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Where Passion Rules, Truth Trembles!
The World is full of people that will try to take advantage of the less fortunate and thin it is cool but it is not and should instead be looking for ways to help each other so we all can live in peace. More than 70 percent of Americans are on medication, 30 percent of Americans are overweight, and 50 percent of American eat unhealthily, while only 19 percent of Americans exercise regularly. Meanwhile, former President Biden has set an unrealistic goal for the transition to electric vehicles. In just 5 years, 50 percent of all new vehicles sold in the United States of America are mandated to be electric. The reason being that “accelerated adoption of electric vehicles can improve air quality, reduce emissions, and position U.S. industries to lead global efforts.” However, should the United States of America not be more concerned about the health of their cities and be encouraging them to adopt lifestyles that include fitness and healthy food? Should the United States of America not be leading global efforts to have the healthiest population in the World? Many benefits of physical activity for brain health happen right after a session of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity. Benefits include improved thinking or cognition for children 6 to 13 and reduced short-terms feelings for adults. Regular physical activity can help keep your thinking, learning, and judgment skills sharp as you age. It can also reduce your risk of depression and anxiety and help you sleep better. #RandolphHarris 1 of 17
Physical activity is beneficial to health and well-being and conversely, physical inactivity increases risk for noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) and other poor health outcomes. NCDs describes a wide range of conditions, diseases, and disorders. These have genetic, lifestyle, or environmental causes rather than viral or bacterial, and they are characterized as health conditions that: Are not caused by acute infections or illness, result in long-term health issues, and require long-term treatment and care, such as lifestyle changes or medication. Health conditions that are consider NCDs are: Cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, chronic lung illness, injuries that cause permanent damage, and mental illness. NCDs are the number 1 cause of death and disease around the World, killing more then 42 million people Worldwide on an annual basis. This accounts for 74 percent of all deaths globally. Each year, 15 million people around the World die prematurely, between, the ages of 30 and 69 years old, from an NCD. Cardiovascular diseases make up most NDC deaths, followed by cancer, respiratory diseases, and then diabetes. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints teaches that members should obey the Word of Wisdom, eat nutritious food, exercise regularly, control their weight, and get adequate sleep. #RandolphHarris 2 of 17
Members are taught to eat a diet rich in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and meat. They are also taught to shun substances or practices that abuse their bodies or minds and that could lead to addiction. Members should also practice good sanitation and hygiene, bathe every day, and obtain adequate medical and dental care. Not all NCDs are preventable, but you can lower your risk by maintaining healthy habits. Stop smoking and drinking liquor. Get more physical activity. Regular physical activity offers a multitude of health benefits. If exercise is not part of your day, set a goal to get moving for 20 minutes a day. You can walk, jog, bike, hike, row, or anything else. Set up an exercise plan that does not require a gym at all. Do 20-30 minutes of strength training two days a week. Strat with bodyweight exercises. Use free weights and weight machines only when an expert can help you. The global recommendation is of at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity per week. Together, physical inactivity and sedentary behaviours are contributing to the rise in NCDs and placing a burden on healthcare systems. So why is it that former President Biden has placed such huge importance on mandating electrical vehicles, instead of working to produce a healthier population? Because electrical vehicles are profitable and he likely benefits for the sale of them. #RandolphHarris 3 of 17
Also, mandating the people eat healthier and get more exercise may reduce consumer demands on medication and vehicles and producers can only charge so much for food because everyone has to eat. So, it is important to keep people on medication and keep them focused on electrical cars to generate profits. Maintaining the best possible physical health has been a gospel ideal throughout the ages—from the strict dietary laws of ancient Israel, with the example of Daniel and his associates, to the Word of Wisdom. The physical body is a gift from God and should be properly cared for and respected. Mental health is also important and should not be overlooked, as it can affect us both physically and spiritually. We must do all we can to take care of both our bodies and minds. The Lord sets a high standard for us in telling us to consider our bodies a temple. He has established some basic standards for the governance of our physical bodies and mental health so that we may become more self-reliant and better prepared to progress personally, strengthen the family, and serve in the Church and community. Throughout the Christian Bible, God asked His people to abstain from certain foods. Today is no different. God has given wise counsel to help all His children be healthy. Those who follow God’s counsel in the Word of Wisdom are promised that they will receive health, find wisdom, and “run and not be weary, and walk and not faint,” reports Doctrine and Covenants 89.18-20. #RandolphHarris 4 of 17
Winners are programed, too. Instead of a curse, there is a blessing: “Long life!” or “Be a great man.” The injunction is adaptive instead of constricting: “Do not be selfish!” and the come-on is “Well done!” With such benevolent controls, and all his permissions, there is still his demon to contend with, lurking in the murky caverns of his primal mind. If his demon is a friend instead of, then he will have it made. Does everyone have a script? At the present, there is no way to answer this question with any degree of certainty, but it is certain that everyone is programed to some extent from early years. As previously mentioned, some people can become autonomous through drastic external circumstances, others by internal reorganization, and still others by applying the antiscript. The key lies in permissions. The more permissions a man has, the less he is bound by his script. On the other side, the more severely the script controls were reinforced, the more script-bound he is. It is likely that the human race as a whole forms a curve. At one end are those who become autonomous by one means or another, and at the other end are those who are script-bound, with most people in between, subject to changes in circumstances or outlook. Among the script-bound, there are two types. #RandolphHarris 5 of 17
Script-driven people are those who have lots of permissions, but must fulfill the demands of their scripts before they can enjoy them. A good example is the hard worker who can have fun in his spare time. Script-ridden people are those who have few permissions, but must spend as much time as possible fulfilling their scripts at any cost. A typical example is the heavy drinker or drug addict who must speed toward his doom as quickly as he can. The script-ridden are the victims of tragic or “hamartic” scripts. On the other hand, it is a rare person who has not at one time or another heard the voice of the demon in his head, telling him to buy when he should sell, or stay when he should go, or speak when he should remain silent. The predom taboo against genetic consumerism surfaced when citizens became morally outraged by genetic engineering and cloning. The emergence of a new taboo is always a sign for evolutionary rejoicing. Today’s new taboo is tomorrow’s advance. Agents who create new crimes are automatically promoted to the Gut-Caste Hall of Fame. Examples of relatively new crimes include bootleg radio broadcasting, psychedelic drug manufacturing, nuclear research, computer larceny, leaving a country without an exit visa, DNA research and cloning. The passions of men are so resistant to control that in no single method is there sure hope of overcoming them. Only in a combination of methods does this. #RandolphHarris 6 of 17
The high moments of Heavenly inspirations are laid low in the dust of obscenity or lust. The effect of passional indulgences spreads out on physical and mental levels. If we learn by bitter experience to drop the burden of one particular desire, we do so only to pick up another soon after. We are not content to be at peace. The desires of human beings are never satiated, nor can they ever be since human beings must go on searching for final satisfaction. It is in their nature to do so. However, what cannot be satiated by outer things can turn in one itself and find rest at last within. How morally helpless many persons allow themselves to become is shown by the compulsive nature of their deeds and the obsessive nature of their thoughts. It is the strength or feebleness of his attachments and desires which largely govern his first and earlier paces in the relinquishment of ego. When insight arises, the passions become subdued and the problems which beset man become solved of their own accord. We may quarrel and kill whilst we remain in ignorance, but we must needs feel for and with each other when we comprehend at long last that in the Overself we are one. All too easily do luxurious habits become insatiable habits, ever demanding more and more and meanwhile creating tension of discontent. Whereas the conventional good man seeks to leave behind only the gross flagrant forms of sin, the philosophic disciple is much more scrupulous. Whereas the one is content to moderate the strength of his lower nature, the other tries to subjugate it altogether. #RandolphHarris 7 of 17
There is one side of a person that always has to come out on top. That is the person who is always successful or dominant in the field. Your top-dog self is critical, judgmental and always has to be right. It gets the best of people, rather than trying to help or support them. Most people have been playing that side so long, they believe that it is all of them there is. However, that is not it. There is another side, the underdog, the one who has little chance of winning. This is the side that comes out in some when dealing with someone they care about. The soft, supportive side. That side that does not have to win every battle. Every man has to accept that he may be a loser and that sometimes it is good to lose. It feels good to let down the defenses and just give in to someone else. However, sure it feels good to always be successful at everything, but what does it get a person? A man who gets everything done, who makes all the money. He is sometimes seen by others as worthless. Yet, what is so worthless about feeling good? Does having all that success and money ever make a man feel really good? Is not being able to feel love worth something, too? People who are used to coming out on top need someone to humanize them. They need someone to take care of them and keep them in line. #RandolphHarris 8 of 17
It is nice to come home to someone who goes to an import place and spends $1,500 on beautiful things for your homecoming. Blue Tiffany lamps that look great in your bedroom. Blue bed sheets from India. Colour of the sky, two blue pillows, incense, candles, Danish cheeses, Holland cheeses, smoked oysters, artichoke hearts. Carrot juice and more food. Soft Kleenex to wipe your nose. Fruit from the fruit stand. Coming home from a business trip to a nice ranch house where everything is sunny. Fresh baked bread, freshly picked apples, berries, plumbs. Then seeing the lake. How beautiful and fresh it is, and then taking a nice steam bath. Imagine a loving home near a mossy meadow, falling down in the sun and breathing deeply. This is much better than being a prisoner of success alone. A prisoner whose unbounded imagination gave birth to him, and they became one. Being alone, imprisoned in a bloodstained Bastille, entirely constructed around a still unsatisfied, and henceforth undirected, desire for please. Some men have only triumphed in a dream and those ten volumes crammed with philosophy and atrocities recapitulate an unhappy form of asceticism, an illusory advance from the total no to the absolute yes, an acquiescence in death at least, which transfigures the assassination of everything and everyone into a collective suicide. When a man only has success and no love, he is killed in his imagination. Others end up on an improvised stage with other lunatics. #RandolphHarris 9 of 17
Success without love is nothing more than a derisory equivalent of the satisfaction that the order of the World failed to give a man. We are to discipline, and when necessary, abstain from satisfying the lower impulses of our nature because we are to cultivate its higher intuitions. The clamant voice of the one drowns the soft whisper of the other. Ww must try to turn the flow of our passions into a sublimer channel than the sense alone. Variations in the muscle tonus of parts of a person’s body may reflect repressed emotions and the need tensions. A flaccid handshake may disclose a lack of sincerity. A soft, suckling mouth may reveal unconscious wishes to be passive and dependent. A female college student complained that men were forever “making passes” at her, yet she denied any erotic interest in males. Observation revealed her bodily movements were very provocative. She wiggled her hips when walking and pushed her chest high. When talking with a man, she glued her eyes, alternately opened and narrowed, to his. Men and women who have reached or passed the age of the late forties are more ready for, and better suited to, disciplining the animal nature and human passions than younger folk. It is more difficult to conquer lust than to walk on the edge of a sword. However, it can be done. No matter how much you feed your desires, they will never be satisfied. Therefore, direct them gradually towards the Infinite, in which they may ultimately merge, and from which there is no return. Repressed hostility may be manifested by excessive muscular tension in the forehead, neck, or shoulders, often resulting in headaches, a “pain in the neck,” and back pain. #RandolphHarris 10 of 17
The traditional mission of the Sacramento Fire Department was saving lives and protecting property from fire. However, today, the Sacramento Fire Department also prevents harm. Preventing fire, injuries, and disease by understanding what causes harm to firefighters, their systems, their members, and community is the most effective form of preventing harm. The ability to manage risks is essential for success and survival. “We were working night shift on Engine X. I sometimes work on my model fire engines, but that night I had gone over to have dinner with the captain of Engine Y, who was going to retire. I had just returned to the firehouse when the alarm came in. All of a sudden Engine X’s crew came running out of the kitchen like a football team, and the second alarm came in. With that, I knew that my older brother, Z, who was a battalion chief, was there. We had quite a bit of rain on the street, and driving there was slow going. On the way over, I heard Z, I knew it was his voice, asking for a third alarm and all the ambulances that were available. I now knew there was an explosion, but I didn’t know the extent. When I pulled in there, the scene was one of utter desolation, it was like a sea of bricks and fire of low intensity. The nearby buildings were just starting to catch. People were hobbling all over the place. All the firemen there were on rescue. Knowing that help was coming, I told the battalion to make sure the engine company stretched lines. I didn’t want them all going on rescue work, which there was a natural tendency for them to do. #RandolphHarris 11 of 17
“I looked and saw our rigs completely smashed. It was a sickening sight. The aerial ladder of Truck A had been blown across the street about thirty feet. It was crushed. The whole middle of the truck was flat down on the street, the tiller sticking up in the air like a sinking ship. Bricks were all over Engine B, one engine caved in, and there were men lying all over the place. It was just mind-boggling. We have the fire spreading in four different directions, so I called for more help. Two members of Rescue C brought Z over, just so I could see him. He was all bandaged and bloody. All he kept saying to me was, ‘I’m all right. I’m all right.’ I said, ‘You’re going to the hospital.’ And he said, ‘Oh, yeah.’ They said, ‘We’ll see he goes right away.’ So now I was the chief in charge. Z had a broken collarbone and a dislocated shoulder, and I didn’t know it at the time, but he had a five-inch wooden stake drive into the side of his throat and resting against the carotid artery. I didn’t know it, because they had bandaged right over it, deciding rightly that they shouldn’t try to remove it at the scene. They have bandaged his whole face and neck, and he looked like a mummy, all bloody. Of course, it was a shock to me to see my older brother like that, but I had the idea in my head that he was going to be all right. The fellows had control of the situation, and they were taking him to the hospital, so I didn’t really dwell on it. There was so much going on that I had to turn to the fire. #RandolphHarris 12 of 17
“I knew some of our men had died, they were laying all over the place, and there had to be people under the sea of bricks and rubble. And there were people in the nearby house fires who were hollering. I went to a fifth alarm and then got an additional two engines and two trucks, because I knew the first alarm was wiped out. I didn’t know how badly, but they were gone. By the time I put one company to work there was another one there looking for assignment. The rubble was starting to burn near Ladder B, and all I could think of was, if there was anyone underneath it and still alive, I didn’t want them to burn to death. I thought that would be a horrible thing. So I had the first lines keep the fire away from the rigs. It ended up that they weren’t under the truck, they were under Engine B. It was like looking for someone under water, you had no idea where to start in the tremendous confusion. Some of the victims had already been taken to various hospitals in police cars and private cars, and it took us quite a while to get an accurate head count, to find out who was missing. We finally broke it down that the entire crew of Ladder B were dead, all five of them. It was several hours before I found out what had happened. The building was a four-story warehouse, and they had a huge propane tank on the fourth floor, a five-hundred-gallon tank, I believe. It was completely illegal to have it in the building at all. One of the workers was moving the tank with a lift truck near the elevator shaft. It fell off the truck, the valve broke, and the liquid propane poured down the elevator shaft. The entire building got to the explosive stage at once. #RandolphHarris 13 of 17
“The workers ran out of the place and were out in front when Z arrived. They told him they had a propane tank that had burst. He assumed it was a twenty-gallon job or something like that. He asked them how big is it, and they said, ‘About as big as your car.’ He said that was the last thing that he remembers. That’s when the propane hit the wood stove on the first floor and blew the whole warehouse to pieces, totally destroyed it. It’s too bad that it didn’t blow sooner, we wouldn’t have had any problems. On the other hand, if it had blown later, we would have had more men killed. There wasn’t much left of the building, there was so much open fire, we kind of dismissed the possibility of more explosions in a warehouse. But some of the nearby houses had shifted and broken some of the natural gas lines into the houses. That got ignited. We also had a large frame church burning being the warehouse, which probably in itself would have been a third alarm, and for quite a while we had just one engine company working a turret on it. There were about nine or ten houses that were heavily damaged, and there were innumerable houses that got damage and window breakage for miles around the area. It was a tremendous sight. Once we got enough help in there to work on all the perimeter of the fire and hold it, then it was several more hours, I would say after midnight, when Commissioner C said they had the final count of casualties. It was the five members of Ladder B and two civilians. Then I got his permission to replace every company at the scene, because the weather was bitterly cold and the men were physically shot and emotionally shocked. #RandolphHarris 14 of 17
“I stayed until all the companies were replaced, then I went back to quarters and had a bowl of hot soup. Then I went to the hospital for the second time that night. By this time Z had been operated on and they said he was all right, so I didn’t even go in to see him. The first time I had gone, he was still in the emergency room along with some of our fellows who were burned, so I had a chance to talk to them. I also had the very unpleasant task of identifying one of the bodies. The chaplains and the commissioner and his deputy went to each individual’s house to notify the family of the deaths. They did the same thing with the injured. They brought their wives in and met them at the hospital. It was complete chaos there. The families were very cooperative. They realized that nothing could have been done to avert the tragedy. The companies had pulled up, just as you do on every box you go on, to find out what was going on. The five men of the ladder company had gotten off the truck and were standing together across the street from the building, waiting for orders. And Engine Y had pulled in, and they were on the back of their rig getting masks on in case they were needed. We’ve had people say that shouldn’t have been that close. Well, nobody had any idea what was going on. The members of Engine Y were just blown back, except for one who, along with my brother, was blown into the chief’s car. The member of Engine E was also blown back and, other than burns, were not hurt badly at all. #RandolphHarris 15 of 17
“But Ladder B’s crew just ended up being buried by all the debris. They were not blown away like the other fellows. In fact, one of the men from Engine E was talking to one of the men from Ladder B, and he was blown about sixty feet, and the man beside him was buried under the bricks and killed. Tw two who were blown into the chief’s car were badly injured. X was one of them. The other, named F, is not out on disability pension, at age thirty-two. He was very badly smashed up, a lot of broken bones. It was the second to last night on the job for the captain of Engine E, and he was going to get out, and the driver said to him, ‘Why don’t you stay in the rig, Cap, there’s nothing going to be doing here.’ Well, the bricks caved in the roof of the cab and they both received some bad lacerations, but it came out okay in the end. I always knew it could happen at any time. I felt that after all the fires I have been on, all the years I have put in, I had never had a man killed in a fire, whether I was in charge or just working at it. And it just caught up with me. Fate caught up with me. I went to all the wakes. They varied from some of the wives sobbing uncontrollably to others more or less accepting it. The younger wives seemed to take it harder. The families themselves were good to us. They even helped to console us. We’re all family. #RandolphHarris 16 of 17
“X was in the hospital for about three weeks and out of the job for above five months. He most his hearing. He had to get hearing aids. He’s getting there. He says he has no real bad afteraffects from it. We had the funerals for the five men on New Year’s Eve, and it was bitter cold. Oh, God, it was a cold day. And we had thousands of men who came from all over the country. It hit every one of us in the department emotionally, to think that on New Year’s Eve, on a butter cold day, all those guys would come up It was just amazing, and it really helped. The case of the illegal usage of the propane tank is still in litigation. It’s been kicked around. The grand jury indicted them, but then they played a little game. The one guy got immunity to testify against the others, then he claimed he was the one who put the tank in there. One of those things.” The Sacramento Fire Department has to be equally committed to reducing civilian deaths as they are to reducing firefighter deaths, and aggressively managing risks will help them do this. The Sacramento Fire Department’s mission is fire protection and to respond to emergency situations, and they make a point to do this with compassion. You can help save lives by donating to the Sacramento Fire Department. And remember, even if things are not going well, and you are a bit tired and sad, raise your children to love America and be patriotic citizens. Also, let them know how important it is to love God and Jesus Christ and to be ethical and moral, and to obey the laws. It is also important to buy American made goods and services, such as cars, clothes, meat, produce, poultry, dairy and fish. We must keep America farms and the automobile industry thriving. We can help stop corruption and evil one person at a time. It only takes five good people to facilitate a change in a small group. To show support for America, remember to buy American cars and American made products. Respect law and order and treat others with dignity and kindness. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic, for which it stands, One Nation, under God, Indivisible with Liberty, and Justice for all. God is in His holy Temple, Earthly thoughts be silent now, while reverence we assemble, and before His presence bow. He is with us, now and ever, when we call upon His name, aiding every good endeavour, guiding every upward aim. #RandolphHarris 17 of 17
The Winchester Mystery House
Only one more week until the mansion is fully decked out in its holiday finest 🎄✨It is estimated that is you were to try to recreate The Winchester Mystery House, because it is so large, has extremely unique architecture, and many of the materials used are very expensive, rare, and even impossible to find, it would cost well over $500,000,000.00 USD, so preservation, restoration and diligent care is very important to preserve this 8th Wonder of the World and an important piece of American history. Although they do not accept donations, you can contribute by taking tours, buying items in the gift shop, and at the online store.
