Randolph Harris II International Institute

Home » NASA (Page 9)

Category Archives: NASA

Admittedly, We Now Live in a Different World!

Image

The horse weighs one thousand pounds and I weigh ninety-five. I guess I had better get him to cooperate. Nevertheless, we cannot overlook the fact that, just as consciousness arises from the unconscious, the ego-center, too, crystallizes out of a dark depth in which it was somehow contained in potential. Just as a human mother can only produce a human child, whose deepest nature lay hidden during its potential existence within her, so we are practically compelled to believe that the unconscious cannot be an entirely chaotic accumulation of instincts and images. There must be something to hold it together and give expression to the whole. Its center cannot possibly be the ego, since the ego was born out of it into consciousness and turns its back on the unconscious, seeking to shut it out as much as possible. Or can it be that the unconscious loses its center with the birth of the ego? In that case we would expect the ego to be far superior to the unconscious in influence and importance. Or can it be that the unconscious loses it center with the birth of the ego? #RandolphHarris 1 of 16

Image

In that case we would expect the ego to be far superior to the unconscious in influence and importance. The unconscious would then follow meekly in the footsteps of the conscious, and that would be just what we wish. Unfortunately, the facts show the exact opposite: consciousness succumbs all too easily to unconscious influences, and these are often truer and wiser than our conscious thinking. Also, it frequently happens that unconscious motives overrule our conscious decisions, especially in matters of vital importance. Indeed, the fate of the individual is largely dependent on unconscious factors. Careful investigation shows how very much our conscious decisions depend on the undisturbed functioning memory. However, memory often suffers from the disturbing inference of unconscious contents. Moreover, it functions as a rule automatically. Ordinarily it uses the bridges of association, but often in such an extraordinary way that another thorough investigation of the whole process of memory-reproduction is needed in order to find out how certain memories managed to reach consciousness at all. And sometimes these bridges cannot be found. In such cases it is impossible to dismiss the hypothesis of the spontaneous activity of the unconscious. #RandolphHarris 2 of 16

Image

Another example is intuition, which is chiefly dependent on unconscious processes of a very complex nature. Because of this peculiarity, I have defined intuition as ā€œperception via the unconscious.ā€ Normally the unconscious collaborates with the conscious without friction or disturbance, so that one is not even aware of its existence. However, when an individual or a social group deviates too far from their instinctual foundations, they then experience the full impact of unconscious forces. The collaboration of the unconscious is intelligent and purposive, and even when it acts in opposition to consciousness its expression is still compensatory in an intelligent way, as if it were trying to restore the lost balance. There are dreams and visions of such an impressive character that some people refuse to admit that they could have originated in an unconscious psyche. They prefer to assume that which phenomena derive from a sort of ā€œsuperconsciousness.ā€ Such people make a distinction between a quasi-physiological or instinctive unconscious and a psychic sphere or layer ā€œaboveā€ consciousness, which they style the ā€œsuperconscious.ā€ #RandolphHarris 3 of 16

Image

As a matter of fact, this psyche, which in Indian philosophy is called the ā€œhigherā€ consciousness, corresponds to what we in the New World called the ā€œunconscious.ā€ Certain dreams, visions, and mystical experiences do, however, suggest the existence of a consciousness in the unconscious. However, if we assume a consciousness in the unconscious, we are at once faced with the difficulty that no consciousness can exist without a subject, that is, an ego to which the contents are related. Consciousness needs a center, an ego to which something is conscious. We know of no other kind of consciousness, nor can we imagine a consciousness without an ego. When there is no one to say: ā€œI am conscious,ā€ there can be no consciousness. Much like there could be no World without God. ā€œIn the beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, ā€˜Let there be light,’ and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. God called the light ā€˜day,’ and the darkness he called ā€˜night.’ And there was evening, an there was morning—the first day,ā€ reports Genesis 1.1-5. #RandolphHarris 4 of 16

Image

It is unprofitable to speculate about things we cannot know. I therefore refrain from making assertions that go beyond the bounds of science. It was never possible for me to discover in the unconscious anything like a personality comparable with the ego. However, although a ā€œsecond egoā€ cannot be discovered (except in the rare cases of dual personality), the manifestations of the unconscious do at least show traces of personalities. A simple example is the dream, where a number of real or imaginary people represent the dream-thoughts. In nearly all the important types of dissociation, the manifestations of the unconscious assume a strikingly personal form. Careful examination of the behaviour and mental content of these personifications, however, reveals their fragmentary character. They seem to represent complexes that have split off from a greater whole, and are the very reverse of a personal center of the unconscious. I have always been greatly impressed by the character of dissociated fragments as personalities. RandolphHarris 5 of 16

Image

Hence I have often asked myself whether we are not justified in assuming that, if such fragments have personality, the whole from which they were broken off must have personality to an even higher degree. #Since it does not depend on whether the fragments are large or small, the inference seemed logical. Why, then, should not the whole have personality too? Personality need not imply consciousness. It can just as easily be dormant or dreaming. The general aspect of unconscious manifestations of the unconscious assume a strikingly personal form. Careful examination of the behaviour and mental content of these personifications, however, reveals their fragmentary character. They seem to represent complexes that have split off from a greater whole, and are the very reverse of a personal center of the unconscious. I have always been greatly impressed by the character of dissociated fragments as personalities. Hence I have often asked myself whether we are not justified in assuming that, if such fragments have personality, the whole from which they were broken off must have personality to an even higher degree. The inference seemed logical, since it does not depend on whether the fragments are large or small. #RandolphHarris 6 of 16

Image

Why, then, should not the whole have personality too? Personality need not imply consciousness. It can just as easily be dormant or dreaming. The general aspect of unconscious manifestations is in the main chaotic and irrational, despite certain symptoms of intelligence and purposiveness. The unconscious produces dreams, visions, fantasies, emotions, grotesque ideas, and so forth. This is exactly what we would expect a dreaming personality to do. It seems to be a personality that was never awake and was never conscious of the life it had lived and of its own continuity. The only question is whether the hypothesis of a dormant and hidden personality is possible or not. It may be that all of the personality to be found possible or not. It may be that all of the personality to be found in the unconscious is contained in the fragmentary personifications mentioned before. Since this is very possible, all my conjecture would be in vain—unless there were evidence of much less fragmentary and more complete personalities, even though they are hidden. I am convinced that such evidence exists. Unfortunately, the material to prove this belongs to the subtleties of psychological analysis #RandolphHarris 7 of 16

Image

It is therefore not exactly easy to give the reader a simple and convincing idea of it. There are ideas which beco.me obsolete and are allowed to die. However, three ideas are so fundamental that they will always reappear. They are built into the Universe and therefore into humans themselves. These three cosmic forces—Attraction, Repulsion, and Rest—constitute the triune manifestation of the World-Idea. You will find them in every department of existence. There is a movement in the Universe which during one phase seems constructive, but in a later phase seems destructive. However, both are really part of its order, its divine order, for the two phases belong to each other, complement each other, and are necessary to each other. There are two poles of this universal movement: the one, a going-out, affirming, and the other a coming-back and denying. All nature is bisected by this two-way process. The life of the Universe moves through a series of evolutionary oscillations between rest and activity. It is the increasing of one movement which runs parallel with the decrease of the other movement. #RandolphHarris 8 of 16

Image

One is constructive even while the other is destructive. The rhythmic life alternates and reacts. It brings alternation of the alternations and reactions against the reactions. Just as humans and animals pass through their cycles of infancy, youth, maturity, and senility, so does the planet itself which is their abode. The cycle of existence is never-ending. Whoever understands this truth and his own relationship to it will become humble. Existence is an endless affair but it has periods of rest and withdrawal, changes of form and body, of consciousness and selfhood. We are developments brought forth from it and taken back into it. The Universe plays its little part on the surface of unknowable and ineffable Mind and is gone—only to reappear at some immensely far-off time. Worlds come into being, are maintained for a long or short while, change, and dissolve. As we can readily see by observation and experience, this is not less the situation for the creatures—including human creatures—who inhabit these Worlds. Yet most people are too unprepared, too weak and too shallow, to be willing to take these truths. Infinite Mind releases from within itself an infinite variety of suns, stars, planets, substances, plants, and creatures. #RandolphHarris 9 of 16

Image

Even the process itself is an infinite one, countered only by necessary dissolutions and destructions, pauses and rests. Even Universes get old and die off. All that is released into manifestation is subject to this perpetual law of movement and change, growth and decay, death, reappearance, and recurrence. The Universe comes into being, maintains its varied operations, or passes into dissolution by inherent necessity. The entire Universe will dissolve and vanish into the unseen Power whence it came. However, there are many other Universes and galaxies to replace our own. Dawn follows night in the vast cosmos with rhythmical recurrence. Therefore the self-actualized say that there is neither beginning nor end to the Universe but the perennial flow of eternity. The Final is likewise the First. We must understand clearly that creation and dissolution, evolution and involution continue t recur perpetually. It is not a question of long periods of time coming to a final close. This rhythm of the Universe is incessant. According to the Chinese wisdom, when either of the two aspects has developed to its utmost limit, then it begins to transform itself into the polar opposite of its own accord.  #RandolphHarris 10 of 16

Image

Our own proverb ā€œThe night is darkest just before dawnā€ is also apt in the transformation of polar opposites. In the sky we see the same phenomenon. The moment when the waxing moon has reached its fullest is immediately followed by the moment when the process of waning begins. The higher position of the mourning sun is no sooner attained in the overhead sky at noon the great orb begins its downward descent. At new mon the waning process comes to an end and the reverse process occurs. The same turning point is reached at winter and summer solstices. The interrelation of these phenomena with the larger phenomenon of the universal creation and dissolution may be seen. At the extreme point of either process there is a turning. Every moment in Nature ultimately reverses itself, but the point of reversal is not reached until it has gone to the extreme. With the reversal it begins to develop opposite qualities. This is an old and well-known idea in China, not only among the people but also among the philosophers. Lao Tzu for instance, says, ā€œTo go father and father means to revert back again.ā€ #RandolphHarris 11 of 16

Image

In this shuttle-and-loom, two-way alternating rhythm of the Universe, when the forces attain the midpoint of their arc, they start working in reverse, going down instead of evolving up, decaying and destroying instead of nurturing and vitalizing, yielding pain instead of pleasure. Every condition in human, every effect in Nature is forever seeking to attain its own fullness. Yet the moment that is attained and a pause ensures, it reverses its direction and begins to seek union with its opposite. Thus it balances itself in the end. Evolution is never a straight line. It could not be, in a two-way Universe. At the crisis-point on each way a shock becomes necessary to force a turnabout. This is the same point referred to by ancient Greek thinkers, where everything destroys itself in the end by its own excesses. Heraclitus meant the same when he too taught that all things tend to turn into their opposites. The movement in one direction sooner or later provokes a countermovement in the opposite direction. This reaction leads to a resistance at some point or points; it may also lead to friction and then to fighting. Each phase of this to-and-fro movement covers long periods. #RandolphHarris 12 of 16

Image

When the impetus in one direction exhausts itself, the opposing impetus awakens from tranquility and it active. Today we are not so far removed in time from a social World in which such a constantly generous response was the presumed ideal. I recall from my childhood that my father, as he drove along in his car, always raised his hand to the driver of an oncoming vehicle, and he or she nearly always reciprocated. (Just recently while driving in rural Georgia, a man acknowledged me in this way. I was mildly shocked.) Of course there were not that many oncoming vehicles then. My father also never passed anyone on sidewalk without acknowledging him or her, unless he was in a crowd; and he would always tip his hat to a woman (who, as such, was assumed to be a lady). These, it might be thought, are small things, and if you tried to acknowledge all the drivers you meet today, you would probably wreck your Ultimate Driving Machine.  If you spoke to people on the sidewalk that you were unfamiliar with, they would probably think you were crazy or dangerous. No doubt the profound moral insight of our times would also point out the ā€œhypocrisyā€ involved in such responses. #RandolphHarris 13 of 16

Image

Admittedly, we now live in a different World. However, is it a better World for that? Could the epidemic of addictions and dysfunctions from which the masses duffer possibly be related to that fact that we are constantly in the presence of people who are withdrawn from us, who do not want to acknowledge we are there and frankly would feel more at ease if we were not—people who in many cases explicitly reject us and feel it only right to do so? Is it not the desperate need for approval that drives people so relentlessly today—causing them to go foolish and self-destructive lengths to be ā€œattractiveā€ or at least to get attention—nothing but the echo of a lost World of constant mutual welcome and blessing in family, neighbourhood, school, and work? ā€œBeing attractiveā€ and getting attention is the absolute bottom of barrel of being ā€œwith othersā€ –the fifteen minutes of fame (for which Andy Warhol is famous) that is now down to fifteen seconds or less. I do not mean to suggest that anyone can overcome our desperate social situation by an individual act of will. Far from it. Whatever might be done, that is not it. This is the World we now have. #RandolphHarris 14 of 16

Image

To do anything of substance about it will require a grace and wisdom that is at no individual’s disposal, and a long-range plan of personal and social development is required. No doubt God has one in mind. However, to make a start where we are, we must recognize that this our World is not normal, but is only usual at present. We must try to see it for what it is and then begin to think of specific ways grace and truth can begin to change it. And above all, we who follow Jesus must understand that a couple of hours per week of carefully calibrated distance in a church setting will be of little help, and may only enforce the patterns of withdrawal that permeate our fallen World. What could we do in our fellowships that would really help make a difference? ā€œThe manner of administering the wine—Behold, they took the cup, and said: O God, the Eternal Father, we ask thee, in the name of thy Son, Jesus Christ, to bless and sanctify this wine to the souls of all those who drink of it, that they may do it in remembrance of the blood of thy Son, which was shed for them; that they may witness unto thee, O God the Eternal Father, that they do always remember him, that they may have his Spirit to be with them. Amen,ā€ reports Moroni 5.1-2. #RandolphHarris 15 of 16

Image

Dear Lord in Heaven, Who have the secrets of planting, Who has the secrets of growth, who has the secrets of harvest, it is a harvest that we pray to you, it is today that we pray to you, your holy day, the celebration of Christ. We thank you, God, for your protection, for watching over our field against all danger, whether animals who might have eaten our crops whether humans who might have encroached in our land, whether spirits who might have wished us ill: against all these, Long-Arm, you have defended us and ours. And so to you, guider and protector, teacher and champion, we pray on this day, which is rightly called yours. We thankfully acknowledge that Thou art the Lord our God and God of our fathers, the God of all the lives, our Creator and Creator of the Universe. We offer blessings and thanksgiving to Thy great and holy names because Thou hast kept us in life and sustained us; s mayest Thou continue to keep us in life and sustain us. O gather our exiles into the courts of Thy holy sanctuary to observe Thy statues, to do Thy will, and to serve Thee with a perfect heart. We give thanks unto Thee. Blessed be God to whom we are ever grateful. #RandolphHarris 16 of 16

Image

Cresleigh Homes

Image

#HappyHolidays from #CresleighHomes! We hope you and your loved ones are having a wonderful time together. ā¤ļø #Cheers to the #WorldsBestCupOfCoffee! šŸ˜‰4h

Image

This community features a convenient location, and highly ranked schools. Enjoy Cresleigh’s craftsmanship, with single and two-story homes, some with main-floor primary suites, ranging from approximately 2,000 to 4,000 square feet. Make your home your own with hundreds of options for personalization and customization.

Image
Image

The Unconscious Thinks and Lives in Terms of Millennia–for that We Require the Help of the Black Magician!

Image

People who take an optimum amount of vitamin C will experience only a quarter as much illness as those who do not. Through proper use, we could raise the average life expectancy by eight years. We have certain ideas as to how a civilized or educated or moral being should live, and we occasionally do our best to fulfill these ambitious expectations. Vegetables are interesting but lack a sense of purpose when unaccompanied by a good cut of meat. We call the unconscious ā€œnothing,ā€ and yet it is a reality in poetentia. The thought we shall think, the deed we shall do, even the fate we shall lament tomorrow, all lie unconscious in our today. The unknown is us which the affect uncovers was always there and sooner or later would have presented itself to the conscious. Sarah Winchester’s mansion has hosted many glittering, star studded parties and was regarded as the place to see and been seen. Conrad Nicholson Hilton, Constance Hilton, Zsa Zsa Gabor, William Randolph Heart, Phoebe Apperson, Vivien Leigh, Hattie McDaniel, and Sidney Howard are said to have visited. As often happens, the intensity of emotion experienced over the years by those anxious to be recognized at the mysterious mansion has left the grand Queen Anne, Eastlake, Gothic mansion uniquely stocked with echoes from the past. #RandolphHarris 1 of 28

Image

The only slightly surprising element to this haunted house is that ghosts were apparently not officially acknowledged until 1985, just prior to the mansion’s $40-million renovation. During mid-December in 1985, everyone at the Winchester mansion was busy preparing for the upcoming day when the mansion would once again receive guests. No matter what their usual duties or job titles, all employees were directly involved with the last-minute details—secretaries were sweeping, butlers were dusting, waitresses were helping make up guest rooms. The place was a veritable model of industry. Mr. Jim was in the Grand Ballroom, which some consider the most beautiful room in the house, in anticipation of the new carpet being installed. Like many of those on the staff, Mr. Jim was a part-time Hollywood actor; given the star-studded history of the mansion, the ā€œday jobā€ was very much a labour of love. Being able to devote some of himself this gorgeous room that had been so important to the history of movie-making felt more like a privilege than a chore. It was also a perfect time, he thought, to commune with the spirits of those who came to the mansion to celebrate receiving Academy Awards here. As Mr. Jim’s experience unfolded, it became a far closer encounter than he anticipated. #RandolphHarris 2 of 28

Image

The Grand Ballroom is large and the job had to be done thoroughly, so Mr. Jim was taking his time and making sure he did not miss any part of the floor. After repeatedly going back over to a certain area in the Grand Ballroom, he realized that while the rest of the room was kept at a very comfortable temperature, the air in that particular spot was incredibly chilly. More puzzled than concerned Mr. Jim wanted to determine what was causing this draft. The temperature was an inexplicably 20 degrees Fahrenheit cooler in this circle which was about 45 inches in diameter near a wall, mahogany framed mirror. As Mr. Jim wiped his cloth over the reflective glass, he was astonished to see the face a young man, with slick dark hair, smoking a cigarette staring back at him. Mr. Jim was alone in the room, so he quickly turned around to see who had joined him. There was no one else in the room, and that was not his face in the mirror. He turned back to the mirror. The image was still there. That was enough for Mr. Jim. He took it as a sign to remove the carpet he had just installed. #RandolphHarris 3 of 28

Image

According to information released by the mansion, the mirror was gifted to the mansion by Boris Karloff with a note saying, ā€œA warm private friendship has subsisted between us for half our lives, interrupted by no untoward occurrence, and never for a moment cooling into indifference. Of this friendship, the source of so much happiness to me, I wish to leave, if not an enduring memorial, at least an affectionate and grateful acknowledgment. I inscribe this mirror to you.ā€ One night, I was in the Winchester mansion, standing in the presence of a sublime hieratic figured we now called the ā€œWarlockā€ who was clothed in a long black robe reflecting from the mirror. This warlock was Boris Karloff, and he had just ended a lengthy discourse with the words, ā€œAnd for that we require the help of black magician.ā€ Then the door suddenly opened and an old man came in, the ā€œblack magician,ā€ who however was dressed in a white rob. He too looked noble and sublime. The black magician evidently wanted to speak with the warlock, but he hesitated to do so in my presence. As that the warlock, point to me, said, ā€œSpeak, only an innocent is here.ā€ So the black magician began to relate a strange story of how he had found the lost keys of Paradise and did not know how to use them. #RandolphHarris 4 of 28

Image

The black magician told the warlock (Boris) that the king of the country in which he lived was seeking a suitable tomb for himself. The king’s subjects had chanced to dig up an old sarcophagus, threw away the bones, and had the empty sarcophagus buried again for later use on the spot that this sprawling mansion now occupies. However, no sooner had the bones seen the light of day than the being to whom they once had belonged—the virgin—changed into a black horse that galloped off into the desert. The black magician pursued it across the sandy coast and beyond, and there after many vicissitudes and difficulties he found the lost keys of Paradise. That was the end of history, and also, unfortunately, of the warlock and his mirror. It supposedly shattered into pieces, was sent out to San Francisco for repair and never returned. This haunting did not fall out as we had wished, no one understand what the warlock, the black magician, and the king were trying to tell us. The meaning of the story died with the disappearance of the haunted mirror. We were confronted with a problem and one which life is always brining us up against: namely, the uncertainty of all moral valuation, the bewildering interplay of good and evil, and the remorseless concatenation of guilt, suffering, and redemption. #RandolphHarris 5 of 28

Image may contain: night and indoor

This path to the primordial religious experience is the right one, but how many recognize it? It is like a still small voice, and it sounds from afar. It is ambiguous, questionable, dark, presaging danger and hazardous adventure; a razor-egged path, to be trodden for God’s sake only, without assurance and without sanction. Hence we must always reckon with the presence of things not yet discovered. These, as I have said, may be unknow quirks of character. However, the possibilities of future development may also come to light in this way, perhaps in just such an outburst of affect which sometimes radically alters the whole situation. The unconscious has a Janus-face: on one side its contents point back to a preconscious, prehistoric World of instinct, while on the other side it potentially anticipates the future—precisely because of the instinctive readiness for action of the factors that determine human’s fate. If we had complete knowledge of the ground plan lying dormant in an individual from the beginning, one’s fate would be in large measure predictable. #RandolphHarris 6 of 28

Image may contain: indoor

Now, to the extent that unconscious tendencies—by they backward-looking images or forward-looking anticipations—appear in visions, vision have been regarded, in all previous ages less as historical regression than as anticipations of the future, and rightly so. For everything that will be happens on the basis of what has been, and of what—consciously or unconsciously—still exists as a memory-trace. In s far as no human is born totally new, but continually repeats the stage of development last reached by the species, one contains unconsciously, as an a priori datum, the entire psychic structure developed both upwards and downwards by one’s ancestors in the course of the ages. That is what gives the unconscious its characteristic ā€œhistoricalā€ aspect, but it is at the same time the sine qua non for shaping the future. For this reason it is often very difficult to decide whether an autonomous manifestation of the unconscious should be interpreted as an effect (and therefore historical) or as an aim (and therefore teleological and anticipatory). The conscious mind thinks as a rule without regard to ancestral preconditions and without taking into account the influence this a priori factor has on the shaping of the individual’s fate. #RandolphHarris 7 of 28

Image may contain: house, tree, sky and outdoor

Whereas we think in periods of years, the unconscious thinks and lives in terms of millennia. So when something happens that seems to us an unexampled novelty, it is generally a very old story indeed. We still forget, like children, what happened yesterday. We are still living in a wonderful new World where humans think themselves astonishingly new and ā€œmodern.ā€ This is unmistakable proof of the youthfulness of human consciousness, which has not yet grown aware of its historical antecedents. As a matter of fact, the ā€œnormalā€ person convinces me far more of the autonomy of the unconscious than does the insane person. Psychiatric theory can always take refuge behind real or alleged organic disorders of the brain and thus detract from the importance of the unconscious. However, when it comes to normal humanity, such a view is no longer applicable. What one sees happening in the World is no just a shadowy vestige of activities that were once conscious, but expression of a living psychic condition that still exists and always will exist. Were that not so, one might well be astonished. However, it is precisely those who give least credence to the autonomy of the unconscious who are the most surprised by it. #RandolphHarris 8 of 28

Image

Because of its youthfulness and vulnerability, our consciousness tends to make light of the unconscious. This is understandable each, for if one wants to start something on one’s own account. a young person should not let oneself be overawed by the authority of one’s parents. Historically as well as individually, our consciousness has developed out of the darkness and somnolence of primordial unconsciousness. There were psychic processes and functions long before any ego-consciousness existed. Thinking existed long before humans were able to say: ā€œI am conscious of thinking.ā€ The primitive ā€œperils of the soulā€ consist mainly of dangers to consciousness. Fascination, bewitchment, ā€œloss of soul,ā€ possession, et cetera are obviously phenomena of the dissociation and suppression of consciousness caused by unconscious contents. Even civilized humans are not yet entirely free of the darkness of primeval times. The unconscious is the mother of consciousness. Where there is a mother there is also a father, yet one seems to be unknown. #RandolphHarris 9 of 28

Image may contain: indoor

Consciousness in the pride of its youth, may deny its father, but it cannot deny its mother. That would be too unnatural, for one can see in every child how hesitantly and slowly its ego-consciousness evolves out of a fragmentary consciousness lasting for single moments only, and how these islands gradually emerge from the total darkness of mere instinctuality. Consciousness grows out of an unconscious psyche which is older than it, and which goes on functioning together with it or even in spite of it. Although there are numerous cases of conscious contents becoming unconscious again (through being repressed, for instance), the unconscious as a whole is far from being a mere remnant of consciousness. Or are the psychic functions of animals remnants of consciousness? There is little hope of our finding in the unconscious an order equivalent to that of the ego. It certainly does not look as if we were likely to discover an unconscious ego-personality, something in the nature of a Pythagorean ā€œcounter-Earth.ā€ And this of course means ā€œmiraculousā€ interposition, but not necessarily of the gross sort our fathers took such delight in representing, and which has so lost is magic for us. #RandolphHarris 10 of 28

Image

If evil were really one under the same sun, the sky would incontinently shrivel to a snakeskin and cast it out in spasms. However, the spasms of Nature are years and centuries; and it will tax human’s patience to wait so long. We may think of the reserved possibilities God keeps in his own hand, under as invisible and molecular slowly self-summating a form as we please. We may think of them as counteracting human agencies which God inspires ad hoc. In short, signs and wonders and convulsions of the Earth and sky are not the only neutralizers of obstruction to God’s plans of which it is possible to think. As long as languages contain a future perfect tense, determinists, following the bent of laziness or passion, the lines of least resistance, can reply in that tense, saying, ā€œIt will have been fated,ā€ to the still small voice which urges an opposite course; and thus excuse themselves from effort in a quiet unanswerable way. Vampires, Ghost, and Demons—God Himself, you think, can have no use for them. An immortality of every separate specimen must be to Him and to the Universe as indigestible a load to carry as it is to you. #RandolphHarris 11 of 28

Image may contain: plant and indoor

So, engulfing the whole subject in a sort of mental giddiness and nausea, you drift along, first doubting that the mass can be immortal, then losing all assurance in the immortality of a particular person, precious as you all the while feel and realize the latter to be. This, I am sure, is the attitude of mind of some of you before me. However, is not such an attitude due to the verist lack and dearth of your imagination? You take these swarms of alien kinsmen as they are for you: an external picture painted on your retina, representing a crowd oppressive by tis vastness and confusion. As they are for you, so you think they positively and absolutely are. I feel no call for them, you say; therefore there is no call for them. However, all the while, beyond this externality which is your way of realizing them, they realize themselves with the acutest internality, with the most violent thrills of life. It is you who are dead, stone-dead and blind and senseless, in your way of looking. You open your eyes upon a scene of which you miss the whole significance. Each of these grotesque or even repulsive aliens is animated by an inner joy of living as hot or hotter than that which you feel beating in your private breast. #RandolphHarris 12 of 28

Image

The sun rises and beauty beams to light his path. To miss the inner joy of him is to miss the whole of him. Not a being of the countless throng is there whose continued life is not called for, and called for intensely, by the consciousness that animates the being’s form. That you neither realize nor understand nor call for it, that you have no use for it, is an absolutely irrelevant circumstance. That you have a saturation-point of interest tells us nothing of the interest that absolutely are. The Universe, with every living entity which her resources create, creates at the same time a call for that entity, and an appetite for its continuance—creates it, if nowhere else, at least within the heart of the entity itself. It is absurd to suppose, simply because our private power of sympathetic vibration wit other lives gives out so soon, that in the heart of infinite being itself there can be such a thing as plethora, or glut, or supersaturation. It is not as if there were a bounded room where the minds in possession had to move up or make place and crowd together to accommodate new occupants. Each new mind brings its own edition of the Universe of space along with it, its own room to inhabit; and these spaces never crowd each other—the space of my imagination, for example, in no way interferes with yours. #RandolphHarris 13 of 28

Image may contain: house, sky and outdoor

The amount of possible consciousness seems to be governed by no law analogous to that of the so-called conservation of energy in the material World. When one human wakes up, or is born, another does not have to go to sleep, or die, in order to keep the consciousness of the Universe a constant quantity. There is a law of the Universe called the Law of Increase of Spiritual energy, by Dr. Wundt, which expressly oppose the law of conservation of energy in physical things. There seems no formal limit to the positive increase of being in spiritual respects; and since spiritual being, whenever it conies, affirms itself, expands and craves continuance, we may justly and literally say, regardless of the defect of our own private sympathy, that the supply of the individual life in the Universe can never possibly, however immeasurable it may become, exceed the demand. The demand for that supply is there the moment the supply itself comes into being, for the beings supplied demand their own continuance. Through many diversified channels of expression, the eternal Spirit of the Universe affirms and realizes its own infinite life. However, if we are theists, we can go no farther without altering the result. #RandolphHarris 14 of 28

