size and shape of the volume. “Too large for a missal,” he thought, “and not the shape of an antiphoner; perhaps it may be something good, after all.” The next moment the book was opened, and the President felt that he had at last lit upon something better than good. Before him lay a large folio, bound, perhaps, late in the seventeenth century, with the arms of Cannon Alberic de Mauleon stamped in gold on the sides. There may have been a hundred and fifty leaves of paper in the book, and on almost every one of them was fastened a leaf from an illuminated manuscript. Such a collection the President had hardly dreamed of in his wildest moments. Here were ten leaves from a copy of Genesis, illustrated with pictures, which would not be later than 700 AD. Further on was a complete set of pictures from a Psalter, of English execution, of the very finest kind that the thirteenth century could produce; and, perhaps best of all, there were twenty leaves of uncial writing in Latin, which, as a few words seen here and there told him at once, must belong to some very early unknow patristic treatise. #RandolphHarris 15 of 22
Could it possibly be a fragment of the copy of Papias “On the Words of Our Lord,” which was know to have exited as late as the twelfth century at Nimes? In any case, his mind was made up; that book must return to Cambridge with him, even if he had to draw the whole of his balance from the bank and stay at the Winchester mansion till the money came. He glanced up at Mrs. Winchester to see if her face yielded any hint that the book was for sale. Mr. Winchester was pale, and her lips were working. “If monsieur will turn to the end,” she said. In the meantime a separate table was brought, on which the butler had sat a clean coarse cloth, and a savoury supper of broiled ham, hot corncakes, and coffee.” The monsieur turned on, meeting new treasures at every rise of a leaf; and at the end of the book he came upon two sheets of paper, of which more recent date than anything he had yet seen, which puzzled him considerably. They must be a contemporary, he decided, with the unprincipled Canon Alberic, who had doubtless plundered the Chapter library of St Bertrand to form this priceless scrap-book. On the first of the paper sheets was a plan, carefully drawn and instantly recognizable by a person who knew the ground, of the south aisle and cloisters of St Bertrand’s. There were curious signs looking like planetary symbols, and a few Hebrew words in the corners; and in the north-west angle of the cloister was a cross drawn in gold paint. Blow the plan were some lines of writing in Latin, which ran thus: “Responsa 12 Dec. 1694. Interrogatum est: Invenaimne? Responsum est: Invenies. Fiamne dives? Fies. Vivamne invidendus? Vives. Moriarne in lecto meo? Ita.’ (Answers of the 12th of December, 1694. It was asked: Shall I find it? Answer: Thou shalt. Shall I become rich? Thou wilt. Shall I live an object of envy? Thou wilt. Shall I die in my bed? Thou wilt.) #RandolphHarris 16 of 22
The President kept looking through the book, what he then saw impressed him. The drawing he saw was no longer in existence, there is a photograph of it (which Mrs. Winchester possessed) which fully bears out that statement. The pictures in question was a sepia drawing at the end of the seventeenth century, representing, one would say at first sight, a biblical scene; for the architecture (the picture presented an interior) and the figures had that semi-classical flavour about them which the artists of two hundred year ago thought appropriate to illustrations of the Bible. On the right was King on his throne, the throne elevated on twelve steps, a canopy overheard, soldiers on either side—evidently King Solomon. He was bending forward with outstretched scepter, in attitude of command; his face expressed horror and disgust, yet there was in it also the mark of imperious command and confident power. The left half of the picture was the strangest, however. The interest plainly centered there. On the pavement before the throne were grouped four soldiers, surrounding a crouching figure which must be described in a moment. A fifth soldier lay dead on the pavement, his neck distorted, and his eyeballs starting from his head. The four surrounding guards were looking at the King. In their faces the sentiment of horror was intensified; they seemed, in fact, only restrained from flight by their implicit trust in their master. All this terror was plainly excited by the being that crouched in their midst. There are not any words that can convey the impression of which this figure makes upon anyone who looks at it. Once, the photograph was showed to a lecturer on morphology—a person who was abnormally sane and unimaginative in the habits of the mind. He absolutely refused to be alone for the rest of that evening, and told Mrs. Winchester that afterwards for many night he had not dared to put out his light before going to sleep. #RandolphHarris 17 of 22