Please come and enjoy a delicious meal in Sarah’s Café, stroll along the paths of the beautiful Victorian gardens, and wonder through the miles of hallways in the World’s most mysterious mansion. For further information about tours, including group tours, weddings, school events, birthday party packages, facility rentals, and special events please visit the website: https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
Please visit the online giftshop, and purchase a gift for friends and relatives as well as a special memento of The Winchester Mystery House. A variety of souvenirs and gifts are available to purchase. Chester the Elf is looking forward to seeing you! https://shopwinchestermysteryhouse.com/
Morally Outraged Citizens
You have more choices and more opportunities than ever before. Like so many things in life, this is both a blessing and a curse. Too many choices and the fear of making bad decisions often lead to decision paralysis, which is one of the challenges of your generation. Only when the gathering of Earthly gains seems futile, and the gains themselves mere dross, will he stop bartering his precious years for them. When a desire lurks hidden in the heart, it may sway actions or influence thoughts without resistance. However, when it rises to the surface and is seen for what it is, then it can be fought and conquered. As his desires quieten, he finds to his surprise that many things hitherto thought indispensable to existence, he can do well without. He who submits his emotions and passions to reason, and his reason to intuition, will save himself from many regrets. So long as he is buffeted between his passionate desire and his self-hating guilt, so long will a distressing tension be sustained. So far they distract the mind and disturb its peace, the struggle against the passions must go on. If he is willing to be instructed–when passion, uncontrollable and blind, irrational and violent, is behind action, the consequences may be harmful to its owner but they may also be instructive. For life is an educational process, which everybody has to undergo whether the pupils like it or not. #RandolphHarris 1 of 17
We are not always the same person. At one period of life, a desire may almost enslave us which has no power over us at a later period. The World can be overcome only to the extent that we overcome ourselves, our endless desires and snaring ambitions, our passions and habits. He has not only to deal with his tendencies but also with his compulsions. However, passion is an insurgent, a rebel against reason whose counterbalance it fears and avoids. Even such normal factors as curiosity and ambition become disturbing when they become excessive, unbalanced, and drive the enslaved mind. As the heart opens to this call of the inner self, the demand comes to the will for a more austere habit of living. It is the difference between gentle austerity and harsh asceticism. We continuously try to “read” our own and others’ motives. The most common bases employed for inferring the intentions, feelings, and need of the other people are observation of facial expression, tone of voice, and gestures, which generally disclose what the person is feeling; and observation of the person’s actions and its consequences, from which we try to infer what he or she is up to. Ordinarily, we can check our inferences about the other person’s motives by asking a direct question. When are we justified in assuming that our own or another person’s motives are unconscious? #RandolphHarris 2 of 17
We can never be absolutely certain, but we can entertain the hypothesis of unconscious motivation when the person acts in ways that produce consequences he or she denies intending to produce; when the person shows many signs of emotion without admitting he or she is experiencing strong feeling; and when there are obvious inconsistencies in action at different times, for example, kindness and brutality, intelligent and stupid behaviour. In addition to these general signs of unconscious motivation, there are other more subtle indicators that a person is not conscious of real influences upon his or her behaviour. These include: Dream content that seems bizarre and incomprehensible to the dreamer. Daydreams that surprise the daydreamer. Errors and “slips” in speech and writing. Body postures and evidence of bodily tensions. The forgetting of intentions, and of the names of people and places. Accidents of all kinds. Performance on certain projective tests of personality. When I am surrounded by pretending people, I sometimes feel so swamped by meaningless two-dimensional cardboard characters that I feel I may be on my way to the madness that is recognized in madness. I think that this may be the way that some of it comes about. #RandolphHarris 2 of 17
Nothing has to come about in one way only, and the discovery of one way eliminates others because then they are not explored. That does not put them out of existence—just out of mind, like all the other possible approached to bodily illness which the American Medical Association will not admit. I think that when we have found one way, we should use it tentatively, as the best that we have latched onto at this time, and at the same time should go on exploring other ways—with the same tentativeness. It sometimes seems to me that madness that is called insanity may sometimes be a reaction produced by the madness (as I see it) that is called sanity, or “realism.” A patent in a mental hospital told a therapist, “You want me to come into your World, but I lived there for twenty-three years and I don’t like it.” The patient was a very mixed up person, but I don’t think that he was mixed up about that. The more mentally ill a person is, the more they are caught in egocentricity, selfishness and uselessness. As for a “schizophrenic person”—there is no such thing. A person scared out of his wits is not person at all. The mission of the Sacramento Fire Department is to provide a forum for the exchange of ideas and information in personnel matters relating to the fire service; provide a forum for the exchange of ideas and information; to advocate for the fire service in public matters; promote a modern fire; develop general improvement in fire services throughout that state and encourage a fraternal friendship among firefighters and their families. #RandolphHarris 3 of 17
“When the alarm came in at nine-thirty that Wednesday morning, we were in class about the enhanced 911 system. All we knew was it was a baby trapped down a well. We were all told to go back to our stations and wait. Only our captain, X, was taken out there, possibly because he’s a small-boned man, yet real aggressive at whatever he does. We just got bits and pieces of what was going on out there during the rest of the day and through the night. We kept calling the dispatcher and asking is they needed relief people, and they never would let us go over there. I got to bed at the station at about two A.M. and got up at seven, so I had five hours’ sleep. Thursday was supposed to be my day off, when I was going to take care of our youngest child. But my wife, Y, got him ready and took him to the sitter’s. The more I thought about the baby in the well, the more I though I should be out there: I’m skinny, and they’re going down holes, and I can fit down holes. So I loaded up and told the dispatcher they probably needed a paramedic, and he agreed. I just went over there on my own. You could say I volunteered myself. This was about eight-thirty Thursday morning. I had to park two blocks away because all the cars and trucks. There were a could of hundred people there, trying to help. #RandolphHarris 4 of 17
“The news people were starting to come in. The well was in the backyard of a house in the middle of the block. Z was already there, standing by the air cascade system they were using to send oxygen down to the trapped baby. The battalion chief and the EMS chief and everybody else were listening to the microphone they had lowered down the well. I saw the hole they had drilled down the day before, about five and a half feet from the well, and they were sending guys down there to drill horizontally across to the well. The well itself was just a metal casing sticking up about two or three inches above ground. It was about eight inches in diameter. They had a yellow tent over it like workers use over manholes in the streets. A fire captain was guarding the air house, a real Mr. By-the-book type guy, who just broke out and started jumping all over anyone who came close to it. Actually, he did a good job. Police officers A and Officer B did all the monitoring of the hole. The baby in the well” (will remained unknow and be called “C” for privacy). “Her parents lived out in the country, and this well was in the backyard of her sister’s house, where she was operating an unlicensed day care center. There were five or six kids in the backyard when C went down the well. The older kids were playing by themselves, and the younger kids were playing by themselves. #RandolphHarris 5 of 17
“There was supposed to be a rock over the hole, and I saw some big rocks near there. Then we heard that there was a potted plant sitting on it, and I observed a bucker with what looked like a cactus plant in it that had been turned over and pushed out of the way. They couldn’t tell exactly how far down the well the baby had fallen, because the other small children threw stuff in after her, foliage from the yard. So we could only seen down eighteen feet and lower the mike that far. They were afraid to disturb the plant material, for fear they would make more stuff fall on C. They had lowered flashlights, and when I looked down I saw the lights shining on the green foliage stuff. I listened at the mike and could hear her moaning. That was the last time I looked down the well, but I kept going and checking with the officers on what they were hearing. Supposedly the night before she had slept for about three hours because they didn’t hear noises from her in that time. I don’t know why the kids threw the stuff down the well after her. They were so young they didn’t know the gravity of the situation. Perhaps they were just being playful. There was a story that two older kids put the baby in there, or she might have been pushed. But from the position in which I found her, I feel that she stepped in with one foot, lost her balance, and went down, because one foot was down and one was up. #RandolphHarris 6 of 17
“My captain, X, had twice been down digging and hard worked for a day and a night, and he had been ordered to go home because he looked exhausted. He could have kept going, he’s in excellent condition, but they felt they had to order him to leave. Chief K of the fire department and Chief D of the police department were pretty much in control of the whole operation. The drilling engineer, Mr. L, was in charge of the digging. And Captain E was a coordinator. There was talk that the first person to reach the baby should take her out. But because there might have been serious injuries to the baby’s neck and back, we thought it should be a paramedic. We talked to the doctors there, and Dr. F and Dr. H, and Dr. I talked to the chiefs for us, and it was agreed it would be a paramedic who would bring the baby out. The only exception would be if, when they broke through to her, she just kind of grabbed somebody and she looked good and healthy, then they could bring her out. We had the smallest backboard all ready, cut down still further in size. The hole they drilled straight down was about thirty inches wide, a pretty good-sized shaft, big enough for two small, skinny guys like Z and myself to stand in it side by side. The tunnel they were digging across to the well was much narrower, but some pretty big guys were doing the drilling. One guy had a forty-six-inch chest, so we figured we shouldn’t have any trouble at all. #RandolphHarris 7 of 17
“They were digging through hard rock to a point in the well below where the baby was wedged, then coming up vertically beside her, and a window between the two was being chopped out to get to her. They put a sort of bubble or inflated air bag below her to protect her from the drilling. It wasn’t until one o’clock on Friday that the drillers told us they were ready for us to go down. We went over to the hole. Any time we moved toward it, the media went crazy, thinking the rescue was coming up. But the chiefs made us go back to the ambulance. We were brought over to Chief D’s motor home for a last conference, Z and myself and this other guy, J, who was a rapeller, a rope man. Then we went down. I went in first. I was real apprehensive. I don’t go into caves a lot. I’ve been in tight places, but usually by choice, not by need. I’m real cautious, aggressive but cautious. I try to evaluate everything before I do it. Mr. L was still in the hole. He took the bubble out and talked to me for a minute. Then I went into the tunnel. I had no room at all. I had to decide whether to go on my stomach or my back. My shoulders were pressed on both sides. I had to position the light so it would shine up into the well. I got my first look at her. But I couldn’t touch her. To get my arm in there, I had to crawl back out and start back in with my arm ahead of me. #RandolphHarris 8 of 17
“The width of the tunnel was probably fifteen to sixteen inches, and its height was no more than twelve to fourteen inches. I had no headroom. When my head was at the back of the tunnel was the only time I could see up into the well. I got scratched all over my forearm and elbow forcing my arm up into the well. I though, ‘Oh, God, how am I going to do this?’ All I saw dangling down was her left foot. So first off, I started an evaluation of her physically. How is she doing? What can she move? What can’t she move? People had told us they thought she was horizontal in some kind of widening of the shaft. So I couldn’t just start pulling because I was afraid I would snap her back or her neck. They had said I could reach her. But reaching up with my right arm, I could feel her left leg and her buttocks, and that was it. I couldn’t reach any higher or find her right leg or anything else. She was conscious. Not crying, but moaning. I got her to move her left foot for me. She did that. I told her to move her upper body, and I could feel her move somewhat. It looked like she was trying. I told her to push as hard as she could with her right foot, and it seemed that she went up a little bit. I communicated all this to the doctor by the phone line they had down there. They gave me a wedge made of a two-by-four and a round piece of plywood on top, supposedly to push her up and feel around her. #RandolphHarris 9 of 17
“I was able to push her no more than three inches. It sounded like she was throwing up. I told her to turn her head to the side and spit it up. I didn’t want her strangling on her own throw-up. I determined that we couldn’t get her out right then. I didn’t know what position she was in, and I didn’t have enough room. So I told her we’d be back. To me, on God’s green Earth, that’s the hardest thing I ever did in my life, leave that little girl in the well that first time. I came back out. We went into conference, and all the chiefs and doctors were there. And every time I would get close to talking about having to leave her there, I would get teary-eyed, and my voice would crack. The doctors took this as a sign of emotional instability or whatever. It was the first time I had been in a situation like that, and with me, the first time I go into something, as a paramedic or firefighter, I always get real emotional. When we got out of the hole, Z was first, and his face was so solemn that people thought it meant that the baby was dead. This big water drill had been there since early in the morning, but they hadn’t put it in use because Mr. L thought it was too dangerous. They had flown it from Memphis to Huston on a United Parcel 747. It took a place that size to carry it. So Chief A and Chief D insisted that Mr. L use the water drill. So they took it down there, and they really did a good job with it. Meanwhile, the doctors were talking to the chief, expressing their concern about whether I was emotionally and physically able to go back down in. #RadolphHarris 10 of 17
“He took me aside. He said, ‘We don’t need any macho trips. There’s no shame. If you can’t go down in, just tell me, just be honest with me.’ I told him, ‘Chief, I can go down one more time. If we don’t get her out this time, there is no way I can go down again. I would be mentally, emotionally, and physically wiped out.’ So he understood that, and he backed me. Assistant Chief M backed me. Evidently Chief D did, too. And N, the EMS chief, really backed me. He said I was the one to do it. They had confidence in me. We had plenty of guys in the department who were willing to go down, so they really had to feel good about me or they wouldn’t have let me. We went down a second time. I’m not really sure of the time, I know it was still daylight, six-thirty or seven. We had done a lot of sitting around, waiting. Everybody was saying, this is our last chance. Nobody said it to me personally, but the word was, if we had to break bones, break bones. Whatever we had to do to get her out. J, the rope man, came up with a device I could lift her with, a tripod pole maybe an inch wide, with the tape on the top. He was the guy who did all the rigging in the hole. He helped us a lot. Down in the tunnel, Mr. L said, “This is it, O. This is the best it’s going to get.” They had chipped away with the water drill and give me some headroom and more shoulder room. So he went to the surface, and Z came down with the stuff we thought we were going to need. #RandolphHarris 11 of 17
“I had the tripod pole with me. I went into the hole and talked to baby C. I tried to lift her with the tripod pole, and it was too short. So Z got J on the phone, and he found me a longer tripod pole. This one had a rubber stopper on the tip of it. I tried to push the baby with it, and I couldn’t move her at all. I was lying there trying to figure out what to do. Looking at the tripod pole, I saw that the other end of it had a rubberized point that couldn’t hurt anybody. So I used it as a probe to see if I could figure out the position of her body. I poked it up the wall of the well shaft along her spine. I knew if I encountered anything solid, that would give me some indication of what body part was where. I ran it up along her spine past her head, and air rushed down at me from the well above her. That meant she was in a vertical position. Her back was straight up and down. I did the same thing with the pole at the side of the shaft where the right leg should be. It went all the way up, and air rushed through again. So I knew her right foot was up by her head somewhere. I went all the way around her body with the pole. Then I knew that she wasn’t in any crevice or bubble-shaped position. The metal casing I had seen at the top of the well didn’t go very far down, and the rest of the well was lined with a sticky petroleum-type substance. It was like glue or tar. I had it all over my hands. If you got into the stuff, you just stuck to it. #RandolphHarris 12 of 17
So then I knew she wasn’t lying down and I could pull on her without breaking her back or injuring anything. I talked to Dr. P and the female pediatrician, Dr. Q, and I called for the K-Y jelly. They sent down some baby forceps that they use at childbirth, but they were useless in this tunnel. Earlier I had tried to use goggles to keep stuff from falling in my eyes, but they fogged up immediately. It was real warm and humid down there. I was down there close to an hour and a half. All activity above the hole had totally ceased. Z opened the K-Y jelly and gave it to me, but there was a seal that had to be broken, so I had to throw it back to him to break that. This whole time he was doing great. He was having to deal with those at the top on the phone, and he was having to deal with me, because when I wanted something I wanted it two seconds ago, not later. And his legs were cramping real bad at the same time, and I didn’t know it. I smeared the K-Y jelly over the walls of the well all the way up to the baby’s bottom. Now I needed paper towels because I’ve got this stuff all over the place. I told Z that is the paper towels hit him on the head and knocked him out, I was going to kill him. My attempted at a joke. Now came the pulling time. I was totally confident. I felt we were going to get her out, no matter what it took. And I wasn’t going to some out of that hole without her, unless they came and dragged me out. #RandolphHarris 13 of 17