Image

God, we can then say, has so inexhaustible a capacity for love that His call and need is for literally endless accumulation of created lives. God can never faint or grow weary, as we should, under the increasing supply. God’s scale is infinite in all things. His sympathy can never know satiety or glut. Furthermore, consciousness in this process does not have to be generated de novo in a vast number of places. It exists already, behind the scenes, coeval with the World. The condition of consciousness is a certain kind of psychophysical movement. Before consciousness can come, a certain degree of activity in the movement must be reached. This requisite degree is called the threshold; but the height of the threshold varies under different circumstances: it may rise of fall. When it falls, as in states of great lucidity, we grow conscious of things of which we should be unconscious at other times; when it rises, as in drowsiness, consciousness sinks in amount. This rising and lowering of a psychophysical threshold exactly conforms to our notion of a permanent obstruction to the transmission of consciousness, which obstruction may, in our brains, grow alternately greater or less. #RandolphHarris 15 of 28

Image may contain: indoor

The transmission-theory also puts itself in touch with a whole class of experiences that are with difficulty explained by the production-theory. I refer to those obscure and exceptional phenomena reported at all times throughout human history which the psychical-researchers are doing to much to rehabilitate; such phenomena, namely, as religious conversions, providential leadings in answers to prayer, instantaneous healings, premonitions, apparitions at time of death, clairvoyant visions or impressions, and the whole range of mediumistic capacities, to say nothing of still more exceptional and incomprehensible things. If all our human thought be a function of the brain, then of course, if any of these things are fact—and to my own mind some of them are fact—we may not suppose that they can occur without preliminary brain-action. However, the ordinary production-theory of consciousness is knit up with a peculiar notion of how brain-action can occur—that notion being that all brain-action, without exception, is due to a prior action, immediate or remote, of the bodily sense-organs on the brain. #RandolphHarris 16 of 28

Image

Such action makes the brain produce sensations and mental images, and out of the sensations and images the higher forms of thought and knowledge in their turn are framed. As transmissionists, we also must admit this to the condition of all our usual thought. Sense-action is what lowers the brain-barrier. My voice and aspect, for instance strike upon your ears and eyes; your brain thereupon becomes more previous, and an awareness on your part of what I say and who I am slips into this World from the World behind the veil. However, in the mysterious phenomena to which I allude, it is often hard to see where the sense-organs can come in. A medium, for example, will show knowledge of his sitter’s private affairs which it seems impossible he should have acquired through sight or hearing, or inference therefrom. Or you will have an apparition of some one who is now dying hundreds of miles away. We need only suppose the continuity of our consciousness with a mother sea, to allow for exceptional waves occasionally pouring over the dam. Of course the causes of these odd lowerings of the brain’s threshold still remain a mystery on any terms with its grouping of Heavenly and Hellish forces upon a common center. #RandolphHarris 17 of 28

Image may contain: indoor

If it were the dark nor even if all were in the light, we could see no form of anything at all. The contrast of shadow and light is needed to define the form. Opposites are always necessary to each other. This is why they are present throughout the Universe and moreover present in all possible combinations and proportions in all possible rhythms and patterns. It is present in life, in all things, in planets and seasons. It is the eternal and invariable law of manifested existence. For anything to exist for us at all, it needs an opposite to compare it with, or it will remain non-existent to our consciousness. Unless it recognizes the pairs of opposites, thinking cannot come into existence at all. If we had not experienced Evil, we could not appreciate Good. If we had not become lost in Appearance, we could not appreciate Reality. It may be that for us humans, the ultimate meaning of the cosmos lies implicit in this truth. The acting self needs an outer World and an inner one—both. All things in human’s experience can be classified into pairs of opposites—that which experiences and that which is experienced. In each pair the first member itself becomes, on analysis, the second member of another pair. #RandolphHarris 18 of 28

Image

Whatever we look at, we see only in a relationship of contrast to something else. It is a mistake to consider this opposition to be antagonistic. On the contrary, if our perception is to be true and our judgment correct, each should be considered a part of the other. This teaches us to synthesize, to look at both sides of a thing, to include both points of view in an argument, and to add the similarities also instead of nothing the differences alone. It may be unusual, inconsistent, startling, to propose that we think in terms of opposing ideas, of conflicting statements, and find identity in variety, but this is Nature’s own way—her balance. Balance is a teaching which plays on contradictions and finds room for opposites. It seems them both in the structure of the Universe and in the movement of evolution. It puts them in its approach to human problems. Each to view of a thing or idea implies the existence of the contrary view. To understand that the universal evolution depends upon a two-way interconnected movement, and that its comprehension requires us to think about it in oppositional terms, is to be liberated from the narrow, one sided, incomplete, and intolerant thinking which is responsible for so many absurdities and miseries in human history. #RandolphHarris 19 of 28

Image may contain: indoor

When both ignore the two-face character of fortune and Nature, optimism becomes unreasonable pessimism. The life of the human being is one of relating to others. We reemphasize: The life of the human beings is one of relating to others. Though many are cursed to live and die alone, we are born of relations and into relations. One of the heart-rending stories found in Sarah Winchester’s diary is of a broken human being living on the streets. He was dying, and Mrs. Winchester took him in and had her staff care for him. When he recovered, she gave him a job and a place to stay on her estate. To merely welcome another, to provide for one, to make a place, is one of the most life-giving and life-receiving things a human being can do. They are the basic, universal acts of love. Our lives were meant to be full of such acts, drawing on the abundance of God, and they achieve their greatest fulfillment precisely when, like Jesus, we ā€œlay down our lives for the brethren.ā€ This ā€œrelatingā€ quality reaches into every dimension of human existence. It characterizes the basic nature of all thought and feeling, which is always thought of or feeling something other than itself. #RandolphHarris 20 of 28

Image

The way relate to others pervades the deepest reaches of our body, soul, and World, where our very identity—who we really are—is always intermingled (if sometimes negatively, by reaction) with others who have given us life, sustained us, or walked with us—or perhaps have deeply injured us. The call of ā€œthe otherā€ on our lives is a constant for everyone. It is the basic reality of a moral existence, which we retreat from only into a living death of isolation. If we make our purpose to save our life by withdrawal, we lost it. So Jesus said. However, this is not only a revealed truth, it is also a testable fact of life. If you would live, then give—and receive. Now you understand why Sarah Winchester, even though she withdrew, created a microcosm in her own mansion, and kept people employed for 38 years of nonstop construction. ā€œAnd it came to pass when Corintumr had recovered of his wounds, he began to remember the words which Ether had spoken unto him. He saw that there had been slain by the sword already nearly two millions of his people, and he began to sorrow in his heart; yea, there had been slain two millions of mighty men, and also their wives and the children. #RandolphHarris 21 of 28

Image may contain: table and indoor

ā€œHe began to repent of evil which he had done; he began to remember the words which had been spoken by the mouth of all the prophets, and he saw them that they were fulfilled thus far, every whit; and his soul mourned and refused to be comforted. And it came to pass that he write an epistle unto Shiz, desiring him that he would spare the people, and he would give up the kingdom for the sake of their lives of the people. And it came to pass that when Shiz had received his epistle he wrote an epistle unto Coriantumr, that is he would give himself up, that he might slay him with his own sword, that he would spare the lives of the people. And it came to pass that the people repented not of their iniquity; and the people of Coriantumr were stirred up to anger against the people of Shiz; and the people of Shiz were stirred up to anger against the people of Coriantumr; wherefore, the people of Shi did give battle unto the people of Coriantumr. And when Coriantumr saw that he was about to fall he fled again before the people of Shiz. And it came to pass that he came to the waters of Ripliancum, which, by interpretation, is large, or to exceed all; wherefore, when they came to these waters they pitched their tents. #RandolphHarris 22 of 28

Image may contain: tree, sky, plant, outdoor and nature

ā€œAnd Shiz also pitched his tents near unto them; and therefore on the morrow they did come to battle. And it came to pass that they fought and exceedingly sore battle, in which Coriantumr was wounded again, and he fainted with the loss of blood. And it came to pass that the armies of Coriantumr did press upon the armies of Shiz that they beat them, that they caused them to flee before them; and they did flee southward, and did pitch their tents in a place which was called Ogath. And it came to pass that they army of Coriantumr did pitch their tents by the hill Ramah; and it was that same hill where my father Mormon did hide up the records unto the Lord, which were sacred. And it came to pass that they did gather together all the people upon all the face of the land, who had not been slain, save it was Ether. And it came to pass that Ether did behold all the doings of the people; and he beheld that the people who were for Coriantumr were gathered together to the army of Coriantumr; and the people who were for Shiz were gathered together to the army of Shiz. Wherefore, they were for the space of four years gathering together the people, that they might get all who were upon the face of the land, and that they might receive all the strength which it was possible that they could receive. #RandolphHarris 23 of 28

Image may contain: indoor

ā€œAnd it came to pass that when they were all gathered together, every one to the army which he would, with their wives and their children—both men, women, and children being armed with weapons of war, having shields, and breastplates, and head-plates, and being clothed after the manner of war—they did march forth one against another to battle; and they fought all that day, and conquered not. And it came to pass that when it was night they were weary, and retired to their camps; and after they had retired to their camps they took up a howling and a lamentation for the loss of the slain of their people; and so great were their cries, their howling and a lamentation for the loss of the slain of their people; and so great were their cries, that they did rend the air exceedingly. And it came to pass that on the morrow they did go again to battle, and great and terrible was that day; nevertheless, they conquered not, and when the night came again they did rend the air with their cries, and their howlings, and their mournings, for the loss of the slain of their people. And it came to pass that Coriantumr wrote again an epistle unto Shiz, desiring that he would not come again to battle, but that he would take the kingdom, and spare the lives of the people. #RandolphHarris 24 of 28

Image may contain: indoor

ā€œHowever, behold, the Spirit of the Lord had ceased striving with them, and Satan had full power over the hearts of the people; for they were given up unto the hardness of their hearts, and the blindness of their minds that they might be destroyed; wherefore they went again to battle. And it came to pass that they fought all that day, and when the night came they slept upon their swords. And on the morrow they fought even until the night came. And when the night came they were drunken with anger, even as a man who is drunken with wine; and they slept again upon their swords. And on the morrow they fought again; and when the night came they had fallen by the sword save it were fifty and two of the people of Coriantumr, and sixty nine of the people of Shiz. And it came to pass that they slept upon their swords that night, and on the morrow they fought again, and they contended in their might with their swords and with their shields, all that day. And when the night came there were thirty and two of the people of Shiz, and twenty and seven of the people of Coriantumr. And it came to pass that they ate and slept, and prepared for death on the morrow. And they were large and mighty men as to the strength of men. #RandolphHarris 25 of 28

Image may contain: indoor

ā€œAnd it came to pass that they fought for the space of three hours, and they fainted with the loss of blood. And it came to pass that when the men of Coriantumr had received sufficient strength that they could walk, they were about to flee for their lives; but behold, Shiz arose, and also his men, and he swore in his wrath that he would slay Coriantumr or he would perish by the sword. Wherefore, he did pursue them, and on the morrow he did overtake them; and they fought again with the sword. And it came to pass that when they had all fallen by the sword, save it were Coriantumr and Shiz, behold Shiz had fainted with the loss of blood. And it came to pass that when Croiantumr had leaned upon his sword, that he rested a little, he smote off the head of Shiz. And it came to pass that after he had smitten off the head of Shiz, that Shiz raised up on his hands and fell; and after that he had struggled for breath, he died. And it came to pass that Coriantumr fell to the Earth, and became as if he had no life. And the Lord spake unto Ether, and said unto him: Go forth. And he went forth, and beheld that the words of the Lord has all been fulfilled; and he finished his record; (and the hundredth part I have not written) and he hid them in a manner that the people of Limhi did find them. #RandolphHarris 26 of 28

Image may contain: living room and indoor

ā€œNow the last words which are written by Ether are these: Whether the Lord will that I be translated, or that I suffer the will of the Lord in the flesh, it mattereth not, if it so be that I am saved in the kingdom of God. Amen,ā€ reports Ether 15.1-34. ā€œBut the LORD said to him, ā€˜Not so; if anyone kills Cain, one will suffer vengeance seven times over.’ Then the LORD put a mark on Cain so that no one who found him would kill him. So Cain went out from the LORD’s presence and lived in the land of Nod, east of Eden,ā€ reports Genesis 4.15-16. A view of the World which fails or refuses to recognize that the opposites are essential to it, which accepts its beauty but not its ugliness, is not complete and only a half truth. If there is suffering as well as sweetness in life, that is not accident, nor is it brought into the scheme of things by human evil alone: nothing exists without its contrary. In the end, a human must recognize that there are two forces a work in Nature—and therefore in one’s own life—the ne benign, the other hostile. The cold time is here: time to work and time to rest, time to celebrate inside, time to enjoy the harvest. All about us, the Land of Spirits are singing. All about us, the deities are speaking. Please help me listen, all you divine beings. May I hear your voices. #RandolphHarris 27 of 28

Image

I need much help in cooling my Earth. I cannot do it alone I ask for help from the Sky: please give rise to your cloud with plentiful moisture and ice so the Earth can cool and have water. I ask for help from the rain: please give your moisture to be the plants’ own blood. I ask for help from the soil: please give your minerals from which the plants will form their bodies. I will give my time, I will give my care, I will give my loving stewardship. All these will I give my garden and I ask for your others to give what the garden of Eden will need as well. We will do it together and I will not forget your contribution. Glory His holy name; may your heart rejoice, ye who seek the Lord. Seek the Lord and His strength; seek His presence continually. Remember the marvellous works that He hath done, His wonders, and the judgments He decreed, O seed of Israel, His servant, Children of Jacob, His beloved ones. He is the Lord our God; His judgments are throughout the Earth. Remember His covenant forever, the word which He commanded to a thousand generations. In Luke 18.1-8, Jesus told a parable about an unfair, unjust judge who finally was willing to listen to a woman’s case because of her continual persistence. When it comes to God, that is the way we need to be of what he said. What promises or promises from God are you bringing to His constant remembrance? #RandolphHarris 28 of 28

Image

Winchester Mystery House

WMH 13 Days of Christmas #7

Sarah Winchester’s innovations for water conservation was far ahead of her time. She had multiple rooms dedicated for plants, each with a complex drainage system that allowed for the reuse of water. On today’s episode of the Winchester Mystery House 13 Days of Christmas, explore Sarah’s North Conservatory and learn more about her magnificent innovations.

Winchester Mystery House

Image

A 160-room mansion built to appease the spirits who died at the hands of the Winchester Rifle šŸ‘»
šŸ— winchestermysteryhouse.com

Image

O Golden Tongued Romance, with Serene Lute! Leave Melodizing on this Wintry Day!

Everybody else is talking about how hard life is, and here I am singing about how good it is to be alive. You can destroy your now by worrying about tomorrow. If the Universe were obviously based on mere chance, if it were in a state of complete disorder, if the Moon, the Sun, and the Earth wandered about at their individual will, and if no sign of organization appeared anywhere in it, then we might justly assert that there was no Mind behind it. However, because we see the very contrary of these things all around us, because the energy out of which the Universe is made is everywhere inseparable from thought, we can definitely assert that a World-Mind must exist. Events may seem to happen at random, but it is not really so. They are connected with our own thinking and doing, with the pattern of the World-Idea and with the activity of the World-Mind. Whatever we call it, most people feel it in their heart and soul—whether vaguely or strongly—that there must be a God and that there must be something which God has in view in letting the Universe come into existence. This purposed is called the World-Idea, because God is the World’s Mind. This is a thrilling conception. It is an ancient revelation. #RandolphHarris 1 of 26

Image

This ancient revelation came to the first cultures, the first civilizations, of any importance, as it has come to all others which have appeared, and it is still coming today to our own. With this knowledge, deeply absorbed and properly applied, humans come into harmonious alignment with their Source. If it ignores the facts, truths, laws, and principles of cosmogony, all spiritual study is incomplete. To attempt to justify this neglect with the accusation that they belong to the World of illusion is an unenlightened disposition. For the accuser must still continue to live in an illusory body and use an illusory self governed by those laws. After every such attempt and for each violation of those laws—upon which the order and harmony of the Universe depend—which one’s neglect brings about, one must pay the penalty in suffering.  ā€œFor the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves, teachers to suit their own passions, and they will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths,ā€ 2 Timothy 4.3-4. Everything around us and every event that happens to us is an expression of God’s will. #RandolphHarris 2 of 26

Image

The forces in the Universe and the figures on the Universal scene are all connected with each other and are all related with the World-Mind. Nothing stands alone except in its illusory belief. In living things, to live is to be. Our intellect, which takes cognizance of the essence of a thing as its proper object, gains knowledge from sense, of which the proper objects are external accidents. Hence from external appearances we come to the knowledge of the essence of things. And because we name a thing in accordance with our knowledge of it, as it is clear from what has already been said, so from external properties names are often imposed to signify essences. Hence such names are sometime taken strictly to denote the essence itself, the signification of which is their principal object; but sometimes, and less strictly, to denote the properties by reason of which they are imposed. And so we see that the word ā€œbodyā€ is used to denote a genus of substances from the fact of their possessing three dimensions: and is sometimes taken to denote the dimensions themselves; in which sense body is said to be a species of quantity. The same must be said of life. #RandolphHarris 3 of 26

The name is given from a certain external appearance, namely, self-movement, yet not precisely to signify this, but rather a substance to which self-movement and the application of itself to any kind of operation, belong naturally. To live, accordingly, is nothing else than to exist in this or that nature; and life signifies this, though in the abstract, just as the word ā€œrunningā€ denotes ā€œto runā€ is the abstract. Hence ā€œlivingā€ is not an accidental but an essential predicate. Sometimes, however, life is used less properly for the operations from which its name is taken, and thus the Philosopher says (Ethic. ix, 9) that to lice is principally to sense or to understand. The Philosopher here takes ā€œto liveā€ to means an operation of life. Or it would be better to say that sensation and intelligence and the like, are sometimes taken for the operations, sometimes for the existence itself of the operator. For one says (Ethic. ix, 9) that to live is to sense or to understand—in other words, to have a nature capable of sensation or understanding. Thus, then, one distinguishes life by the four operations mentioned. For in this lower World there are four kinds of living. #RandolphHarris 4 of 26

 It is the nature of some to be capable of nothing more than taking nourishment, and, as a consequence, of growing and generating. Others are able, in addition, to sense, as we see in the case of shellfish and other animals without movement. Others have the further power of moving from place to place, as perfect animals, such as quadrupeds, and birds, and so on. Others, as humans, have the still higher faculty of understanding. By vital operations are meant those whose principles are within the operator, and in virtue of which the operator produces such operations of itself. It happens that there exist in humans not merely such natural principles of certain operations as are their natural powers, but something over and above these, such as habits inclining them like a second nature to particular kinds of work in which a human takes delight, so that one is bent is towards it, one’s time is spent in it, and one’s whole life ordered with a view to it, is said to be the life of that human. Hence some are said to lead to life of self-indulgence, others a life of virtue. In this way the contemplative life is distinguished from the active, and thus to know God is said to be life eternal. #RandolphHarris 5 of 26

Image

If God expresses His will through, and in, the Universe then why are the horrors we find there unbeatable by any of the tortures perpetrated by humans? The wanton malignancy of certain parasites, ants, worms; the poisonous bites and stings of certain insects and reptiles; the dreadful fish like piranhas which strip unfortunate wretches to a skeleton in a few minutes; the infectious germs in jungle and city alike; the intimidating hordes of vermin which threaten to multiply and destroy other forms—are they all God’s goodness? Even believers may sometimes ask themselves the question: ā€œIs God blind and unseeing to human suffering—so small an item in the vastness of His Universe—or callous and indifferent to it?ā€ Those who see no sign of God in the Universe, and leave it at that, are at least in a better position than those who think they can detect an underlying hostility in the Universe. The absurdity of life and the insanity of humans cast doubt upon the sanity of their Source. However, this is a surface point of view. The order which has been established throughout the cosmos is a perfect one. #RandolphHarris 6 of 26

Image

If the human mind fails to see this fact, it is partly because human feelings, prejudices, aversions, and attractions sway it and partly because the World-Idea unveils itself only to those who are ready. The Universe is perfect because God is perfect. However, for each human to find and see this perfection for oneself otherwise the trouble and tragedy in life may obstruct one’s vision and obscure one’s path. If the Mind behind the Universe is perfect, then the pattern of the Universe itself must be perfect too. And if we muster up the heroism needed to cast out our feeble, sentimental and emotional way of looking at things, if we put aside for a few minutes our personal and human demands that the Universe shall conform to our wishes, so it will show itself to be perfect. The more intellectual they are, the more they feel that God has somehow blundered, that they could have made a better or kindlier job of the Universe than one has, and that too much unnecessary suffering falls upon his creatures. The self-actualized, however, with one’s deeper insight and one’s serener mentality, finds the contrary to be the cause and is set free from such bitter thoughts. It is preposterous presumption to look in the divine Intelligence for what can only be found in the limited and little human one. #RandolphHarris 7 of 26

Image

 Humans judge the World without knowing the World-Idea, certainly without conscious contact with the World-Mind. The moment we establish a right relation with the Mind behind the Universe, in that moment we begin to see as ultimately good certain experiences which we formerly thought to be evil, and we begin to see as dreamlike many sufferings which we formerly saw as real. The answer to this enigma but simple religious trust for the shallow multitude and movement to another level by mystical experience for the serious seekers. In the first case there is the hope that in a God-governed World all is arranged for the best, while in the second there is the overwhelming feeling that it is so. The philosopher is also a possessed of hope and feeling but, venturing int a wider area, adds knowledge. We see the underside of the pattern only—and merely a par of it at that—and inevitably judge Nature to be cruel, ā€œred in tooth and claw.ā€ If we could see the upper side and the whole of it, the pattern would show itself perfect. From this ultimate point of view there are no sins, only ignorance; there are no clumsy falls, only steps forward to heart’s wiser levels; there are no misfortunes, only lessons in the art of disentanglement. #RandolphHarris 8 of 26

Pain and suffering belong only to this physical World and its shadow-spheres. There is a higher World, where joy and happiness alone are human’s experience. The structure and working of the Universe may not be stamped with ā€œgoodnessā€ as we understand it, nor with ā€œperfectionā€ as we envisage it. Consider them from all aspects, however, in a philosophical manner and you will find the essentially ā€œright.ā€ Because there is a Divine Mind back of the Universe, there are Divine Wisdom and Goodness in the Universe. The Universe of our experience is governed by justice and wisdom, by ultimate goodness and infinite power. The Universe has infinitely more intelligence behind it than the humans who live in it. This remains true even though there is much that seems unnecessarily brutal and unacceptable to compassionate believers in a divine order. Let evil appearances be what they are, the revelation of insight contradicts them and shows the divine presence throughout the whole Universe and behind all happenings. Even the violent, sudden, and unwanted deceased of such a multitude of persons in war, pestilence, famine, epidemic, pandemic, or eruption has beneficial meaning in the divine World-Idea and is not at all vain or useless. #RandolphHarris 9 of 26

The truth about cosmic laws is sometimes terrifying to our human fears, sometimes repulsive to our human feeling. It may fitly be called ugly at such times. However, the infinite power behind those laws is always beautiful. In spite of contrary appearances this is still God’s World. We live in an orderly World but not in a humane one. We must find faith and some of us even the certitude that if it has been possible to think a better cosmos into being, the World-Mind’s infinite wisdom would have done so. We cannot believe in God without accepting God’s Universe also. We must accept and submit to the World-Idea with its ascending hierarchy of creatures and pre-established order of things. If we do not know why we are here, the Universal Mind does. We may and must trust it. The Supreme Essence nurtures all things with care and love. There is an infinite number of possibilities in the evolution of humans and the Universe. If only certain ones out of them are actually realized, this is because both follow a pattern—the World Idea. All the activity of this entire Universe is God’s activity. Everything is being carried on according to the pattern and the rhythm set by the divine World-Idea. #RandolphHarris 10 of 26

Image

All the forms and developments, the creatures and objects which make the never-ending picture of the cosmos derived from the World-Idea; everything conforms to it. But often the parts or members that ā€œare upon the Earthā€ are also very nice. This is generally true among religious people, and it is a deadly trap. When Paul explained to the Philippians what ā€œfleshā€ he could have confidence in he lists: ā€œCircumcised the eighth day, of the nation of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the Law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness which is in the Law, found blameless,ā€ reports Philippians 3.5-6. One can easily translate this into modern-day terms by listing the things religious people are apt to present as ā€œgood qualifications.ā€ However, Paul actually regarded all this ā€œnice fleshā€ as loss, and even as feces, compared to the real treasure of the resurrection life of Christ moving in him. ā€œFor it is we who are the circumcision, we who worship by the spirit of God, who glory in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh—though I myself have reasons for such confidence. #RandolphHarris 11 of 26

ā€œIf anyone else thinks one has reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for legalistic righteousness, faultless. However, whatever was to my profit I now consider loss of the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead,ā€ reports Philippians 3.3-11. That is why he said to the Colossians: ā€œTherefore kill off your parts (members) that are of the Earth.ā€ The ā€œthereforeā€ refers back to the fact he had just cited in this passage, that Christ’s people have received a different life, one not ā€œof Earthā€ but of Christ himself, raised up beyond natural death. ā€œYou have died,ā€ he said, ā€œand your real life is now concealed along with Christ in God,ā€ reports Colossians 3.1-3. #RandolphHarris 12 of 26

Image

This, as is well known, is a theme developed at many other points in Paul’s writings, but at greatest lengths in Romans chapter 5 through 8. There Paul had been describing how sin (and therefore death) has reigned over (governed) human life. However, now as he comes toward the end of chapter 5, a new kind of ā€œreignā€ emerges. Death had reigned because of sin, which came into the human World by one man and one woman (Adam and Eve). Yes, but ā€œmuch more those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign [govern] in life through the One, Jesus Christ,ā€ reports Romans 5.17. Sin indeed has flourished. However, grace (life from above) has and will flourish all the more, ā€œthat, as sin reigned in death, even so grace might reign through righteousness into eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord,ā€ reports Romans 5.21. Now we must emphasize that the grace in question is not merely a judicial action, though it involves that too. It is above all a presence and power in life, which provides an alternative to the merely natural forces (flesh) accessible to the individual in and through the body without any specific divine intervention from above. #RandolphHarris 13 of 26

Image

So now Paul lays out the alternative open to the one already born from above and therefore experiencing a life that is not of the flesh. Such a one is given the option of walking in the new, different life that is already ā€œdoing things,ā€ in them. ā€œJust as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father,ā€ Paul said, ā€œso we too might walk in newness of life,ā€ reports Romans 6.4. Walk in it, as a steadily moving force, not just feel it in spurts and starts! However, because we are now in the grip of grace it is up to us—though never on our own—to ā€œnot let sin have dominion in our death-bound (mortal) body to obey Sin’s desires,ā€ reports Romans 6.12. And this we do by refusing to surrender our body parts to sin as weapons of wickedness. Instead, having been invaded by a life beyond death, and hence by one that is not of the body or flesh, we ā€œpresent our body parts (members) to Christ as weapons of righteousness,ā€ reports Romans 6.13. Because we are in the grip of grace, sin does not exercise control over us except insofar as we allow it. And, with divine assistance provided, we can break whatever strict control remains to it in every aspect of our life,ā€ reports Romans 6.14. #RandolphHarris 14 of 26

So, just as once—while ā€œdead in…trespass and sins,ā€ reports Ephesians 2.1—we surrendered our body parts to be servants of impurity, and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now we are to ā€œpresent our body parts to be servants of righteousness leading to sanctification,ā€ reports Romans 6.19. Now, these words of Paul refer precisely to the process and outcome of spiritual formation, of which we have spoken. ā€œNow that you have been released from slavery to sin and enslaved to God by your dependence on him for your new kind of life, the benefit you get is sanctification, and the outcome is eternal life,ā€ Romans 6.22, ā€œthe life that really is life,ā€ reports 1 Timothy 6.19. The parts of our death-bound body are not mere physical things, but now carry in them a life that is not of them. He who raised Jesus from the dead now dwells in us and ā€œwill give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells in you,ā€ reports Romans 8.11. After the forty years of wandering, it came about on the plains of Moab that, according to Numbers 26.65, ā€œnot one of them was left except Caleb son of Jephunneth and Joshua son of Nun.ā€ #RandolphHarris 15 of 26

 It was time for Joshua’s commissioning: ā€œSo the Lord said to Moses, ā€˜Take Joshua the son of Nun, a man in whom is the Spirit, and lay your hand on him; and have him stand before Eleazar the priest and before all the congregation; and commission him in their sight,ā€ reports Numbers 27.18-19. Notice that the Spirit, capital S—that is, the Holy Spirit—was upon and in Joshua. He had the indispensable qualification for all spiritual leadership. Spiritual leadership is not a matter of superior spiritual power, and it can never be self-generated. There is no such thing as a self-made spiritual leader. The New Testament agrees: ā€œBrothers, choose seven people from among you who are known to be full of the Spirit and wisdom. We will turn this responsibility over to them and will give our attention to prayer and the ministry of the word.ā€ They chose Stephan, a mand full of faith and of the Holy Spirit (Acts 6.3,5). There is no spiritual leadership apart from the fullness of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, it follows that is we aspire to leadership in the Church, we must be full of the Holy Spirit. #RandolphHarris 16 of 26