However, the main traits of the figure, at first you saw only a mass of coarse, matted black hair; presently it was seen that this covered a body of fearful thinness, almost a skeleton, but with the muscles standing out like wires. The hands were of a dusky pallor, covered, like the body, with long, coarse hairs, and hideously taloned. The eyes, touched in with a burning yellow, had intensely black pupils, and were fixed upon the throned King with a look of a beast-like hate. Imagine one of the awful bird-catching spiders of South America translated into human form, and endowed with intelligence just less than human, and you will have some faint conception of the terror inspired by the appalling effigy. Many hours had passed and President Roosevelt said, “Don’t say another word about it. But my friend; you have not a spare sleeping-room that I can use for the night? If not, find me a corner—a clean corner.” After a great deal of hesitation, Mrs. Winchester said, “The fact is that there is as comfortable a room as the best folks can wish; but—the most mysterious whispers, imparted the startling fact that this most desirable sleeping-room is haunted.” Mrs. Winchester had come to be very suspicious of admitting guests. The President ensure her that it would be better than sitting up all night or sleeping in the barn with the horses. President Roseville became interested in Mrs. Winchester’s confidences, but could only gather in further explanation that for some time past all the travellers who has occupied that room had “made off in the middle of the night, never showing their faces at the mansion again.” On endeavouring to arrest one or more in their nocturnal flight, they—all more or less terrified—had insisted on escaping without a moment’s delay, assigning no other reason than that they had seen a ghost. The President replied, “Let the Chamber be got ready directly, and please have a good fire built in the fireplace at once.” #RandolphHarris 18 of 22
In a reasonable time, President Roosevelt was beckoned out of the parlour, and conducted to the second floor by the butler, who, after receiving a cheerful “goodnight,” paused on the landing to hear his guest bolt and bar the door within, then push a piece of furniture against it. “Ah,” murmured the butler, as a sort of misgiving came over him, “if a apparishum has a mind to come to thar, ‘tain’t all the bolts and bars in California as ‘ll kpi’en away.” However, the President’s precaution of securing his door, as also that of placing his revolvers in readiness, had not the slightest reference to the reputed ghost. Spiritual disturbances of such kind he feared not. Spirit tangible were already producing ominous demonstrations in the room below, nor was it possible to conjecture what troubles these might evolve. The only light was that of the roaring, crackling, blazing wood-fire, and no other was needed. At this time a growing feeling of discomfort had been creeping over him—nervous reaction, perhaps. But what storm-benighted traveller, when fierce winds and rains are lashing around, can withstand the cheering influences of a glorious log-fire? It charms away uneasiness, and causes all that is dull and dead around to laugh and dance in its bright light. By the illumination of just fire, President Roosevelt observed that the apartment offered nothing worthier of remark than that the furniture was superior to anything that might be expected in a Victorian mansion. In truth, Mrs. Winchester had expended a considerable sum in fitting up this, the first chamber. By the swaggering tread of unsteady feet about the house, or when the boisterous shouts below raged above the outside storm, he glanced up from his papers to congratulate himself upon this aggregable seclusion. #RandolphHarris 19 of 22
Thus the President sat for an hour, then he heaped fresh logs upon the hearth, looked again to his revolvers, and retired to rest. The bell in the belfry was striking one thirteen in the am, the President awoke. He awoke suddenly from a sound sleep, flashing, as it were, into full consciousness, his mind and memory clear, all his faculties invigorated, his ideas undisturbed, but with a perfect conviction that he was not alone. He lifted his head. A man was standing a few feet from the bed, and between it and the fire, which was still burning, and burning brightly enough to display every object in the room, and to define the outline of the intruder clearly. His dress also and his features were plainly distinguishable: the dress was a travelling-costume, in fashion somewhat out of date; the features wore a mournful and distressed expression—the eyes were fixed upon the President. The right arm hung down, and the hand partially concealed. His attention with then caught by an object lying on the red cloth just by his left elbow. Two or three ideas of what it might be flitted through his brains with their own incalculable quickness. “A penwiper? No, no such thing in the house. A rat? No, too black. A large spider? I trust to goodness not—no. Good God! a hand like the hand in that picture!” In another infinitesimal flash he had taken it in. Pale, dusky skin, covering nothing but bones and tendons of appalling strength; coarse black hairs, longer than ever grew on a human hand; nails rising from the ends of the fingers and curving sharply down and forward, gray, horny and wrinkled. He jumped out of his bed with deadly, inconceivable terror clutching his heart. The shape, whose left hand rested on the table, was rising to a standing posture, its right hand crooked above his scalp. There was black and tattered drapery about it; the coarse hair covered it as in the drawing. The lower jaw was thin—what can I call it?—shallow, like abeast’s; teeth showed behind the black lips; there was no nose; the eyes, of a fiery yellow, against which the pupils showed black and intense, and the exulting hate and thirst to destroy life which shone there, were the most horrifying feature in the whole vision. There was intelligence of a kind in them—intelligence beyond that of a beast, below that of a man. #RandolphHarris 20 of 22