“She had on snap-on pants. They had come undone from the left leg, and I was using them to pull on. She was stuck to the walls, and she was crying and whining. I would pull as hard as I could, and she would tense up; then as soon as she would relax, I would pull again. The first couple of inches were the hardest to get her to move. They were really pressuring us from the top. I had Z tell them we had moved her a quarter of an inch, to get them to leave us alone for a while. I was pulling as hard as I could, and she kept tensing up. Both of my arms were exhausted. My right arm went numb two or three times. Once I got her started in the K-Y jelly, I was able to move her a half inch at a time, and she would tense up again. I knew she was coming down. Z got the backboard ready. When I got her all the way into the K-Y jelly, I had no more problems. I got her out of the hole and turned over on my stomach. I reached for the backboard, but there wasn’t room for it, because her right leg was beside the right side of her head. All the time I was telling her to stay calm, that we were going to get her out, we weren’t going to leave her again. When I got her in the K-Y jelly, she was quieter, because it wasn’t hurting her anymore. She didn’t say a word. Of course, she was only eighteen months old. She made different sounds, but nothing I could understand. She knew someone was there trying to help her. #RandolphHarris 14 of 17
“I couldn’t get her out on the board, so I pulled her onto my right arm, supporting her back and neck. The light hit her left pupil and she reacted, which was great. It was a good sign. I pulled her right leg in far enough so I could get her on the backboard. Z was getting stuffy out of the way, and while I was waiting, I said something like ‘Great’ or ‘Fantastic.’ I said it too loud, and she jumped a little bit. To me that was a good sign, too. But all she was doing was lying on the board, just looking around, real relaxed. I slipped her out, supporting her with my legs, and Z wrapped her waist to her chest. We used a Velcro strap across her chest to make sure she stayed on the board. Z put a towel on her neck, because the cervical collar was too small. I took white surgical tape and went all around the board and around the towel. Her hands were welded to her temples by the sticky substance. We left her right hand where it was. We didn’t try to straighten out any limbs. We finished getting her strapped. Then Z stood in the shaft holding her. I secured her to him with seat belt straps. I secured them both to the tether line of the back board, and I attached him to the main cable of the rig. So he went up with her. The only thing that fell down from her was a pair of toy binoculars and a few twigs. When I first got her, there was a big twig between her right arm and her chest. I thought it was embedded, but when I moved her arm I saw that it wasn’t, so I threw it out of the way. Nothing else, none of the green stuff. #RandolphHarris 15 of 17
“I heard them yell and scream up top, everybody was just ecstatic. I was yelling, too. Nobody could hear me, but I didn’t care. I was totally calm. As a matter of fact, I was totally exhausted, mentally and emotionally. I was light-headed, I was having a hard time focusing. I just felt I needed oxygen. So I was trying to get stuff together, and the chief said, ‘Come out now.’ He meant now, and he said it a couple of times. So I said, ‘The heck with this stuff.’ They brought me out, and I shook the chief’s hand. He’s a big man, and I just laid my head on his shoulder for a minute. I did see little C and her parents at the hospital. She looked a lot different, a lot better. She looked somewhat swollen, and I hadn’t realized that mark on her forehead was such a bad scrape. They planted a tree in that backyard that will live as long as she does. And we’re going to put a plaque on that backboard and put it in our museum. It was great to be part of it. The next time I might not be so lucky. I know that the job I do is well worth all the time and all the nonsense we go through, and the good times and the bad times. If I end up dying of cancer because of the smoke, or if I end up dying in a fire, I never think about that. I know it can happen, but that’s my job, and I love doing it. I’ve thought in the past about switching, but this guy’s going to be there until they run me off. Until I can’t do it anymore.” #RandolphHarris 16 of 17
The Sacramento Fire Department provides the citizens of Sacramento with the ability to create safer communities; they assist and support the fire service community and the protection of life and property; and they promote and enhance firefighter safety; the Sacramento Fire Department also provides a fire service leadership presence in the Executive Office of Public Safety and Security in order to direct policy and legislation on all fire related matters. Their core values are innovation, inclusivity, dedication, courageousness, excellence, ethicality, professionalism, and transparency. You can help save lives by making a donation to the Sacramento Fire Department. In an effort to keep the country cohesive, please raise your children to love America, to be patriotic, to love God and Jesus Christ and buy American cars and other American goods and services. As along, respect law and order, and treat others with kindness and respect. And to ensure you have a bright future, please take your education seriously. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. O beautiful for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain, for purple mountains majesties above the fruited plain! America! America! God shed His grace on three, and crown thy good with brotherhood from sea to shining sea! O beautiful for pilgrim feet, whose stern, impassioned stress, a thoroughfare for freedom beat across the wilderness! America! America! God mend thine every flow, confirm thy soul in self-control, Thy liberty in law! O beautiful for patriot dream that sees beyond the years, Thine alabaster cities gleam, undimmed by human tears! America! America! God shed His grace on thee, and crown thy good with brotherhood from sea to shining sea! God never gave us express allowance, only He gave us reason, charity, nature and good example to bear us out. #RandolphHarris 17 of 17
The Winchester Mystery House
Our exclusive Flashlight Tour is back for one night only this December, Friday the 13th! 🔦🌙
Venture through the dark, winding halls of the mansion at night—armed only with a flashlight and your courage. And when the lights go out… there’s no turning back! (link in bio)
Please come and enjoy a delicious meal in Sarah’s Café, stroll along the paths of the beautiful Victorian gardens, and wonder through the miles of hallways in the World’s most mysterious mansion. For further information about tours, including group tours, weddings, school events, birthday party packages, facility rentals, and special events please visit the website: https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
Please visit the online giftshop, and purchase a gift for friends and relatives as well as a special memento of The Winchester Mystery House. A variety of souvenirs and gifts are available to purchase. https://shopwinchestermysteryhouse.com/
The Skull-Rapping of Internal Dialogue
Being filled with God’s love shields us in life’s storms but also makes the happy moments happier. At the age of twenty-one, Max quit the seminary, frustrated but sure that he had, as usual, gotten the best of the bargain. He was young, ambitious, and held a bachelor’s degree which had been paid for by his parents. One of his plans included a profession whose practitioners also had a corner on being right: medicine. So after a minimum two-years army stint, Max enrolled in a prestigious California medical school, knowing from the first day that he wanted the most sought after and highest paying specialty of all: surgery. The years of school, internship and residency seemed to drag on forever. Max’s ambition made him impatient, but he invested his time wisely. He cultivated friendships with the ranking doctors in his hospital. He made sure he was on the lists to join their clubs when the time was right. Later, as he began practicing “for real,” all his investments paid off. Max became a good surgeon. Not the best, but certainly able to appear like one of the best. There were men on the staff who were better than he, but Max made it his business to see that they did not stay with the hospital long. He found out which ones drank a bit more than they should. He hired investigators to follow the surgeons who were above him on the hospital’s ladder. Should one of the ranking men be followed to an “indiscreet” apartment, Max would learn of it, confront the man about it, and that man would willingly seek an association with a different hospital. #RandolphHarris 1 of 21
In this way, Max worked himself up in rank until there was no one above him but the chief surgeon, a tough, dictatorial man who took orders from no one, not even the hospital’s top management. Though Max was only number two, he had the authority to run his part of the organization as he chose. One of his priorities was to concentrate on doing the kinds of surgery which paid the best for the least amount of work. Max liked money, but he never did relish a great deal of work. And yes, he did make a great deal of money. Early in his career, Max had met and married Alana, a young lady who was also Catholic, and who had come to California from Harrisburg, South Dakota, in the hope of becoming a movie star. After several futile years of walk-on parts and waiting tables, she had resigned herself to marriage, babies and a home. Max considered Alana the ideal wife for his purposes: good-looking, passive, and best of all, devoted. She kept a clean home, doted over the children and dutifully held dinner until he arrived. He was as much in control at home as he was in the hospital. He managed to always be “right” and always have the last word—like a judge in his own courtroom. It was in the early-2000’s that Max’s carefully constructed little empire began to fall apart—and it started with pleasures of the flesh. After years of unsatisfying pleasures of the flesh with Alana, Max craved a more exciting woman. Alana was warmth; he wanted passion. She was giving; he wanted to be taken. She surrendered; he wanted someone who refused to submit. #RandolphHarris 2 of 21
One day Max was presiding over a meeting in which his staff was discussing instituting a new surgical procedure. One of the nurses, a woman named Bianca, had taken issues with him over the procedure. Angered, Max pointed his finger at her and said, “Look, little girl, I’ve been carving up people in this hospital for a long time and I know when something won’t work. This won’t work.” Much to his surprise, Bianca slapped his had away with eyes blazing, shot back, “Don’t you dare point your finger at me, you male chauvinistic pig! I’m a woman, not a little girl, and I know something about surgery too. If you’re so damn smart, why are you paying me $250,000 a year to help you, then not accepting the help when I offer it? This procedure will work, and I’ll be happy to take it to any other hospital while you sit here, admiring your own face in the mirror!” Max was infuriated. Ordinarily, he would have had a nurse discharged on the spot for talking to him that way. However, this was different. This was a spicy and passionate woman! He had to have her. He knew it was dangerous to get involved with a woman from the hospital. He knew it was a mortal sin, adultery. He knew that seeing Bianca was a dead end because he was still too Catholic to get a divorce. However, Bianca ignited him sexually. She did not give him pleasures of the flesh, she took it from him. In their conversations, she battled him, cursed at him, and outwitted him. #RandolphHarris 3 of 21
For the first time in his life, Max was able to lose battles without feeling beaten. Though Max was a formidable opponent, she was not a threat. She was not after his position; she only sought to maintain hers. In quiet moments at her apartment, he could be soft, vulnerable, frightened. He could tell her what scared him. He could lay his head in her lap and confess his sins the way he never could to any priest. In the midst of this, Max’s boss decided to do the only thing that could possibly undermine Max’s position: disband his unit. He was nearing retirement and was enamored with the thought of retiring in a blaze of glory rather than leaving the unit for Max to mold to his own way of doing things. Max fought the idea, but the old man was adamant. Later one afternoon, in the middle of a routine discussion, the chief surgeon glanced at his watch and said, “Hey, I’ve gotta go. I’ll be late for group.” “Late for what?” Max asked. “Group therapy. You know, like in psychology.” “What for? You’re not crazy. Or are you?” “No, I’m not crazy,” the old doctor said. “It’s just that I’ve got a few problems. It helps to air them out—in a nonthreatening situation.” Max thought of his evenings with Bianca. “Yeah, I know. That is good, sometimes.” “Besides,” the older man continued, “it really gives me a lot of insight about people, what make them tick. I’m getting so I can almost guess what people are going to do and say next.” #RandolphHarris 4 of 21
A warning light went on in Max’s head. “You mean, with this psycho stuff, you can anticipate what someone—like me, for instance—might do in a given situation?” “Not always. But I’ve tried it, and it’s worked.” Max did not relish the notion of his enemies having weapons which he himself did not possess. He decided to look into group therapy. In our first sessions, it was obvious Max was there to learn about other people, not about himself. His questions were intelligent and to the point, but his interest was more academic than personal. However, gradually, in the frankness and comfort of the sessions, he began to open up. He started telling the others what he thought of them—and was interested to hear how they felt about him. Lark surprised us one night when she blurted, “You know, Max, you’re a chauvinistic pig. But in a strange way, you’re lovable.” “Thanks,” he said. “I consider both of those evaluations to be compliments.” “Don’t try to be smart,” she snapped. “What I’m trying to say is that I could love you. Not as—as a lover, or anything, but for who you are. If only you weren’t trying to be so touch all the time.” With that remark, the door to the interior Max opened a crack. In the months that followed, we did get to know him as he told us of his childhood, his career and finally, his affair. He began to “fill out” as someone quite human. We felt our affection for him growing with each disclosure. And he knew it. What intrigued him most was the notion that the women in the group could love him without feeling sexual attraction to him—something he had never run into before. #RandolphHarris 5 of 21
The blemishes in a romantic relations or marriage are diminished with a focus on love. One thing you never want to do is constantly manipulate people. Manipulators often end up in trouble with the law. Sometimes criminals become too “hot.” And they have to leave the country. Or else, who knows. They live on the run. Under the gun. Messing up. Holding on. Learning, we hope. Black leaders say they want a popular front with whites and browns and reds and technicolor kids. They see the old structure crumbling. They sense the change. Like everyone else, they want to channel it their way. Who can blame them? They say they want to work with white kids. Maybe they want to use them. They are under pressure from everyone. They say they are nonracists, internationalists. They publicly back every antisystem group. Reverand Al Sharpton and Dr. Cornel West have supported long hair, new life-style, women’s lib. They insist they are the vanguard. The coming new year will tell a lot. Reverand Al Sharpton calls himself a supporter of the U.S. Constitution. He calls himself Supreme Commander. Dr. Cornel West is always a ruthless enigma. There is one way to find out where the Panthers are. Black leaders sometimes welcome white kids who do not fit in with the establishment. However, if you want to stay of a good legal ground, you may want to follow the law and try to become part of the establishment. Have lunch around the campfire. Eat organic flour pancakes. Fresh vegetables. Steamed soup. Enjoy tender good-byes to your hosts. Otherwise, for the next ten years you will only see the underground network form in communes. You will ride with the dealers and talk over tepee fires with new tribes, and have to get used to animal skins and rifles on the wall, while listening to the Chief speak quietly of the prophecies. About how the white machine men will destroy themselves with greed, and being a young white man, it might be kind of conflicting, unless you accept that you have a black soul, light skin with a Cadillac and a perm and blue eyes. #RandolphHarris 6 of 21
Acts of self-denial, austerities, are to be valued not for their own sakes but for the sake of the purification of the soul. They can take to a simpler life. It does not demand a bare and spartan existence. It means only that they can eliminate useless luxuries and excessive pleasures, stop buying what they need not buy and keep money they cannot afford to spend. By living a simpler life, by becoming more frugal and less spendthrift, they can cut down their wants, diminish their desires, lessen discontent, and perhaps even become happier. It will be easier to call their soul their own. We live on different layers of desire from the beastly to the angelic. When lust is merely submerged and not supplanted, it will sooner or later reassert itself. Let is an extreme intoxication of the bodily senses, a fire of carnal passion which submerges reason, and an enslavement of desire which tyrannizes over countless victims. A wiser course than total suppression is to limit desires and govern passions. We are conscious of an animal in us. If I knew so wise a man as could teach me purity, I would go to see him forthwith. When the pursuit of pleasure, and especially physical pleasures, becomes excessive, it becomes a vice. Where is his mind’s peace when he is racked by desires, irritated by frustrations, and denied even the compensation of knowing why he is suffering? Instinct fights with intellect but purified, elevated, and instructed, it can harmonize with the other, both working together for the benefit of man. #RandolphHarris 7 of 21
The irony of this picture of men rejecting their freedom and preferring their chains would be unbelievable, did we not know how gilded those chains are. The terrestrial nature in man may be recognized by the ferocity, the gluttony, the hate, and the violence in man. It is certain that the heart which is agitated again and again by the yearning for sensual joys will not know the calm happiness of spiritual joys. To what better use can a man put his will than the eradication of hatreds and the subduing of passions? For out of those two sources alone come so many wrong deeds and so much consequent suffering. A man may be so infatuated with his lower nature that he prefers to be agitated and disturbed by its passions rather than to attain the unruffled calmness of his higher nature. When I see people showing Christlike love for one another, it feels to me as if that love contains more than just their love; it is love that also has divinity in it. When we love one another in this way, as completely and fully as we can, Heaven gets involved too. So, if someone we care about seems distant from a sense of divine love, we do things that bring us closer to God ourselves and then do things that bring us close to them—and unspoken beckoning to come to Christ. Sometimes people are surrounded by a chorus of voices of discouragement and darkness that weighs into their thoughts, messages telling them they are too wounded and confused, too weak and overlooked, too different or disoriented to warrant Heavenly love in any real way. #RandolphHarris 8 of 21