Image

Practically, this means that we must continually confess our sins, keep ourselves in God’s Word, and continually submit to God, asking the Spirit to fill us. The telltale sign of this will be that we effervesce Christ. ā€œTherefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is. Do not get inebriated on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit. Speak to one another with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ,ā€ reports Ephesians 5.17-21. As we walk and serve in the Spirit, the Spirit will ordain us to specific tasks in the Church, and these will be tasks of leadership at all levels, be it waiting tables or heralding the gospel. ā€œThe coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders, and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused t love the truth and so be saved,ā€ report 2 Thessalonians 2.9-10. ā€œSo faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ,ā€ reports Romans 10.17. #RandolphHarris 17 of 26

Image

Each individual is a Spirit child of Heavenly Father and existed as a spirit before this life on Earth. During this life, the spirit of the individual is housed in a physical body, which was born of mortal parents. The scriptures teach that at the time of physical death, the Spirit does not die. It separates from the body and lives in the postmortal Spirit World. At the time of resurrection, the spirit is reunited with the body, ā€œnever to be divided; thus the whole becoming spiritual and immortal,ā€ reports Alma 11.45. The Scriptures also teach about the nature of spirits. Through the Prophet Joseph Smith, the Lord revealed that ā€œall spirit is matter, but it is more fine or pure, and can only be discerned by purer eyes,ā€ reports Doctrine and Covenants 131.7. The Lord also revealed that ā€œthe spirit of Humans is in the likeness of one’s person, as also the spirit of the beast, and every other creature which God has created,ā€ reports Doctrine and Covenants 77.2. Just as the World-Idea is both the expression of the World-Mind and one with it, so the Word (Logos) mentioned in the New Testament as being with God is another way of saying the same thing. #RandolphHarris 18 of 26

Image

The World with its form and history is the embodiment of the Word and the Word is the World-Idea. ā€œBehold I, Moroni, do finish the record of my father, Mormon. Behold, I have but few things to write, which things I have been commanded by my father. And now it came to pass that after the great and tremendous battle at Cumorah, behold, the Nephites who had escaped into the country southward were hunted by the Lamanites, until they were all destroyed. And my father also was killed by them, and I even remain alone to write the sad tale of the destruction of my people. However, behold, they are gone, and I fulfill the commandment of my father. And whether they will slay me, I know not. Therefore I will write and hide up the records in the Earth; and whither I go it mattereth not. Behold, my father hath made this record, and he hath written the intent thereof. And behold, if I had room, I would write it also upon the plates, but I have not; and ore I have none, for I am alone. My father hath been slain in battle and all my kinsfolk, and I have not friend nor wither to go; and how long the Lord will suffer that I may live I know not. #RandolphHarris 19 of 26

Image

ā€œBehold, four hundred years have passed away since the coming of our Lord. And behold, the Lamanites have hunted my people, the Nephites, down from city to city and from place to place, even until they are no more; and great has been their fall; yea, great and marvelous is the destruction of my people, the Nephites. And behold, it is the hand of the Lord which hath done it. And behold also, the Lamanites are at war one with another; and the whole face of this land is one continual round of murder and bloodshed; and no one knoweth the end of the war. And now, behold, I say no more concerning them, for there are none save it be the Lamanites and robbers that do exist upon the face of the land. And there are none that do know the true God save it be the disciples of Jesus, who did tarry in the land until the wickedness of the people was so great that the Lord would not suffer them to remain with the people; and whether they be upon the face of the land no human knoweth. However, behold, my father and I have seen them, and they have ministered unto us. And whoso receiveth this record, and shall not condemn it because of the imperfections which are in it, the same shall know of greater things than these. #RandolphHarris 20 of 26

Image

ā€œBehold, I am Moroni; and were it possible, I would make all things known unto you. Behold, I make an end of speaking concerning this people. I am the son of Mormon, and my father was a descendent of Nephi. And I am the same who hideth up this record unto the Lord; the plates thereof are of no worth, because of the commandment of the Lord. For he truly saith that no one shall have them to get gain; but the record thereof is of great worth; and whoso shall bring it to light, one will the Lord bless. For none can have power to bring it to light save it be given one of God; for God wills that it shall be done with an eye single to his glory, or the welfare of the ancient and long dispersed covenant people of the Lord. And blessed be one that shall bring this thing to light; for it shall be brought out of darkness unto light, according to the word of God; yea, it shall be brought out of the Earth, and it shall shine forth out of darkness, and come unto the knowledge of the people; and it shall be done by the power of God. And if there be faults they be the faults of a human. However, behold, we know no fault; nevertheless God knoweth all things; therefore, one that condemneth, let one be aware lest one shall be in danger of hell fire. #RandolphHarris 21 of 26

Image

ā€œAnd one that saith: Show unto me, or ye shall be smitten—let one beware lest one commandeth that which is forbidden of the Lord. For behold, the same that judgeth rashly shall be judged rashly again; for according to one’s works shall one’s wages be; therefore, one that smiteth shall be smitten again of the Lord. Behold what the scripture says—humans shall not smite, neither shall one judge; for judgment is mine, saith the Lord, and vengeance is mine also, and I will repay. And one that shall breathe out wrath and strifes against the work of the Lord, and against the covenant people of the Lord who are the house of Israel, and shall say: We will destroy the work of the Lord, and the Lord will not remember his covenant which he hath made unto the house of Israel—the same is in danger to be hewn down and cast into the fire; for the eternal purposes of the Lord shall roll on, until all his promises shall be fulfilled. Search the prophecies of Isaiah. Behold, I cannot write them. #RandolphHarris 22 of 26

Image

ā€œYea, behold I say unto you, that those saints who have gone before me, who have possessed this land, shall cry, yea, even from the dust will they cry unto the Lord; and as the Lord liveth he will remember the covenant which he hath made with them. And he knoweth their prayers, that they were in behalf of their faith, for in his name could they remove mountains; and in his name could they cause the Earth to shake; and by the power of his word did they cause prisons to tumble to the Earth; yes, even the fiery furnace could not harm them, neither wild beasts nor poisonous serpents, because of the power of his word. And behold, their prayers were also in behalf of him that the Lord should suffer to bring these things forth. And no one need say they shall not come, for they surely shall, for the Lord hath spoken it; for out of the Earth shall they come, by the hand of the Lord, and none can stay it; and it shall come in a day when it shall be said that miracles are done away; and it shall come even as if one should speak from the dead. And it shall come in a day when the blood of saints shall cry unto the Lord, because of secret combinations and the works of darkness. #RandolphHarris 23 of 26

ā€œYea, it shall come in a day when the power of God shall be denied, and churches become defiled and be lifted up in the pride of their hearts, even to the envying of them who belong to their churches. Yea, it shall come in a day when there shall be heard of fires, and tempests, and vapours of smoke in foreign lands; and there shall also be heard of wars, rumors of wars, and Earthquakes in divers places. Yes, it shall come in a day when there shall be great pollutions upon the face of the Earth; there shall be murders, and robbing, and lying, and deceivings, and whoredoms, and all manner of abominations; when there shall be many who will say, Do this, or do that, and it mattereth not, for the Lord will uphold such at the last day. However, wo unto such, for they are in the gall of bitterness and in the bonds of iniquity. Yea, it shall come in a day when there shall be churches built up that shall say: Come unto me, and for your money you shall be forgiven of your sins. O ye wicked and perverse stiffnecked people, why have ye built up churches unto yourselves to get gain? Why have ye transfigured the holy word of God, that ye might being damnation upon your souls? #RandolphHarris 24 of 26

Image

ā€œBehold, look ye unto the revelations of God; for behold, the time cometh at that day when all these things must be fulfilled. Behold, the Lord hath shown unto me great and marvelous things concerning that which must shortly come, at that day when these things shall come forth among you. Behold, I speak unto you as if ye were present, and yet ye are not. However, behold, Jesus Christ hath shown you unto me, and I know your doing. And I know that ye do walk in the pride of your hearts; and there are none save a few only who do not lift themselves up in the pride of their hearts, unto the wearing of very fine apparel, unto envying, and strifes, and malice and persecutions, and all manner of iniquities; and your churches, yea, even every one, have become polluted because of the pride of your hearts. For behold, ye do love money, and your substance, and your fine apparel, and the adorning of your churches, more than ye love the poor and the needy, the sick and the afflicted. O ye pollutions, ye hypocrites, ye teachers, who sell yourselves that which will canker, why have ye polluted the holy church of God? #RandolphHarris 25 of 26

ā€œWhy are ye ashamed to take upon you the name of Christ? Why do ye not think that greater is the value of an endless happiness than that misery which never dies—because of the praise of the World? Why do ye adorn yourselves with that which hath no life, and yet suffer the hungry, and the needy and the naked, and the sick and the afflicted to pass by you, and notice them not? Yea, why do ye build up your secret adominations to get gain, and cause the windows should mourn before the Lord, and also orphans to mourn before the Lord, and also the blood of their fathers and their husbands to cry unto the Lord from the ground, for vengeance upon your heads? Behold, the sword of vengeance hangeth over you; and the time soon cometh that he avengeth the blood of the saints upon you, for he will not suffer their cries any longer,ā€ reports Mormon 8.1-41. From out of the brightness, God who marks the passing of the days, with your sharp edges, cut out this month from the time before and the time after. Measure it out to fit the pattern laid out for you. Great is the Lord, and highly to be praised, in the city of our God, His holy mountain; beautiful in elevation, the Earth’s joy is Mount Zion in the far north, the city of great King. #RandolphHarris 26 of 26

Image

Cresleigh Homes

 A large family brings liveliness and joy, and an endless creative to the home. We cannot explain it, but the decor and openness in this #BrightonStation  residence 4 greatroom is ideal for a growing family.

Image


Watch a walkthrough of this floor plan on our website. Link in bio. https://youtu.be/TikCeN8MlLA

Cresleigh offers a vision of luxury, functionality and comfort; your home will be a work of excellence because you deserve the very best!

#CresleighRanch
#CresleighHomes

Image

I Might Lose Myself in Bottomless Abysses of Ignorance—Cleanse the Horrible Darknesses of Our Mind!

Image

The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved…the ones who…are passionate, compassionate, enthusiastic. In order to seize hold of the fantasies, I frequently imagined a steep descent. I even made several attempts to get to the very bottom. The very first time I reached, as it were, a depth of about a thousand feet; the next time I found myself at the edge of a cosmic abyss. It was like a voyage to the mon, or a descent into empty space. First came the image of a crater, and I had the feeling that I was in the land of the dead. The atmosphere was that of the other World. Near the steep slope of a rock I caught sight of two figures, an old mand with a white beard and a beautiful young lady. I summoned up my courage and approached them as though they were real people, and listened attentively to what they told me. The old man explained that he was Elijah, and that gave me a shock. However, the young lady staggered me even more, for she called herself Salome! She was blind. What a strange couple: Salome and Elijah. However, Elijah assured me that he and Salome had belonged together from all eternity, which completely astounded me. They have a black serpent living with them which displayed an unmistakable fondness for me. #RandolphHarris 1 of 27

I stuck close to Elijah because he seemed to be the most reasonable of the three, and to have a clear intelligence. Of Salome I was distinctly suspicious. Elijah and I had a long conversation which, however, I did not understand. Naturally I tried to find a plausible explanation for the appearance of Biblical figures in my fantasy by reminding myself that my father had been a clergyman. However, that really explained nothing at all. For what did the old man signify? What did Salome signify? Why were they together? Only man years later, when I knew a great deal more then I knew then, did the connection between the old man and the young lady appear perfectly natural to me. In such dream wanderings one frequently encounters an old man who is accompanied by a young girl, and examples of such couples are to be found in many mythic tales. Thus, according to Gnostic tradition, Simon Magus went about with a young lady whom he had picked up in a brothel. Her name was Helen, and she was regarded as the reincarnation of the Trojan Helen. Klingsor and Kundry, Lao-tzu and the dancing girl, likewise belong to this category. I have mentioned that there was a third figure in my fantasy besides Elijah and Salome: the large black snake. #RandolphHarris 2 of 27

In myths the snake is frequently counterpart of the hero. There are numerous accounts of their affinity. For example, the hero has eyes like a snake, or after his death he is changed into a snake and revered as such, or the snake is his mother, et cetera. In my fantasy, therefore, the presence of the snake was an indication of a hero-myth. Salome is an anima figure. She is blind because she does not see the meaning of things. Elijah is the figure of the wise old prophet and represents the factor of intelligence and knowledge; Salome, the erotic element. One might say that the two figures are personifications of Logos and Eros. However, such a definition would be excessively intellectual. It is more meaningful to let the figures be what they were for me at the time—videlicet, events and experiences. Soon after this fantasy another figure rose out of the unconscious. He developed out of the Elijah figure. I called him Philemon. Philemon was a pagan and brought with him an Egypto-Hellenistic atmosphere with a Gnostic colouration. His figure first appeared to me in the following dream. #RandolphHarris 3 of 27

Image

The sky was blue, like the sea, covered not by clouds but by flat brown clods of Earth. It looked as if the clods were breaking apart and the blue water of the sea were becoming visible between them. However, the water was blue sky. Suddenly there appeared from the right a winged being sailing across the sky. I saw that it was an old man with the horns of a bull. He held a bunch of four keys, one of which he clutched as if here were about to open a lock. He had the winds of the kingfisher with it characteristic colours. Since I did not understand this dream-image, I painted it in order to impress it upon my memory. During the days when I was occupied with the painting, I found in my garden, by the lake shore, a dead kingfisher! I was thunderstruck, for kingfishers are quite rare in the vicinity of Zurich and I have never since found a dead one. The body was recently dead—at the most, two or three days—and showed no external injuries. Philemon and other figures of my fantasies brought home to me the crucial insight that there are things in the psyche which I do not produce, but which produce themselves and have their own life. Philemon represented a force which was not myself. #RandolphHarris 4 of 27

Image

In my fantasies I held conversations with him, and he said things which I had not consciously thought. For I observed clearly that it was he who spoke, not I. He said I treated thoughts as if I generated them myself, but in his view thoughts were like animals in the forest, or people in a room, or birds in the air, and added, ā€œIf you should see people in a room, you would not think that you had made those people, or that you were responsible for them.ā€ It was he who taught me psychic objectivity, the reality of the psyche. Through hum the distinction was clarified between myself and the object of my thought. He confronted me in an objective manner, and I understood that there is something in me which can say things that I do not know and do not intend, things which may even be directed against me. Psychologically, Philemon represented superior insight. He was a mysterious figure to me. As if here were a living personality, at times, he seemed to me quite real. I went walking up and down the garden with him, and to me he was what the Indians called a guru. Whenever the outlines of a new personification appeared, I felt it almost as a personal defeat. It meant: ā€œHere is something else you did not know until now!ā€ #RandolphHarris 5 of 27

Image

Fear crept over me that the succession of such figures might be endless, that I might lose myself in the bottomless abysses of ignorance. My ego felt devalued—although the success I had been having in Worldly affairs might have reassured me. In my darknesses (horridas nostrae mentis purge tenebras— ā€œcleanse the horrible darkness out of our mindā€ – the Aurora Consurgens* says) I could have wished for nothing better than a real, live guru, someone possessing superior knowledge and ability, who would have disentangled for me the involuntary creations of my imagination. This task was undertaken by the figure of Philemon, whom in this respect I had willy-nilly to recognize as my psychagogue. And the fact was the he conveyed to me many an illuminating idea. More than fifteen years later a highly cultivated elderly Indian visited me, a friend of Gandhi’s, and we talked about Indian education—in particular, about the relationship between guru and chela. I hesitantly asked him whether he could tell me anything about the person and character of one’s own guru, whereupon he replied in a matter-of-fact tone, ā€œOh yes, he was Shankaracharya.ā€ #RandolphHarris 6 of 27

ā€œYou do not mean the commentor on the Vedas who died centuries ago?ā€ I asked.

ā€œYes, I mean him,ā€ he said, to my amazement.

ā€œThen you are referring to a spirit?ā€ I asked.

ā€œOf course it was his spirit,ā€ he agreed.

At that moment I thought of Philemon.

ā€œThere are ghostly gurus too,ā€ he added. ā€œMost people have living gurus. However, there are always some who have a spirit for teacher.ā€ #RandolphHarris 7 of 27

This information was both illuminating and reassuring to me. Evidently, then, I had not plummeted right out of the human World, but had only experienced the sort of thing that could happen to others who made similar efforts. Later, Philemon became relativized by the emergence of yet another figure, whom I called Ka. In ancient Egypt the ā€œking’s kaā€ was his Earthly form, the embodied soul. In my fantasy, as if out of a deep shaft, the ka-soul came from below, out of the Earth. I did a painting of him, showing him in his Earth-bound form, as a herm with base of stone and upper part of bronze. High up in the painting appears a kingfisher’s wing, and between it and the head of Ka floats a round, glowing nebula of stars. Ka’s expression has something demonic about it—one might also say, Mephistophelian. In one had he holds something like a coloured pagoda, or a reliquary, and in the other a stylus with which he was working on the reliquary. He is saying, ā€œI am he who buries the gods in gold and gems.ā€ Philemon had a lame foot, but was a winged spirit, where as Ka represented a kind of Earth demon or mental demon. Philemon was the spiritual aspects, or ā€œmeaning.ā€ #RandolphHarris 8 of 27

Ka, on the other hand, was a spirit like the Anthroparion of Greek alchemy—with which at the time I was still unfamiliar. [The Anthroparion is a tiny man, a kind of homunculus. He is found, for example, in the visions of Zosimos of Panopolis, an important alchemist of the third century. To the group which includes the Anthroparion belong the gnomes, the Dactyls of classical antiquity, and the homunculi of the alchemists. As the spirit of quicksilver, the alchemical Mercurius was also an Anthroparion.] Ka was he who made everything real, but who also obscured the halcyon spirit, Meaning, or replaced it by beauty, the ā€œeternal reflection.ā€ In time I was able to integrate both figures through the study of alchemy. The archetype of the wise old man, also called the ā€œMana-personality,ā€ tend to be projected upon human beings who set themselves up as leaders, secular or spiritual. This may have disastrous results, as when religious sects or political movements are led by charlatans or madmen. Alternatively, the subject may identify oneself with the archetype, believing that one oneself has superior wisdom. Analysts and priests, as well as politicians, sometimes succumb to this danger, referred to as ā€œinflation.ā€ #RandolphHarris 9 of 27

Image

I have frequently considered, what could possibly be the reason, why all humankind, though they have ever, without hesitation, acknowledged the necessity, in their whole practice and reasoning, have yet discovered such a reluctance to acknowledge it in words, and have rather shown a propensity, in all ages, to profess the contrary opinion. The matter, I think, may be accounted for, after the following manner. If we examine the operations of body, and the production of effects from their causes, we shall find, that all our faculties can never carry us farther in our knowledge of this relation, than barely to observe, that particular objects are constantly transition, from the appearance of one to the belief of the other. However, though this conclusions concerning human ignorance be the result of the strictest scrutiny of this subject, human still entertain a strong propensity to believe, that they penetrate farther into the powers of nature, and perceive something like a necessary connexion between the cause and the effect. When again they turn their reflections towards the operations of their own minds, and feel no such connexion of the motive and the action; they are thence apt to suppose, that there is a difference between the effects, which result from material force, and those which arise from thought and intelligence. #RandolphHarris 10 of 27

Image

However, being once convinced, that we know nothing father of causation of any kind, than merely the constant conjunction of objects, and the consequent inference of the mind from one to another, and finding, that these two circumstances are universally allowed to have a place in voluntary actions; we may be more easily led to own the same necessity common to all causes. And though this reasoning may contradict the systems of many philosophers, in ascribing necessity to the determination of the will, we shall find, upon reflection, that they dissent from it in words only, not in their real sentiment. Necessity, according to the sense, in which it is here taken, has never yet been rejected, nor can ever, I think, be rejected by any philosopher. It may only, perhaps, be pretended, that the mind can perceive, in the operations of matter, some farther connexion between the cause and effect; and a connexion that has not place in the voluntary actions of intelligent beings. Now whether it be so or not, can only appear upon examination; and it is incumbent on these philosophers to make good their assertion, by defining or describing that necessity, and pointing it out to us in the operations of material causes. #RandolphHarris 11 of 27

Image

When they enter upon it by examining the faculties of the soul, the influence of the understanding, and operations of the will, it would seem, indeed, that humans begin at the wrong end of this question concerning liberty and necessity. Let them first discuss a more simple question, namely, the operations of body and of brute unintelligent matter; and try whether they can there form any idea of causation and necessity, except that of a constant conjunction of objects, and subsequent inference of the mind from one to another. If these circumstances form, in reality, the whole of that necessity, which we conceive in matter, and if these circumstances be also universally acknowledged to take place in the operations of the mind, the dispute is at an end; at least, must be owned to be thenceforth merely verbal. However, as long as we will rashly suppose, that we have some farther idea of necessity and causation in the operations of external objects; at the same time, that we can find nothing farther, in the voluntary actions of the mind; there is no possibility of bringing the question to any determinate issues, while we proceed upon so erroneous a supposition. #RandolphHarris 12 of 27

The only method of undeceiving us, is, to mount up higher; to examine the narrow extent of science when applied to material causes; and to convince ourselves, that all we know of them, is, the constant conjunction and inference above mentioned. We may, perhaps, find, that it is with difficulty we are induced to fix such narrow limits to human understanding: But we can afterwards find no difficulty when we come to apply this doctrine to the actions of the will. For as it is evident, that these have a regular conjunction with motives and circumstances and character, and as we always draw inferences from one to the other, we must be obliged to acknowledge in words, that necessity, which we have already avowed, in every deliberation of our lives, and in every step of our conduct and behaviour. The prevalence of the doctrine of liberty may be accounted for, from another cause, namely, a false sensation or seeming experience which we have, or may have, of liberty or indifference, in may of our actions. The necessity of any action, whether of matter or of mind, is not, properly speaking, a quality in the agent, but in any thinking or intelligent being, who many consider the action. #RandolphHarris 13 of 27

And it consists chiefly in the determination of one’s thoughts to infer the existence of that action from some preceding objects; as liberty, when opposed to necessity, is nothing but the want of that determination, and a certain looseness or indifference, which we feel, in passing, or not passing, from the idea of one object to that of any succeeding one. Now we may observe, that, though, in reflecting on human actions, we seldom feel such a looseness or indifference, but are commonly able to infer them with considerable certainty from their motives, and from the dispositions of the agent; yet if frequently happens, that, in performing the actions themselves, we are sensible of something like it: And as all resembling objects are readily taken for each other, this has been employed as a demonstrative and even intuitive proof of human liberty. We feel, that our actions are subject to our will, on most occasions; and imagine we feel, that the will itself is subject to nothing, because, when by a denial of it we are provoked to try, we feel, that it moves easily every way, and produces an image of itself (or a Velleity, as it is called in the schools) even n that side, on which it did not settle. #RandolphHarris 14 of 27

Image

This image, of faint motion, we persuade ourselves, could, at that time, have been completed into the things itself; because, should that be denied, we find, upon a second trial, that, at present, it can. We consider not, that the fantastical desire of showing liberty, is here the motive of our actions. And it seems certain, that, however we may imagine we feel a liberty within ourselves, a spectator can commonly infer our actions from our motives and character; and even where one cannot, one concludes in general, that one might, were one perfectly acquainted with every circumstance of our situation and temper, and the most secret springs of our complexion and disposition. Now this is the very essence of necessity, according to the foregoing doctrine. However, to proceed in this reconciling project with regard to the question of liberty and necessity; the most contentious question, of metaphysics, the most contentious science; it will not require many words to prove, that all humankind have ever agreed in the doctrine of liberty as well as in that of necessity, and that the whole dispute, in this respect also, have been hitherto merely verbal. For, when applied to voluntary actions, what is meant by liberty? #RandolphHarris 15 of 27

We cannot surely mean, that actions have so little connexion with motives, inclinations, and circumstances, that one does not follow with a certain degree of uniformity from the other, and that one affords no inference by which we can conclude the existence of the other. For these are plain and acknowledged matters of fact. By liberty, then we can only mean a power of acting or not acting, according to the determinations of the will; that is, if we choose to remain at rest, we may; if we choose to move, we also may. Now this hypothetical liberty is universally allowed to belong to every one, who is not a prisoner and in chains. Here then is no subject of dispute. Whatever definition we may give of liberty, we should be careful to observe two requisite circumstances; first, that it be consistent with plain matter of fact; secondly, that it be consistent with itself. If we observe these circumstances, and render our definition intelligible, I am persuaded that all humankind will be found of one opinion with regard to it. It is universally allowed, that nothing exists without a cause of its existence, and that chance, when strictly examined, is a mere negative word, and means not any real power, which has any where, a being in nature. #RandolphHarris 16 of 27

However, it is pretended, that some causes are necessary, some not necessary. Here then is the advantage of definitions. Let any one define a cause, without comprehending, as a part of the definition, a necessary connexin with its effect; and let one show distinctly the origin of the idea, expressed by the definition; and I shall readily give up the whole controversy. However, if the foregoing explication f the matter be received, this must be absolutely impracticable. Had not objects regular conjunction with each other, we should never have entertained any notion of cause and effect; and this regular conjunction produces that inference of the understanding, which is the only connexion, that we can have any comprehension of. Whoever attempts a definition of cause, exclusive of these circumstances, will be obliged, either to employ unintelligible terms, or such as are synonymous to the term, which one endeavours to define. Thus, if a cause be defined, that which produces any thing; it is easy to observe, that producing is synonymous to causing. In like manner, if a cause be defined, that by which anything exists; this is liable to the same objection. For what is meant by these words by which? #RandolphHarris 17 of 27

Image

Had it been said that a cause is that after which anything constantly exists; we should have understood the terms. For this is, indeed, all we know of the matter. And this constancy forms the very essence of necessity, nor have we any other idea of it. And if the definition above mentioned by admitted; liberty, when opposed to necessity, not to constraint, is the same thing with chance; which is universally allowed to have no existence. ā€œAnd it came to pass that the thirty and fourth year passed away, and also the thirty and fifth, and behold the disciples of Jesus had formed a church of Christ in all the lands round about. And as many as did come unto them, and did truly repent of their sins, were baptized in the name of Jesus; and they did also receive the Holy Ghost. And it came to pass in the thirty and sixth year, the people were all converted unto the Lord, upon all the face of the land, both Nephites and Lamanites, and there were no contentions and disputations among them, and every human did deal justly one with another. And they had all things common among them; therefore there were not rich and poor, bond and free, but they were all made free, and partakers of the heavenly gift. And it came to pass that the thirty and seventh year passed away also, and there still continued to be peace in the land. #RandolphHarris 18 of 27

Image

ā€œAnd there were great and marvelous works wrought by the disciples of Jesus, insomuch that they did heal the sick, and raise the dead, and cause the lame to walk, and the blind to receive their sight, and the deaf to hear; and all manner of miracles did they work among the children of men; and in nothing did they work miracles save it were in the name of Jesus. And thus did the thirty and eighth year pass away, and also the thirty and ninth, and forty and first, and the forty and second, yea, even until forty and nine years had passed away, and also the fifty and first, and the fifty and second; year, and even until fifty and nine year has passed away. And the Lord did prosper them exceedingly in the land; yea, insomuch that they did build cities again where there had been cities burned. Yea, even that great city of Zarahemla did they cause to be built again. However, there were many cities which had been sunk, and waters came up in the stead thereof; therefore these cities could not be renewed. And now, behold, it came to pass that the people of Nephi did wax strong, and did multiply exceedingly fast, and become an exceedingly fair and delightsome people. And they were married, and given in marriage, and were blessed according to the multitude of the promises which the Lord had made unto them. #RandolphHarris 19 of 27

ā€œAnd they did not walk any more after the performances and ordinances of the law of Moses; but they did walk after the commandments which they had received from their Lord and their God, continuing in fasting and prayer, and in meeting together oft both to pray and to hear the word of the Lord. And it came to pass that there was no contention among all the people, in all the land; but there were mighty miracles wrought among the disciples of Jesus. And it came to pass that the seventy and first year passed away, and also the seventy and second year, yea, and in fine, till the seventy and ninth year had passes away; yea, even an hundred years had passed away, and the disciples of Jesus, whom he had chosen, had all gone to the paradise of God, save it were the three who should tarry; and there were other disciples ordained in their stead; and also many of that generation had passed away. And it came to pass that there was no contention in the land, because of the love of God which did dwell in the hearts of the people. And there were no envyings, nor strifes, nor tumults, nor whoredoms, nor lyings, nor murders, nor any manner of lasciviousness; and surely there could not be a happier people among al the people who has been created by the hand of God. #RandolphHarris 20 of 27

Image

ā€œThere were no robbers, nor murderers, neither were there Lamanites, nor any manner of -ites; but there were in one, the children of Christ, and heirs to the kingdom of God. And how blessed were they! For the Lord did bless them in all their doings; yea, even they were blessed and prospered until an hundred and ten years had passed away; and the first generation from Christ had passes away, and there was no contention in all the land. And it came to pass that Nephi, he that kept this last record, (and he kept it upon the plates of Nephi) died, and his son Amon kept it in his stead; and he kept it upon the plates of Nephi also. And he kept it eighty and four years, and there was still peace in the land, save it were a small part of the people who had revolted from the church and taken upon them the name of Lamanites; therefore there began to be Lamanites again in the land. And it came to pass that Amos died also, (and it was an hundred and ninety and four years from the coming of Christ) and his son Amos kept the record in his stead; and he also kept it upon the plates of Nephi; and it was also written in he book of Nephi, which is this book. And it came to pass that two hundred years had passed away; and the second generation had all passed away save it were a few. #RandolphHarris 21 of 27