The feelings which this horror stirred in President Roosevelt were the intensest physical fear and the most profound mental loathing. What did he do? What could he do? The man seemed about to advance still closer to the bed, and returned the occupant’s gaze with a fixed stare. “Stand, or I’ll fire!” cried the President, taking in all this at a glance, revolver in hand. The man remained still. “What is your business here?” demanded Roosevelt, thinking he was addressing one of the roughs from below. The man was silent. “If you value your life, leave the room,” shouted the president, pointing his revolver. The man was motionless. “RETIRE! Or by Heaven I’ll send a bullet through you!” But the man moved not an inch. The President fired. The bullet lodged in the breast of the stranger, but he started not. The President fired again and the shot entered the heart, pierced the body, and lodged in the wall beyond; and the President beheld the hole where the bullet had entered, and the firelight glimmering though it. And yet the intruder stirred not. Astounded, the President dropped his revolver, and stood face to face before the unmoved man. “President Roosevelt,” spake the deep solemn voice of the perforated stranger, “in a vain you shoot me—I am already dead.” The President, with all his bravery, grasped, spellbound. The firelight gleamed through the hole in the body, and the eyes of the shooter were riveted there. “Fear nothing,” spake the mournful presence; “I seek but to divulge my wrongs. Until my death shall be avenge my unquiet spirit lingers here. Listen.” Speechless, motionless was the President; and the mournful apparition thus slowly and distinctly continued. “Four years ago, I was hired to be a foreman. One I trusted plunged a dagger into my heart while I slept. He covered my wound with a plaster. He reigned to mourn my death. He told the people here I died of a heart-complaint; that I had long been ailing. I had gold treasures. With my treasure secreted beneath his garments he paraded mock grief at my grave. #RandolphHarris 21 of 22
“Then he depated. In distant parts he sought to forget his crime; but his stolen gold brought him only the curse of an evil conscience. Rest and peace are not for him. He now prepares to leave his native land for ever. Under an assumed name that man is this night in San Francisco. In a few hours he will sail for Europe. President Roosevelt, you must prevent it. Justice and humanity demand that a murderer roam not at large, nor squander more of the wealth that is by right my children’s. Not until the spirit of my murderer shall be separated from the mortal clay can my spirit rest in peace.” And vanished. Most of the civilians you meet either do not want to know to know about the supernatural or blame you for brining it into their lives once you tell them about it. President Roosevelt tried to revisit the Winchester, but the Butler would not allow him inside because of the damage he did to the chamber. Mrs. Winchester had a remarkable memory and knew the location of every piece of material in the mansion, even in the vast store-rooms. The full scope of her generosity, charity, and many kindly acts will forever remain unknown and such was her sincere desire. Her donations were never made public. She contributed to charities of all faiths. In 1911 in New Haven, she established the William Wirt Winchester Memorial Sanitorium for Tuberculosis, endowing it with $1,200,000 (2021 adjusted for inflation $32,539,882.35). There were the little but visible acts that we nearby dwellers particularly noticed; those daily carriage trips with soup and hot food for a newly arrived settler on Stevens Creek Road, a man dying from Tuberculosis; those annual, unheralded trips to old Cupertino Church where my mother and other woman of The Ladies Aid Society collated used clothing for the local poors’ children. I remember a small boy’s thrill as he watched her liveried coachman alight from the polished Victoria and stagger up the church steps with a huge hamper of clothes, not used clothes, but dozens of newly purchased garments! That was Mrs. Winchester, the writer and many another contemporary remember. We never knew her intimately, but how we now wish we had! #RandolphHarris 22 of 22
Winchester Mystery House
The Winchester Mystery House features some very strange oddities like the door-to-nowhere. What purpose do you think it served Sarah during her time?
A 160-room mansion built to appease the spirits who died at the hands of the Winchester Rifle 👻
🗝 winchestermysteryhouse.com
Randolph Harris II International Institute 