What part, in this Universe, could pleasure play or the exquisite joy of acquiescent and accomplice bodies? In it we find an impossible quest for escape from despair—a quest that finishes, nevertheless, in a desperate race from servitude to servitude and from prison to prison. If only nature is real and if, in nature, only desire and destruction are legitimate, then, in that all humanity does not suffice to assuage the first for blood, the path of destruction must lead to universal annihilation. We must be come, according to Sade’s formula, nature’s executioner. However, even that position is not achieved too easily. When the accounts are closed, when all the victims are massacred, the executioners are left face to face in the deserted castle. Something is still missing. The tortured bodies return, in their elements, to nature and will be born again. Even murder cannot be fully consummated: “Murder only deprives the victim of his first life; a means must be found of depriving him of his second.” Sade contemplates an attack on creation: “I abhor nature…I should like to upset its plans, to thwart its progress, to halt the stars in their courses, to overturn the floating spheres of space, to destroy what serves nature and to succor all that harms it; in a word, to insult it in all its works, and I cannot succeed in doing so.” It is in vain that he dreams of a technician who can pulverize the Universe: he knows that, in the dust of the spheres, like will continue. #RandolphHarris 9 of 21
The attack against creation is doomed to failure. It is impossible to destroy everything, there is always a remainder. “I cannot succeed in doing so…” the icy and implacable Universe suddenly relents at the appalling melancholy by which Sade, in the end and quite unwillingly, always moves. “We could perhaps attack the sun, deprive the universe of it, or use it to set fire to the world—those would be real crimes…” Crimes, yes, but not the definitive crime. It is necessary to go farther. The executioners eye each other with suspicion. They are alone, and one law alone governs them: the law of power. As they accepted it when they were masters, they cannot reject it if it turns against them. All power tends to be unique and solitary. Murder must be repeated: in their turn the masters will tear one another to pieces. Sade accepts this consequence and does not flinch. A curious kind of stoicism, derived from vice, sheds a little light in the dark places of his rebellious soul. He will not try to live again in the World of affection and compromise. The drawbridge will not be lowered; he will accept personal annihilation. The unbridled force of his refusal achieves, at its climax, an unconditional acceptance that is not without nobility. The master consents to be the slave in his turn and even, perhaps, wishes to be. The scaffold would be for me the throne of voluptuousness. #RandolphHarris 10 of 21
A man told me when I was very sick, “I have never known anyone so hell-bent on self-expression as you are!” He sounded both friendly and exasperated. I did not feel capable at that time of what I thought of as “self-expression” but I felt guilty just the same, with the piled-up accusations of the past. I had tried very hard to be “normal” but had not been successful enough to escape criticism. At the same time that I felt guilty, a little growingness is me protested, saying, “Well…I guess everyone is doing that really—expressing himself in one way or another.” I was very confused, and gropingly trying to understand what I do now. “Yes…” said my friend. “I guess you could say that a person is expressing himself when he makes a slightly different stew. But you have to go over it that way.” He gestured with his arms, showing the two ways over the hill. I realized then that he meant that I was trying to find my own way out of being sick, instead of “accepting it” and “making the best of it” as people said I should. I “saw” a hill—that is, I visualized it…Habits are certainly difficult to break. It visualized itself, spontaneously, as a dream does. I had nothing to do with it except that it happened in me…There was a picture in my mind of an endless train of passenger cars full of laughing people going over the hill on one side, while I was wearily plodding over it on the other side, alone. (When I am confused, I am always weary—worn out by conflict.) #RandolphHarris 11 of 21
I felt “wrong” for not going the way that everyone else did. However, my “vision” told me clearly, “They are not happy. They are just pretending to be happy. They have done it for so long they have fooled themselves.” Laughter can be a cover for unhappiness, particularly when signs of happiness are acceptable and those of unhappiness are tabu. Is not pretending being out of touch with reality too? Caught in the mesh of a script apparatus, men meanwhile have their own autonomous aspirations. These usually appear to him in daydreams in his leisure hours, or in hypnagogic hallucinations before he falls asleep; the brave deeds he should have done this morning, or the tranquil scenes he looks forward to in later years. All men and all women have their secret gardens, whose gates they guard against the profane invasion of the vulgar crowd. If they could do as they please, these are visual pictures of what they would do. The lucky ones find the right time, place, and person, and get to do it, while the rest must wander wistfully outside their own walls. And that is what this essay is about: What happens outside those walls, the external transactions that parch or water the flowers within. What people want to do is shown in visual pictures, the home movies they make inside their skulls. What they do do is decided by voices, the skull-rapping of internal dialogue. #RandolphHarris 12 of 21
Each sentence they say and each scripty decision is the result of such a dialogue: Mother says and Father says and Adult says You had better, while Child, thus encircled, tries to break through to get what he wants. No one can know the enormous, amazing, and almost infinite amount of dialogue he has stored up in the dim-lit caverns of his mind. There are complete answers there to questions he never even dreamed of. However, if the right button is pushed, sometimes they pour out in sheer poetry. Grasp your right forefinger in your left hand. What is your hand saying to your finger, and what does finger have to say for himself? If you do this right, you will soon find a lively and meaningful conversation going on between them. The amazing part is that it was there all the time, and so are hundreds of others. If you have a cold and an upset stomach, what is your churning stomach saying to your congested nose? If you are sitting with your foot swinging, what has your foot got to say to you today? Ask it and it will answer. The dialogue is right there in your head. All this was discovered, or at least brought into full light by the originator of Gestalt therapy, F.S. Perls. Similarly, all your decisions are made by four or five people in your head, whose voices you can overlook if you are too proud to hear them, but they will be there next time if you care to listen. Script analysts learn how to amplify and identity these voices, and that is an important part of their therapy. #RandolphHarris 13 of 21
The object of script analysis is to free the individual so they one can open the garden of their aspirations to the World. It does that by cutting through the Babel in their heads until the Child can say: “But this is what I want to do, and I would rather do it my own way.” The dom-species impose two sets of taboos to maintain its equilibrium and hive-solidarity—exdom taboos condemn the past and predom taboos condemn the future. In other words, the dom-species is held together by its opposition to the proximal past and future stages. The shames attached to cannibalism, violence, violation of property, dishonesty, and rape are examples of exdom taboos. The Ten Commandments are a valuable index of the neurogenetic stage of the time. Thou shall honour thy parents; thou shall not steal, kill, lie, sexually trespass, or violate territory within the hive. Thou shall adore the hive-totem and not worship past pagan Gods or Future Gods. Social welfare countries, exemplified by retiring elders, place under taboo all forms of individuality—both past and future. Domesticated adults’ societies—the demoncratic-bourgeois—place under taboo stage ten barbarian teenager feudal elitism as well as the retiring elders state power brains and Me-generation grown-up post-familial individuality. The predom brain-reality consumer taboo in the latter 20th Century condemned intervention into brain control—either by others or self. Thus, the revulsion against CIA brain experiments using drugs or bioelectrical means. #RandolphHarris 14 of 21
The predom self-actualized brain reality taboo against self-directed brain change was even more rigid. While there was some liberal hand-wringing about CIA experiments with LSD, there was stark terror at the thought of self-appointed individuals using psychedelic drugs to change their own realities. The predom accelerated brain reality fused taboo against intentional communes of individuals linking to create new realities was very pervasive in the 20th Century. Every attempt to construct such communities was routinely snuffed. If they are expedient and success justified the use of arms, Marxism always held the point of view that weapons are to be used. The accuracy of this point of view was demonstrated in the days from the November 7 to 11, 1918. At that time, Marxism did not care at all for parliament of democracy and killed them both through howling and gun firing criminal gangs. The privileged-class chatter-boxes were defenseless in this moment. To be aware of a need means to experience and identify some lack. Thus, a person may be deprived of pleasures of the flesh, admit it, and set about the task of obtaining gratification with pleasures of the flesh. However, suppose the person regards wishes for pleasures of the flesh as forbidden? Under these conditions, acknowledgment of real feelings might give rise to powerful guilt or anxiety. The guilt or anxiety will then motivate the person to rid his or her mind of the offending thoughts. This effort is called repression. Repression of wishes and feeling does not annihilate them; it renders them unconscious. #RandolphHarris 15 of 21
A healthier direction would be for the person to keep the feelings in the conscious realm, learn to understand them, and choose to either have an experience involving pleasures of the flesh or not, depending upon his or her personal value system and the ethical-religious beliefs that are a part of the person’s conscious life. One of Dr. Freud’s greatest contributions to human understanding was his effort to decipher unconscious motivation through the study of dreams, slips of the tongue, and accidents. The mission of the Sacramento Fire Department is to protect the community from the devastating effects of fire. Of course, one of those methods is to extinguish them but, they are more cost-effective when they are “proactive” in preventing them. Therefore, the ultimate goal of the Sacramento Fire Department is to precent as many fires as possible and put into place systems which allow for the earliest detection of fires rather than simply waiting until they occur. They do this to avoid greater loss of life, property and potential injuries to both firefighters and the residents they serve. “In these California brush fires, there are two basic types of situations. There’s the situation where you’re busting your behind the entire time you’re on the fire line. And the reverse situation, where you’re in a ready reserve area and end up doing nothing. They’re not the type of thing, like in urban areas, where a fire department comes running in, Johnny-on-the-spot, and puts the fire out. The fire service in California is at the whim of the weather. #RandolphHarris 16 of 21
“These things are very difficult to combat, because you’re often fighting a fire fueled by chaparral or other brush that hasn’t burned through for over a hundred years. The fuel load is tremendous and often in inaccessible areas, so that the firefighters don’t become so much involved in the actual extinguishment attempts as in protecting structures. You might have ten or fifteen companies assigned to one block in a hillside area to prevent the homes from going on fire. I remember several fires where we were doing just that. We were up on the roof wetting down in preparation for a fire sweeping through or using heavy stream application onto the brush areas surrounding the homes. But usually, when the fire comes through, it’s almost as if your efforts were totally fruitless. The area becomes on intense that it’s necessary for you to seek shelter inside the home. That’s the only way you can get away from it. There’s nothing that hiding under the fire truck is going to do for you. You just have to drop the hose line and run. A few years ago, I was assigned to Engine X in south central Los Angeles, and we were dispatched to a major brush fire in Mandeville Canyon, along with four other engine companies, to form a brush strike team. On arrival, we were given the assignment to protect a particular home on a street in the immediate area. The fire was some distance away but was expected to hit our area after dark. I knew we were in for a long night. I expected this fire to be like others I had been on: long hours of nothing, punctuated by moments of sheer terror. #RandolphHarris 17 of 21
“We laid out the hoses and prepared the residence by removing combustibles from the outside of the home. We closed all the windows and made sure the doors were all unlocked and the lights were on, in case this became our refuge when the fire swept through the heavy brush surrounding the house. I remembered previous situations, pending hors soaking the home and everything around it only to have the hot, dry Santa Ana winds and the winds from the fire turning everything bone dry in seconds. In this case, we were almost immediately engulfed in a hailstorm of burning embers blown by the fifty-mile-an-hour winds. We stood our ground, soaking the wood-shake shingle roof with an inch-and-a-half line, when the captain gave the order to drop the house line and get insides the house. It was the only place that offered us any safety from the heavy smoke and the furious ember-laden winds. We had three lines around the home. We dropped them, and we all congregated in the main hallways of the house. I was relieved that no one had suffered much more than the usual heavy dose of smoke and a few burns from the flying embers. We were in there only three or four minutes when the fire engulfed the whole surrounding area. The hallway was positioned in such a way that we could see out through the large number of glass patio doors in the back. You do not want to be close to the windows or that number of glass doors, when you’ve got that kind of superheated wind blowing around. We were still able to see, but from a distance from the windows. #RandolphHarris 18 of 21
“The idea, of course, is that the fire will mover swiftly past in the force of the wind. The thought certainly occurred to us that the fire could take the building, too. It’s always a distinct possibility. Given the two choices of being outside in the furious winds and the embers that are blowing around and chunks of tree branches and everything that’s carried by these tremendous winds, being in the house is probably the better of the two choices. Besides, it was tremendously hard to breathe out there. We weren’t using anything more than bandannas across our faces, because the breathing apparatus in this type of environment is more restrictive than it is helpful, so you don’t use it. You just resort to the old brushfire standby, the bandanna over the nose and face. It’s still difficult to breathe, not only because of the heavy smoke, but the hot dry winds, of themselves, make it difficult. It was nighttime, and the scene through the patio doors was spectacular, like millions of fireflies, though they were really embers blown by the tremendous wind. They were more like balls of hail—fireballs of hail going past. As soon as the fire sweeps through your area, that’s when you spring back into action, retrieve your house line, and start putting out the roof fires or whatever else may have become ignited. It’s a scary situation. When you’re in the house, you’re praying like heck that the house doesn’t burn down. In this case, when we went outside we were greatly relieved to see only a few small wisps of smoke coming off the roof, and we doused them. #RandolphHarris 19 of 21
“This is not such an exceptional thing. Hundred of other guys out here have been in the same situation.” The Sacramento Fire Department protects people in Sacramento, in other parts of California and across the United States of America every single day—but did you know that they are looking after everyone’s future, too? You can help save lives by being patriotic and donating to the Sacramento Fire Department. Being patriotic means being proud of who you are as an American. It is important to raise your children to love America. When you choose American-made cars and other goods and services, this results in higher quality products that save money in the long run due to their quality, safety standards, and long-lasting durability. It is imperative to love God and His Son, Jesus Christ. When we love God and Jesus Christ, we experience joy and fulfillment. As citizens, we respect the laws because they are clearly communicated and fairly enforced. Everyone is held accountable to the same laws, and those laws protect our fundamental rights. The United States Constitution is the foundation of the rule of law in America. Education provides stability in life, and it is something that no one can ever take away from you. By being well-educated, and holding a college degree, you increase your chances for better career opportunities and open new doors for yourself. From an early age, it is important to read books. Reading books may have several physical and mental benefits. These include strengthening your brain, increasing your ability to empathize, reducing stress, building your vocabular, and it will help you with spelling and to become a better writer. #RandolphHarris 20 of 21
Reading also reduced stress, can alleviate depression, and reduce age-related cognitive decline. Showing respect to others, especially the elderly benefits everyone. When people feel valued, their emotional well-being improves, and they will have better health outcomes. Younger people will also gain perspective and enjoyment from intergenerational relationships. Pledge allegiance to the American flag is a symbolic act that represents loyalty and devotion to one’s country. It used to be a ritual in every school during first period. Pledging allegiance to the American flag is often seen as a patriotic gesture, reflecting a sense of unity and shared values among citizens. We are willing to humble ourselves before God, willing to repent, willing to learn, and willing to change. The flag of the United States of America represents not just our country as a political unit, but the principles that bind us together as Americans, namely individual liberty, and unalienable natural rights, endowed by our Creator, which the government shall not infringe upon. Reciting the Pledge is not a compulsion, but a mark of patriotism to the country. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. God of Might, God of Right, Thee we give all glory; Thine all praise in these days as in ages hoary, when we hear, year by year freedom’s wondrous story. Now as erst, when Thou first made’st the proclamation, warning loud every proud, every tyrant nation, we, Thy fame still proclaim, bend in adoration. “A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another; as I have loved you,” reports John 13.34. #RandolphHarris 21 of 21
The Winchester Mystery House
Did you know that when Mrs. Winchester was alive, in addition to her mansion, there were other Victorian houses on the estate as well as gazebos?