Image

ā€œAnd now I, Mormon, would that ye should know that the people had multiplied, insomuch that they were spread upon all the face of the land, and that they had become exceedingly rich, because of their prosperity in Christ. And now, in this two hundred and first year there began to be among them those who were lifted up in pride, such as the wearing of costly apparel, and all manner of fine pearls, and of the fine things of the World. And from that time forth they did have their goods and their substance no more common among them. And they began to be divided into classes; and they began to build up churches unto themselves to get gain, and began to deny the true church of Christ. And it came to pass that when two hundred and ten years had passes away there were many churches in the land; yea, there were many churches which professed to know the Christ, and yet they did deny the more parts of his gospel, insomuch that they did receive all manner of wickedness, and did administer that which was sacred unto him to whim it had been forbidden because of unworthiness. And this church did multiply exceedingly because of iniquity, and because of the power of Satan who did get hold upon their hearts. #RandolphHarris 22 of 27

ā€œAnd again, there was another church of Christ, because of their humility and their belief in Christ; and they did despise them because of the many miracles which were wrought among them. Therefore they did exercise power and authority over the disciples of Jesus who did tarry with them, and they did cast them into prison; but by the power of the word of God, which was in them, the prisoners were rent in twain, and they went forth doing mighty miracles among them. Nevertheless, and notwithstanding all these miracles, the people did harden their hearts, and did seek to kill them, even as the Jews at Jerusalem sought to kill Jesus, according to his word. And they did cast them into furnaces of fire, and they came forth receiving no harm. And they also cast them into dens of wild beasts, and they did play with the wild beasts even as a child with a lamb; and they did come forth from among them, receiving no harm. Nevertheless, the people did harden their hearts, for they were led by many priests and false prophets to build up many churches, and to do all manners of iniquity. And they did smite upon the people of Jesus; but the people of Jesus did not smite again. And they thus did dwindle in unbelief and wickedness from year to year, even until two hundred and thirty years had passed away. #RandolphHarris 23 of 27

ā€œAnd now it came to pass in this year, yea, in the two hundred and thirty and first year, there was a great division among the people. And it came to pass that in this year there arose a people who were called the Nephites, and they were true believers in Christ; and among them there were those who were called by the Lamanites—Jacobites, and Josephites, and Zoramites; therefore the true believers in Christ, and the true worshipers of Christ, (among whom were the three disciples of Jesus who should tarry) were called Nephites, and Jacobites, and Josephites, and Zoramites. And it came to pass that they who rejected the gospel were called Lamanites, and Lemuelites, and Ishmaelites; and they did not dwindle in unbelief, but they did willfully rebel against the gospel of Christ; and they did teach their children that they should not believe, even as their fathers, from the beginning, did dwindle. And it was because of the wickedness and abomination of their fathers, even as it was in the beginning. And they were taught to hate the children of God, even as the Lamanites were taught to hate the children of Nephi from the beginning. #RandolphHarris 24 of 27

ā€œAnd it came to pass that two hundred and forty and four years had passed away, and thus were the affairs of the people. And the more wicked part of the people did wax strong, and became exceedingly more numerous than were the people of God. And they did still continue to build up churches unto themselves, and adorn them with all manner of precious things. And thus did two hundred and fifty years pass away, and also two hundred and sixty years. And it came to pass that the wicked part of the people began again to build up the secret oaths and combinations of Gadianton. And also the people who were called the people of Nephi began to be proud in their hearts, because of their exceeding riches, and become vain like unto their brethren, the Lamanites. And from this time the disciples began to sorrow for the sins of the World. And it came to pass that when three hundred years had passes away, both the people of Nephi and the Lamanites had become exceedingly wicked one like unto another. And it came to pass that the robbers of Gadinaton did spread over all the face of the land; and there were none that were righteous save it were the disciples of Jesus. And gold and silver did they lay up in store in abundance, and did traffic in all manner of traffic. #RandolphHarris 25 of 27

ā€œAnd it came to pass that after three hundred and five years had passed away, (and the people did still remain in wickedness) Amos died; and his brother, Ammaron, did keep the record in his stead. And it came to pass that when three hundred and twenty years had passed away, Ammaron, being constrained by the Holy Ghost, did hide up the records which were sacred—yea, even all the sacred records which had been handed down from generation to generation, which were sacred—even until the three hundred and twentieth year from the coming of Christ. And he did hide them up unto the Lord, that they might come again unto the remnant of the house of Jacob, according to the prophecies and the promises of the Lord. And thus is the end of the record of Ammaron,ā€ reports 4 Nephi 1.1-49. Night is called the first of all things because of the common belief that the World came out of darkness. In part, this reflects the obvious truth that before something there was nothing, and that ā€œnothingā€ is equated with darkness. The connection between these two is not so subtle, however. For, after all, if light (and everything else) was born out of darkness be thought of as nothing? It is a creative force in itself. #RandolphHarris 26 of 27

Image

Thus, among the Celts and Germans, the day began with night, and the year with Winter. To this day, our day begins in the middle of night and our year in the middle of Winter. The World rests beneath night’s blanket and I sit quietly, finally myself at rest. All day, I have been the one talking; my time for silence has arrived. Speak to me, Holy Ones, and I will listen. Here I am, waiting to hear your words. Lord of the World, the King supreme, ere aught was formed, He reigned alone. When by His will all things were wrought, then was His sovereign name made known. And when in time all things shall cease, He still shall reign in majesty. He was, He is, He shall remain all-glorious eternally. Incomparable, unique is He, no other can His Oneness share. Without beginning, without end, Dominion’s might is His to bear. He is my living God who saves, my Rock when grief or trials befall, my Banner and my Refuge strong, my bounteous Portion when I call. My soul I give unto His care, asleep, awake, for He is near, and with my soul, my body, too; God is with me, I have no fear. #RandolphHarris 27 of 27

Image

Winchester Mystery House

Image

What was once a two-story farmhouse grew over 38 straight years into a massive 160-room labyrinth style Victorian Mansion. Have you experienced the house during the holiday season?

Image

Buy Tickets http://ow.ly/JH1T50CjjJx1d

Uneasy Lies the Head that Wears a Crown for He Hath Eaten Me Out of House and Home!

The rules seem to be these: if you have written a successful novel, everyone invites you to write short stories. If you have written some good short stories, everyone wants you to write a novel. However, nobody wants anything until you have already proved yourself by being published somewhere else. Western civilization is for the first time in its history in danger of dying. The reason is spiritual. It is losing its life, its soul; that soul is the Christian faith. If the means used to achieve it ultimately contribute to the marginalization of the church and her message, the Devil will allow short-term success in evangelism and church growth. By eschewing the role of reason in evangelism, and substituting in its place an overemphasis on a simple gospel appeal directed at felt needs, short-term gains are to be expected in a culture of empty selves. However, who can deny that while our numbers have grown, our impact has not been proportionate to our numbers? There is too much at stake for this situation to continue. What is needed is a rethinking of the very nature of evangelism, more specifically, of the role of reasoning and argument in the way we do evangelism. First Peter 3.15 commands us to be ready to give a reasoned defense to someone who asks us for a credible reason why we believe what we do. #RandolphHarris 1 of 23

Jude 1.3 admonished us to ā€œcontend earnestlyā€ for the faith. ā€œContend earnestlyā€ carries with it the idea of engaging in a contest, a struggle, a conflict, or a debate by the pious in the heroic struggle for religious truth, justice, and virtue. The term clearly includes the idea of an intellectual struggle, an idea also expressed by Paul when he said spiritual warfare involves ā€œdestroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ,ā€ reports 2 Corinthians 10.5. Spiritual warfare is a struggle with persons, demonic and human, and the primary way persons influence other persons is through the ideas they get other to accept. Thus, intellectual tools and reasoning are an important part, though not the whole of spiritual warfare. The other primary components are spiritual preparedness, discernment, courage, and wisdom. We see examples of apologetics everywhere in the Scriptures. In Acts, Paul argued, reasoned, presented evidence, and tried rationally to persuade others to become Christians. ā€œPeople, why are you doing this? We too are only human, human like you. We are brining you good news, telling you to turn from these worthless things to the living God, who made Heaven and Earth and sea and everything in them. In the past, he let all nations go their own way. #RandolphHarris 2 of 23

Image

ā€œYet, he has not left himself without testimony: He has shown kindness by giving you rain from Heaven and crops in their seasons; he provides you with plenty of food and fills your hearts with joy,ā€ reports Acts 14.15-17. ā€œAs his custom was, Paul went into the synagogue, and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and proving that the Christ had to suffer and rise from the dead. ā€˜This Jesus I am proclaiming to you is the Christ,’ he said. Some of the Jews were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, as did a large number of God-fearing Greeks and not a few prominent women,ā€ reports Acts 17.2-4. ā€œThey replied, ā€œBelieve in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved—you and your household,ā€ reports Acts 16.31. ā€œEvery Sabbath he reasoned in the synagogue, trying to persuade the Jews and Greeks,ā€ reports Acts 18.4. ā€œPaul entered the synagogue and spoke boldly there for three months, arguing persuasively about the kingdom of God. However, some of them became obstinate; they refused to believe and publicly maligned the Way. So Paul left them. He took the disciples with him and has discussions daily in the lecture hall of Tyrannus. This went on for two years, so that all the Jews and Greeks who lived in the province of Asia heard the word of the Lord. God did extraordinary miracles through Paul,ā€ reports Acts 19.8-11. #RandolphHarris 3 of 23

Paul brought to center stage the truth and reasonableness of the gospel, not the fact that it addresses felt needs. Though both are important, there is a clear Pauline emphasis placed on the former. Jesus Christ Himself regularly engaged in logical debate and rational augment with false, destructive ideologies in His culture, and on several occasions He told people to believe in Him, not simply on the basis of His words, but because of the evidence of His miracles. In this way, Jesus and Paul were continuing a style of persuasion peppered throughout the Old Testament prophets. Regularly, the prophets appealed to evidence to justify belief in the Biblical God or in the divine authority of their inspired message: fulfilled prophecy, the historical fact of miracle, the inadequacy of finite pagan deities to be a cause of such a large, well-ordered Universe compared to God of the Bible, and so forth. They did not say, ā€œGod said it, that settles it, you should believe it!ā€ They provided a rational defense for their claims. It is sometimes said that Genesis does not try to ā€œproveā€ the existence of God, it merely assumes it. However, this is inaccurate. True, Genesis does not argue against atheism because atheism was not a major ideology among the pagan nations surrounding Moses and Israel. #RandolphHarris 4 of 23

However, those nations did believe in fickle, finite, immoral deities. In fact, a widespread pagan belief was the idea that each spring the gods copulated, their seed fell to the ground, and that was why crops sprouted and grew each year. Based on that belief, yearly pagan rituals included frenzied orgies to induce the gods to copulate and insure a new season of crops. Genesis takes this view to task and presents a testable claim: The God of Israel delegated to living things the intrinsic power to reproduce after their own kinds, an odd and foreign idea to the nations of the ancient Mideast. However, this claim carried with it a test. If the pagans ceased their orgies, then no crops would grow if their view were correct and the gods needed inducement to copulate. However, if the biblical view were correct, crops would continue to arise. The secret to the peace of God, as great apprentices of Jesus have long known, being abandoned to God, the person who is heartily abandoned to God knows that all shall be well because God is in charge of one’s life. My peace is the greatness of God. Because He, who not only loves me but is Love, is so great, I live beyond harm in His hands; and there is nothing that can happen to me that will not turn out to my good. Nothing. That is what Romans 8.28 really means. #RandolphHarris 5 of 23

Because of this, ā€œThu wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee,ā€ the ancient texts read in Isaiah 26.3. It makes supreme sense, therefore, that I should accept Paul’s instruction to ā€œbe anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God which surpasses all comprehension, shall guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus,ā€ reports Philippians 4.6-7. The greatness and love of Gd forms my peace, and at the same time, my love and joy. Job had many worrisome questions in the midst of his troubled life. However, when he beheld God, they simply did not matter and no longer seemed to need answering. He did not raise a single one of the questions he earlier had wanted to press upon God. ā€œI know that you can do all things; no plans of your can be thwarted. You asked, ā€˜Who is this that obscures my counsel without knowledge?’ Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know. You said, ā€˜Listen now, and I will speak; I will question you, and you shall answer me.’ My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you. Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes,ā€ reports Job 42.2-6. Job was not bullied into silence by God coming to him, but really saw the all-sufficiency of God to his life and his soul. And this brought love, joy, and peace to him at one stoke. #RandolphHarris 6 of 23

The original position is a central feature of John Rawl’s social contract account of justice. The original position is designed to be a fair and impartial point of view that is to be adopted in our reasoning about fundamental principles of justice. In taking up this point of view, we are to imagine ourselves in the position of free and equal persons who jointly agree upon and commit themselves to principles of social and political justice. The main distinguishing feature of the original position is ā€œthe veil of ignoranceā€: to insure impartiality of judgment, the parties are deprived of all knowledge of their personal characteristics and social and historical circumstances. They do know of certain fundamental interests they all have, plus general fact about psychology, economics, biology, and others social and natural sciences. The parties in the original position are presented with a list of the main conceptions of justice drawn from the tradition of social and political philosophy, and are assigned the task of choosing from among these alternatives the best conception of justice that best advances their interests in establishing conditions that enable them to effectively pursue their final ends and fundamental interests. #RandolphHarris 7 of 23

Image

The only particular facts which the parities know is that their society is subject to the circumstances of justice and whatever this implies. It is taken for granted, however, that they know the general facts about human society. They understand political affairs and the principles of economic theory; they know the basis of social organization and the laws of human psychology. Indeed, the parties are presumed to know whatever general facts affect the choice of the principles of justice. There are no limitations on general information, that is, on general laws and theories, since conception of justice must be adjusted to the characteristics of the system of social cooperation which they are to regulate, and there is no reason to rule out these facts. Given the principles of moral learning, humans develop a desire to act in accordance with its principles. In this case a conception of justice is stable. The veil of ignorance insures not only that the information available is relevant, but that it is at all times the same. We can, to make the circumstances more vivid, imagine that the parties are required to communicate with each other through a referee as intermediary, and that one is to announce which alternatives have been suggested and the reasons offered in their support. #RandolphHarris 8 of 23

Image

One forbids the attempt to form coalitions, and one informs the parties when they have come to an understanding. However, such a referee is actually superfluous, assuming that the deliberations of the parties must be similar. Justice between generations is resolved by altering the motivation assumptions. However, with this adjustment no one is able to formulate principles especially designed to advance one’s own cause. Whatever one’s temporal position, each is forced to choose for everyone. The right course of action is characterized as that which best advanced social aims as these would be formulated by reflective agreement given that the parties have full knowledge of the circumstances and are moved by a benevolent concern for one another’s interest. No effort s made, however, to specify in any precise way the possible outcomes of this sort of agreement. I do not wish here to criticize others; rather, I want to explain the necessity for what may seem at times like so many irrelevant details. If the original position is to yield agreements that are just, the parties must be fairly situated and treated equally as moral persons. The arbitrariness of the World must be corrected by adjusting the circumstances of the initial contractual situation. #RandolphHarris 9 of 23

A conception of justice based on unanimity in these circumstances would indeed be weak and trivial. However, once knowledge is excluded, the requirement of unanimity is not out of place and the fact that it can be satisfied is of great importance. It enables us to say of the preferred conception of justice that it represents a genuine reconciliation of interests. We created the problem of independent learning by the way we taught and trained people to the social roles awaiting them in social structure that resists change. Pedagogues, parents, people in general, invalidated the experience of learners and shut down their capacity to experience wonder and fascination. We created the problem, and it haunts us because, not because ā€œbehavioral scientists have expanded our conceptions of human potential by recasting the image of human beings; no, the problem haunts us because we find ourselves at the end of our tether. We are running in circles at its limit. The tether is firmly fixed to a peculiar debasement of once magnificent image—the American Way of Life. Originally revolutionary and dynamic in conception, the American Way of Life is now a design for living that more and more Americans cannot live, without the assistance of tranquilizers and the threats of the ubiquitous commissars. #RandolphHarris 10 of 23

Image

Yet, all the time, we advertise this way of life abroad, and try to sell it as we sell bathroom hygiene paper and Buicks, with hidden persuaders. What is independent learning? No authoritative definitions are available. However, what an observer might call independent learning—learning for oneself—the learning experiences as fascinations with some aspect of the Word, envisioned in the mode of possibility, that is in imagination. Independent learning is the embodiment and implementation of imaginative fascination. Some aspect of the World discloses itself to a person. One flips from the experiential mode of perception to an imaginative consciousness; and one experiences oneself as beckoned, challenged, invited, fascinated, by the possibility. The transmutation of this possibility into an actuality then becomes the dominant project of one’s life. One lives it, and one lives for it. The person in who fascination has been turned on, or awakened, suffers a divine discontent, a magnificent obsession. If others live the individual alone, one will wallow in one’s obsession. One will forget to eat, sleep, play, socialize, or do anything else until one has brough one’s image of possibility into actuality, or lies nurturing the wounds from one’s fumbling, awaiting recovery to renew the onslaught. Then, one may again show an interest in other kinds doing. #RandolphHarris 11 of 23

However, in the midst of one’s learning rampage, one is far from being well-rounded, socially adjusted; in fact one departs hugely from current images of how people should be. Indeed, the turned-on learner needs to be protected from other people, from self-consciousness, from the need to conform to images, from distractions, and from serious self-destructions as one contemplates and absorbs oneself in the encounter with one’s fetish—they mystery or the missing skill. When one is thus turned on, no badly-written text, no stuttering teacher can be an obstacle or a deterrent, so long as they embody some of the knowledge that has become the life quest just then. ā€œThis book or that teacher has something I want just now. I will get it out of them somehow!ā€ Independent learning arises when our present existence has reached an impasse, when our experience has gone stale. The project of ā€œstaying the sameā€ has lost its meaning, and so the person seeks ā€œa new interest in life.ā€ If one finds one, and one lets oneself be addressed by it, one become possessed of the divine madness. The burden and dilemma that were one’s existence have now been thrown off. One’s existence is now the quest. One is turned on. One will not be diverted. One may appear ruthless as one pursues one’s quest. One cannot be bored by it though one may bore others by one’s talk of it. #RandolphHarris 12 of 23

This state of being, of being involved, of experiencing new possibilities of meaning of one’s life, of being engaged in their fulfillment—this is what I am construing as independent learning. It entails transcending the past—past involvements and interests, social pressure; in short, it is a matter of detachment and liberation from the momentum and inertia of previous ways of being, behaving, and experiencing. The fascinated questing of which I speak can be evoked in a number of ways. It may occur of itself in someone who is desperate enough, whose life has been enlightened. It seems to occur spontaneously in young children before they have been socialized. More commonly, when it does occur, it happens through a relationship between and entrapped person and some other who functions as one’s guru and exemplar—someone who offers a pseudo psychedelic encounter. Indeed, the guru may assist the process of liberation from previous attachments by helping the person experience more keenly the degree to which one feels trapped. The capacity to become fascinated may be impossible until some level of disengagement from usual concerns, ways, and commitments has been reached. Or, the one who is to be the guru may function as a tempter—one’s way of life may excite envy and admiration. #RandolphHarris 13 of 23

One’s serenity or one’s enthusiasm may evoke curiosity. One may appear to be having more fun, living more fully, experiencing more. Or one may disclose images of possibility that attract the attention of the bored, unfulfilled seeker, who them becomes fascinated and subsequently experiences one’s previous involvements as obstacles to one’s pursuit of new meaning and experience. Whatever the occasion for being thus turned on, it is this fascinated engagement with an image of possibility that I define as independent learning. We might call it awakening or inspiration, but it is always intentional—that is, it is always related to something in the World; it is always awakening to something, being inspirited by and for something, fascinated with something. And it is embodied; that is, the person lives and acts one’s experience of awakening. In principle, the turned-on state, which is experienced by the person as different from one’s usual, repetitive experience, should appear different to the other person. We thus have the possibility of a psychology, a physiology, even an epidemiology and sociology, of being turned on. #RandolphHarris 14 of 23

It is to part of this possibility, an exploration or relationships between personality factors and being turned on. Too many disciples commit the fault of being too demanding and too possessive in their attitude towards the teacher. In the end they become a burden, a liability, or even a nuisance to one. They ought to give one devotion, yes; they ought to think often of one for inspiration and guidance; but they ought not to turn themselves into emotional parasites who are unable to live on their own vitality at all. The eagerness to surrender every responsibility, every decision, every care to a spiritual guide—which is so prominent in the Old World—is only praiseworthy in some cases. In others, it is neurotic and infantile, an attempt to secure indulgent pity, protection, and gregarious support despite the fact that childhood has been physically outgrown. To take it as a sign of advancement, and to use it as an excuse to evade pressing work of self-reform and self-discipline, is deplorable. A calm trust in the human’s leadership is one thing, but a hysterical clinging devotion to one’s personality is another. So it is good for people to be independent learners. For one who turns oneself into a burden to one’s teacher by shrinking one’s own responsibilities and throwing them on one’s teacher, is being selfish as well as weak. #RandolphHarris 15 of 23

Whoever does not understand that the guide must lead one to where one will seek one’s own way, will go on endlessly looking for teachers, one after the other, or else become a spiritual hypochondriac, a semi-invalid needing the guru-doctor to dance constantly in attendance on one’s ego-centered symptoms. It may be that the effort to imitate one’s master will enable the disciple to excel oneself. If one is willing to accept the gift of Grace, which a true teacher is forever bearing, through your prior willingness to give one your faith and devotion, and to give it not because one want it or anything else for oneself but because one is a purified channel for God’s power, then you may expect to see the past wiped out as sins are forgiven and the future made brighter as new energies are born in you. ā€œAnd now it came to pass that the people of the Nephites did all return to their own lands in the twenty and sixth year, every human, with one’s family, one’s flocks, and one’s herds, one’s horses, and one’s cattle, and all things whatsoever did belong unto them. And it came to pass that they had not eaten up all their provisions; therefore they did take with them all that they had not devoured, of all their grain of every kind, and their gold, and their sliver, and all their precious things, and they did return to their own lands and their possessions, both on the north and on the south, both on the land northward and on the land southward. #RandolphHarris 16 of 23

ā€œAnd they granted unto those robbers who had entered into a covenant to keep the peace of the land, who were desirous to remain Lamanites, lands, according to their numbers, that they might have, with their labours, wherewith to subsist upon; and thus they did establish peace in all the land. And they began again to prosper and to wax great; and the twenty and sixth and seventh years passed away, and there was great order in the land; and they had formed their laws according to equity and justice. And now there was nothing in all the land to hinder the people from prospering continually, except they should fall into transgression. And now it was Gidigiddoni, and the judge, Lachoneus, and those who had been appointed leaders, who has established this great peace in the land. And it came to pass that there were many cities built anew, and there were many old cities repaired. And there were many highways cast up, and many roads made which led from city to city, and from land to land, and from place to place. And thus passes away the twenty and eight year, and the people had continual peace. #RandolphHarris 17 of 23

Image

ā€œHowever, it came to pass in the twenty and nineth year there began to be some disputings among the people’ and some were lifted up unto pride and boastings because of their exceedingly great riches, yea, even unto great persecutions; for there were many merchants in the land, and also many lawyers, and many officers. And the people began to be distinguished by ranks, according to their riches and their chances for learning; yea, some were ignorant because of their poverty, and others did receive great learning because of their riches. Some were lifted up in pride, and others were exceedingly humble; some did return railings for railing, while others would receive railing and persecution and all manner of afflictions, and would not turn and revile again, but were humble and penitent before God. And thus there became a great inequality in all the land, insomuch that the church began to be broken up; yea, insomuch that in the thirtieth year the church was broken up in all the land save it were among a few of the Lamanites who were converted unto the true faith; and they would not depart from it, for immovable, willing with all diligence to keep the commandments of the Lord. #RandolphHarris 18 of 23

ā€œNow the cause of this iniquity of the people was this—Satan had great power, unto the stirring up of the people to do all manner of iniquity, and to the puffing them up with pride, tempting them to seek for power, and authority, and riches, and the vain things of the World. And thus Satan did lead away the hearts of the people to do all manner of iniquity; therefore they had enjoyed peace but a few years. And thus, in the commencement of the thirtieth year—the people having been delivered up for the space of a long time to be carried about by the temptations of the devil whithersoever he desired to carry them and to do whatsoever iniquity he desired they should—and thus in the commencement of this, the thirtieth year, they were in a state of awful wickedness. Now they did not sin ignorantly, for they knew the will of God concerning them, for it had been taught unto them; therefore they did willfully rebel against God. And now it was in the days of Lachoneus, the son of Lachoneus, for Lachoneus did fill the seat of his father and did govern the people that year. And there began to be humans inspired from Heaven and sent forth standing among the people in all the land, preaching and testifying boldly of the sins and iniquities of the people. #RandolphHarris 19 of 23

ā€œAnd they were testifying unto them concerning the redemption which the Lord would make for his people, or in other words, the resurrection of Christ; and they did testify boldly of his death and sufferings. Now there were many of the people who were exceedingly angry because of those who testified of these things; and those wo were angry were chiefly the chief judges, and they who had been high priests and lawyers; yea, all those who were lawyers were angry with those who testified of these things. Now there was no lawyer nor judge nor high priest that could have power to condemn any one to death save their condemnation was signed by the governor of the land. Now there were many of those who testified of the things pertaining to Christ who testified boldly, who were taken and put to death secretly by the judges, that the knowledge of their death came not unto the governor of the land until after death. Now behold, this was contrast to the laws of the land, that any human should be put to death except they had a power from the governor of the land. #RandolphHarris 20 of 23

ā€œTherefore a complaint came up unto the land of Zarahemla, to the governor of the land, against these judges who had condemned the prophets of the Lord unto death, not according to the law. Now it came to pass that those judges had many friends and kindreds; and the remainder, yea, even almost all the lawyers and the high priests, did gather themselves together, and unite with the kindreds of those judges who were to be tried according to the law. And they did enter into a covenant one with another, yea, even into that covenant which was given by them of old, which covenant was given and administered by the devil, to combine against all righteousness. Therefore they did combine against the people of the Lord, and enter int a covenant to destroy them, and to deliver those who were guilty of murder from the grasp of justice, which was about to be administered according to the law. And they did set at defiance the law and the rights of their country; and they did covenant one with another to destroy the governor, and to establish a king over the land, that the land should no more be at liberty but should be subject unto the kings,ā€ reports 3 Nephi 6.1-30. Dear Lord in Heaven, you have retuned the Sun, as I knew you would, for this is your part in the ways of things. #RandolphHarris 21 of 23

God, you have your role, and you play it well. I ask that you please inspire me to do the same: to know the right thing to do and to do it with passion and joy and honour. Bless, we beseech Thee, O Lord, Thy whole Clergy, that they may handle Thy holy things with holiness, and be pleasing to Thee Whoa art our Priest for ever. O Lord, without Whom our labour is but lost, and with Whom Thy little ones go forth as the mighty; please be present to all works in Thy Church which are undertaken according to Thy will, (especially in Sacramento, California USA), and please grant to Thy labourers a pure intention, patient faith, sufficient success upon Earth, and the bliss of serving Thee in Heaven; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Lord Jesus Christ, our sympathizing Saviour, Who for humans didst bear that Agony and the Cross; please draw Thou near to Thy suffering servant, in their pain of body or trouble of mind (especially in Sacramento, California USA) please hallow all their crosses in this life, and crown them hereafter where all tears are wiped away; where with the Father we can sing praises. Merciful and faithful Most Priest, Who didst deign for us to be tempted of Satan; please make speed to assist Thy servants who are assaulted by manifold temptations; and as Thou knowest their several infirmities, let each one to find Thee mighty to save, Who livest, as a young God, a young warrior. #RandolphHarris 22 of 23

God, please rise into the sky as into a battle, dispelling the darkness that has covered the World, putting to flight the fears of the night. Have mercy, O compassionate Father, on all who are hardened through the deceitfulness of sin; vouchsafe them grace to come to themselves, the will and power to return to Thee, and the loving welcome of Thy forgiveness; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Almighty and everliving God, Who hast given us the Christian Faith of Christ for a light to our feet amid the darkness of this World; please have pity upon all who, by doubting or denying it, are gone astray from the path of safety; please bring home the Truth to their hearts, and grant them to receive it as little children; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord. God has given birth to you again; again you climb the sky, again you reach for your glory, again I stand here to praise you. The sacred path is fulfilled, things are as they should be. Jesus Christ, herald of the right way, I praise you! Amazing! Wonderful! Every morning, again and again You make life amazing! Wonderful! #RandolphHarris 23 of 23

Cresleigh Homes

Image

There is nothing cozier than the @HUBApts Clubhouse on a chilly fall morning like this one. šŸ˜ Head over to their profile to learn all about this modern #Folsom community! https://sites.google.com/fpimgt.com/hubvirtualtours/home

Enjoy Style, Sophistication, and Charm in this Brand New Luxury Community!
#CresleighHomes

Stand a Little Less Between Me and the Sun for this is the Movement of Redeeming Love!

Image

If you watch a game, it is fun. If you play it, it is recreation. If you work at it, it is golf. We become live as we take, knowingly, full responsibility for our own life and as we stop blaming circumstance. Freedom for most people of the World means ā€œfreedom fromā€ the absence of malice or pain or suppression. However, the freedom that God means when He deals with us goes one step further. God means ā€œfreedom toā€ā€”the freedom to act in the dignity of our own choice. What then does it mean to be free? Freedom means to have matured to the full knowledge of our dangerously many responsibilities as a human being. We have learned that everything we do, and even say or think, has consequences. We realize that too long we have believed that we were the victims of circumstances. In the Gospel of John, 8.32 it reports the following, ā€œAnd ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.ā€ As we open our hearts to the message of God’s truth, as it was restored in our time, we begin to understand why there was, and still is, so much misery, pain, suffering, and even starvation. Our nation’s future direction now hangs in the balance; we are living in a time of crucial choices—both conscious and unconscious—that will determine our fate. #RandolphHarris 1 of 22

The rights to freedom of thought and speech, the right to advocate any point of view which one believe—these freedoms are not highly regarded today. Even universities, where these freedoms are of the essence, often refuse to permit speakers to appear because their views are opposed by some influential group. And it is not only administrators who limit these freedoms, but faculty and students as well. Lies, deceit, criminal invasion of privacy, flouting of the law, surveillance and imprisonment of dissenters—all these have been tools used to control the populace and to hold power over persons. We have to be careful because incarcerating the young will keep them out of the adult World. High office now goes preponderantly to humans of wealth so that of our one hundred senators, supposedly representing the people, 50 percent of them are millionaires. To make people obey the law, it is important for them to feel they are a par of an ongoing, purposeful process. People are more likely to obey the law when they understand that each individual has an inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. We cannot allow ā€œDysamerica,ā€ to become popular since it is utterly opposed to the goals, ideals, and political structure embodied in the Constitution. #RandolphHarris 2 of 22

Image

Youth must also be taught not only to be loving, but also to be proud to be Americans so they do not become ā€œDysamerican.ā€ Many social historians, economists, and forecasters agree that the disillusionment with democracy is growing, and they see it coming to fruition in the future that a controlled society is inevitable. Belief in the worth of the free person is not something that can be extinguished even by all the modern technological devices—bugging of conversations, use of ā€œmental hospitalsā€ to recondition behaviour, and all the rest. Nothing can extinguish the human organism’s drive to be itself—to actualize itself in individual and creative ways. Trust and courage are standards to emulate. Equality and justice are inviolable concepts. Authority should be guided by reason and tempered by fairness. There is a realization that if we are to live in a human context, there must be an ability to establish intimate, communicative, personal bonds with others in a very short space of time. They must be able to leave these close relationships behind, without excessive conflict or mourning. Every social revolution is preceded by, or brings with it, a change in the perception of the World or a change in the perception of the possible or both. #RandolphHarris 3 of 22

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is 121545705_3288550144531335_121558850507969009_n.jpg

In the same dimension as we are learning to accept the revealed truth in our own life, our faith in the living Son of God will grow, and therefore we will receive spiritual gifts of heretofore unknown capacity. We will learn that nothing is impossible for those who believe in Jesus Christ. False bondages will be loosened. Narrow thinking born in tragedies of false traditions will disappear. The more our understanding of the vastness and the completeness of the plan of salvation is developing, the more we see ourselves in smallness, in our incompleteness. And seeing ourselves in that humility, with a broken heart and a contrite spirit, will let us understand and finally accept this most sacred covenant with our Heavenly Father. Freedom means that we have the potential of making wrong choices. Wrong choices have their merciless consequences, and when they are not stopped and corrected they lead us into misery and pain. Wrong choices, if not corrected, will lead us to the ultimate possible disaster in each person’s life: to become separated from our Heavenly Father in the World to come. When we have received this life-enabling message, we begin to understand that in our earlier life we were like a football player standing in the middle of the field, totally depressed because we did not know the purpose of the game. #RandolphHarris 4 of 22

We did not know which team we belong to, and we did not even know who was our coach. Only in the awareness of the restored gospel, our game plan become clear, and we comprehend that Jesus Christ and His restored Church and priesthood are the only way for us to succeed in our Earthly experience. Jesus Christ wants to empower our lives, according to our own righteous choices, to that dimension that, through our faith and our doings, the circumstances whose prisoners we were in the past will eventually change. Love, if it is truly love, implies that in any problem or dilemma we shall be led by a spiritual instinct. For, where love is, there is the Holy Spirit, who knows all, and who guides us in the strait path. Love is able to rise above the law; it does not follow, but lead, the law. The conscience of the mystics, enlightened by God’s illuminations, may be called a transmoral conscience. It does not need to be told what law is. For consciously or not, it fulfills the law. For in the concrete situation of the Christian who is totally committed to God, love never contradicts the law: it fulfills it. Love invents the law if the law is not explicitly known, and what it invents always corresponds to the law, because both have the Holy Spirit as their inspirer. The morel law of nature or of revelation cannot contradict the true love of God. #RandolphHarris 5 of 22

Image

The true love of God always desires to follow the moral law. However, every teacher knows that correct behaviour does not come spontaneously. Even love has to be taught. Even when one really loves them, one must learn to respect and understand others. Even for one who is totally dedicated to another, it is not east to respect the secret of that person. When it stated that ā€œthe fear of God is the beginning of wisdom,ā€ The Old Testament agree with common sense. Christ did not abolish the law; he fulfilled it. Love likewise does not seek to be freed from laws, but to fulfill them. Love soars above the law only to subject itself to the law again. Love is free, and it freely longs for obedience. As soon as we speak of obedience, we must ask, Obedience to what? In the realm of ethics, obedience can only be to objective standards, that is, to laws. The law is not strange to man. It is natural law. It represents his true nature from which he is estranged. Every ethical commandment is an expression of man’s essential relation to himself, to others and to the Universe. Undeserved grace of God has raised to full spiritual freedom. Most of us are theonomous only at times, when we rise above our average. #RandolphHarris 6 of 22

Our ethics, then, is a mixture: heteronomy, when we obey the law for no other reason than that is it’s the law; autonomy, when we escape the law and go on our own, experimenting with temptation and sin; theonomy, when we perceive that there is a higher realm, to which we obscurely aspire. In this World, theonomy can only be achieved by way of obedience. To behave ethically, in this view, is to be ultimately concerned about the connection of our actions with essential Godmanhood. The Christ is eternal Godmanhood, the essence of man paradoxically appearing under the conditions of existence. All humans have aspired to this revelation; they have longed for an escape from the dilemma of an existence which is never adequate to its essence. Their religions have attempted to find a way out of the human labyrinth. The Messiah, the Christ, the Servant of Yahweh, the Prophet to come, the Son of Man, the Son of God, are some of the representations of this ideal messenger of salvation. The Christian faith consists in believing that this messenger has come, Christ is eternal Godmanhood, is in Jesus Christ the man; and that Jesus was the manifestation of the Christ. The coming of Jesus the Christ is a totally gratuitous event, unanticipated by the human mind and irreducible to general categories. #RandolphHarris 7 of 22

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is 120889236_3268087689910914_9084967595083225320_n.jpg

Our goodness is not ours, it is God’s. Christ is perfect goodness, and so he is perfectly God. We are good because God lives in us by grace; and Jesus was perfect goodness because God was perfectly in him, so perfectly that Jesus was God. Wherever the New Bing appears, salvation is achieved. The coming of the Christ is such a breakthrough of the New Bing. Other can be thought of or hoped for. This particular manifestation of the New Bing is the norm of Christianity because it is the greatest manifestation that has ever been perceived. Of all the messianic titles, Jesus claimed the title of the Man more definitely than any other. In 1 Corinthians 15.45-47, in Romans 5.12, and in Philippians 2.5-11, St Paul developed the idea of the Man and identified ā€œthe Heavenly Man,ā€ ā€œthe second Adam,ā€ ā€œthe second Man,ā€ with the concrete man Jesus. The Man is from Heaven. He is spiritual, as contrasted with the first Adam, who was Earthly. He appeared on Earth as Jesus of Nazareth. These, and other texts of the New Testament, impose the following conclusion: The early Church initiated a Christology in which Jesus was considered to be the incarnation of preexisting celestial Man. Christology is built on the concept ā€œMan.ā€ The Man, the ā€œcelestial Man,ā€ is equal with God. Christology takes this as a scriptural basis and describes the Thee Persons as the Father, the Man, the Spirit. #RandolphHarris 8 of 22

In examining the meaning of ā€œthe Man,ā€ it might follow the patristic line of thought according to which man’s essence is to be the image, the eikon, of God. The second Person, the Man-God, is the perfect Image of the Father, of whom he is eternally born. It is precisely that which makes him the preexistent Man. To be a man on Earth consists in being destined to imitate this Man, in being created an image of God. All men are types of this eternal Archetype, of the Image of the Father, of the Man. The two natures, divine and human, of Christ can also be called the two humanities of Jesus: the divine Humanity, which is God himself, the Exemplar of all images of God; and the creaturely humanity, in whose shape the divine Humanity appeared on Earth at a given moment in history. These two are one—one ā€œpersonā€ in the Chalcedonian language—by way of exemplarity: the creaturely humanity of Jesus is the perfect created likeness of the divine Man. We should not speak of Jesus as two men, but as two humanities—divine and human—in one man, the pre-existent divine Man. The integrity of the creaturely humanity assumed by the eternal Man, in all things like his brethren. #RandolphHarris 9 of 22

The Exemplar itself is, eternally so, divine and yet human the divine Man. Eternal Godmanhood is made possible by the Scriptures themselves and by the early tradition of the Church. It may be achieved in complete fidelity to the normative Councils of the early Church. Jesus is the divine Man and appeared in the midst of creaturely mankind, a brother among brothers. Jesus the Christ is the Saviour. Jesus the Christ is the mediator in all things. The Son of God, to whom alone belong the Kingdom, the Power and the Glory. ā€œIf we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us,ā€ reports 1 John 4.12. The first great commandment makes it possible to fulfill the commandment: love of neighbour as oneself. And loving others under God will ensure that we are loved by others. For to the others in our community of love, we are the ā€œotherā€ who they love because they love and are loved by God. The fellowship of Christ’s apprentices in kingdom living is a community of love. ā€œA new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all humans will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another,ā€ reports John 13.34-35. This is the movement in the process of redeeming love. Christ chose his twelve apostles not only because they were naturally and extremely religious men but also because they were loyal enough and brave enough to live and die for their master. #RandolphHarris 10 of 22

Here, then, is the full accounts of the movements of love in our lives: We are loved by God who is love, and in turn we love him, and others through him, who in turn love us through him. Thus is love made perfect or complete. And ā€œperfect love casts out fear,ā€ reports 1 John 4.18. That is, those who live in the fulfillment of God’s redemptive love in human life will no longer experience fear. ā€œFear involves torment,ā€ John notes, and torment is incompatible with living in the full cycle of love (1 John 4.18). We live in the community of goodwill from a competent God. Now, as St Augustine saw long ago, the opposite of love is pride. Love eliminates pride because its will for the god of the other nullifies our arrogant presumption hat we should get our way. We are concerned for the good of others and assured that our good is take care of without self-will. Thus pride and fear and their dreadful offspring no longer rules our life as long becomes complete in us. This eagerness to become a disciple and learn truth is the first necessary qualification. Without it nothing can be done; with it everything will come naturally in automatic response from God. One must supply faith and loyalty, obedience and practice, along with the aspiration which brings us closer to the Lord. If we hear the master’s words with joy, that is one indication that we are ready. #RandolphHarris 11 of 22

When we entrust ourselves to the Lord’s care, we should cultivate patience and not seek immediate results. However, it is not necessary to display frenzied fervour in order to be a devoted disciple. If we feel personally humiliated or become hysterically tearful because God did not respond when we expected, we are not only suffering needlessly, but will remain long puzzled. Our humility will always be met by kindness and our frankness by equal frankness. The seeker who has found the path proper and are in affinity with God’s commandments should waste no more time in the experimental investigations of other paths, other teachings, and other teachers. If one is to get full benefit of our fellowship, we must remain absolutely loyal. As one’s tender, newly regenerated soul begins to grow close to Christ, one will begin to care deeply about ideas in these areas. Preserve and clear away some of the cobwebs that cover vast regions of one’s mental attic. Nothing that is worth doing id pleasurable or easy in the early stages of learning how to do it. However, through regular practice, patient endurance, and proper mentoring, skills emerge and habits are formed that enable a good person to be good at the activity in focus. This is clearly the case in learning to play gold, hit a baseball, or read in completely new areas of study. It is n less true of becoming a deep, careful thinker in general. #RandolphHarris 12 of 22

Image

If we are to love God adequately with the mind, then the mind must be exercised regularly, trained to acquire certain habits of thought, and filled with an increasingly rich set of distinctions and categories. There is n simple way to do this, and it would be presumptuous to attempt to describe fully how to develop a mature mind in one essay. A mature person has a tightly integrated, well-ordered soul. A carefully developed mind is a crucial part of a well-ordered soul. A mind that is learning to function well is both part of and made possible by an overall life that is skillfully lived. You cannot learn to use your mind well for Christ’s sake by just reading a logic book or taking more adult education courses. You must order your general lifestyle in such a way that a maturing intellect emerges as part of that lifestyle. If you want to develop a Christian mind, you must intend to order your overall form of life to make this possible. You cannot just read a book or two and add this to a lifestyle otherwise indifferent to the intellect. Moreover, learning to be a careful Christian thinker results in an entire way of being present in the World.  What a person spends time learning will affect the way that person sees, hears, thinks, and behaves. #RandolphHarris 13 of 22

Image

A trained lawyer actually hears things on the evening news, see things in the newspaper, and approaches conversations with others in ways that would be unavailable to one if one had gone into psychology or business. A person with a well-developed lawyer-type mind will have a distinctive way of being present in the World. This is also true of a person who is cultivating a careful Christian mind. That person will be present to the World in a distinctively Christian intellectual way. One will notice certain things others miss, read things (for example, theology, church history) others eschew, and so forth. To develop a Christian mind skillfully, one must want to be a certain sort of person badly enough that one is willing to pay the price for ordering one’s lifestyle appropriately. Of course, some Christians are called to a vocation of being a Christian intellectual in one way or another—a Christian philosopher or New Testament scholar, for example. This requires a more intense, focused ordering of one’s life than is needed for those without this calling. However, every believer, regardless of vocational calling, needs to cultivate a Christian mind. A life so ordered to facilitate intellectual growth is characterized by a certain set of virtues that makes such growth possible. #RandolphHarris 14 of 22

Image

A virtue is a skill, a habit, an ingrained disposition to act, think, or feel in certain way. Virtues are those good parts of one’s character that make a person excellent at life in general. As with any skill (for example, learning to swing a golf club), a virtue become ingrained in my personality, and thus a part of my very nature, through repetition, practice, and training. If I want to develop the virtue of compassion, I must regularly practice acts of mercy, self-sacrifice, and kindness. Knowing what these virtues are will give one something specific at which to aim in one’s efforts to cultivate one’s mind. Certain virtues are especially relevant to the development of an intellectual life. Moreover, these virtues are not isolated from each other. They are deeply interrelated. Growth in one virtue can assist maturity in another skill and vice versa. If one wants a maturing Christian mind, one will need to cultivate these virtues through regular practice. If in the beginning one is to cast one’s net so widely as to search for truth in every corner, in the middle of one’s course one is to narrow one’s World until one has no ear for anyone else but the voice of God. Only so can concentration be achieved. In the beginning, width; in the middle, depth. #RandolphHarris 15 of 22

Image

Virtue of wisdom contains truth seeking, honesty, and wisdom. Even if it is not the truth we want to hear, the Christian mind is committed to seeking and finding the truth. The Christian seeks to know and do the truth. In fact, in a certain sense the believer’s commitment to the truth is even more basic than one’s dedication to the Christian faith in general or some doctrinal position in particular: If one came to believe that Christianity or some doctrinal belief were false, then one would ought to give up the belief in question. By way of application, even if we do not like the way they express their views, we should earn to listen to what our critics say about us. Even if it was expressed angrily and inappropriately, a wife or husband should try to get at the truth of a spouse’s criticisms. Practice this in all areas of your life to cultivate the habit of wanting the truth. Few are ready to pay the entrance fee of lifelong loyalty and steadfast service which are demanded, for this payment must be made in actual practice and not in lip movements alone. Even when understanding cannot keep pace, we must be able to trust and walk unwaveringly at our spouses’ side, and our fine loyalty should shine out like Sirius in the sky. Loyalty is the quality which will endear one most to a loved one. #RandolphHarris 16 of 22

Image

 The Quest will become inseparable from the happiness one seeks, so devotion to God will become inseparable from the salvation upon which happiness depends. Why should this be so is one of the mysterious workings of Destiny which can only be illuminate when and if it be possible to illuminate the Earth sacred covenant. In this freedom that we have received in our time, through our understanding of God’s divine plan for us, we stand in our full responsibility. Let us always stay close to the loving, caring hand of our Redeemer, and our Saviour to find safety and joy. I say this in deep humility. ā€œAnd now, it came to pass that there were many who heard the words of Samuel, the Lamanite, which he spake upon the walls of the city. And as many as believed on his word went forth and sought for Nephi; and when they had come forth and found him they confessed unto him their sins and denied not, desiring that they might be baptized unto the Lord. However, as many as there were who did not believe in the words of Samuel were angry with him; and they cast stones at him upon the wall, and also many short arrows at him as he stood upon the wall; but the Spirit of the Lord was with him, insomuch that they could not hit him with their stones neither with their arrows. #RandolphHarris 17 of 22

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is 120349454_3249339288452421_6066061485220263632_n.jpg

ā€œNow when they saw that they could not hit him, there were many more who did believe on his words, insomuch that they went away unto Nephi to be baptized. For behold, Nephi was baptizing, and prophesying, and preaching, crying repentance unto the people, showing signs of wonders, working miracles among the people, that they might know that the Christ must shortly come—telling them of the things which must shortly come, that that might know and remember at the time of their coming that they had been made known unto them beforehand, to the intent that they might believe; therefore as many as believed on the word of Samuel went forth unto him to be baptized, for they came repenting and confessing their sins. However, they more part of them did not believe in the words of Samuel; therefore when they saw that they could not hit him with their stone and their arrows, they cried unto their captains, saying: Take this fellow and bind him, for behold he hath a devil; and because of the power of the devil which is in him we cannot hit him with our stones and our arrows; therefore take him and bind hi, and away with him. And as they went forth to lay their hands on him, behold, he did cast himself down from the wall, and did flee out of their lands, yea, even unto his own country, and began to preach and to prophesy among his own people. #RandolphHarris 18 of 22

ā€œAnd behold, he was never heard of more among the Nephites; and thus were the affairs of the people. And thus ended the eighty and sixth year of the judges over the people of Nephi. And thus ended also the eighty and seventh year of the reign of the judges, the more part of the people remaining in their pride and wickedness, and the lesser part walking more circumspectly before God. And these were the conditions also, in the eighty and eighth year of the reign of the judges. And there was but a little alteration in the affairs of the people, save it were the people began to be more hardened in iniquity, and do more and more of that which was contrary to the commandments of God, in the eighty and ninth year of the reign of the judges. However, it came to pass in the ninetieth year of the reign of the judges, there were great signs given unto the people, and wonders; and the words of the prophets began to be fulfilled. And Angels did appear unto men, wise men, and did declare unto them glad tidings of great joy; thus in this year the scriptures began to be fulfilled. Nevertheless, the people began to harden their hearts, all save it were the most believing part of them, both of the Nephites and also of the Lamanites, and began to depend upon their own strength and upon their own wisdom saying: #RandolphHarris 19 of 22

ā€œSome thing they may have guessed right, among so many; but behold, we know that all these great and marvelous works cannot come to pass, of which have been spoken. And they began to reason and to contend among themselves, saying: That it is not reasonable that such a being as a Christ shall come; if so, and he be the Son of God, the Father of Heaven and of Earth, as it has been spoken, why will he not show himself unto us as well as unto them who shall be at Jerusalem? Yea, why will he not show himself in this land as well as in the land of Jerusalem? However, behold, we know that this is a wicked tradition, which has been handed down unto us by our fathers, to cause us that we should believe in some great and marvelous thing which should come to pass, but not among us, but in a land which is far distant, a long which we know not; therefore they can keep us in ignorance, for we cannot witness without own eyes that they are true. And they will, by the cunning and the mysterious arts of the evil one, work some great mystery which we cannot understand, which will keep us down to be servants to their words, and also servants unto them, for we depend upon them to teach us the word; and thus will they keep us in ignorance if we will yield ourselves unto them, all the days of our lives. #RandolphHarris 20 of 22

Image

ā€œAnd many more thing did the people imagine up in their hearts, which were foolish and vain; and they were much disturbed, for Satan did stir them up to do iniquity continually; yea, he did go about spreading rumors and contentions upon the face of the land, that he might harden the hearts of the people against that which should come. And notwithstanding the signs and the wonders which were wrought among the people of the Lord, and the many miracles which they did, Satan did get great hold upon the hearts of the people upon all the face of the land. And thus ended the ninetieth year of the reign of the judges over the people of Nephi. And thus ended the book of Helaman, according to the record of Helaman and his sons,ā€ reports Helaman 16.1-25. Come, spirits of the Lord, and bless my life. We will live our lives together from now on, you living in me. God, please guide our ways and balance opposites. May we use the blessings you have given us well for your purposes. O Almighty God, from Whom every good prayer cometh, and Who pourest out on all who desire it the Spirit of grace and supplications; please deliver us, when we draw nigh to Thee, from coldness of heart and wanderings of mind; that with steadfast thoughts and kindled affections we may worship Thee in spirit and in truth; through Jesus Christ our Lord. #RandolphHarris 21 of 22

Image

O God, Who makest us glad with the weekly remembrance of the glorious Resurrection of Thy Son our Lord; please vouchsafe us this day such a blessing though Thy worship, that the days which follow it may be spent in Thy favour; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord. O Lord, Who by triumphing over the powers of darkness, didst prepare our place in the New Jerusalem; please grant us, who have this say given thanks for Thy resurrection, to praise Thee in that City whereof Thou art the Light; where with the Father we are taken into His heart and profit by lessons of the past and remain resolutely devoted to Him. Our inner affinity with God is so personal, so intimate, so deeply felt, that no one else can take the place of the Lord. We seek not counsel from anyone other than God. O Lord Jesus Christ, Who art the Truth Incarnate and the Teacher of the faithful; please let Thy Spirit overshadow us in reading Thy Word, and conform our thoughts to Thy Revelation; that learning of Thee with honest heart, we may be rooted and built up in Thee who livest genuinely and teachers us reverence and obedience, love and respect. There is none higher than God, He guides humans out of illusion into reality. It is not wrong therefore to give His office great reverence and Himself great devotion. Our spiritual debt to God is unpayable. This is because that which directs us is more important in the end than anything else. #RandolphHarris 22 of 22

Image

Cresleigh Homes

The amenities at @HUBApts are on a whole other level. ā¬†ļø Head to their profile to check out what else they have to offer! https://sites.google.com/fpimgt.com/hubvirtualtours/home

We ought to be grateful and respectful to all those great lights of the race who brought it truth. Yet at the same time we ought to be specially grateful and specially respectful to the particular one who brought us to see the truth more than any other did.

#HUBApts

#CresleighHomes

Who Would Respect Someone who Voted in a Jury Trial or Decided which House to Buy with No Regard to the Evidence Relevant to the Decisions?

Just because you like my stuff does not mean I owe you anything. Those who generally deny or ignore their World of private and subjective experience during wakefulness seem to recall fewer dreams than those who accept and exploit this dimension of experience. Emotional problems often take advantage of the dreaming state and a skilled psychoanalyst can use dream content therapeutically. Replacing the notion that dream last only a few seconds was the finding that EEG-monitored Rapid Eye Movement (REM) stages of sleep are rarely less than 10 minutes long and may last for an hour or more. During your sleep, the body repairs and regrows tissues, builds bone and muscle, and strengthens the immune system. There is an average of four of five REM stages in the course of a typical night’s sleep. The average young adult subject spends about 20 percent of one’s sleep time in the REM state. During infancy and childhood the proportion is much higher, while during old age it is somewhat lower. REM sleep is usually a deep sleep and if someone woke you, you would likely feel disoriented. It is interesting that the larger animals with a longer lifespan and a lower metabolic rate tend to have longer sleep-dream cycles. #RandolphHarris 1 of 19

 The average length of time from the beginning of one REM (Rapid Eye Movement) stage to the next varies from four minutes in the Mus musculus to 90 minutes in the adult man. It has been suggested that cyclical dreaming evolved because this arrangement gave the organism an opportunity to come to a state of near waking readiness and ā€œsampleā€ the environment for danger. REM sleep is basically a process for ā€œprogrammingā€ the brain; this programming system is homeostatic, organizing and storing memories [perceptual, cognitive, and behavioural programs]. Thus, lower or ā€œfixed programā€ forms of life do not need much or any REM time while newborn high life forms should have more REM time than adults to develop the central nervous system. It is also possible that the fetus spends almost all of time in the REM state. If the REM sate serves a developmental function, one might be able to detect a disturbed or atypical sleep-dream cycle among individuals with central nervous dysfunction. If this dysfunction responds to therapy, one might expect to see a reflection of this change in the sleep-dream cycle. Dreaming serves to integrate new information into existing past information stores and leads to improvement of speech production and comprehension (exempli gratia, ā€œreprogramingā€) would alter the sleep dream cycle of aphasics. #RandolphHarris 2 of 19

Artemidorous Daldianus, a professional diviner, in the second century A.D., produced the first systematic interpretation of dreams. He asserted that truth exists within dream symbols—as when Joseph interpreted Pharaoh’s dream of the seven fat and seven lean cattle as seven years of plenty followed by seven years of famine. Rather than serving as evidence of communication with God, Artemidorous looked upon Pharaoh’s dream as an indication of human intuition. Jeffery David Ullman, an American computer scientist and the Stanford W. Ascherman Professor of Engineering, also concerned himself with the roles that dreams play in a particular culture. He notes that dreams of preliterate people reflect the prevailing mythology and that dreams often act as a channel for a person’s idiosyncratic modes of viewing the cultural myths. Dr. Ullman conceded that the end-product could be banal or ecstatic but noted it is an act of creation to have the dream in the first place. An idea may sleep for decades in the unconscious mind and then suddenly return to consciousness. In primitive and ancient societies, dreams were typically thought to be the work of supernatural entities, appearing to mortals with messages of hope or despair. #RandolphHarris 3 of 19

Some peoples believed that the soul left the physical body in sleep and wandered in a spirit World. It was generally believed that dreams could provide a glimpse of the future, reveal events happening at a distance, or indicate the thoughts of another person. Our normal waking consciousness is but one special type of consciousness, whilst all about it, parted from it by the filmiest of screens, there lie potential forms of consciousness entirely different. We may go throughout life without suspecting their existence; but apply the requisite stimulus, and at a touch they are there in all their completeness. No account of the Universe in its totality can be final which leaves these other forms of consciousness quite disregarded. Individuals who make a persistent, conscientious, disciplined attempt to cope with internal events typically report that the quest has assisted their capacity to perceive and understand the various levels of reality, to accept and enjoy the self, to behave spontaneously, to appreciate art and nature, to develop close interpersonal relationships, to work creatively—in other words, to become a more fully realized human being. The current interest in dreams and other forms of altered consciousness is a promising development for humanistically oriented psychology, psychiatry, religion, education, and other fields. #RandolphHarris 4 of 19

Image

The goal is to produce superhumans who are fully functional. As a larger number of professionals and noneprofessional become involved in the inner life, the possibility grows that there is a new consciousness emerging in our time—a consciousness geared toward self-actualization and the full development of the human potential. If you could hear that a flying saucer from another planet had landed on Earth one hundred years ago, you would want to know how the space ship was constructed and what kind of power propelled it, but most of all you would want to know about the people who navigated it and the society from which they came. If they lived in a World without crime and war and destructive conflict, and if they were comparatively free from chronic mental and physical ailments, you would want to know about their methods of healing and education, and whether these methods would work as well with the inhabitants of Earth. If you heard further that the navigators of the ship had found a group of 12,000 people living as an isolated community among the mountains, and had demonstrated that these preliterate people would utilize their methods of healing and education, and reproduce the society from which the celestial navigators came, you would probably be curious about these psychological and social methods that conquered space inside the individual, than you would about the mechanics of the ship which conquered outside space. #RandolphHarris 5 of 19

These people lived in long community houses, skillfully constructed. They maintained themselves by practicing dry-land, shifting agriculture, and by hunting and fishing. Study of their political and social organization indicated that the political authority in their communities was originally in the hands of the elder members of the patrilineal clans. Because of their psychological knowledge of strangers in their territory, they could very easily devise means of scaring them off. They did not black magic, but allowed the nomadic hill-folk surrounding them to think that they did if strangers invaded their territory. However, the absence of violent crime, armed conflict, and mental and physical diseases in their own society can only be explained on the basic of institutions which produce a high state of psychological integration and emotional maturity, along with social skills and attitudes which promote creative, rather than destructive, interpersonal relationships. They are, perhaps, the most democratic group reported in anthropological literature. In the realms of family, economics, and politics, their society operates smoothly on the principle of contract, agreement and democratic consensus, with no need of police force, jail, or psychiatric hospital to reinforce the agreements or to confine those who are not willing or able to reach consensus. #RandolphHarris 6 of 19