Please come and enjoy a delicious meal in Sarah’s Café, stroll along the paths of the beautiful Victorian gardens, and wonder through the miles of hallways in the World’s most mysterious mansion. For further information about tours, including group tours, weddings, school events, birthday party packages, facility rentals, and special events please visit the website: https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
Please visit the online giftshop, and purchase a gift for friends and relatives as well as a special memento of The Winchester Mystery House. A variety of souvenirs and gifts are available to purchase. https://shopwinchestermysteryhouse.com/
You are Already Dead to the World
Always make those senior to you feel comfortable in their superiority. Never take your position for granted and never let any favours you receive go to your head. For Sade, the law of power implies barred gated, castles with seven circumvallations from which it is impossible to escape, and where a society founded on desire and crime functions unimpeded, according to the rules of an implacable system. The most unbridled rebellion, insistence on complete freedom, lead to the total subjection of the majority. For Sade, man’s emancipation is consummated in these strongholds of debauchery where a kind of bureaucracy of vice rules over the life and death of the men and women who have committed themselves forever to the hell of their desires. His works abound with descriptions of these privileged places where feudal libertines, to demonstrate to their assembled victims their absolute impotence and servitude, always repeat the Duc de Blangis’s speech to the common people of the One Hundred and Twenty Days of Sodom: “You are already dead to the World.” Sade himself also inhabited the tower of Freedom, but in the Bastille. Absolute rebellion took refuge with him in a sordid fortress from which no one, either persecuted or persecutors, could ever escape. To establish his freedom, he had to create absolute necessity. #RandolphHarris 1 of 23
Unlimited freedom of desire implies the negation of others and the suppression of pity. The heart, that “weak spot of the intellect,” must be exterminated; the locked room and the system will see to that. The system, which plays a role of capital importance in Sade’s fabulous castles, perpetuates a Universe of mistrust. It helps to anticipate everything so that no unexpected tenderness of pity occurs to upset the plans for complete enjoyment. It is a curious kind of pleasure, no doubt, which obeys the commandment: “We shall rise every morning at ten o’clock”! However, enjoyment must be prevented from degenerating into attachment, it must be put in parentheses and toughened. Objects of enjoyment must also never be allowed to appear as persons. If man is “an absolutely material species of plant,” he can only be treated as an object, and as an object for experiment. In Sade’s fortress republic, there are only machines and mechanics. The system, which dictates the method of employing the machines, puts everything in its right place. Hos infamous convents have their rule—significantly copied from that of religious communities. Thus, the libertine indulges in public confession. However, the process is changed: “If his conduct is pure, he is censured.” #RandolphHarris 2 of 23
Sade, as was the custom of his period, constructed ideal societies. But, contrary to the custom of his period, he codifies the natural wickedness of mankind. He meticulously constructs a citadel of force and hatred, pioneer that he is, even to the point of calculating mathematically the amount of the freedom he succeeded in destroying. He sums up his philosophy with an unemotional accounting of crimes: “Massacred before the first of March: 10 After the first of March: 20. To come: 16. Total: 46.” A pioneer, no doubt, but a limited one, as we can see. If that were all, Sade would be worthy only of the interest that attaches to all misunderstood pioneers. However, once the drawbridge is up, life in the castle must go on. No matter how meticulous the system, it cannot foresee every eventuality. It can destroy, but it cannot create. The masters of these tortured communities do not find the satisfaction they so desperately desire. Sade often evokes the “pleasant habit of crime.” Nothing here, however, seems very pleasant—more like the fury of a man in chains. The point, in fact, is to enjoy oneself, and the maximum of enjoyment coincides with the maximum of destruction. To possess what one is going to kill, to copulate with suffering—those are the moments of freedom toward which the entire organization of Sade’s castles is directed. #RandolphHarris 3 of 23
However, from the moment when sexual crime destroys the object of desire, it also destroys desire, which exists only at the precise moment of destruction. Then another object must be brought under subjection and killed again, and then another, and so on to an infinity of all possible objects. This leads to that dreary accumulation of erotic and criminal scenes in Sade’s novels, which paradoxically, leaves the reader with the impression of a hideous chastity. To some people, being “right” is not just important—it is necessary for survival. The chief advantage of being a tyrant in your every day life is that you get what you want. For some people, from the time they are born, nothing comes easy. Some families use their life savings to open a business so that they can be their own employer and they work as hard as they can to make sure their business is a success. Their children start working as soon as they are able to, often by the age of six or seven. When a child starts work at an early age, they certain do learn the value of a dollar. A youth learns from observation and dealing with customers that people who have money get whatever they want and they get money by taking it from others. Being young and working and coming from a family that is frugal, some boys learn that it is important to save the money they make. #RandolphHarris 4 of 23
By saving money, some boys are able to lend money to their friends. If the friends are not able to pay it back, then they can work it off. As a boy learns that the harder he works, the more money he will make, as soon as he becomes efficient, he takes on more work so he can earn more money. However, by being one of the only children with money and having the ability to lend it to others, to ensure that they do work it off, some boys essentially become loan sharks. They gather information about their peers that their parents do not know and threat to expose their secrets to their parents with the information. One may think that such a manipulative youngster is unloved and comes from an impoverished household and has poor grades, but sometimes their children are babied by their mothers, have hard working father and are reprimanded from having anything lower than an “A” on his report card. This boy in particular, who we will call Max, went to a Catholic school, where he found that the nuns, with their strict rules and stiff paddles, had the power. Max never challenged this power openly, preferring to work his mischief at times and in places the nuns could not detect. His idols were the priests, who drove long black cars, had a cook, a maid—and the final word on everything. Their power was greater than that of the nuns and the lure of it led him to study for the priesthood. #RandolphHarris 5 of 23
Yet from the day he entered the seminary, Jason knew he would not last. What bothered him was the vow of obedience, the Church’s stubborn insistence that he obey every whim of his superiors. This was the brick wall against which his stubbornness eventually crashed. Passion conquers the young man in the end and forces him into an affair, a relationship, or a marriage. However, he who withstands it drive, conquers passion itself, is a hero. A blind obedience to the urges of physical sense-satisfaction, indifferent to the restraints of ideals, reason, knowledge, or intuitive feeling, weakens concentration and meditation, but strengthens the lower nature. The unruled passions are responsible for a substantial part of the difficulty in summoning up enough aspiration to make men do what they ought, and enough penetration to clear the mind of its illusions. Those with some mental development wisely add tomorrow to today, consequences to causes, and thus finish the picture. Others are ruled by the moment’s impulses or the day’s trend or by passion rather than reason. It is supposed to go so far that even such a lofty desire as one for desirableness itself can no longer remain acceptable. He may feel the temptation but he need not submit to it. It is the emotion, sill more the passion, which anyone pours into an attachment which may make it an obstacle on his quest. #RandolphHarris 6 of 23
Men who are driven by strong ambitions will have little energy left for strong aspirations. In the Sphinx sits the symbol of that enterprise which offers the candidate for initiation his greatest reward but which paradoxically brings his greatest suffering. This is the conquest of passion by reason and will and the overcoming of personal emotion by impersonal intuition. The Sphinx is a perfect image of the adept in whom the man controls the animal. The attainment is a rare one—too many are satisfied to remain hardly more than animal, with a few human traits. If he cannot put the objects of his desires completely outside his heart, then he must do the next best thing and put them on its borders. Thought creates attachment, and this in turn leads to desire. When a man, with his impulses and passion, meets life with its paradoxes and illusions, he soon falls victim to the deceit of appearances. If the passions dry up, is there any real loss? Are anger, hate, and lust worthy expressions of a being whose spiritual possibilities are so wonderful as man’s? The man who has learnt in some way—whether by personal experience or by a wise old man’s instructions or through an inspired book—that excessive ambition may be folly, excessive luxury has no end to the labour of collecting it, knows that the self-actualized Christians who are content to live barely and simply may not be fools after all. #RandolphHarris 7 of 23
However, it is also possible for another man who has cultivated an inner detachment to have the same feelings and nevertheless seek to enjoy life. To feel free at last of nagging desires and frustrating attachments brings a large measure of contentment. What is the use of studying philosophy unless we are to become wiser in the future and unless we use its lessons to discipline the impulses and dominate the senses? The white lotus lives in the black mud. It is both an example and an inspiration to man. There is danger in a view of life which makes men unable to be satisfied with a similar life and which stimulates their desires endlessly. Even if it is beyond his power to kill these passions without Grace, it is within his power to curb them. We get muddled and worried by problems which have been manufactured for us by our own desires, instincts, and passions. The need of disciplining them is evident. If the energy used in the pursuit of ambitions or pleasures could be diverted to the following aspirations, if he had the strength to remove everything else from his life except the quest, how could he fail? He may discovery that the battle is not really over, that atavisms of the old animalistic life, rooted either in the present or in former births may come pouring over the threshold of the conscious ego. When the intellect is enslaved by desires, by greeds, by ignorance, it readily finds several defenses against the call of the Quest. #RandolphHarris 8 of 23
When the ego has become a little freer and listened to the call, it just as readily finds defenses against making any practical application of what it has learnt. If your passion is transferred from a passing object or human body to the more durable and beautiful soul, you will be progressing from a lower to a higher plane. People may sicken in consequence of excessive life stress or from infection ensuing from lowered resistance. An inability to gratify needs by effective action contributes to physical sickness in direct ways. If a person is obligated to persist in ways of acting that are required by familial, occupational, or age roles, when these ways fail to produce basic need gratification, the person will gradually become dispirited. Dispiritation refers to a state of lowered morale, diminished zest in living, and a sense of hopelessness that lowers one’s resistance to infection by germs, bacteria, and viruses. A student may develop the flu after being rejected by his girlfriend. A woman may be deprived of feeling love in pleasures of the flesh, affection, and appreciation and yet persist in living the joyless life because she can envision no other; her chances of contracting various illnesses are increased. Any prolonged need deprivation dispirits a person and reduces that person’s commitment to life. This reduced commitment to living appears to be responsible (in ways not fully understood) for alterations in the efficiency of the immunity mechanisms of the body. #RandolphHarris 9 of 23
Everyday life itself is stressing, and persons rest in order to regain strength to cope with the challenges of existence. If a person is living a joyless existence, and cannot alter it, it is necessary for that person to force himself to fight the impulse to flee the scene. This unremitting struggle to remain in a thwarting situation imposes even more stress and can contribute to cardiovascular diseases and respiratory and eliminative disorders. However, perhaps more importantly, the dispirited person finds less and less joy or fun in work, family, or in life itself. Thus, in the same fashion that one needs to see a physician or change some part of one’s life in the face of continuous physical illness, one also needs to attend to the self in the condition of dispiriation. How does one defeat dispiritedness? First, recognition of the state and of the need for change is helpful or a professional counselor, psychologist, social worker, or psychiatrist. On most college campuses such help is provided by a counseling center or student mental health service. One should not look upon this as an embarrassment but rather as indicative of your knowing yourself and knowing when it is time to seek help. There are also other roads to escape from being dispirited—changing one’s job; changing one’s life objectives; getting out and seeking new, successful, yet exciting alternatives. #RandolphHarris 10 of 23
It also may help to seek good friends who will not try to talk you into their solutions, but who will, rather, help you to talk out your own ideas and seek your own solutions—this is also a successful approach to coping with the very normal occurrence of being dispiritied. Normal though it might be, it demands attention in order for one to maintain a healthy personality. The script equipment is the nuts and bolts from which the script apparatus is built, a do-it-yourself kit partly supplied by the parents and partly by the child himself. Antonia was depressed by an unhappy love affair. She was afraid to be frank with her lover because she might lose him. On the other hand, if she were not frank, she was afraid she might lose him. There was nothing sinister in it, actually. It was just that she did not want him to know how passionate she really was. The conflict sometimes made her frigid and sometimes panicky. When she talked about it, she felt so mixed up that she clutched her head. What would her parents say about it? Well, her father would say: “Take it easy. Do not lose your head.” And her mother? “He is taking advantage of you. Do not get too attached to him. He will leave sooner or later. You are not good enough for him. He is not good enough for you.” She went on to tell an adventure. When she was about five, an adolescent uncle had got sexy with her, and made her feel sexy, too. She never told her parents. #RandolphHarris 11 of 23
One day when Antonia was taking a bath, her father told her how cute she was. There were some visitors in the house and he had held her up naked for them to see. They sexy uncle was one of them. What were he reactions? “I want to hide. I want to hide.” “My God, they will find out what I have been doing.” How did you feel toward your father doing that? “I wanted to kick him in the privates. I knew what a man’s private parts looked like, too, from my uncle’s ‘excitments.’” Was there any ha ha? “Yes deep down, there was. I had a secret. And worst of all, I knew I liked it under all the other feelings.” From these reactions Antonia had constructed a script, which was to have passionate love affair and then get left. Along with that, however, she also wanted to get married, stay married, and have children. There were two counterscript slogans from her father: “Take it easy,” and “Do not lose your head.” These fitted in with her aspirations of getting married and raising a family. There were dive injunctions from mother, all telescoped into, “Do not get attached to anyone.” There was a strong seduction to be passionate and sexy from her uncle, reinforced by the nude provocation from her father. These seductions and provocations from Parental demons had reinforced her own demon throughout her life. There was a strong implication of a built-in release: the familiar Prince with the Golden Apples—not like father; if she could only find one. #RandolphHarris 12 of 23
The interesting thing is that his whole bit came out in one session. As someone remarked, she was quite happy to hold it up for everyone to see. Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards. Let us use the old term “madness” for awhile. There are two kinds of madnesses, only one of which is generally recognized. That is the one that we call “abormal” or “out of touch with reality.” The other one seems to me to be out of touch with reality too, although it is called “normal” because a majority of people are that way in our society. In this sense, it is a reality—like the reality in many parts of the World that most people go to bed hungry every night. This is not a reality which most of us would recommend adjusting to although where it exists it is “normal.” Ther are two normal too, only one of which we usually recognize. That is the statistical normal which is nobody, like the average Harvard man who has 3.5 children. The other normal is unknown because it is me if I had not been interfered with, what I might have become, my own norm—a constantly changing potentiality becoming actuality. This happens to nobody too—but it could happen. Why should not we increasingly make it possible for this to happen. When people hold themselves to any pattern it cripples them. It robs one of the confidence in their ability to grow as a person and to become independent. The recognized “abnormal” is a very lonely one, because no matter how many other people are in it, the individual lives in so much isolation. #RandolphHarris 13 of 23
Abnormal people are cut off from other people because they reject people who are different, and the individual’s response to them may also be chopped off too—perhaps in the way it happens when one is overtired and cannot even enjoy doing what he likes to do. It evokes no response in the individual. The other madness, which is called “normal,” is not lonely—or rather one’s loneliness has got buried so that one does not notice it so much. One can “forget it.” They may remember the vision they have had, but they cease to regret it, maintain themselves by the common routine, learn to avoid excessive expectations, become tolerant of themselves and others, giving and taking, in the usual actions what there is to give and take, They do not repine; are contented with the morning that separates and with the evening that brings together for casual talk before the fire two people who know they do not understand each other, breeding children whom they do not understand and who will never understand them…and the other life will be only like a book you have read once and lost. However, the loneliness is still there. When one has substituted a superficial togetherness for the basic being-together, one has built a superstructure with no structure underneath it. That is fantasy, even though the fantasy may become a second-order reality by many people engaging in the same fantasy. #RandolphHarris 14 of 23
A man can be linked with many other people through his surface, or mask, or disguise—by approved actions. This is phoney, or veneer, because it is put on, but as long as he keeps his mind focused on it, he has the illusion of being in touch with other people and himself by interacting with their phoney surfaces. Even if he has done this for so long that the surface seems real to him, it is more like apples bobbing in a tub of water, skin touching skin, with no awareness of the flesh or core. We are all apples and that is enough, is it not? What more do you want? Not satisfied with being an apple? Just do what the other apples are doing and you will be already. Not to do this is “bad.” (A threat to my veneer, which might crack and split if exposed to the weather of humanness?) The Self-Actualization Movement originated—where all individual freedoms start—on the Western Frontier. On nursery planets the military warrior-caste is responsible for developing new technologies for faster mobility and communication. Soon afterwards, the citizens in the Western Frontier coopt the technology for their own action. Genetic causes exist for human problems. Discovering this is a big breakthrough—resisted, of course, by stage twelve retiring socialist demo-poll cultures. Genetic determination focuses on gene pool statistics and caste-differentiation, thus minimizing the importance of hive managers. Socialist-welfare cultures insist that the collective super-hive—also known as “The State”—assume responsibility for everything. #RandolphHarris 15 of 23
When we human begin to face the fact that genes determine the varied destiny of our different children, then we are ready to see that genes determine our own caste. Next comes the catastrophic discovery that each gene pool is a time-hive, a genetic molecule, made up of many elements called “castes” and that the whole game is genetic robotry. After genetic counseling courses began studying genetic potentials and self-selected breeding soon emerged on the Western Frontier. Neither China or Russia offered courses on genetic elites. As our intelligence evolves the definition of genetic counseling will evolve from an emphasis on pathology to one of excellence and growth. The definition of genetic counseling might read like this: “A communication process which deals with the human potentials associated with the occurrence, or the possibility of occurrence, of genetic advance in the gene pool.” The dom-species on the Sunset Strip move from twelve social-sacrifice to stage thirteen self0consumerism. PreDom ideas emerging on the western frontier: Stage 14: Self-Actualized Adults: Bodily intelligence self-actualization “My Body is my Time Ship.” Stage 15: Hedonic Networkers: Voluntary civilian space migration “We Are Not Terrestrials.” Stage 16: Brain-Reality Consumer: Brain Reality Consumerism “I Can Select My Own Reality.” Stage 17: Brain-Reality Self-Actualized: Brain Reality Self-Actualism “I Can Create My Own Reality.” Stage 18: Brain Reality Fusion: Brain Reality Fusion “We Can Fabricate an External Reality.” Stage 19: Genetic Consumer: Genetic Consumerism “I Can Select My Own Genetic Reality.” Stage 20: Genetic Engineer: Genetic Engineering “I Can Fabricate My Own Genetic Reality.” #RandolphHarris 16 of 23
Terrestrial dom-species place all notions of the future under hive-taboo. The ideas of bodily-sensory-hedonic consumerism—fiercely taboo in domesticated adults and retiring elder societies—crumbled by the late 20th Century on the Western Frontier. The predom self-actualized adult stage taboo against bodily self-actualization similarly crumbled—as exemplified by the legalization of marijuana, the classical tool of one who wishes to control one’s own hedonic reality. The predom hedonic networker taboo of the late 20th Century condemned civilian space migration was a “preadolescent” idea and he was precisely correct. If preadolescence is defined as age eleven, then a preadolescent idea will become a young-voter idea in seven years and will be legalized in California ten years later. How few of the images which fill his mind come from his higher self, how many from his animal self! It is not enough to refrain from sensual acts. It is no less needful to refrain from sensual thoughts. As this diviner self displaces the Earthly one in his will, heart, and mind, it is natural that what he hitherto felt as temptation will be felt as such less and less. On the philosophic path he will attain to this without immuring himself in any cloister, but rather in the very midst of Worldly activity. #RandolphHarris 17 of 23
The Sacramento Fire Department is committed to providing excellent service to their customers in a professional and humanitarian way. They protect lives, property and the environment through safe and timely response. They are innovative in fire prevention, suppression, rescue, emergency medical services, training, community outreach, public education, and other services. “It was nine o’clock in the morning, and the alert came in that there was a fire in an occupied dwelling. We pulled up to the place, and Captain X and Lieutenant Y yelled for a ladder. It sounded like there was somebody trapped on the second floor, because there was a lot of screaming going on. One woman, who looked like she was burned, was screaming the most. I grabbed the twenty-foot free beam and ran to the side of the house. However, the woman was screaming that her baby was in there on the first floor. “In the crib,” she said. It’s in the crib.” So Lieutenant Y got on his knees under the first-floor window, and I jumped on his back. I tried to get in the window sideways, but I could not. So I had to go in straight, diving head first. There was a bunch of junk in there. The people had just moved in the day before. It was a small room, maybe ten by ten. I could feel my ears burning. I remember kneeling at the crib, looking over my shoulder at the window. Then it got terribly hot. That’s the last thing I remember. #RandolphHarris 18 of 23
“Captain X, senior man at Engine Z, dove in after me, lugged me to the window, and they pulled me out. I must have gone into respiratory arrest because Captain X was beating on me. Then the squad came, scooped me up, and took me to the hospital. I was in that room only about a minute all told. What was weird about that fire, was that my dad, who had been in the department for twenty-five years, was driving to the union office when he saw the smoke, and he figured that his kid was at that fire. Then he said, ‘nah, I’ve seen him work,’ so he passed up the exit to go there. But something made him turn back at the next exit to go there. He pulled up in front of the house, and he saw a guy lying there, and they were working on him. Chief A said to day, “That’s your boy.” So Dade rode in the squad with me. I remember waking up in the squad, and Dad was straddling me. They were trying to give me oxygen, and I didn’t want it. I didn’t know what was going on. I was burned up bad, but I didn’t know that. I felt like there was a ton of ice on my face. I remember trying to kick my boots off, and it was all pain. I knew then I was hurt. Then I blacked out again. They were wheeling me in, I remember that. They cut my clothes off. B, a guy I went to Hawaii with, was there. I said, “I loused up, I loused up, I loused up.” Then I asked him what I looked like. B’s eyes were bulging, they were bigger than I’ve ever seen, bigger than plates. He said, ‘Don’t worry about it, C. You just lost your suntan.’ He didn’t want to tell me. #RandolphHarris 19 of 23
“I don’t really remember much of being in the hospital. I remember a bunch of firemen coming to see me. I was only in for two days because of the danger of infection; you get more infection in the hospital than you would at home. I had second- and third-degree burns on my entire face, ears, and left hand. They did an experiment on me because I was so young, only nineteen. They did this biobrane. It’s like a skin that they put on a leg burn, a thigh burn, or an arm burn. They put that on my face, and it saved years of reconstructive surgery. Aside from that, all I’ve had to do was get eyelid surgery, because the fire burned through my eyelids. So they took skin from my neck over my left clavicle and redid my eyelids for me. I still need a little bit more nose work and then some eye surgery, and that’s it. They did laser surgery on my eyeballs. I had burned corneas, stuff like that, and I had a lot of edema. My biggest problem, though, is photophobia, sensitivity to light. But the best thing they did was let me go home and let my family take care of me. My sister did. My mom was so busted up she couldn’t even be in the room with me. And my dad, who’s not a big drinker, took it really hard and started drinking a lot. I stayed at my mom’s for a month while they took care of me. The smartest thing I did was, I never looked in the mirror. I didn’t have the slightest idea how badly I was burned up. And all my running mates, they’d bring the rigs by, and they’d spend time with me—that really meant a lot to me—to see me, the monster man. I mean, I was horrible-looking. #RandolphHarris 20 of 23
“My captain took it hard, because he’d never had a son on the job, and I was young enough to be his son. Lieutenant Y took it hard, too. What happened at the fire was, there was a mother, she had about five kids with different fathers, and she was in bed with some live-in boyfriend. The baby was in bed with them. The other kids were playing with matches under the dining room table, and the house took off. She and the guy jumped through the window and left the baby in the bed. Then they told us the baby was in the crib. The baby was obviously dead. They ended up suing our arson squad, because Arson reported it as kids playing with matched. They weren’t worried about their baby. If I had a tragedy like that and my child died like that, I’d definitely not want to dwell on it, I’d want to get it behind me and end it. D got some minor burns on his neck and brined the tops of his ears, because that room was going when he pulled me out. It flashed over, and flames burst out the window. And he went in there. He’s a little black guy, real shy, doesn’t talk loud at all. He won the Medal of Valor, the highest award you can win in the Sacramento Fire Department, for pulling me out of that fire. If anyone ever says anything bad about him, I’ll fight to the death for that man. He saved my life. #RandolphHarris 21 of 23
“That biobrane, to me, is the greatest thing since sliced bread, because I would be Mr. Scar. I would just be totally scarred. It’s evident from where it didn’t take, at the corners of my mouth and my lips. My lips always peel now, they’re always dry. I’ve got scars at the corners of my mouth, over my upper lip, right on my nose, on the ends of my nostrils, and under my chin, where the biobrane didn’t take. But biobrane is the best thing that ever happened to me. Lieutenant Y wants to get in touch with the doctor who did it, a young aggressive plastic surgeon, but he went down to New Orleans, and it’s hard to get in touch with him. When to the burn center for the eyelid surgery, they sewed my eyes shut for six days, and that was the worst part of it. I was super depressed then. The nurses understood. The firefighters were pretty serious about the whole thing, but the first day I came home the doctor put this net over my head to hold the biobrane mask on so it wouldn’t fall off. Captain X laughed and said I looked like a ham. That kind of broke the ide for the other guys. They took pictures of me every day, and they wanted to use one of them for the Burn Tournament poster for the burn center, but it was too hideous. The caption was going to say, “They never ask what happened to the firefighter who tried to save the baby.” It was just too horrible. #RandolphHarris 22 of 23
“It takes a year for you skin to heal up. But I was going stir crazy. I was bored, lethargic, gaining weight. I just wanted to get back to work. I told the doctor I would wear my Nomex hood all the time, so I went back to work after less than nine months. I would have gone back sooner if I didn’t have such trouble with my eyesight. I still wear sunglasses outside. It’s going to be a long time before that clears up. The skin is really sensitive. I wear my Nomex hood, and I still get the tops of my ears a little bit friend, and my face blisters up. I had a good one last night and got burned a little. But I’ve stayed on duty because it’s not that burned, just a little blistered. I’ve got to work for a guy tomorrow, and I don’t want to screw up his work release. That dive I took into that room wasn’t so good. For one thing, my mask was knocked off, and I kind of busted my nose, and my left cheek was swollen up pretty bad, so I must have hit something. My helmet must have come off, too, because I had burns on top of my head. But the helmet is still living. It looks like a good squad helmet. It’s all black. “The Sacramento Fire Department provides their customers safer and healthier neighbourhoods through an engaged, educated, and diverse workforce dedicated to life safety and improved quality of life. You can help save lives and property by donating to the Sacramento Fire Department. And remember, parents, teach your children to love America and be patriotic, to love God and Jesus Christ, to buy American made goods and services and cars, to respect law and order, and teach others with compassion, respect, and dignity, especially their elders. Release all captives, we beseech Thee, Lord whose mighty hand doth set men free; and hear the glad acclaim of all Thy people who praise and glorify but Thee. Preserve the righteous ones who seek Thee, and, in love, Thy unity proclaim; O guard and bless with Thine abundant goodness, Thy people who revere Thy name. Thou, Lord, who art alone exalted, please turn to us and hearken to our plea. We bless Thee, Thou who knowest all things hidden, Thy kingdom is unto eternity. I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic, for which it stands, One Nation, under God, Indivisible with Liberty, and Justice for all. O Guardian of American, guard the remnant of America; let not American people perish, the people which proclaims: Hear, O America. #RandolphHarris 23 of 23
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It Comes on You Like a Spell and Your Poor Mind is Full of Hell
Every cross roads has a story. The Devil and his works have long assumed many forms. In modern America, rebellion for the sake of rebellion has taken precedence over genuine need for change. The frozen sperm of Satan’s magical children have been born upon the Earth. The child is no longer made in the image of God, but in the form of Satan. The quality of children has become more important than the quantity because relative material stability has been reached with the help of technology. A child who can produce is more important than having many children. A swordsman needs but a good smith to forge him a stout blade. Christians are facing a conflict because as man becomes more able to extend his life and prevent death, many consider this to be due to witchcraft and demonic elixirs which are not natural. Some question if Christians will want to experience immortality because they cannot afford to be aligned with things of the Devil. Satanism differs from other religion because it does not hold man enthrall of a fantasy, it rather President a little slice of Heaven here on Earth, known as The American Dream. Satanism is taken out of logical rather than desperation. The need for a cultural stimulus and aesthetic satisfaction has been with us every since the struggle to stay alive ceased to be so whelming that it absorbed all of man’s time and energy. #RandolphHarris 1 of 19
William was a general practitioner in an isolated area in the Rockies. There was no other doctor for miles around. He worked day and night, but no matter how hard he worked there was never enough to support his large family and he was always in debt to the bank. For a long time, he had advertised in medical journals for a partner to give him some relief, but he insisted that no one suitable had ever shown up. He operated in fields, homes, and hospitals, and sometimes at the bottom of a mountain crag. He was immensely resourceful and almost completely exhausted, but not quite. He came for treatment with his wife because they were having marital problems, and his blood pressure was going up. In the end, he found a University Hospital not far away which has some fellowships for general practitioners who wanted to become specialist. This time he did find someone to take his pace as a country doctor. He gave up his complex and lucrative practice and found that he had enough assets to keep his family going while he settled down as a surgical resident with a small stipend. “I’ve always wanted to do this,” he said. “But I never thought I’d get away from my driving Father Part until I’d had a coronary. But I didn’t have a coronary, and this is the happiest time of my life.” #RandolphHarris 2 of 19
It is evident that his spellbreaker was to have a coronary, and he thought that was the only way he would ever get off the hook. However, with the help of the group, he did manage to break out of his script in good health. William illustrates in a relatively simple and clear-cut way the action of the whole script apparatus. His counter script came from both parents: “Work hard.” His father than gave him the pattern of a hard-working doctor. His mother’s injunction was “Never give up. Work hard until you drop dead.” However, his father gave him the spellbreaker: “If you have a coronary, you can relax, ha ha.” With his treatment did was get into that part of his brain or mind whence all these voices sent their directives. The injunction was then lifted by giving him permission: “You can relax without having a coronary.” When this permission made it way through all the shells and devices protecting the script apparatus, it broke the curse. Note that it was useless to say to him “If you keep on this way, you will have a coronary.” He was well aware of that threat, and telling him again only made him feel more miserable because he wanted a coronary, which would free him one way or another. What he needed was not a threat, nor an order (he already had enough orders in his head), but a license that would liberate him for those orders, and that is what he got. #RandolphHarris 3 of 19
Then he ceased to be a victim of his script, and became his own master to do his thing. He still worked hard, and he still followed his father’s medical pattern, but he was no longer script-ridden to overwork nor script-driven to drop dead. Thus, at the age of fifty, he became from to fulfill the autonomous aspirations of his own choice. Make sure what you really want before you go after it. The bitter experience in life is to find after years of effort that the thing you have gained is not the thing you want. It is admittedly painful to tear one’s will away from one’s desires but it is still more painful to have it torn away by life’s experiences. Hence, the philosophical method to conquer desire is a twofold one. We must let it wear itself out by submitting to it through experience and letting it come up against inevitable disappointment, disillusionment, or suffering whilst alongside this we must become reflectively and analytically aware of its causes, self-deceptions, and consequences. It is a matter of gradually letting the desires lost their intensity until we become free of them not through their forcible renunciation nor through the long-drawn process of waiting for the golden years to comes but through the process of learning to live more and more within the satisfactory beatitude of the Overself. #RandolphHarris 3 of 19
We give up our desires not by negating them but partly by comprehending their mechanistic cause and mentalistic nature and partly by superseding them with the exalted peace of the Overself. The undeveloped mind lives only for the day. It can see the immediate events in a series but cannot conjure up the ultimate ones. The disciple dares not risk such a blind condition. He must deliberately set out to bring the two together, by the use of creative imagination or by analytic reflection or by both. If passion rises in him, at least its counterbalance, the mental picture of the evil consequences of passion, rises a second later with it. If a man is not free from lust, fear, and anger, be sure he is not united with the Overself, whatever other qualities, powers, or virtues he shows. Long continued reflection turned sharply and analytically upon desires and cravings helps to counter them, but does not basically weaken them. For that, contrary emotions must be aroused. This is most effectually done by happenings and experiences. However, because these are mostly beyond our choice, the third way left to us is to seek Grace. One way to invite this Grace is by sitting in mediation upon the non-self. He may complain of his weakness and immediately submit to a temptation. Or he may recognize that the Higher Self is also him; he may try to use will and grow in strength by this resistance. #RandolphHarris 4 of 19
He finds that he is perceptibly pulled away from fleshly lust to a deeper level where the calmness and the judgement enable him to realize that the lust belongs to his animal physical inheritance and not to his inmost character and that, therefore, it may be brought under control and discipline. If he acquires the power to achieve this, it will come imperceptibly for it will come mostly by grace. The satisfaction of passion has a claim on the animal body, but it must always be subject to the higher claims of reason and intuition and the need for the sense of human responsibility. The amoral is always the first step to the immoral. The idea that he has to attain mastery over the desires of the flesh is a correct one. However, that this mastery will lead to reunion with a “soul-mate” is not the teaching of the best mystics or philosophers. What really happens is a reunion with the true “Beloved,” who is none other than the Soul of the individual, his higher Self. This is a real living entity, whose presence is felt, whose words are heard, and whose beauty arouses all one’s love. Where man is open only to Worldly forces and not to inner ones’ where he submits to the World’s demands and ignores the soul’s; and where he succumbs to his own terrestrial forces without thoughts of regulating, controlling, and disciplining them, we may expect to find that he is quite insensitive to any teaching of this kind. He is like a person who has been caught in a mire and with every movement gets deeper into it. #RandolphHarris 5 of 19