Image

Study of their society seems to indicate that they have arrived at this high state of social and physical cooperation and integration through the system of psychology which they have discovered, invented and developed, and that the principles of this system of psychology are understandable in terms of Wester scientific thinking. They have built a system of interpersonal relations which, in the field of psychology, is perhaps on a level with our attainments in such areas as television and nuclear physics. Humans create features or images on the outside World in their own mind as a part of the adaptive process. Some of these features are in conflict with them and with each other. Once internalized, these hostile images turn humans against themselves and their fellows. In their unconscious minds, humans have the power to see these facets of their psyche, which have been disguised in external forms, associated with their own fearful emotions, and turned against them and the internal images of other people. If the individual does not receive social assistance through education and therapy, these hostile images, built up by human’s normal receptiveness to the outside World, get tied together and associated with one another in a way which makes one physically, socially and psychologically abnormal. #RandolphHarris 7 of 19

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is 121146685_3283187921734224_7670308444097676217_n.jpg

Unassisted, these unconscious ideas, which humans create to reproduce inside oneself the external sociophysical environment, tend to remain against one the ways the environment was against one, or to become disassociated from one’s major personality and tied up in wasteful psychic, organic, and muscular tensions. With the help of a trained professional, these psychological replicas of the socio-physical environment can be redirected and reorganized and again become useful to the major personality. Any human being, with the assistance of one’s fellows, can outface, master, and actually utilize all beings and forces in the unconscious universe. Humans discover their deepest self and reveals their greatest creative power at times when one’s psychic processes are most free from immediate involvement with the environment and most under the control of one’s indwelling balancing or homeostatic power. The freest type of psychic play occurs in our unconscious minds, and the social acceptance of our deepest repressed thoughts and idea, therefore, constitute the deepest possible acceptance of the individual. Evil is neutralized by enforcing desirable behaviour. Modern civilization may be sick because people have sloughed off, or failed to develop, half their power to think. #RandolphHarris 8 of 19

Image

People rely too much on the news, often as their only source of information about the World. However, the news is a vision someone wants to present to you, and it is to generate revenue. Much of the news is entertainment, and if you want to be entertained, then watch a movie, read a book, listen to music, get some exercise. Western society is rife with war, crime, and wasteful economic conflict, insanity, neurosis and chronic psychogenic physical ills because people are more willing to watch the news than they are to go to church and learn about God and His laws. Through religion and a focus on intellectual and social interests, we can solve the problem of violent crime and destructive economic conflict, and largely eliminate insanity, neurosis and psychogenic illness. Instead of sitting down for half an hour to watch the evening news, go for a walk or to the gym with a friend. Play sports. Do something to be active. Notice that children have about two hours of activity in a school day, physical education and lunch, well adults need to be active as well and it will improve your health and mind. Now, the realm of feelings may appear on first approach to be an area of total chaos. However, this is not so. There is also order among feelings, and it is a much simpler one than most people think. #RandolphHarris 9 of 19

When we properly cultivate with divine assistance those feelings that should be prominent in our lives, the remainder will fall into place. What then are the feelings that will dominate in a life that has been inwardly transformed to be like Christ’s? They are the feelings associated with love, joy, and peace. For the sake of simplicity we shall simply call them love, joy, and peace, though, as we have noted, love, joy, and peace are not mere feelings but conditions of the whole person that are accompanied by characteristic beneficial feelings. Love, joy, and peace are, we recall, the three fundamental dimensions of the fruit (note the singular) of the Spirit. They mutually interpenetrate and inform one another and naturally express themselves in the remainder of that one fruit: ā€œpatience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control,ā€ reports Galatians 5.22-23. Faith (confidence) and hope are also very important in properly structuring the feeling dimension of the mind and self. However, they play their role in that regard in subordination to love, joy, and peace—that is, because of their relationship to them. The three primary dimensions of ā€œthe fruitā€ (love, joy, and peace) are in fact not separable from the three things ā€œthat remainā€ of 1 Corinthians 13.13 (faith, hope, and love) and of course are partially identical with them. #RandolphHarris 10 of 19

Image

Love, joy, peace, faith, hope, and love are all focused on goodness and what is good, and all are strength-giving and pleasant even in the midst of pain or suffering. That is not what we see them for, or something we try to make of them. It is, simply, their nature. I once told my children that if they ever got to the point where they thought it was unreasonable to believe that Christianity was true, then they should abandon the faith. Does that sound risky? It is, but what is the alternative? Should we tell our children to set their minds aside totally and accept the Christian faith without using their intelligence? It can be risky to encourage people to develop their minds and allow reason to help them decide what they believe and why. No one can predict where such an approach will lead in a specific individual’s life. It is easy to lose control of the outcome. If your church is Reformed, charismatic, or whatever, and if your church actually equips people to think widely and deeply about their own theological beliefs, there is no guarantee that they will all come down where the church leaders are on a specific topic. For some, this can create an uncomfortable heterogeneity; it forces us to work harder at drawing lines between what sort of theological diversity a church will or will not tolerate within its membership. #RandolphHarris 11 of 19

Commitment to truth and reason: The fears just mentioned are easy to understand. However, we cannot let our fears dictate to us our approach to Christian growth and ministry. We need to keep two things firmly planted in the center of our mines. First, we simply must reaffirm our commitment to truth and right reason and be confident that our Christian beliefs both warrant that commitment and will flourish in light of it. Any commitment, it seems, depends on two distinct elements. It presupposes certain beliefs [to be true] and it also involves a personal dedication to the actions implied by them. We are committed to Christianity in general, or some doctrinal position. And we are committed to the importance of our God-given faculty of mind to assist us in assessing what is true. Second, we need to remember the consequences of abandoning a fundamental commitment to truth and reason. A people that does not care about these will be easily led to behave in certain ways by rhetoric, image, narcissistic self-infatuation, and so on. This is extremely dangerous. Further, if our allegiance to Christianity is not based on the conviction that it is true and reasonable, then we are treating the faith as a mere means to some self-serving pragmatic end, and that demeans the faith. #RandolphHarris 12 of 19

To further highlight the illustration, if we are more concerned with practical application from the Bible than with having a good reason for thinking we have correctly interpreted it, then our bottom line will be that the Bible exists as a tool to make us a success, and we do not exist to place ourselves under what it really says. In medicine, we all know what a placebo is. It is an innocuous substance that does not really do anything to help an illness. However, the patient’s false belief that it works brings some mental relief. Unfortunately, a placebo works due to the naĆÆve, unenlightened, false belief on the part of the patient, but that also shows you the power of the mind to heal the body. Many people have Worldview placebos—false, naĆÆve, misinformed beliefs that allow them to live in a safe fantasy World of their own mental creation. Often, life is a struggle. We grow sick, lose our jobs, experience fragmented relationships with others, and eventually go to Heaven. We want to know if there is anything real upon which to base our lives. Is there really a God and what is He actually like? What does God believe about the things that matter most? Is there any purpose to life and, if so, what is it? Why was I thrust into this World? Are the values objective and real, or arbitrary and invented? #RandolphHarris 13 of 19

Is there life after death? In what ways can I really count on God, and are there any true, effective ways to get close to Him? When we ask these questions, we do not just want answers that help us merely because we believe them. We want to be comforted because our answers to these questions are really true. For the wise person of virtue, a life well lived is based on the truth, not on a placebo. However, if truth really matters after all, then it follows that rationality also is crucial to a life well lived. Why? Because if we want a life built on truth, we want to be sure that our Worldview consists of the highest percentage of true beliefs and the lowest percentage of false ones. The only way available to us for making sure this is the case with our own belief system is through the careful use of faculty of reason. In ordinary decisions of daily life, we try to base our beliefs and actions on the best evidence we can get. From sitting on a jury to buying a new house, we try to base our decisions on a careful assessment of all the relevant evidence we can get. Who would respect someone who voted in a jury trial or a decided which house to buy with no regard to the evidence relevant to these decisions? #RandolphHarris 14 of 19

If someone used blind faith and bought the first house one saw with a For Sale sign in front of it, but made no effort to get information about the house and neighbourhood, we would consider that person foolish. Why? Because when we use our reason and base decisions on the best assessment of the evidence we can make, we increase our chances that our decisions are based on true beliefs. Now if this is the case for day-to-day issues why should we suddenly abandon the importance of reason and evidence when it comes to religion? We should not. Any religious belief worthy of the name should be accepted because we take the best exercise of our mental faculties we can muster. In the long run, it is better to risk losing control, face our doubts, be patient, and do the best job we can of using our minds to get at the truth. Not only is the Christian faith secure enough to withstand such an approach, but the faith actually encourages it. If we are going to make progress in our Christian lives, then we must defeat the empty self and take back what insecurity and fear of losing control have taken from us. This is the first step toward making progress in cultivating the Christian mind as part of an overall spiritual journey pleasing to God and good for others and ourselves. However, just exactly how does one develop a more careful intellect? #RandolphHarris 15 of 19

How can a person learn to think better and be more assured that one’s belief are, in fact, true? Christ wants a child’s heart, but a grown-up’s mind. ā€œAnd it came to pass that there arose a division among the people, insomuch that they divided hither and thither and went their ways, leaving Nephi alone, as he was standing in the midst of them. And it came to pass that Nephi went his way towards his own house, pondering upon the things which the Lord had shown unto him. And it came to pass as he was thus pondering—being much cast down because of the wickedness of the people of the Nephites, their secret works of darkness, and their murderings, and their plunderings, and all manner of iniquities—and it came to pass as he was thus pondering in his heart, behold, a voice came unto him saying: Blessed art thou, Nephi, for those things which thou hast done; for I have beheld how thou hast with unwearyingness declared the word, which I have given unto thee, unto this people. And thou hast not feared them, and hast not sought thine own life, but hast sought my will, and to keep my commandments. And now, because thou hast done this with such unwearyingness, behold, I will bless thee forever; and I will make thee mighty in word and in deed, in faith and in works; yea, even that all things shall be done unto thee according to thy word, for thou shalt not ask that which is contrary to my will. #RandolphHarris 16 of 19

Image

ā€œBehold, thou art Nephi, and I am God. Behold, I declare it unto thee in the presence of mine angels, that ye shall have power over this people, and shall smite the Earth with famine, and with pestilence, and destruction, according to the wickedness of this people. Behold, I give unto you power, that whatsoever ye shall seal on Earth shall be sealed in Heaven; and whatsoever ye shall loose on Earth shall be loosed in Heaven; and thus shall ye have power among this people. And thus, if ye shall say unto this temple it shall be rent in twain, it shall be done. And if ye shall say unto this mountain, Be thou cast down and become smooth, it shall be done. And behold, if ye shall say that God shall smite this people, it shall come to pass. And now behold, I command you, that ye shall go and declare unto this people, that thus saith the Lord God, who is the Almighty: Except ye repent ye shall be smitten, even unto destruction. And behold, now it came to pass that when the Lord had spoken these words unto Nephi, he did stop and did not go unto his own house, but did return unto the multitudes who were scattered about upon the face of the land, and began to declare unto them the word of the Lord which had spoken unto him, concerning their destruction if they did not repent. #RandolphHarris 17 of 19

Image

ā€œNow behold, notwithstanding that great miracle which Nephi had done in telling them concerning the death of the chief judge, they did harden their hearts and did not hearken unto the words of the Lord. Therefore Nephi did declare unto them the word of the Lord, saying: Except ye repent, thus saith the Lord, ye shall be smitten even unto destruction. And it came to pass that when Nephi had declared unto them the word, behold, they did still harden their hearts and would not hearken unto his words; therefore they did revile against him, and did seek to lay their hands upon him that they might cast him into prison. However, behold, the power of God was with him, and they could not take him to cast him into prison, for he was taken by the Spirit and conveyed away out of the midst of them. And it came to pass that thus he did go forth in the Spirit, from multitude to multitude, declaring the word of God, even until he had declared it unto them all, or sent it forth among all the people. And it came to pass that they would not hearken unto his words; and there began to slay one another with the sword. And thus ended the seventy and first year of the reign of the judges over the people of Nephi,ā€ reports Helaman 10.1-19. From you have flowed freely many gifts, given with no conditions, offered with open hands. #RandolphHarris 18 of 19

Continually you have renewed the World with your largesse; continually you have brought new wonders into being. I come before you, then, with unnecessary gratitude; no matter what my actions are, yours will not change. What you do is in perfect accord with your nature. I wish to be more like you, to take you as my model, and, though my gifts may be unnecessary for you, they are all too vital for me. I hold them out to you, then, generous ones. See—I am generous too. Our fathers’ shield, God’s word has ever been; he giveth life eternal to the dead. Holy is He; no other can compare with Him who giveth rest each Sabbath day unto His people whom He loves. With veneration and with awe we serve Him; we praise Him every day and bless His name. To God all thanks are due, the Lord of peace, He halloweth the Sabbath and doth bless the seventh day; He giveth rest unto a people knowing its delight, in remembrance of creation. The circle turns, it turns around, carrying me with it, and I turn too. These wonderful things that came from God are being returned to Him, to keep the turning going. The balance is kept: I do not only take, I also know how to give. God has given birth to another wonder in this marvelous life of mine. I will thank Him daily for the gift of life and for all He distributes from His free and open hands. #RandolphHarris 19 of 19

Image

Cresleigh Homes

Nothing says ā€œfallā€ quite like a brand new home to cozy up in! šŸ šŸ‚ Home Site 47 at #BrightonStation features a Residence 1 floor plan and is ready for move-in! The home comes with upgraded light fixtures, and an upgraded door in the master bedroom to access the backyardrd, and there is an option to turn the workspace in the garage into a 4th bedroom, which would add an estimated 140 square feet, making the home approximately 2,208 square feet. The home hub could be used as an additional bedroom, office, playroom or even diningng room.


Your new home is a tour away. Get in touch at (916) 333-1919 or Brighton@Cresleigh.com to learn more!

Image

Memory is More Incredible than Ink for it is a Wise Father who Knows His Own Child!

The generation gap is just another way of saying that the younger generation makes overt what is covert in the older generation; the child expresses openly what the parents represses. The mass media with the use of television ( “The Most Effective Devil in America,” is telling you a vision) has flooded out local boundaries and forced the total society into a dim awareness of what it is like to live in fear. It is not so much the increase in violence that upsets middle-class Americans as the democratization of violence: the less affluent and underrepresented have become less willing to serve as specialized victims of violence from a political agenda (ā€œlegallyā€) and each other (illegally). The same point can be made about crimes against property, given the well-known class bias in our legal system. Since the ways in which the affluent steal from the less affluent are rarely defined as crimes (when executives of a major corporation were jailed for a few days some years ago for stealing millions of dollars from the public through antitrust violations many people were shocked that respectable humans could be treated in such a rude fashion) rising property crimes rates may only reflect an increase in the democratization of larceny, a result attributable in part to the success of the mass media in convincing the less affluent that only the possession of various products can satisfy their various social, pleasures of the flesh, and moral requirements. #RandolphHarris 1 of 25

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is earncashback25.jpg

Leaving aside these more likely to be considered violent when they have political overtones. Our nation has never known a time without serious urban riots—usually about some kind of economic or social injustice—but it was only when they began to have a political thrust and to attack business districts that the concerns about the rioting began to grow. The same relationship holds true for the college campus. It is not violence as such but its political aims that arouse concern. The same people who assail the violence of campus radicals are quite happy to regale listeners with tales of their own (apolitical) childhood pranks—pranks that would bring a jail sentence if committed today. College students on many campuses have rioted annually for generations, and the injuries and vandalism resulting from such riots have often far exceeded that produced by protests. Yet these apolitical riots have always been considered venial. The difference is that student pranks and riots in the past attacked authority but accepted it. The protests of today confront authority and question it. Thus although no violence at all may occur, those toward whom the protest is directed may feel that violence has been done to them. The disruption of ordinary daily patterns and assumptions are experienced as a kind of psychological violence. #RandolphHarris 2 of 25

Consider what happens when a defective traffic light fails to change from red to green. The line of cars grows and restlessness increases. At some point someone decides that the symbol of order is in fact in disorder and either goes through the red light or begins to honk one’s hor. As soon as one goes through, the others all follow suit. The initiator in this situation is engaging in a kind of civil disobedience. One is challenging the specific rule about red lights in terms of a broader understanding which says that the purpose of traffic laws is to regulate traffic not to disrupt it. Yet because the situation has no real political significance the incidence carries no threat or violent connotation. We live in a society in which cruelties inflicted upon humanity can be exposed in every living room through mass media or on Facebook and Twitter. We discuss and debate constantly the appearance of any instance anywhere in the World of inhumane treatment of one person by another, but we still do not always get the full story. Nonetheless, we stress that every human life, even corporations, are beings of value. We live, in short, in modern, secure, civilized World, in which a single isolated act of violence is a calamity, an outrage. #RandolphHarris 3 of 25

Yet, innocent people still have their characters and beings terminated by the most barbarous means possible and shows no qualms about it. These techniques are a bit reminiscent of the dunking stool used in earlier centuries to test potential witches: if the person was not a witch the individual would drown—if one did not drown thus proved one was a witch and one was burned to death. The energy required to avoid even the most obvious forms of exploitation by commercial enterprises in our society would not permit the individual to lead a normal active life. Like Looking-glass Country, it takes all the running one can do to stay in the same place. Powerlessness has always been the common lot of most of humankind. However, the more we attempt to solve problems through increased autonomy the more we find ourselves at the mercy of these mysterious, impersonal, and remote mechanisms that we have ourselves created. Their indifference is a reflection of our own. All societies, optimally, must allow for both change and stability since: effective adaptation to the environment requires both modification and consolidation of existing reposes; social integration depends both upon the preservation and upon the periodic dissolution of existing structural differentiation; and personal happiness rest upon both familiarity and novelty in everyday life. Every society evolves patterns for attempting to realize these mutually incompatible needs. #RandolphHarris 4 of 25

We talk of technology as the servant of humans, but it is a servant that now dominates the households, too powerful to fire, upon whom everyone is helplessly dependent. We tiptoe about and speculate upon his mood. What will be the effects of such-and-such an invention? How will it change our daily lives? We never ask, do we want this, is it worth it? (We did not ask ourselves, for example, if the major conveniences offered by social media could really offset the calamitous disruption and depersonalization of our lives that it brought about.) We simply say, ā€œYou cannot stop progress,ā€ and shuffle back inside. We pride ourselves on being a ā€œdemocracyā€ but we are in fact slaves. We submit to an absolute ruler who governs our state or city whose edicts and whims we never question. We watch that individual carefully, hang on to one’s every word; for technology is a harsh and capricious king, demanding prompt and absolute obedience. We laugh at the old lady who holds off the highway bulldozers with a Winchester Rifle, but we laugh because we are Uncle Toms. We try to outdo each other in singing the praises of the oppressor, although in fact the value of technology in terms of human satisfaction remains at best undemonstrated. For when evaluating its effects we always adopt the basic assumptions and perspective of technology itself, and never examine it in terms of the totality of human experience. #RandolphHarris 5 of 25

We say this or that invention is valuable because it generates other inventions—because it is a means to some other means—not because it achieves an ultimate end. We play down the ā€œside effectsā€ that so often become the main effects and completely negate any alleged benefits. The much-vaunted ā€œfreedomā€ of American life is thus an illusion, one which underlies the sense of spuriousness so many Americans feel about their basic institutions. We are free to do only what we are told, and we are ā€œtoldā€ not by a human master but by a mechanical construction. However, how can we be the salves of technology—is not technology merely an extension of, a creation of, ourselves? This is only metaphorically true. The forces to which we submit so abjectly were not generated by ourselves but by our ancestors—what we create will in turn rule our progeny. It takes a certain amount of time for the social effects of technological change to make their appearance, by which time a generation has usually passed. Science-fiction writers have long been fascinated with the notion of being able to create material objects just by imagining them, and have built novels, stories, and films around the idea. Actually, it is merely an exaggeration of what normally takes place. Technology is materialized fantasy. We are ruled today by the material manifestations of the fantasies of previous generations. #RanolphHarris 6 of 25

We treat technology as if it were a fierce patriarch—we are deferential, submissive, and alert to its demands. Perhaps, that is why men dominate the Silicon Valley in San Jose, California USA, and in Shenzhen, a city in south China’s Guangdong province known as the ā€œSilicon Valley of China.ā€ (The Silicon Valley of China has gradually become a global hardware center and hub for scientific and technological advances, where skyscrapers appear commonplace and the population has surged past 13 million.)  We feel spasms of hatred toward technology, and continually make fun of it but we do little to challenge the rule. People who develop technology, like Wolfgang Egger who is a World-famous Germany car designer, reports, ā€œto have this opportunity to create something like this [an electric car] from nothing is a big challenge that I need.ā€ That is the main reason why he joined the Chinese car manufacturer BYD three years ago. Technology has inherited the fantasy of the authoritarian father. Furthermore, since the technological environment that rules, frustrates, and manipulates us is a materialization of the wished of our forefathers, it is quite reasonable to say that technology is the authoritarian father in our society. #RandolphHarris 7 of 25

The American father can be a good-natured humble man in the home precisely because he is so ruthless toward the nonhuman environment, leveling, uprooting, filling in, building up, tearing down, blowing up, tunneling under. This ruthlessness affects his children only indirectly, as the deranged environment afflicts the eyes, ears, nose, and nervous system of the next generation. However, it affects them nonetheless. Through this impersonal intermediary we inflict our will upon our children, and punish them for our generous indulgence—our child-oriented, self-sacrificing behaviour. It I small wonder that the myth of the punitive patriarch stays alive. From this viewpoint, then, delegating to technology the role of punitive patriarch is another example of the first process we described: the tendency to avoid interpersonal conflict by compartmentalization and a false illusion of autonomy—to place impersonal mechanisms between and around people and imagine that we have created a self-governing paradise. It is a kind of savage joke in its parental form. We say: ā€œLook, I am an easy-going, good-natured, affectionate father. I behave in a democratic manner and treat you like a person, never pulling rank. As to all those roads and wires and social media and clones and machines and bombs and complex bureaucratic institutions out there, do not concern yourself about them—this is my department.ā€ #RandolphHarris 8 of 25

However, when the child grows up one discovers the fraud. One learns that one is a slave to his father’s unconscious and unplanned whims—that the area of withheld power was crucial. The child becomes angry and rebels, saying, ā€œYou were not what you pretended, and I cannot be what you encouraged me to be.ā€ The child attacks ā€œthe systemā€ and authority everywhere, trying to find the source of the deception, and using techniques that reflect one’s commitment to what one’s father deceived one into thinking one was—a person. However, by this time one has also learned the system of avoiding conflict through impersonal mechanism and is ready to inflict the same deception on one’s own children. We love and indulge our children, and would never dream of hurting them. If they are poisoned, bombed, gassed, burned, or whatever, it is surely not our fault, since we do not even know how to manipulate those objects. The danger comes from outside. Perhaps long ago we did something to deliver them into these impersonal hands, but we have forgotten, and in any case it is not our responsibility. Technology, in other words, is our plains sorcerer. Because Americans have submitted so passively to the havoc wreaked by technological change, they have had to convince themselves that their obsequiousness is right and good and appropriate. #RandolphHarris 9 of 25

Any challenge to the technological-over-social priority threatens to expose the fact that Americans has lost their adulthood and their capacity to control their environment. So long as the priority is unchallenged and unmentioned, the human surrender involved need not be confronted. However, youth is increasingly saying: ā€œWhat about the people? Why have you abdicated your birthright to hardware?ā€ It is a humiliating question, and humiliating questions tend to be answered with blows. Furthermore, the social changes wrought by technological change are so vast and shattering and we are kept so off-balance by them that the desire for independent social change (that is, change produced by human needs rather than technology) appears not as a solution and the assumption of control, but as still another disruptive force. It is like the inhabitants of an occupied country, who say to their militants, ā€œdo not fight the enemy, it will just bring more massive retaliation down upon us. Attack your own family.ā€ The predominant feeling is that there is more change than anybody can tolerate already, so how can anyone ever consider a radical reevaluation of the whole system. I felt sure that it was just a public-relations problem that only needed a public-relations solution. #RandolphHarris 10 of 25

I do not give a damn how it is done; do whatever has to be done to stop these leaks and prevent further lies and unauthorized disclosures. I do not want excuses. I want results…whatever the cost. It became necessary for Americans to express themselves on a middle plane between vaporous idealism and self-interested practicality. The association of highbrow culture with vaporous idealism and lowbrow culture with self-interested practicality exemplified the widespread acceptance, by intellectuals as well as noneintellectuals, of the idea that devotion to the life of the mind must somehow be opposed to a decent regard for the exigencies of everyday life. The distinctive feature of American middlebrow culture was its embodiment of the old civic credo that anyone willing to invest time and energy in self-education might better oneself. Many uneducated people cherished middlebrow values: the millions of sets of encyclopedias sold door to door from the 1920s well into the 1980s were often purchased through an installment plan by parents who had never owned a book but were willing to sacrifice to provide their children with information about the World that had been absent from their own upbringing. #RandolphHarris 11 of 25

Remnants of earnest middlebrows striving today among various communities, but the larger edifice of middlebrow culture, which once encompassed Americans of many social classes as well as ethnic and racial backgrounds, has collapsed. The disintegration and denigration of the middlebrow are closely linked to the political and class polarization that distinguishes the current wave of anti-intellectualism from the popular suspicion of highbrows and eggheads that have always, to a greater or lesser degree, been a part of the American psyche. What has been lost is an alterative to mass popular culture, imbibed unconsciously and effortlessly through the audio and video portals that surround us all. What has been lost is the culture of effort. Middlebrow culture was, above all, a reading culture. In the 1950s, to be raised in a middlebrow family meant that there were books, magazines, newspapers in the house and that everyone old enough to read had a library card. Some schools in Sacramento, California would even pause for fifteen minutes a day for reading time, where students could read whatever they wanted, as long as it was a book, it was appropriate, and educational. If much of the reading material was scorned by highbrow intellectuals, the books certainly provided ample room for growth. #RandolphHarris 12 of 25

People had books clubs, much like Reese Witherspoon has popularized, where people select a book each month, read it and talk about. And people who live in segregated communities were taught to learn to appreciate masterpieces like The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton, On the Road by Jack Kerouac, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith, The Awakening by Kate Chopin, Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand, and many more, and to make sure that no one could segregate one’s mind. Still, 25 percent of American high school biology teachers still believe that dinosaurs and humans coexisted. American ideal of self-education is a distinct era of self-help, and people placed far more emphasis on improving personality and public image and the mind like never before. However, ā€œcivilizedā€ is still defined by the gatekeeps of greatness on the installment plan. Many people want to make it into the ā€œFat Man’s” class which was dubbed that for the size of their pocketbooks. We want everything to be cheap and high quality, but do not look at the value and utility it provides, and then complain about how little we get paid. Our parents, grandparents, and maybe for some of you, great grandparents had it a lot harder than we do today. We hear about how inexpensive everything used to be, but do not take inflation into account. #RandolphHarris 13 of 25

In 1952, a great book cost $249.95, in 2020 dollars that is $2,470.21. Imagine what a luxury a book was back then. In fact, reading books was a status symbol because the proved to the World that one was the sort of person who did read and who could afford the price of a book. People like Reese Witherspoon is doing an excellent job trying to get Americans back into reading books. When a celebrity is seen doing anything, it becomes a trend and what could be a more productive trend than getting people to expand their minds. The possession of certain kinds of knowledge, and the ability to recalls facts before an audience of millions, could provide both fame and fortune. When being smart become a trend, imagine how much better off our society will be, how much productive our children will be. They will learn the root of what it takes to have fun and know they have to study and work hard to earn the money it takes to have fun. Because, as one gets older, fun gets more expensive. Getting a day off from school and watching TV is no longer fun, but having the ability to legally buy new cars and houses and take vacations and decorate your own private home is fun. Having privacy and dignity in your own environment is fun. Being able to relocate or explore the World when you want to is fun. #RandolphHarris 14 of 25

 An aspect of the Christian work ethic is enthusiasm. ā€œWhatever you do,ā€ Paul told the Colossians, ā€œwork at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for humans,ā€ reports Colossians 3.23. To the Romans Pail admonished, ā€œNever be lacking in seal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord,ā€ reports Romans 12.11. It is natural—actually quite easy—to be enthusiastic if your work is prominent, but less natural the more hidden it is, as the conductor of a great symphony orchestra once reveled when asked which was the most difficult instrument to play. ā€œSecond violin,ā€ he answered. ā€œWe can get plenty of first violinists. However, to get someone who will play second violin with enthusiasm—that is a problem!ā€ And so it is. However, actually, doing one’s work with enthusiasm, even if hidden, plays for an audience far greater than that of the most famous symphony orchestras or World champion sports teams! If we could be really see this, our enthusiasm would never flag. However, it can still be hard to reason with some people. Their very mind has been taken over by one or more feelings and is made to defend and serve those feelings at all costs. It is a fearful condition from which some people never escape. We have noted how thoughts generate feelings. If we allow certain negative thoughts to obsess us, then their associated feelings can enslave and blind us—that is, take over our ability to think and perceive. #RandolphHarris 15 of 25

As humans, we can unknowingly become slaves to technology, or feelings and so man other things. Here, for example, is a woman (it could have just as well have been a man) who has taken in the thought that she has been treated unfairly for years in her marriage and her job. Rather than sensibly addressing the circumstances or just turning her mind away from this thought, she receives it and broods over it—for years—developing a tremendous sense of injustice and outrage, which she also welcomes and cultivates with the assistance of sympathetic friends. The ā€œroot of bitternessā€ (Hebrews 12.15) gradually spreads over her whole personality, seeping deeply into her body and soul. It becomes something you can see in her bodily motions and actions and hear oozing through the language she uses. It affects her capacity to see what is actually going on around her, to realize what she is actually doing, and to think thoroughly and consistently. She is in the prison of resentment, though she thinks she is perhaps for the first time acting freely. Beyond the individual level, poisonous emotions and sensations often take over entire social groups, blinding them and impelling them on terrible courses of destruction. This is nearly always what has happened in cases where repression of ethnic groups or genocide occurs. Thus, to the onlooker the participants (the tyrants) seem to be deaf, blind, and insane—which, in a sense, they are. They, too, are imprisoned. #RandolphHarris 16 of 25

Feelings can be successfully reasoned with, can be corrected by reality, only in those (whether oneself or others) who have the habit and are given the grace of listening to reason even when they are expressing violent feelings or are in the grip of them. A feeling of sufficient strength may blot out all else and will invariably do so in one who has not trained oneself, or been trained, to identify, to be critical of, and to have some distance from one’s own feelings. Combined with a sense of righteousness, strong feeling becomes impervious to fact and reason. I beseech ye brethren, by the bowels of Christ, believe ye may be wrong! One’s feelings of righteousness does not mean one is right and actually should alert one to be very cautious and humble. Those who are wise will, accordingly, never allow themselves, if they can help it, to get in a position where they feel too deeply about any human matter. They will never willingly choose to allow feeling to govern them. They will carefully keep the pathway open to the house of reason and go there regularly to listen. If we are to appropriate God’s grace, we must humble ourselves, we must submit to His providential working in our lives. To do this we must first see His mighty hand behind all the immediate causes of our adversities and heartaches. #RandolphHarris 17 of 25

We must believe the biblical teaching that God is in sovereign control of all our circumstances, and whatever or whoever is the immediate cause of our circumstances, God is behind them all. ā€œAnd it came to pass that he wrote again to the governor of the land, who was Pahoran, and these are the words which he wrote saying: Behold, I direct mine epistle to Pahoran, in the city of Zarahemla, who is the chief judge and the governor over the land, and also to all those who have been chosen by this people to govern and manage the affairs of this war. For behold, I have somewhat to say unto them by the way of condemnation; for behold, ye yourselves know that we have been appointed to gather together humans, and arm them with swords, and with cimeters, and all manner of weapons of war of every kind, and send forth against the Lamanites, in whatsoever part they should come into out land. And now behold, I say unto you that myself, and also my men, and also Helaman and his men, have suffered exceedingly great sufferings; yea, even hunger, thirst, and fatigue, and all manner of afflictions of every kind. However, behold, were this all we had suffered we would not murmur nor complain. #RandolphHarris 18 of 25

ā€œHowever, behold, great has been the slaughter among our people; yea, thousands have fallen by the sword, while it might have otherwise been if ye had rendered unto our armies sufficient strength and succor for them. Yea, great has been your neglect towards us. And now behold, we desire to know the cause of this exceedingly great neglect; yea, we desire to know the cause of your thoughtless state. Can you think to sit upon your thrones in a state of thoughtless stupor, while your enemies are spreading the work of death around you? Yea, while they are murdering thousands of your brethren—yea, even they who have looked up to you for protection, yea, have placed you in a situation that ye might have sent armies unto them, to have strengthened them, and have saved thousands of them from falling by the sword. However, behold, this is not all—ye have withheld your provisions from them, insomuch that many have fought and bled out their lives because of their great desires which they had for the welfare of this people; yea, and this they have done when they were abut to perish with hunger, because of your exceedingly great neglect towards them. And now, my beloved brethren—for ye ought to have stirred yourselves more diligently for the welfare and the freedom of this people. #RandolphHarris 19 of 25

 ā€œHowever, behold, ye have neglected them insomuch that the blood of thousands shall come upon your heads for vengeance; yea, for known unto God were all their cries, and all their sufferings—behold, could ye suppose that ye could sit upon your thrones, and because of the exceeding goodness of God ye could do nothing and he would deliver you? Behold, if ye have supposed this ye have supposed in vain. Do ye suppose this ye have supposed in vain. Do ye suppose that, because so many of your brethren have been killed it is because of their wickedness? I say unto you, if ye have supposed in vain; for I say unto you, there are many who have fallen by the sword; and behold it is to your condemnation; for the Lord suffereth the righteous to be slain that his justice and judgment may come upon the wicked; therefore ye need not suppose that the righteous are lost because they are slain; but behold, they do enter into the rest of the Lord their God. And now behold, I say unto you, I fear exceedingly that the judgments of God will come upon this people, because of their exceeding slothfulness, yea, even the slothfulness of our government, and their exceedingly great neglect towards their brethren, yea, towards those who have been slain. #RandolphHarris 20 of 25

ā€œFor were it not for the wickedness which first commenced at our hear, we could have withstood our enemies that they could have withstood our enemies that they could have gained no power over us. Yea, had it not been for the war which broken out among ourselves; yea, were it not for these king-men, who caused so much bloodshed among ourselves; yea, at the time we were contending among ourselves, if we had united our strength as we hitherto have done; yea, had it not been for the desire of power and authority which those king-men had over us; had they been true to the cause of our freedom, and untied with us, and gone forth against our enemies, instead of taking up their swords against us, which was the cause of so much bloodshed among ourselves; yea, if we had gone forth against them in the strength of the Lord, we should have dispersed our enemies, for it would have been done, according to the fulfilling of his word. However, behold, now the Lamanites are coming upon us, taking possession of our lands, and they are murdering our people with the sword, yea, our women and our children, and also carrying them away captive, causing them that they should suffer all manner of afflictions, and this because of the great wickedness of those who are seeking for power and authority, yea, even those king-men. #RandolphHarris 21 of 25

However, why should I say much concerning this matter? For we know not but what ye yourselves are seeking for authority. We know not but what ye are also traitors to your country. Or is it that ye have neglected us because ye are in the heart of our country and ye are surrounded by security, that ye do not cause food to be sent unto us, and also humans to strengthen our armies? Have ye forgotten in the commandments of the Lord your God? Yea, have ye forgotten the captivity of our fathers? Have ye forgotten the many times we have been delivered out of the hands of our enemies? Or do ye supposed that the Lord will still deliver us, while we sit upon our thrones and do not make us of the means which the Lord has provided for us? Yea, will ye sit in idleness while ye are surrounded with thousands of those, yea, and tens of thousands, who do also sit in idleness, while there are thousands round about in the borders of the land who are falling by the sword, yea, wounded and bleeding? Do ye supposed that God will look upon you as guiltless while ye sit still and behold these things? Behold I say unto you, Nay. Now I would that ye should remember that God has said that the inward vessel shall be cleansed first, and then shall the outer vessel be cleansed also. #RandolphHarris 22 of 25

ā€œAnd now, expect ye do repent of that which ye have done, and begin to be up and doing, and send forth food and humans unto us, and also unto Helaman, that he may support those parts of our country which he had regained, and that we may also recover the remainder of our possession in these parts, behold it will be expedient that we contend no more with the Lamanites until we have first cleansed our inward vessel, yea, even the great head of our government. And expect ye grant mine epistle, and come out and show unto me a true spirit of freedom, and stive to strengthen and fortify our armies, and great unto them food a part of my freemen to maintain this part of our land, and I will leave the strength and the blessings of God upon them, that none other power can operate against them—and this because of their exceeding faith, and their patience in their tribulation—and I will come unto you, and if there be any among you that has a desire for freedom, yes, if there be even a spark of freedom remaining, behold I will stir up insurrections among you, even until those who have desires to usurp power and authority shall become extinct. Yea, behold I do not fear your power nor your authority, but it is my God whom I fear; and it is according to his commandments that I do take my sword to defend the cause of my country, and it is because of your iniquity that we have suffered much loss. #RandolphHarris 23 of 25

ā€œBehold, I wait for assistance from your; and except ye do administer unto our relief, behold, I come unto you, even in the land of Zarahemla, and smite you with the sword, insomuch that ye can have no more power to impede the progress of this people in the cause of our freedom. For behold, the Lord will not suffer that ye shall live and wax strong in your iniquities to destroy his righteous people. Behold, can you suppose that the Lord will spare you and come out in judgment against the Lamanites, when it is the tradition of their fathers that has caused their hatred, yea, and it has been redoubled by those who have dissented from us, while your iniquity is for the cause of your love of glory and the vain things of the World? Ye know that ye do transgress the laws of God, and ye do know that ye do trample them under your feet. Behold, the Lord saith unto me: If those whom ye have appointed your governors do not repent of their sins and iniquities, ye shall go up to battle against them. And now behold, I, Moroni, am constrained, according to the covenant which I have made to keep the commandments of my God; therefore I would that ye should adhere to the word of God, and send speedily unto me of your provisions and of your men, and also to Helaman. #RandolphHarris 24 of 25

ā€œAnd behold, if ye will not do this I come unto you speedily; for behold, God will not suffer that we should perish with hunger; therefore he will give unto us of your food, even if it must be by the sword. Now see that ye fulfill the word of God. Behold, I am Moroni, your chief captain. I seek not for power, but to pull it down. I seek not for honour of the World, but for the glory of my God, and the freedom and welfare of my country. And thus I close mine epistle,ā€ reports Alma 60.1-36. A lion protecting His young, you rage when aroused. Nothing stands before You, no troubles can resist You, no enemies defeat You. A roaring in the distance announces your arrival, scattering the dealers of cares. You shake the Earth beneath their feet, upsetting all the plans. ā€œTherefore shall ye lay up these My words in your heart and in your soul; and ye shall bind them for a sign upon your hand, and they shall be for frontless between your eyes. And ye shall teach them to your children, talking of them, when thou sittest in thy house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. And thou shalt write them upon the doorpost of thy house, and upon thy gates; that your days may be multiplied, and the days of your children, upon the land which the Lord promised unto your fathers to give them, as the days of the Heavens above the Earth,ā€ reports Deuteronomy 11.16-21. #RandolphHarris 25 of 25

Winchester Mystery House

ā–Ŗļø 24,000 square feet
ā–Ŗļø 10,000 windows
ā–Ŗļø 2,000 doors
ā–Ŗļø 160 rooms
ā–Ŗļø 52 skylights
ā–Ŗļø 47 stairways and fireplaces
ā–Ŗļø 17 chimneys
ā–Ŗļø 13 bathrooms
ā–Ŗļø 6 kitchens
ā–Ŗļø Priceless

Buy Tickets Link in bio. https://www.winchestermysteryhouse.com/

Visit Virtually Link in bio. https://www.winchestermysteryhouse.com/

Blood, Toil, Tears, and Sweat—God Moves in a Mysterious Way, Survival of the Fittest!

Image

Half of the reporters in town are looking on you as a Pulitzer Prize waiting to be won. The word norm means an authoritative standard, and correspondingly, normal means abiding by such a standard. It follows that a normal personality is one whose conduct conforms to an authoritative standard, and an abnormal personality is one whose conduct does not do so. However, having said this much we immediately discover that there are two entirely different kinds of standards that may be applied to divide the normal from the abnormal: the one statistical, the other ethical. The one pertains to the average or usual, and the other to the desirable or valuable. These two standards are not only different, but in many ways they stand in flat contradiction to one another. It is, for example, usual for people to have some noxious trends in their natures, some pathology of tissues or organs, some evidences of nervousness and some self-defeating habits; but though usual or avege, such trends are not healthy. Or again, society’s authoritative standard for a wholesome love life may be achieved by only a minority of American males. Here too the usual is not the desirable; what is normal in one sense is not normal in the other sense. #RandolphHarris 1 of 24

Image

Certainly, unless they are taught what is legal, ethical, moral and Godly, no system of ethics in the civilized World holds up as a model for its children becoming productive members of society. It is not the actualities, but rather the potentialities, of human nature that somehow provide us with a standard for a sound and healthy personality. One hundred years ago this double meaning of norm and normal did not trouble psychology so much as it does today. In those days psychology was deeply involved in discovering average norms for every conceivable type of mental function. Means, modes, and sigmas were in the saddle, and differential psychology was riding high. Intoxicated with the new-found beauty of the normal distribution curve, psychologists were content to declare its slender tails as the one and only sensible measure of ā€œabnormality.ā€ Departures from the means were abnormal and for this reason slightly unsavory. In this era there grew up the concept of mental adjustment, and this concept held sway well into the decade of the 1920s. While not all psychologists adjustment with average behaviour, this implication was pretty generally present. It was, for example, frequently pointed out that an animal who does not adjust to the norm for one’s species usually dies. It was not yet pointed out that a human being who does so adjust is a bore and a mediocrity. #RandolphHarris 2 of 24

Image

Now time have changed. Our concern for the improvement of average human behaviour is deep, for we now seriously doubt that the merely mediocre human can survive. As social anomie spreads, as society itself becomes more and more sick, we doubt that the mediocre human will escape mental disease and delinquency, or that one will keep oneself out of the clutch of dictators or succeed in preventing atomic or biological warfare. The normal distribution curve, we see, holds out no hope of salvation. We need citizens who are in a more beneficial and optimistic sense of normal, healthy and sound. And the World needs them more urgently than it ever did before. It is for this reason, I think, that psychologists are now seeking a fresh definition of what is normal and what is abnormal. They are asking questions concerning the valuable, the right, and the good as they have never asked them before. At the same time psychologists know that in seeking for a criterion of normality in this new sense they are trespassing on the traditional domain of moral philosophy. They also know that, by and large, philosophers have failed to establish authoritative standards for what constitutes the sound life—the life that educators, parents, and therapist should seek to mold. #RandolphHarris 3 of 24

Image

And so psychologist, for the most part, wish to pursue the search in a fresh way and if they can, avoid the traditional traps of axiology. During the past few months two proposals have been published that merit serious attention. Both are by social scientists, one a psychologist in the United States of America, the other a sociologist in England. Their aim is to derive a concept of normality (in the value sense) from the condition of humans (in the naturalistic sense). Both seek their ethical imperatives from biology and psychology, not from value-theory directly. In short, they boldly seek the ought (the goal to which teachers, counsellors, therapists should strive) from the is of human nature. Many philosophers tell us that this is an impossible undertaking. However, before we pass judgment let us see what success they have had. Humans are expected to maximize those attributes that are distinctively human. The first is human’s capacity for the use of propositional language (symbolization). From this particular superiority over animals derives several specific guidelines for normality. With the assistance of symbolic language, for example, humans can delay their gratifications, holding in mind a distant goal, a remote reward, an objective to be reached perhaps only at the end of one’s life or perhaps never. #RandolphHarris 4 of 24

Image

With the assistance of symbolic language, one can imagine a future for oneself that is far better than the present. One can also develop an intricate system of social concepts that leads one to all manner of possible relations with other human beings, far exceeding the rigid symbiotic rituals of, say, the social insects. A second distinctive human quality is related to the prolonged childhood in the human species. Dependence, basic trust, sympathy and altruism are absolutely essential to human survival, in a sense and to a degree that is maybe not always true for animals. The conception of normality has to do with a model of integrative adjustment. It follows that a sense of personal responsibility marks the normal human, for responsibility is a distinctive capacity derived from holding in mind a symbolic image of the future, delaying gratification, and being able to strive in accordance with one’s conception of the best principles of conduct for oneself. Similarly social responsibility is normal; for all these symbolic capacities can interact with the unique factor of trust or altruism. Closely related is the criterion of democratic social interest which derives from both symbolization and trust. Similarly, the possession of ideals and the necessity for selfcontrol follow from the same naturalistic analysis. #RandolphHarris 5 of 24

Image

 A sense of guilt is an inevitable consequence of human’s failure to live according to the distinctive human pattern, and so in our concept of normality we must include both guilt and devices for expiation. Every psychologist who wishes to make minimum assumptions and who wishes to keep close to empirical evidence, and who inclines toward the naturalism of biological science prefers fact-based evidence that has not been manipulated. Manipulated and prejudice science is worthless junk. It is must like fake news and has no value other than propaganda. Nonetheless, our philosopher friends will arise to confound us with some uncomfortable questions. Is it not a distinctively human capacity, they will ask, for a possessive mother to keep her child permanently tied to her apron strings? Does any lower animal engage in this destructive behaviour? Likewise, is it not distinctively human to develop fierce in-group loyalties that lead to prejudice, contempt, and war? Is it not possible that the burden of symbolization, social responsibility, and guilt may lead a person to depression and suicide? Suicide, along with all the other destructive patterns I have mentioned, is distinctly human. #RandolphHarris 6 of 24

Image

A philosopher who raises these questions would conclude, ā€œNo, you cannot derive the ought from the is of human nature. What is distinctively human is not necessarily distinctively good.ā€ What are the minimum conditions for survival? When we know these minimum conditions we can declare that any situations falling below this level will lead to abnormality, and tend toward death and destruction, which COVID-19 could be symbolic of—humanity falling below minimum conditions needed to sustain a developing nation like America, and others around the World. This criterion is called the abnorm and we can define it, even if we cannot define normality, because people in general agree more readily on what is bad for humans than on what is good for them. They agree on the bad because all mortals are subject to the basic imperative of survival. The need for survival is connected to our need for growth and the need for social cohesion. These two principles are the universal conditions of all life, not merely of human life. Growth means autonomy and the process of individuation. Cohesion is the basic fact of social interdependence, involving, at least for human beings, initial trust, heteronomy, mating and the founding of family. #RandolphHarris 7 of 24

Image

By taking an inventory of conditions deleterious to growth and cohesion we may establish the ā€œabnorm.ā€ As a start, the first and foremost disorders of child training is the continued or repeated interruption of physical proximity between mother and child and emotional rejection of the child by the mother are conditions that harm survival of the individual and the group. In the first criterion of abnormality lies in a rupture in the transmutation of cohesion into love. Most of what is abnormal can be traced to failures in the principle of cohesion, so that the child becomes excessively demanding and compulsive. It is abnormal (inimical to survival) if repetition of conduct occurs irrespective of the situation and unmodified by its consequences; also when one’s accomplishments constantly fall short of one’s potentialities; likewise when one’s psychosexual frustrations prevent both growth and cohesion. Normality requires a balance between individuation and socialization, between autonomy and heteronomy. When an individual identifies oneself to an extreme degree with a group, the effect is that one loses one’s value. On the other hand, a complete inability to identify has the effect that the environment loses its value for the individual. #RandolphHarris 8 of 24

Image

In both extreme cases the dynamic relationship between individual and environment is distorted. An individual behaving in such a way is called neurotic. In a normal group each member preserves one’s individuality but accepts one’s role as participator also. While there is much agreement that the normal personality must strike a serviceable balance between growth as an individual and cohesion with society, we do not yet have a clear criterion for determining when these factors are in serviceable balance and when they are not. However, Philosophers, I fear, would shake their heads at us and ask us, ā€œHow do you know that survival is a good thing?ā€ Further, ā€œWhy should all people enjoy equal rights to the benefits of growth and cohesion?ā€ And, ā€œHow are we to define the optimum balance between cohesion and growth within the single personality?ā€ We also have to worry about the relationship between abnormality and creativity. It was Nietzsche who declared, ā€œI say unto you: a human must have chaos yet within one to be able to give birth to a dancing star.ā€ Have not many meritorious works of music, literature, and even of science draw their inspiration not from balance but from some kind of psychic chaos? In effect that creativity and normality are not identical values. #RandolphHarris 9 of 24

Image

On the whole the normal person will be creative, but if valuable creations come likewise from people who are slipping away from the norm of survival, this fact can only be accepted and valued on the scale of creativity, but not properly on the scale of normality. In this day of existentialism I sense that psychologist are becoming less and less content with the concept of adjustment, and correspondingly with the concepts of tension reduction, restoration of equilibrium, and homeostasis. We wonder if a human who enjoys these beatific conditions is truly human. Growth we know is not due to homeostasis but to a kind of ā€œtransiistasis.ā€ And cohesion is a matter of keeping our human relationships moving and not in mere stationary equilibrium. Stability cannot be a criterion of normality since stability brings evolution to a standstill, negating both growth and cohesion. Dr. Freud once wrote to Dr. Fliess that he finds ā€œmoderate misery necessary for intensive work.ā€ When people have a zero correlation between self and ideal self, it is too low for normality; it leads to such anguish that the sufferer seeks therapy. At the same time normal people are by no means perfectly adjusted to themselves. There is always a wholesome gap between self and ideal self, between present existence and aspiration. On the other hand, too high a satisfaction indicates pathology. #RandolphHarris 10 of 24

Image

When individuals reach an extremely high coefficient for self-satisfaction, it is clear that one is pathological. Perfect correlations we might expect only from smug psychotics, particularly paranoid schizophrenics. And whatever our definition of normality turns out to be it must allow for serviceable imbalances within personality, and between person and society. There is an approach dear to the psychologist’s heart. The established criterion of normality or otherwise known as soundness, leads us to identify people who are ā€œsound.ā€ Teachers of graduate students in the University of California nominated a large number of people whom they considered sound, and some of the opposite trend. In testing and experimenting with these two groups, whose identities were unknow to the investigators, certain significant difference appeared. For one thing the sounder human had more realistic perceptions; they were not thrown off by distortions or by surrounding context in the sensory field. Further, on adjective check-lists they stood high on such traits as integrated pursuit of goals, persistence, adaptability, good nature. On the Minnesota Personality Inventory they were high in equanimity, self-confidence, objectivity and virility. Their self-insight was superior, as was their physical health. Finally, they came from homes where there was little or not affective rupture. #RandolphHarris 11 of 24

Image

A healthy person will be able to ā€œloveā€ and to ā€œwork.ā€ On the schedule of other qualities a healthy person possesses include among others: efficient perception of reality, philosophical humour, spontaneity, detachment, and acceptance of self and others. A normal person has a strong ego, an abnormal person has a weak ego. Whether one is normal or abnormal depends on the degree to which one can manage one’s relationships successfully. Furthermore, the earlier enthusiasm of psychologist for the normal distribution curve helps to entrench the theory of continuum. Extreme withdrawal and escape constitute psychosis. However, you may ask, do no we all do some escaping? Yes, we do, and what is more, escapism may provide not only recreation but may sometimes have a certain constructive utility, as it has in mild daydreaming. Only if the dominant process is confrontation, the process of escape can still be harmless. Left to itself escapism spells disaster. In the psychotic this process has the upper hand; in the normal person, on the contrary, confrontation has the upper hand. Following this line of reasoning we can list other processes that intrinsically generate abnormality, and those that generate normality. #RandolphHarris 12 of 24

Image

 The first list deals with catabolic (energy used to break down) functions. I would mention: Escape or withdrawal (including fantasy), repression or dissociation, other ā€œego defences,ā€ including rationalization, reaction formation, projection, displacement, impulsivity (uncontrolled), restriction of thinking to concrete level, fixation of personality at a juvenile level, all forms of rigidification. The list is not complete, but the process in question, I submit, are intrinsically catabolic. They are as much so as are the disease mechanisms responsible for diabetes, tuberculosis, hyperthyroidism, or cancer. A person suffering only a small dose of these mechanisms may appear to be normal, but only if anabolic (requires energy to grow and build) mechanisms predominate. Among the latter I would list: Confrontation (or, if you prefer, reality testing) availability of knowledge to consciousness, self-insight, with its attendant humour, integrative action of the nervous system, ability to think abstractly, continuous individuation (without arrested or fixated development), functional autonomy of motives, frustration of tolerance. I realize that what I have called processes, or mechanisms, are not in all cases logically parallel. However, they serve to make my point, that normality depends on the dominance of one set of principles, abnormality upon the dominance of another. #RandolphHarris 13 of 24

Image

The fact that all normal people are occasionally afflicted with catabolic processes does not alter the point. The normal life is marked by a preponderance of the anabolic functions; the abnormal by a preponderance of the catabolic. Investigations have told us much concerning the nature of human needs and motives, both conscious and unconscious. Much is known concerning the pathologies that result from frustration and imbalance of these needs. We know much about childhood conditions that predispose toward delinquency, prejudice, and mental disorder. A moralist might do well to cast one’s imperatives in terms of standards for child training. I can suggest, for example, that the abstract imperative ā€œrespect for personsā€ should be tested and formulated from the point of view for child training. The distinction between the anabolic and catabolic processes in the formation of personality represents a fact of importance. Instead of judging merely the end-product of action, perhaps the moralist would do well to focus one’s attention upon the process by which various ends are achieved. Conceivably, the moral law could be written in terms of strengthening anabolic functions in oneself and in others whilst fighting against catabolic functions. #RandolphHarris 14 of 24

Image

Apriorism, belief in a priori principles or reasoning specifically: the doctrine that knowledge rests upon principles that are self-evident to reason or are presupposed by experience in general, is a legitimate tool of philosophy. Up to now this method as yielded a wide array of moral imperatives, including the following: so act that maxim of thy action can become a universal law; be a respecter of persons; seek to reduce your desires; harmonize your interests with the interest of others; thou art nothing, thy folk is everything; thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind…and thy neighbour as thyself. Psychologists who in their teaching and counselling follow the lines now laid down will not go far wrong in guiding personalities toward normality. ā€œDo not speak evil against one another, brethren,ā€ reports James 4.11. God forbids any speech (whether true or false) which runs down another person. Certainly no Christian should ever be a party to slander—making false charges against another’s reputation. Yet some do. However, even more penetrating is the challenge to refrain from any speech intends to run down someone else, even if it is totally true. Personally I can think of few commands that go against commonly accepted conventions more than this, for most people think it is okay to convey negative information if it is true. #RandolphHarris 15 of 24

Image

Some people have had to defend themselves because no one else would. Still, no innocent person should be physically attacked and terrorized by a violent mob and forced to defend themselves. We understand that lying is immoral. However, is passing along damaging truth immoral? It seems almost a moral responsibility! By such reasoning, criticism behind another’s back is thought to be all right as long as it is based on fact. Likewise, denigrating gossip (of course it is never called gossip!) is seen as okay if the information is true. Thus many believers use truth as a license to righteously diminish others’ reputations. Related to this, some reject running down another behind one’s back, but believe it is okay if done face to face. These persons are driven by a ā€œmoralā€ compulsion to make others aware of their shortcomings. Fault-finding is, to them, a spiritual gift – a license to conduct spiritual search-and-destroy missions. What people like this do not know is that most people are painfully aware of their own faults – and would like to overcome them – and are trying very hard to do so. Then someone mercilessly assaults them believing they are doing their spiritual duty – and, oh, the hurt! This destructive speaking down against others can also manifest itself in the subtle art of minimizing another’s virtues, and accomplishments. #RandolphHarris 16 of 24

Image

After being with such people, your mental abilities, athletic accomplishments, musical skills, and domestic virtues seem not to be quite as good as they were a few minutes earlier. Some of this feeling came perhaps from their words about your Ultimate Driving Machineā€”ā€œwhat a nice little BMWā€ā€”or from surprised exclamations about what you did not know. It was also the tone of the voice, the cast of the eye, and the surgical silences. There are many sinful reasons why humans in Christ talk down to one another. Revenge over some slight, real or imagined, may be the motivation of ā€œChristianā€ slander. Others imagine that their spirituality and sensitivity equips them to pull others from their ivory towers and unmask their hypocrisies. Gideon once rightly cried, ā€œA sword for the Lord and for Gideon!ā€ (Judges 7.20), and we may do the same, but in our case it is too often a sword of self-righteousness. Condescending words and actions may also come from the need to elevate oneself – like the Pharisee who thanked God he was not like other sinners ā€œor even like this tax collectorā€ (Luke 18.11). We thus enjoy the dubious elevation of walking on the bruised head of others, and coming down on innocent heads. #RandolphHarris 17 of 24

Image

Sometimes this diminishing of others simply comes from too much empty talk. People do not have much to talk about, so they fuel the fires of conversation with the flesh of others. The abilities and motivations of the Body of Christ to run itself down could fill a library. We are all skillful in rationalizing such talk, but God’s Word still speaks: ā€œChristians do not speak against one another.ā€ Verbal cyanide comes in many forms. Gossip, innuendo, flattery, criticism, diminishment, are only a few of the venoms with which Christians inject each other. And the results are universal: toxic gastric juices a Devil’s feast – the swill of souls. Dear Lord in Heaven, please eat what is offered to you and transform it, as food is transformed, into blessings for me, and for all my household. The fire that burns on my hearth is the very heart of my Cresleigh Home. By feeding the fire with wood and with air, I am feeding my Cresleigh Home with what it needs most. I give you these things, fire on my hearth and more gifts will follow as we live our lives together. I light a fire on my family’s hearth and praise the God of our home. I pray to the Most High and praise the Ancestors. Hear my words, see me as I perform the rites, receive the gifts I offer you. Threshold Spirit, guardian and protector of my Cresleigh Home’s entrance, I honour you as I pass through the beautiful door. #RandolphHarris 18 of 24