He will learn the pleasure of self-control. It is not always easy but all effort for the rewards bear fruit. The man who can develop emotional placidity and rise above passions begins to know what peace of mind means. That is only a beginning for in its fullness it can come only with the knowledge and the enlightenment of Truth. Until then this placidity will free him from the constant alternation, the rise and fall of feeling, the elation and depression to which the average person is subject. Whether it be to acquire fame or accumulate wealthy or any of the other major desires, what he wants from life will in the end rest on his stage of spiritual evolution. The terrestrial man is there, but it must be brought under control or it will claim too much and diminish his aspirations. Then they become fitful, coming less and less, departing more and more. The passions contain futility, danger, and defilements. Self-conquest must be his secret wish’ deliverance must become his impassioned yearning. When wholetime meditations and his spare time thoughts are unremittingly given to uprooting passions that hinder spiritual progress and cultivating ideas that promote it, the neophyte will not be left without reward. Restricted by no monastery’s vows and obeying no order’s rules, he may yet be purer in thought and conduct than most of the self-actualized Christians. #RandolphHarris 6 of 19
The terrestrial of our inheritance will then be kept in its proper place, subjugated, its strength absorbed into his higher will. Within this highly structured and orderly society, the exterior developments of industrialism and progress within the natural sciences has brought not only material wealth but also increased pollution and waste, without forgetting increased ill health in the wake of this pollution and stress. The focus must now lay on health, nature, spirituality, and so forth. However, the contemporary focus on a profitable present and an almost superstitious belief in a science for the future should bring about a romantic longing for distant pagan pasts. The current generation born in America is fed up with what is being offered. What better way to protest than to just head out into nature in a highly romanticized state of mind? They have also found out that there have already been precursors in older generations who have explored exciting phenomena like nudism and vegetarianism. Americans have also simply started acting out rather than just talking about change. And I do not mean these Americans who are perceived by the World as being so weak because they cannot deal with the outcome of the American election. I am talking about those who have stopped placing their faith in a human being and place it in God. They are minding their own business and working with their hands to amass money so they can live a life they desire. #RandolphHarris 7 of 19
In an age where even kids playing hopscotch and hiking has become politicized, turning to spirituality is one of the most mature things a man can do. Being able to step out and embrace the California morning sunshine is much better than seeing a guard in the gun tower. The threat of being in the center of the most cellblock of a prison in the State, where men are kept in cages with walkways above so it is possible for guards to stroll around and look down into the pits; cells with no furniture except a drain-hole toilet, and when the prisoners go out guards are carrying clubs surround them is often where people who do not go to Church and fear God end up. No students of American politics could fail to see the inevitable uprising of this revolutionary tribe of young Christian activists, religions offspring of the first social media-Einstein-multidimensional-simultaneous-immediate-energy generation. All the computers are turned on. Jet streams across WiFi, seamlessly transitioning spiritual healing as it sweeps through the homes and corridors of those in desperate need of the gospel of Christ, turning on fourteen-year-olds through the computer screen. Wise ancient children, the smartest, best endowed, healthiest. Time’s sweet pollen laughing answer to the lethal pressure of computerized humnoids pumping out propaganda over Obama TV. As these reports smoke and laugh, they do not realize that their days are numbered and streaming content is stealing thousands of viewers away from free TV daily. With lower ratings, the station’s revenue declines, the quality of programs suffers and less people tune in to the fake news. #RandolphHarris 8 of 19
And everyone complains about everything becoming so political, but it is because that it what the TV news finds profitable and it is all that people talk about. However, for decades, people have been complaining that the news is rubbish. It is not what they consider news to be. People used to think news was investigative reports about things like the artic ice, or how there were actually Pilgrims, like Roger Williams, the founder of Rhode Island, who had peaceful dinners with the Native Americans on Thanksgiving Day. Or how planet TOI 700 d, the outermost known planet in the system and the only one in the habitable zone, is 20 percent lager than Earth and can sustain life. Everything has become political or about getting famous because that is what people focus on. Once you turn your attention to more important things, like learning to cultivate the land, how to create the perfect drought resistant lawn, or why ICE cars are important for our future, then you will start to see the beauty in life again. The advocate of crime really only respects two kinds of power: one, which he finds among his own class, founded on the accident of birth, and the other by which, through sheer villainy, an underdog raises himself to the level of the libertines of noble birth whom Sade makes his heroes. This powerful little group of initiates knowns that it has all the rights. Anyone who doubts, even for a second, these formidable privileges is immediately driven from the flock, and once more becomes a victim. #RandolphHarris 9 of 19
Thus, a sort of aristocratic morality is created through which a little group of men and women manage to entrench themselves above a caste of slaves because they possess the secret of a strange knowledge. The only problem for them consists in organizing themselves so as to be able to exercise fully their rights which have the terrifying scope of desire. They cannot hope to dominate the entire Universe until the law of crime has been accepted by the Universe. Sade never believed that his fellow countrymen would be capable of the additional effort needed to make it “republican.” However, if crime and desire are not the law of the entire Universe, if they do not reign at least over a specified territory, they are no longer unifying principles, but ferments of conflict. They are no longer the law, and man returns to chaos and confusion. Thus, it is necessary to create from all these fragments a World that exactly coincides with the new law. The need for unity, which Creations leaves unsatisfied, is fulfilled, at all costs, in a microcosm. The law of power never has the patience to await complete control of the World. Even if it means surrounding it with barbed wire and observation towers, it must fix the boundaries, without delay, of the territory where it holds sway. #RandolphHarris 10 of 19
At its best, criticalness is a sincere effort to help other improve. At its worst, it is the compulsion to get other people before they get you. If you are a manipulator who exaggerates the values of criticalness, you distrust and blame others. This keeps you “above” their level, but it often keeps you isolated and lonely as well. It is as if you were playing a game which you often win, but cannot enjoy winning because it is a secret game, and only you know about it. If you expose it, you cannot play anymore. So you sit at home, all alone, never admitting to anyone the secret of your game. The game is called, “I am better than you,” and you can find all the evidence you need to support the fact that you are winning. However, with no one to share the victory with, you only feel more isolated from others and think less of them. If you are a master, you are learning to trust others more and more every day. You are becoming more willing to forgive them for their natural tendency to be human. In particular, you are learning to appreciate your own humanness. Having done this, you see yourself, not as above others, yet not below them either. You begin to regard them as friends, rather than enemies or competitors. Your actions toward them are rewarded with love and caring rather than a hollow victory in being “right.” #RandolphHarris 11 of 19
As a master, you appreciate your supportiveness as well as your criticalness. You do things for others rather than to them. You stop judging others, because you stop judging yourself. Ultimately, bring right loses importance. Winning loses importance. And being with people grows more important every day. If it is not cultivated, attitudes toward transference, for instance, range from considering it a fiction which protects the therapist from the consequences of his real behaviour and its effects, to viewing it as early stereotypic behaviour which will be extinguished in the natural course of events. Symbolic analysis plays little role, partly because it is usually content-specific and covered by response to emotion. (I believe the so-called archaic symbols are significant, chiefly because they are cleaner communicants; like new words in a foreign language, they shake loose the multiple complexities of conventional meanings, and say just the elementary things each person means them to say.) The unconscious does not currently figure in client-centered literature. It is considered a reductionist assumption about phenomena better understood in terms of attention and “levels of awareness.” An ahistorical bias has always been plain among us, and this is one of the currents which moves us to an appreciation of some of the existential writings. #RandolphHarris 12 of 19
Diagnosis is a moot point too, though our departures are not as radical as they once were. The word “schizophrenia” becomes a damning designation. To have it once applied to a young man can be to ruin a career, despite all evidence of subsequent healthiness. A name implies a concept; and if this concept is unsound, the diagnosis can ruin treatment; the very naming it can damage the patient who we essay to help. The sick in mind…are rendered more darkly and hopelessly so by the manifold reflection of their disease, mirrored back from all quarters in the deportment of those about them; they are compelled to inhale the poison of their own breath, in infinite repetition. It is not that we decry classification as such; we recognize it as a useful scientific tool. However, when it leads to reification of terms, it is dangerous. We have been in an unprecedented era of self-actualization. Young people and most intelligent older people who appear to be laid back are taking care of their own situation first. They are “getting their heads together,” discovering and tending their bodies, learning how to produce their reality movies. College students are not charging after partisan dogmas or idealistic rhetoric. However, do not be deceived by this quiescence. It denotes neither apathy nor stupidity. In fact, it may well be the better part of wisdom to lay back until something worthy of your intelligence comes alone. #RandolphHarris 13 of 19
The existentialists also have pointed out that the self is made through decisions. You become what you decide. If, in the choice between running away or facing an unpleasant task, you choose to face up to the issue, you have become a better person. If you choose the weaker and more cowardly alternative, you become, at that moment, on the basis of your own choice, a weaker, lesser person. The behaviourists have, on the other hand, suggested that you have no “choice” but that your choices are determined by factors that control you, such as your parents’ wishes, your genes, and social demands upon you. Again the existentialists reply that one can also choose to let others make decisions for oneself but that the responsible direction is to recognize that, in almost all difficult decisions, the choice is still yours. The fake-nationalists are such terrible creatures, that on one occasion, they drove our unforgettable former President Clinton to bluntly express his opinion. State authority can guarantee peace and order only when the state World-concept and the World-concept of the people agree. Violent elements promoting a World-concept, one that differs from the people’s, will look like individual criminal groups and will not be seen as champions of a great idea which is opposed to the views of the state. If this were not the case, and the opposition held a World-concept that the people’s World-concept, the state can apply the most violent measures for centuries against the terror threatening it, but, in the end, the state will submit because it is unable to defeat the opposing idea. #RandolphHarris 14 of 19
The Sacramento Fire Department provides the professional personnel and programs for the citizens of Sacramento and is committed to protecting life and property from fire and explosions through inspection, investigation, training, education, data processing and statistical fire reports. “A child was caught in one of the rooms. The main fire was on the second floor of this apartment building, and there were women and kids downstairs screaming at us. We used every length of hose in the bed, it was a long stretch, because we had to go around a courtyard and up the stairs. The fire was coming around the cracks of the door to the second-floor doorway. I remember thinking, ‘This is it, this is where the stuff hits the fan.’ We had to knock down the fire before the guys from the truck could get in to search. I was on the nozzle, and we crawled through the doorway, and suddenly I had excruciating pain in my knees. The heat went right through my boots. We first hit the doorway with the line, then the hallways and the ceiling. The heat was extraordinary. We didn’t do it scientifically, we went in very, very fast because there was somebody in there. Halfway down the hall, I screamed, ‘My knees are burning.’ My officer said, ‘My knees are burning, too, but we have a job to do. Move in.’ I said to myself, ‘He’s right.’ #RandolphHarris 15 of 19
“It was the most fire I had ever seen, it was from wall to wall and ceiling to floor. There was all sorts of junk on the floor—a baby carriage frame, a shopping cart. The metal was glowing. It was blocking our way. I said, ‘We’ve got to pass this stuff out.’ I couldn’t move around it, and I couldn’t climb over it. The guy behind me thought I said, ‘I’m going to pass out.’ Realizing that communications were down, I handed the line over to the backup, grabbed the shopping cart, stood up, and moved it out of the way. When I lifted the shopping cart, just for those few seconds, I got second-degree burns on my fingers. I got back down and grabbed for the line, and they gave it back to me. I realized that this must be really bad, because you never get the line back. We went on, and I was thinking, ‘This is it. My sanity is gone. Nobody can stand this much pain. I can’t give in to it.’ Then I told myself, ‘You don’t feel it.’ A lot of guys don’t feel it when they’re burned. I did. I felt the whole thing, the whole time. I was making a conscious effort not to pay attention to it. I just kept moving. I have visions that I wasn’t going to have any knees left, they were just going to be done. Afterwards I really didn’t think I did that good a job. I was disappointed in myself. While I was throwing that stuff out, it must have looked like I was backing out. Maybe I could have climbed over that stuff. I felt I was too slow. I should have moved in a lot faster. And then, when I got outside, my knees were killing me. #RandolphHarris 16 of 19
“I found out the rescue had been made by a die-hard fireman I know, X, the salt of the earth. He always has a frown on his face. He had gone up the fire escape and into one of the back windows and found a kid in the bathroom, a three- or four-year-old boy who was in the next bed to me in the emergency room. Rosy pink cheeks, he looked like he was half Black and half Irish. Really beautiful-looking child. They were taking him to the air chamber at the hospital, a decompression chamber for smoke inhalation victims. Anyhow, after the fire was out, we went back up with the hose, and I remember I had trouble walking upstairs because of my knees. The truck really took most of the line up. I wasn’t doing much of anything. I was dragging. I didn’t say anything about my knees. I kept thinking it wasn’t as bad as I thought it was. I was making too much of it, and everybody else must be just as sore. I did say to somebody, ‘Boy, my knees are really killing me.’ And he said, ‘God bless you. My wife and I will pray for you.’ I got back to quarters, and my lieutenant said, ‘You don’t look so good. Are you sure you had the right gloves on?’ He was worried about my hands. I told him it wasn’t my hands, it was my knees. He said, ‘Well, all of our knees hurt a little.’ I said, ‘No. They really hurt.’ This was bout forty-five minutes after getting back. He said, ‘All right, let me see.’ #RandolphHarris 17 of 19
“I pulled up my pants, and my knees looked like a couple of golf ball blisters. I said, ‘Holy God.’ I had pulled some of the skin off. The chief took me to the hospital. I was dirty. They put on a sulfa drug, which is supposed to be a miracle drug for burns. They determined I had second-degree burns. At the burn center a few days later, they determined that the burns were third-degree. The doctor at the burn center said it was the most common kind he treats at the hospital. Burned knees. From kneeling on a hot surface. It seems that each time I knelt, I was burning the knees deeper and deeper. The doctor said I had cellulitis, which is a bad infection. ‘You have to be admitted right now. You’re going to have to go on intravenous for six or seven days. Then you’re going to have grafting.’ I was shocked. I had to call my wife and tell her and the family. That was very hard. I spent thirty-three days there, on and off. I’ve had three surgical grafts since then. I don’t think the guys who haven’t been in that situation know how painful it is. The burn is just the beginning. After that is when all the pain starts. Being in the burn center with other firefighters, there is a lot of camaraderie there. You’re all in the same boat. There were two others there, one with knees and the other had a hot cinder down his boot and he grabbed it with his hand. I thought I was in hell. I woke up in this icy room, and I was in a room full of men. God is punishing me, I thought. It was like a MASH unit. What an education. #RandolphHarris 18 of 19
“The skin grafts came from my hips and pelvis. Supposedly it wouldn’t show so much there. Because I was a firefighter, they took deeper sections of skin, because I was going to be back on my knees. One of the guys was a probie. His recovery was going to be a lot longer than mine. You’re lying in bed, half naked, but we tried to make the best of it. We became very close. When we were separated at one point, we came to see each other on crutches or in a wheelchair. His wife had a baby since. I remember feeling very close to him. We shared the experience of the job.” The Sacramento Fire Department is committed to working closely with fire service organizations and other proactive groups to enhance solutions to the fire problem. The services provided by the agency include: arson investigations, fire prevention safety in buildings, boiler and pressure vessel safety, the program for petroleum and chemical tanks, collecting and analyzing fire reports, and the personnel standards and education for the firefighters in Sacramento. Awaken compassionate thoughts and actions by helping others realize that, like our Saviour, they too have compassion for others. Please make donate to the Sacramento Fire Department to asset them in their fire prevent duty and other programs. To help keep America a God loving, Christian community, please raise your children to love America and to love God and Jesus Christ. In a afford to help America pull through the massive national deficit, please buy American made cars and other American made good and services. Also, please remember to respect law and order and treat your elders with the utmost dignity and kindness possible. And take your education seriously so that you will be successful in life and make your family proud. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic, for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. #RandolphHarris 19 of 19
The Winchester Mystery House
Paranormal investigators have recorded disembodies voices and witnessed strange shadows following them through The Winchester Mystery House. The enormous 19th century mansion once was nine stories tall, and had 600 rooms, but the 1906 earthquake demolished the nine-story observation tower, and took much of the 4th floor with it. However, 160 rooms, of which 110 are available for tour, still exist in this meandering catacomb.