Image

God of doorways, bless my goings out, bless my comings in. Lord of the threshold, of doors and gates Lord, place where inside and outside meet: God is my threshold. Please Guard my doors, God, keeper of the keys. Watch it with care, please keep my Cresleigh Homes safe. May the blessings of God guard this door. God it is who guards our doors. The Lord commands Ammon to lead the people of Anti-Nephi-Lehi to safety—upon meeting Alma, Ammon’s joy exhausts his strength—the Nephites give the Anti-Nephi-Lehies the land of Jershon—they are called the people of Amon. About 90-77 Before Christ. ā€œNow it came to pass that when those Lamanites who had gone to war against the Nephites had found, after their many struggles to destroy them, that it was in vain to seek their destruction, they returned again to the land of Nephi. And it came to pass that the Amalekites, because of their loss, were exceedingly angry. And when they saw that they could not seek revenge from the Nephites, they began to stir up the people in anger against their brethren, the people of Anti-Nephi-Lehi; therefore they began again to destroy them. Now this people again refused to take their arms, and they suffered themselves to be slain according to the desires of their enemies. #RandolphHarris 19 of 24

Image

ā€œNow when Amon and his brethren saw this work of destruction among those whom they so dearly beloved, and among those who had so dearly beloved them—for hey were treated as though they were angels sent from God to save them from everlasting destruction—therefore, when Amon and his brethren saw this great work of destruction, they were moved with compassion, and they said unto the king: Let us gather together this people of the Lord, and let us go down to the land of Zarahemla to our brethren the Nephites, and flee out of the hands of our enemies, that we be not destroyed. However, the king said unto them: Behold, the Nephites will destroy us, because of the many murders and sins we have committed against them. And Ammon said: I will go and inquire of the Lord, and if he say unto us, go down unto our brethren, will ye go? And the king said unto him: Yea, if the Lord saith unto us go, we will go down unto our brethren, and we will be any slaves among them; therefore let us go down and rely upon the mercies of our brethren. However, the king said unto him: Inquire of the Lord, and if he saith unto us go, we will go; otherwise we will perish in the land. #RandolphHarris 20 of 24

Image

ā€œAnd it came to pass that Ammon went and inquired of the Lord and the Lord aid unto him: Get this people out of this land, that they perish not; for Satan has great hold on the hearts of the Amalekites, who do stir up the Lamanites to anger against their brethren to slay them; therefore get thee out of this land; and blessed are this people in this generation, for I will preserve them. And now it came to pass that Ammon went and told the king all the words which the Lord had said unto him. And they gathered together all their people, yea, all the people of the Lord, and did gather together all their flocks and herds, and departed out of the land, and came into the wilderness which divided the land of Nephi from the land of Zarahemla, and came over near the borders of the land. And it came to pass that Ammon said unto them: Behold, I and my brethren will go forth into the land of Zarahemla, and ye shall remain here until we return; and we will try the hearts of our brethren, whether they will that ye shall come into their land. And it came to pass that as Ammon was going forth into the land, that he and his brethren met Alma, over in the place of which has been spoken; and behold, this was a joyful meeting. #RandolphHarris 21 of 24

Image

ā€œNow the joy of Ammon was so great even that he was full; yea, he was swallowed up in the joy of his God, even to the exhausting of his strength; and he fell again to the Earth. Now was not this exceeding joy? Behold, this is joy which none receiveth save it be the truly penitent and humble seeker of happiness. Now the joy of Alma in meeting his brethren was truly great, and also the joy of Aaron, of Omner, and Himni; but behold their joy was not that to exceed their strength. And now it came to pass that Alma conducted his brethren back to the land of Zarahemla; even to his own house. And they went and told the chief judge all the things that that happened unto them in the land of Nephi, among their brethren, the Lamanites. And it came to pass that the chief judge sent a proclamation throughout all the land, desiring the voice of the people concerning the admitting their brethren, who were the people of Anti-Nephi-Lehi. And it came to pass that the voice of the people came, saying: Behold, we will give up the land of Jershon, which is on the east by the sea, which joins the land Bountiful, which is on the south of the land Bountiful; and this land Jershon is the land which we will give unto our brethren for an inheritance. #RandolphHarris 22 of 24

Image

ā€œAnd behold, we will set our armies between the land Jershon and the land Nephi, that we may protect our brethren in the land of Jershon; and this we do for our brethren lest they should commit sin; and this their great fear came because of their sore repentance which they had, on account of their many murders and their awful wickedness. And now behold, this will we do unto our brethren, that they may inherit the land Jershon; and we will guard them from their enemies with our armies, on condition that they will give us a portion of their substance to assist us that we may maintain our armies. Now, it came to pass that when Ammon had heard this, he returned to the people of Anti0Nephi-Lehi, and also Alma with him, into the wilderness, where they had pitched their tents, and made known unto them all these things. And Alma also related unto them his conversion, with Ammon and Aaron, and his brethren. And it came to pass that it did cause great joy among them. And they went down into the land of Jershon, and took possession of the land of Jershon; and they were called by the Nephites the people of Ammon; therefore they were distinguished by that name ever after. #RandolphHarris 23 of 24

Image

ā€œAnd they were among the people of Nephi, and also numbered among the people who were of the church of God. And they were also distinguished for their zeal towards God, and also towards humans; for they were perfectly honest and upright in all things; and they were firm in the faith of Christ, even unto the end. And they did look upon shedding the blood of their brethren with the greatest abhorrence; and they never could be prevailed upon to take up arms against their brethren; and they never did look upon death with any degree of terror, for their hope and views of Christ and the resurrection; therefore, death was swallowed up to them by the victory of Christ over it. Therefore, they would suffer death in the most aggravating and distressing manner which could be inflicted by their brethren, before they would take the sword or cimeter to smite them. And thus they were a zealous and beloved people, a highly favoured people of the Lord,ā€ reports Alma 27.1-30. O God, Whose will it runs down the order of all the ages; come to me, please look favorably on your servant’s sake. I try to live up to the order of Godly people and promote the messages in the scripture. You are the one and only God, and I approve of dedicating my service to you, Lord. Thank you for your gifts and take pity of me. #RandolphHarris 24 of 24

Image

Cresleigh Homes

We might have found the coziest reading spot in #PlumasRanch. šŸ˜šŸ“š

Image


Visit our website to take a virtual tour of our homes at Plumas Ranch. Link in bio! https://cresleigh.com/cresleigh-riverside-at-plumas-ranch/

#CresleighHomes

Image

Look down from Heaven, O Christ, on Thy flock and lambs, and bless their bodies and souls. Grant those who have received Thy sign, O Christ, on their foreheads, to be Thine own in the day of judgment.

Image

May the Angel of Peace Come in—One’s Over-Great Hat to Repay an Obligation is a Kind of Ingratitude!

Capture25It is very peaceful to be able to live for your work alone. The self-denial, the sacrifices that our work demands are all compensated for by that lovely serenity of giving yourself up to dance. People also need to understand their existential freedom and their responsibility in exercising that freedom. One must develop the chance to experience one’s self as an entity separate from one’s environment, with the capacity to respond to one’s own initiative rather than merely reacting. Does emotion have a presence r identity independent of the person it is ā€œinā€? We talk as if it did. We commonly speak of expression, storing, getting in touch with, or even spreading and emotion. We speak of guilt as something that haunts us, or fear as something the grips, strikes, betrays, paralyzes, or overwhelms us. Fear, as we talk about is, is something that can lurk, hide, creep, look up, or attack. Love is something we fall into or out of. Anger is something that overtakes or overwhelms us. In this way of talking we use the fiction of some independent, outside agency in order to describe a contrasting inner state. It is important for a person to understand the sociohistorical precedence for the present attitudes one felt victim to. #RandolphHarris 1 of 22

ImageWhether one’s experience is valid in an objective sense is irrelevant. It is irrelevant because the sociohistorical context already provides for the possibility of the pervasiveness of these unjust attitudes one feels one is forced to deal with. However, it is equally important for individuals to realize their own responsibility in exercising their freedom to transcend the negative confines f the sociohistorical context. What many people need to confront ultimately is not inferiority and self-doubt imposed from without but inferiority that emerges from within when the choice is made to abandon, not only responsibility, but also the ability to respond. Often times, they veil of inferiority and self-doubt is lifted when one begins experiencing one’s self as a person apart of their race or gender; that is, as one who is free to choose, to act, and to be. While race and gender can be a source of identity, that which is invalid racial-cultural heritage and gender (id est, nonbeing, inferiority), and that which is valid immediate experience (id est, freedom, meaning, being) are reconciled in an existential encounter that encompasses the sociohistorical context. To dismiss the influence of the past or present social context would be delusional. #RandolphHarris 2 of 22

ImageHowever, freedom comes with awareness that one’s personal and collective history does not determine present choice but rather acknowledges the past in order that one may fruitfully move beyond it to facilitate the cycle of freedom. One’s journey toward freedom begins with one’s recognition that the choices one has made in the past could be made meaningful in the present when one recognizes one’s responsibility for those choices. Moreover, personal acknowledgment of one’s ability to respond opens one up to heretofore unrecognized potentialities. Some people disparage themselves. Lacking their own cultural yardstick, one squeezes into the yardstick of the majority and distances themselves from that which is dynamic in their soul. Becoming increasingly depersonalized, many will start to lose interest in their responsibilities and duties. Commonly we find ourselves speaking of emotion as if it had a location or residence. When we speak of love as residing in the heart and envy in the bible, the heart and the bile are put in place of the person. The speaker personifies an organ or portrays emotion as a substance or quantity of energy of a certain kind. #RandolphHarris 3 of 22

ImageWe also speak of emotions as having some sort of continuous identity, as when we say an emotion is ā€œstoredā€ or ā€œaccumulated,ā€ we when we refer to an ā€œoldā€ emotion. Metaphors that suggest agency, residence, and continuity through time often convey with uncanny precision just what it feels like to experience an emotion; they enjoy a poetic accuracy. However, they can get in the way of understanding how emotion works. A second idea that impedes our understanding of emotion is that the inner state of emotion is always associated with outer action that is irrational. This is sometimes the case and sometimes not. A person who feels fear at the sight of a rattlesnake moving toward one may run to safety. One may act rationally Were one not afraid, one might not run, which in the absence of other forms of protection, would be irrational. Again, a mother may, with the feeling of love, reach out to hug her child. Here, too, the feeling and act seem consonant and ā€œrationalā€ in the sense that what a person does, under the influence of feeling, gets people where they want to go as much if not more than what a person would do if not under the influence of feeling. #RandolphHarris 4 of 22

ImageThe only reason I pose these obvious examples is that when people talk about ā€œacting emotionally,ā€ it is often not these examples they cite. That is, we tend to associate the idea of emotion more with irrational or unwise actions than with rational or wise actions. This tendency result more from our cultural policy toward emotional life (ā€œwatch out for it, manage itā€) than it results from observing the relation between feeling and action in all the common but inconspicuous instances in which they are related. One must be careful not to choke off their developmental promise. Some people may become depressed and periodically grandiose—to counter their empty spirit. To break this debilitating cycle, one must pause over one’s expansive and conservative fears, clarify them, and learn to become response-able toward them, turning the, to one’s advantage. Until individuals are both ready and capable of change, experiential inquiry is fruitless. It is highly important, therefore, to clear the space for such experiential inquiry by addressing the crises that prevent it. One has to be aware of that fact that by keeping oneself from full presence sets one up for dysfunction. However, there are ways to demystify the obstacles in our lives and learn how to empower our lives and be able to productively respond to adverse conditions. #RandolphHarris 5 of 22

ImageEmotion is mainly a biological process. We know that a feeling tone, an affective quality, is always present as a part of our stream of experience, conscious or unconscious. One must ultimately respond to, and take responsibility for one’s own destiny. It is a profound point, really. If, indeed, we rush in to act without giving pause, then we are simply instruments in a great chain of cause and effect and are ourselves hardly free to actualize our own potential in any way. Indeed, we may define compulsivity quite simply as the failure to pause between stimulus and response. And sometimes professionals are not able to help us because it is all too easy for rational, articulate professionals to theorize and discuss endlessly without truly or deeply understanding, and an individual may experience the hazards of well-practiced chatter. A dog is not reckoned good because it barks well, and a human is not reckoned wise because one speaks skillfully. Let us slow down, then, and pause. The self can never be apprehended with certainty. We may become aware of our themes and those of other people—indeed we may act on these themes—but the themes are never static or fixed, never resolved in any absolute way. Still—this is the important point—one cannot escape one’s life theme. This, quite simply, is destiny. #RandolphHarris 6 of 22

ImageIf one travels down the wrong path, one does not find fulfillment. External reward and validation, perhaps; fulfillment, no. Every human should behave according to one’s rung. If one does not, if one seizes the rung of a fellow being and abandons one’s own, one will actualize neither the one nor the other. We have already seen that external stimuli are not necessary for central processes to be active. As networks of assemblies and phase-cycles are activated and continue their processes in semi-independence of further incoming information, we get something like ā€œlooking ahead.ā€ The pattern of impulses formed within the structure of connexions will function as an apparatus of orientation by representing both the actual state of the environment and the changes to be expected. Here we are back to the process of expectancy. Our expectations of what will happen are already on the map. Either a similar sequence of events has happened in the past and for that reason may be expected again in the future; or high-order processes have formed an image of what can happen, on the basis of whatever information is available about what has happened in the past. Thus behaviour now is guided and directed by an expectation, just as the concept t (for triangle) could direct and guide the eye to look for angles. #RandolphHarris 7 of 22

ImageThe representation or model of the environment will thus constantly tend to run ahead of the actual situation. This representation of the possible results following from the existing position will of course be constantly checked and corrected by the newly arriving sensory signals which record actual developments in the environment. The representations of the external environment which will guide behaviour will thus be not only representations of the actually existing environment, but also representation of the changes to be expected in that environment. We must therefore conceive of the model as constantly trying out possible developments and determining action in the light of the consequences which, from the representations of such actions, would appear to follow from it. One the map are good places, and paths to good places—goals, we might say, and steps to those goals. The model is the active part of the map which shows at any moment where we are in relation to the good places on our map (and in relation to the painful places as well). The map enables us to look ahead to some extent, that is to have expectations of what can happen next. What can happen next may lead to good places eventually or to painful places. Expectations can turn into preferred or dreaded outcomes. #RandolphHarris 8 of 22

ImageThe image on the map which already has good feelings attached to it may be kept in mind by the processes of reverberation. It is thereby likely to steer the organism to respond selectively to further information, according to the messages’ congruity with a good path. The part of the map associated with good feelings, which hold our preferences, can this act as gyroscopes, bringing the organism back on course towards good things when it has deviated. Parts of the map associated with bad feelings may of course operate in a similar way. Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom. Indeed, this tension is played out in other aspects of one’s interpersonal life, such that—although the individual is rarely aware of it—extant relationship fail to assuage one’s chronic existential loneliness. One may be ever afraid to move further out into life, which one might find circumstances more rewarding. There is also related to these theme’s the individual’s spiritual void, a thoroughly modern dilemma. People often speak of needing to find meaning in life, a desire that life should matter. From becoming an individual, no one at all is excluded, expect one who excludes oneself by becoming a coward. What does your conscience say? – ā€œYou shall become who you are.ā€ #RandolphHarris 9 of 22

ImageIrrespective of the external rewards that may accrue, the individual is unable, in one’s avoidance of oneself, to experience a genuine sense of peace with either oneself or the World. For example, unless a little animal is severely frightened, it moves, in strange surroundings, only step by step, whiskering right and left all the time and following a path that is anything but straight. Its course is determined by a hundred fortuitous factors when it walks that way for the first time. However, after a few repetitions, it is evident that the shrew recognizes the locality in which it finds itself and that it repeats, with the utmost exactitude, the movements which it performed the previous time. At the same time, it is noticeable that the animal moves along much faster whenever it is repeating what is has already learned. When placed on a path which is has already traversed a few times, the shrew starts on its way slowly, carefully whiskering. Suddenly it finds known bearings, and now rushes forward a short distance, repeating exactly every step and turn which it executed on the last occasion. Then when it comes to a spot where it ceases to know its way by heart, it is reduced to whiskering again and to feeling its way step by step. Soon, another bursts of speed follows and the same thing is repeated, bursts of speed alternating with very slow progress. #RandolphHarris 10 of 22

ImageIn the beginning of this process of learning their way, the shrews move along a an extremely slow average rate and their little bursts of speed are few and far between. However, gradually the little laps of the course which have been learnt by heart and which can be covered quickly begin to increase in length as well as in number until they fuse and the whole course can be completed in a fast-unbroken rush. Often, when such a path-habit is almost completely formed, there still remains one particularly difficult pace where the shrew always loses its bearings and has to resort to its sense of small and touch, sniffing and whiskering vigorously to find out there the next reach of its path ā€œjoins on.ā€ Once the shrew is well settled in its path-habits it is as strictly bound to them as a railway engine to its tracks and as unable to deviate from them by even a few centimeters. What happened with the little shrew? Short sequences which had often happened in the past (its path-habits) have been mapped and guide its behaviour now. Path-habits are expectancies. Whenever it encounters an expected path, it knows where it is and rushes forward for a short distance. Ā Being only a simple shrew, these more enduring neural path-habits are established with some difficulty, and so it often has to rely on further sensory input, sniffing and whiskering vigorously. #RandolphHarris 11 of 22

ImageThe sensory input gets the reverberations going again so as t reinforce its fading purposes. The shrew is searching and attending selectively in environment, and incidentally providing us with a nice example of central reinforcement of a sensory process. The shrew, it is commonly assumed, runs through its paths because of rewards (good feelings) which are associated on its map with the end of the run. That is what established the feedback process. INPUT: ā€œI want waterā€ and ā€œHere is a blade of grass.ā€ TEST: ā€œDoes my map show this blade of grass to be on the path to nice water?ā€, that is, ā€œIs the model (of this blade of grass being on the right path for water) congruent with the map?ā€ If the answer is yes—if there is no incongruity—OPERATION: carry on. If no (that is, there is incongruity)—OPERATION: quarter the area sniffing and whiskering, repeating the INPUT: ā€œHere is the blade of grassā€, and TEST: ā€œDoes this blade of grass have the right place on my map?ā€, ā€œOr this one?ā€, ā€œOr this one?ā€ until one of them does. This is also how we find the path to success or failure. It all depends on your motivation. If success is you object, you keep sniffing and whiskering until you find it because it feels good. However, to some people deviant behaviour feels good and is rewarding and they keep sniffing and whiskering until they find it. Ā #RandolphHarris 12 ofĀ  22

ImageThe only thing is deviant behaviour, even if it is rewarding and feels good, leads to punishment. This is a form of resistance to conformity. Resistance has many dimensions and refers at its deepest level to the all-too-human tendency toward self-betrayal, the maneuvering by which one avoids oneself. Perhaps the most tragic thing about the human situation is that a person may try to supplant oneself, that is, to falsify one’s life. The most common lie is the lie we tell to ourselves. Beneath a veneer of bravado, many people often harbour deep-seated feelings of insecurity and a concomitant resentment of authority. Clashes with the law and its enforcers, ambivalence about a rigid moral code that the individual has inherited but not chosen, and oftentimes judgmental and supercilious attitude toward loved one’s all related to unresolved themes revolving around an overly constricted World. One’s authentic confrontation with these themes can come about only through a corrective relationship, one based on presence and genuine empathy. Sometimes this chance might involve needing to find a new career, by acknowledging what truly interests an individual, and this will allow one to move forward in embracing existential freedom. Being more willing to live in the moment, accepting the inevitable pangs of life and death anxiety will lead, yet again, to further change. #RandolphHarris 13 of 22

ImageThe mental apparatus is made up of a number of complex systems organized in a loosely hierarchical way with a highly complex network of communication between them. These systems are controlling and evaluative in function, though the controlling and evaluative roles are played by feelings: sensations, emotions, preferences, and so on. These systems act as instructions or programmes, words which help to remind us that they are not static but dynamic. They are images and plans, maps and models. They act on feedback principles, so that deviations from the desired state bring warning feelings, often of anxiety, whose effect is to correct the course of action to a more desired direction. Anxiety, no longer circumvented, is now accepted as the way of life—indeed, as normal. The struggle is significantly internal. The more one realizes that, the more one becomes self-accepting (of doubt, of passion, of the daimonic) and better able to accept others. Life is hard, but one is getting to the next step. The emphasis is not on self and genuine relationship, not on external validation. Imagine something like a hierarchical structure, with, at the center or at the top (depending on how you draw it), one or more principal systems of this evaluating and controlling kind. #RandolphHarris 14 of 22

ImageOne of the conveniences of this way of thinking is that it allows us to imagine different personality-structures, which is what different organizations of principal system would be. The little shrew was guided by the congruity between the information it already had (on its map) and the information which it was currently acquiring (its model). Whenever it moved, it acquired more information, on the basis of which it made its next move, which brought it yet more information. The sensory order is both a result and a cause of the motor activities of the body. Behaviour has to be seen in a double role: it is both input and output of the activities of the higher nervous centers. The actions which take place independently of the higher centers help to create order of the sensory impulses arriving at that center, while the actions directed from that center are determined by that order. Map and model together steer the organism. The evaluation of sensory impulse arriving at the highest centers maybe compared to the appreciation of events on the road observed by a person who is being driven in a car, or to the judgments of the pilot of an aeroplane which is being steered by an automatic pilot. In these instances, different observed events will lead the passenger of the car, or the pilot of the plane, to expect certain responses of the car or plane, and those events will come to mean particular kinds of responses of the vehicle, just as certain kinds of stimuli mean certain spontaneous responses of the body. #RandolphHarris 15 of 22

ImageThe sight of an oncoming car will come to mean the sensation of the car in which the person rides drawing to the side, and the sight of a red traffic light will mean the feeling of the car slowing down. Very soon what will actually be noticed will no longer ne that normal response, but only its absence if it fails to occur. To mean = to stand for = to symbolize. We have arrived at the idea that the motivation for an action is implied in the meaning of the whole situation. In simple human terms, the alarm clock rings, and that means it is seven o’clock; seven o’ clock means it is time to get up, which means tottering toward the coffee-machine, and so on. Thus, within a general framework of meaning, subsystems have autonomy, provided that they do not act incongruously in relation to the more comprehensive systems to which they contribute. So when we compare how the World works as an organism to our self-image, whatever frustrations now ensure, they are, at least, a consequence of choosing our own life rather than soul muting experiences. This is genuine freedom, one that encompasses destiny. In relationships, one may still struggle with feelings of uneasiness and inconsistency. Here, too, however, there will be signs of real growth as the individual has become far less defensive and more open to others than was once the case. #RandolphHarris 16 of 22

ImageThe psychotherapeutic process has separated the individual further from anonymous and everyday relationships while heightening an existential loneliness as one searches for others to whom one can deeply relate. That is, perhaps, the price one pays for authentication of one’s existence. The individual now seeks authentic relationships, hardly something that can be ordered up at all. Also, when this is done at early stages of life, one can foresee a future for one’s self that is open and full of possibility. One may not even know what happened. One will just simply know that from experience one can expect certain things can happen if they were handled rightly and if their psyche and personality can be influenced for the better along certain lines. The individual will be able to see further into one’s life as one embraces the joys and burdens of freedom. One is no longer a wheelhorse. The result, I am convinced, will be a more fulfilled existence, one in which one does not flinch from life or death, nor from one’s particular way. And that is life: it does not resemble a picaresque novel in which from one chapter to the net the hero is continually being surprised by new events that have no common denominator. It resembles a composition that musicians call a theme with variations. Who can say more? #RandolphHarris 17 of 22

ImageTo cultivate this aliveness, one has to be offered a genuine relationship. One needs someone willing to be present with them, with as little pretense as possible. There has to even be a sprinkling of humour in the relationship, and some candid sharing of emotions. Also, prayer has a way of uniting people. Prayer is not just a private matter. Sometimes a group will be draw together by circumstances—anything from a funeral to a seasonal celebration—and they will want to pray together. The most important rationale for a set prayers, however, is a phenomenon I call ā€œdeepening.ā€ The more often a prayer is said, the deeper in sinks into your consciousness. Eventually, it sinks into your unconscious mind. When this happens, it can be said that they prayer prays you. It becomes part of who you are. It changes you in a way that would not have been possible with a prayer said once and forgotten. God’s grace is sufficient for both our unworthiness and our inadequacy. We are what we are by the grace of God. Our success is a result of God’s unmerited favour shown to us and as a result of God’s enabling power to work in us. We need God’s grace to become like Him, and we are neither worthy nor adequate. #RandolphHarris 18 of 22

ImageA school board interviewing men and women for the position of school principal should look for evidence of sterling character (worthiness) and professional competence (adequacy). Some candidates might be worthy but not competent; others competent, but not worthy. The school board must insist on both. However, God insists on neither. Instead He glories in calling into His service people who are neither worthy nor adequate. He makes them worthy in Christ alone, never in themselves. Then He makes them adequate through the might working of His spirit within them. Listen to how Paul expressed this thought in Colossians 1.28-29: ā€œWe proclaim him, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone perfect in Christ. To this end I labour, struggling with all his energy, which so powerfully works in me.ā€ Paul found his worthiness in the worthiness of Christ and his adequacy in the power of Christ. In 2 Corinthians 2.14-17, Paul spoke of his ministry of the gospel, which in its eventual effect leads either to life or death. To those who believe, it leads to life; but to those who reject it, it leads to death. The eternal consequences of proclaiming such a gospel led Paul to explain, ā€œAnd who is equal to such a task?ā€ (verse 16). Ā ā€œAnd behold, now it came to pass that those Lamanites were more angry because they had slain their brethren; therefore they swore vengeance upon the Nephites; and they did no more attempt to play the people of Anti-Nephi-Lehi at that time. #RandolphHarris 19 of 22

Imageā€œHowever, they took their armies and went over into the borders of the land of Zarahemla, and fell upon the people who were in the land of Ammnihah and destroyed them. And after that, they had many battles with the Nephites, in the which they were driven and slain. And among the Lamanites who were slain were almost all the seed of Amulon and his brethren, who were the priests of Noah, and they were slain by the hands of the Nephites; and the remainder, having fled into the east wilderness, and having usurped the power and authority over the Lamanites, caused that many of the Lamanites should perish by fire because of their belief—for many of them, after having suffered much loss and so many afflictions, began to be stirred up in remembrance of the words which Aaron and his brethren had preached to them in their land; therefore they began to disbelieve the traditions of their fathers, and to believe in the Lord, and that He gave great power unto the Nephites; and this there were many of them converted in the wilderness. And it came to pass that those rulers who were the remnant of the children of Amulon caused that they should be put to death, yea, all those that believed in these things. Now this martyrdom caused that many of their brethren should be stirred up to anger. #RandolphHarris 20 of 22

Imageā€œAnd there began to be contention in the wilderness; and the Lamanites began to hunt the seed of Amulon and his brethren and began to slay them; and they fled into the east wilderness. And behold they are hunted at this day by the Lamanites. Thus the words of Abinadi were brought to pass, which he said concerning the seed of the priests who caused that he should suffer death by fire. For he said unto them: What ye shall do unto me shall be a type of things to come. And now Abinadi was the first that suffered death by fire because of his belief in God; now this is what he meant, that many should suffer death by fire, accord as he had suffered. And he said unto the priests of Noah that their seed should cause many to be put to death, in the like manner as he was, and that they should be scattered abroad and slain, even as a sheep having no shepherd is driven and slain by wild beasts; and now behold, these words were verified, for they were driven by the Lamanites, and they were hunted, and they were smitten. And it came to pass that when the Lamanites saw that they could not overpower the Nephites they returned again to their own land; and many of them came over to dwell in the land of Ishmael and the land of Nephi, and did join themselves to the people of God, who were the people of Anti-Nephi-Lehi. #RandolphHarris 21 of 22

Imageā€œAnd they did also bury their weapons of war, according as their brethren had, and they began to be a righteous people; and they did walk in the ways of the Lord, and did observe to keep his commandments and his statutes. Yea, and they did keep the law of Moses; for it was expedient that they should keep the law of Moses as yet, for it was not all fulfilled. However, notwithstanding the law of Moses, they did look forward to the coming of Christ, considering that the law of Moses was a type of his coming, and believing that they must keep those outward performances until the time that he should be revealed unto them. Now they did not supposed that salvation came by the law of Moses; but the law of Moses did serve to strengthen their faith in Christ; and thus they did retain a hope through faith, unto eternal salvation, relying upon the spirit of prophecy, which spake of those things to come. And now behold, Ammon, and Aaron, and Omner, and Himni, and their brethren did rejoice exceedingly, for success which they had among the Lamanites, seeing that the Lord had granted unto them according to their prayers, and that he had also verified his word unto them in every particular way,ā€ reports Alma 25-1-17.Ā May the almighty and merciful God hear our call, we beseech Thee in Thy boundless love, in order that as the entrance to the source of our humiliation be healed, according to your deign to us.Ā #RandolphHarris 22 of 22Image

Capture25
Go ahead! Get comfortable, put your feet up, and soak up everything your spacious Great
Room has to offer. šŸ˜
Image
Live life at #PlumasRanch with an open floor plan, generous kitchen island, and plenty of natural light. 😌 Get in touch to schedule a viewing of a model home, or take a virtual tour on our website! https://cresleigh.com/cresleigh-riverside-at-plumas-ranch/

ImageAlmighty and merciful God, Who art pleased to use the ministry of priests for the rendering of service and prayer to Thee; we implore Thy boundless mercy, that whatever we now visit Thou wouldest visit, whatever we bless Thou wouldest bless, and that at Thy humble servants’ entrance evil spirits may flee away, and the Angel of peace may come in; through Jesus Christ our Lord may this be. #CresleighHomesImage