Please come and enjoy a delicious meal in Sarah’s Café, stroll along the paths of the beautiful Victorian gardens, and wonder through the miles of hallways in the World’s most mysterious mansion. For further information about tours, including group tours, weddings, school events, birthday party packages, facility rentals, and special events please visit the website: https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
Please visit the online giftshop, and purchase a gift for friends and relatives as well as a special memento of The Winchester Mystery House. A variety of souvenirs and gifts are available to purchase. https://shopwinchestermysteryhouse.com/
Happy Veteran’s Day!
Lord, Don’t Let Me Die Like this
There is the blindly instinctive and passioned terrestrial will in man, which violently drives him to seek and be satisfied with bodily satisfactions. There is also a higher will which gently draws him to transcend the body altogether. If the only enjoyment a man knows is that of physical sensations, he is only a dressed-up, walking, and thinking animal. The law of chastity requires that sexual relations be reserved for marriage between a man and a woman. In addition to reserving sexual intimacy for marriage, we obey the law of chastity by controlling our thoughts, words, and actions. Jesus Christ taught, “Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery: but I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart,” reports Matthew 5.27-28. It is an essential part of the Quest’s work to separate the man from his passions, to subjugate the animal in him so as better to cultivate the godlike in him. Both desires and fears bind a man to his ego and thus bar the way to spiritual fulfilment. They could not exist except in relation to a second thing. However, when he turns his mind away from all things and directs it towards its own still center, it is the beginning of the end for all desires and all fears. The end of all this long self-training to cast out personal grief and terrestrial passion is blessedness. #RandolphHarris 1 of 18
The heart must become empty of all desires. This brings about the emotional void, which corresponds, in its own place, to the mental void experienced in the depth of mystical meditation. To this emptiness he must give himself, with it he must satisfy himself. In this way he obeys Jesus and becomes “poor in Spirit.” Poor in Spirit refers to a spiritual state of humility and dependence on God. It is a recognition of one’s need for God and a growing dependence on Him. It is also a sense of spiritual bankruptcy, powerlessness, and unworthiness before God. What is it worth to a man to be free from the passions, and free from the inner divisive conflicts which their activity must necessarily produce in him? Are they not the chief obstacles which prevent him from attaining that inner calm wherein alone the ego can be faced, caught, and conquered? And this done, what is there to keep the Overself from taking possession of him? Few men are moved by a single motive. For most men the contrary is the fact. This is because first, the ego itself is a complex and second, the higher and lower natures are in conflict. Discrimination is needed to penetrate the thin surface of so many pleasures, while the strength is needed to say “No” when this is wiser than accepting them. #RandolphHarris 2 of 18
It is not only needful to understand the characteristics of one’s desires but also their source. This knowledge will help him to improve character and attain true self-reliance. It is a strange paradox that on whatever desire a man wields the axe of non-attachment, he will thereafter become possessed of the power to attain it. There is this great paradox on the Quest: that the more the disciple obtains the power to bring about the fruition of his desires, the more he loses those desires! If we lack the willpower to overcome bad habits that have become popular and conventional, at least let us try not to justify our indulgence by specious reasons. The blind impulses must be checked by willpower, the lower nature must be disciplined and the lower energies directed into higher channels. It is perfectly possible, where fate ordains, to live continently and chastely, however strongly sexed a man may be. However, to achieve this, he must utilize the analytic reason, the creative imagination, and the active will in understanding and disciplining his energies and then he must redirect them towards aspirational, intellectual, or moral ideas or transmute them into practical work. He who begins by refusing to be a slave to the palate’s perverted appetite will find it easier to go on to refusing to be a slave to lust. A triumph over the one prepares the way for, and helps in the achievement of, a triumph over the other. #RandolphHarris 3 of 18
It is true that we all share a terrestrial body with the lower creatures. However, that does not force us to stay on their level emotionally. Every desire conquered feeds his strength and fortifies his will. The man who has made his way to the top of his profession but failed to make the conquest of his passions, is still an unbalanced creature, an unsatisfied human being. The extremes of abstention which follow repugnance, indifference, or self-struggle and the satiety which follows helpless yielding are both undesirable. The necessities of Nature hold us in their thrall but there is first, a difference between them and the desires of the ego and second, a difference between the true necessities which are inescapable from physical existence and the false ones which have been imposed on us by age-old habits, traditions, environments, and outer suggestions. That desire is a true one whose source lies in a genuine need, not in mere greed. Repentance redeems man, lifts him above the lustful dog to the loving human being, distinguishes him from the mere animal. We are cast out of Heaven by our own passion and kept out by our own attachments. If today we are miserable exiles, the way to remedy such a situation is clear. We must free ourselves from the one and disentangle ourselves from the other. He should desire that which will itself cut off all desires. #RandolphHarris 4 of 18
“Experiencing” is defined as an inner stream of feelings to which you can every moment attend inwardly. It is simple, effortless and available to us all. Yet it is maddeningly elusive. Try these experiences: Feel your body from the inside. Is there tension in your muscles? Is your stomach wound tight like a watch spring? Take a deep breath and feel what happens to that tension. Sit a while without moving. Does some prickliness begin to form just under the skin? Recall the full feeling you once had after overeating. Recall the heaviness, the discomfort, the difficulty in breathing. What does being bored really feel like? That strained, impatient deadness almost hurts, does it not? Something deep down screams soundlessly at you to get out of the boring situation. Can you recall feeling that? These are but three examples of experiences. They do not involve learning or doing. You can have them instantaneously. And there are thousands more available to you—each distinct from all the others. To have an experience, to really “get into” a feeling, involves a release or surrender. Behind the surrender is a basic willingness to trust, to accept that the inner core “knows what is best” for you. Thus experiencing holds the solution to all your internal mysteries, the truth of your existence. If experiencing is so wonderful and useful, why is it so elusive? Who do we shun the prospect of getting to our inner core and discovering our true being? Probably because we are afraid. We anticipate the truth will be too painful, that when we look inside at what really is, we will not like what we see. #RandolphHarris 5 of 18
Ironically, by trying to avoid the pain of looking within, we virtually guarantee the continued pain of our incomplete, manipulative behaviour. True, some will shed some tears on the way into their core, but compared to the tears of helplessness one has already shed, they are a few random raindrops in a storm. And who knows how many future tears he has avoided by reaching down and finding his inner source of power—a source which he can use to untangle the painful web of helplessness his life has become. People who benefit most from therapy are those who are “experience-oriented,” who subjectively follow their feelings even though they have not explicitly thought them all out. Being willing to let your experience talk to you is the first significant step from manipulation to mastery. There are some common ways people approach a problem. One way is to belittle the problem. This is when one says, “It really is nothing…I should not let a few pains bother me.” Such an approach will get you nowhere. If pains are important enough for your body to feel, they are important enough to look into, get inside of, and get clear. You do not make a problem go away by belittling it. In fact, by pushing it aside, you probably make it worse. Often times people analyze their problems. We might assume someone has something to do with our problem. However, the analysis may or may not be correct, and it does nothing to change the feeling. #RandolphHarris 6 of 18
You can analyze furiously the whole time you are having the feeling, but if it is there in your guy, with its inexplicable discomforts and tensions, your analysis will not ease or make it disappear. A lot of people also face down the feeling. Some say to themselves, “I will have to grit my teeth, stand up to it, walk through it,” which sounds courageous and noble, but is actually false bravado. This approach does not work because when you do it, you do not touch the place where change takes place: in your body. You are just mouthing a courage which can only be found deep inside, at your core. Another method is lecturing yourself. The script often goes like this, “If I could just grow up and be adult about this, I am sure everything would be all right.” This does not work either. The lecture is based on the mistaken notion that adults do not have feelings, or if they do, they do not have the right to the feelings. When you lecture yourself, all you do is pile guilt on top of whatever the problem is. And the guilt just makes it worse. Drowning the feeling is another method. When you try to tune the problem out because it makes you feel worse, you sink into the discomfort, hoping you will find it less painful, but knowing deep down that you will not. Whenever you sink into this unchanged feeling, it makes you feel as bad as the last time. You are no further ahead. #RandolphHarris 7 of 18
Since these five approaches are not physical, they cannot work. The feeling is physical and can only be changed by a physical process, such as focusing. When a man finally focuses, a very real change happens in him, something which he can build on. Even though it appears that some people play the victim in life, that circumstances seem to be manipulating him, they are still manipulators. Some people may stay married to a homosexual husband, playing upon one’s own helplessness and their husband’s sense of guilt to take care of her, even though they both resented it. The unspoken (and sometimes even spoken) message is, “I am too weak and helpless to take care of myself and the boys, so you have to.” This manipulation is rewarded by his grudging support, but it has its price: It traps her in an unhappy marriage, it prevents her from going out and learning to make it on her own, it reinforces her own feeling of helplessness. How can you deal with this type of manipulator in your everyday life? Well, for starters, you will have to fight the temptation to take the easy way out. You will have to refuse to do things for the weakling and instead, encourage him or her to be strong and self-directed. I once had a friend whose wife was afraid to go to the store and buy a newspaper. She said she did not like the way the clerks leered at her. #RandolphHarris 8 of 18
So my friend would stop in his way home from work and buy the newspaper himself. It was easier than arguing with his wife about it. Finally, he said, “I do not read the evening newspaper, I watch the news on TV. If you want the paper, buy it yourself.” She refused, but she still wanted the newspaper. So my friend began by accompanying her to the store the first few times until she felt more comfortable about it. In time, she went to get the paper without a second thought. My friend used this same technique when it came to his wife’s getting a driver’s license. At first, he refused to drive her places, even though he had been chauffeuring her for years. When she grew tired of taking buses and cabs, he offered to teach her how to drive, and she eventually accepted the offer. Now she had her own car and capably goes wherever she wants. In refusing to be manipulated, my friend made his wife angry and perhaps caused her some pain. However, in the end, he helped her gain strength—and helped free her from a continuing life-script of manipulation. The criminal who acts according to nature cannot, without betraying his office, range himself on the side of the law. “If you want to be republicans, one more effort” means: “Accept the freedom of crime, the only reasonable attitude, and enter forever into a state of insurrection as you enter into a state of grace.” Thus total submission to evil leads to an appalling penitence, which cannot fail to horrify the Republic of enlightenment of natural goodness. #RandolphHarris 9 of 18
By a significant coincidence, the manuscript of One Hundred and Twenty Days of Sodom was burned during the first riot of the Republic, which could hardly fail to denounce Sade’s heretical theories of freedom and to throw so compromising a supporter into prison once more. By doing so, it gave him the regrettable opportunity of developing his rebellious logic still further. The universal republic could be a dream for Sade, but never a temptation. In politics his real position is cynicism. In his Society of the Friends of Crime he declares himself ostensibly in favour of the government and its laws, which he meanwhile has every intention of violating. It is the same impulse that makes the lowest form of criminal vote for conservative candidates. The plan that Sade had in mind assures the benevolent neutrality of the authorities. The republic of crime cannot, for the moment at least, be universal. It must pretend to obey the law. In a World that knows no other rule than murder, beneath a criminal Heaven, and in the name of a criminal nature, however, Sade, in reality, obeys no other law than that of inexhaustible desire. However, to desire without limit is the equivalent of being desired without limit. License to destroy supposes that you yourself can be destroyed. Therefore you must struggle and dominate. The law of this World is nothing but the law of force; its driving force, the will to power. #RandolphHarris 10 of 18
When it comes to therapy, we really want to think of that person as a person—someone unique with dignity and capacity, worthy of our unreserved respect. If we must have a word for it, “client” seems more expressive of that. Why “client-centered”? This matters much more. Again, the negative purpose is only to distinguish between this and “therapist-centered,” “theory-centered,” “society-centered,” etcetera. There are such things. The positive meaning is immense. It expresses the major goal of the therapist; to understand and accept the perception and feelings of the client; to share the client’s view of reality rather than to impose his own. It follows than that we rely heavily upon the growth capacity of the individual. The therapist is an active and significant person, but he cannot heal—he can only help to create conditions in which the natural regenerative powers take effect. As for motive, the drive toward self-actualization is a primary one; every human being would rather be better than worse, and strives toward the enhancement of self even though the strivings may often be thwarted and regressive. These assumptions about motive and capacity combine into a general ethic, which can simply be called self-determination. Client-centered therapy is founded on the conviction that man should be free, and to this end makes freedom a major means in the therapeutic experience. #RandolphHarris 11 of 18
This is not, as some think, a reflection of political attitudes which supposedly prevail in America. It is a personal psychological conviction that the man who is most free will be most healthy. Freedom means the widest scope of choice and openness to experience, therefore the greatest probability of an adaptive response. For the individual, it seems that the urge to freedom is an urge to health, and precedes, rather than reflects, a political order. It is common for a person to experience conflict between wishes. He or she may want to study and also to go to the movies. Someone may want to marry one person and at the same time be in love with another. A person may want to have fun but also to be “good.” The healthy thing to do with conflict is to acknowledge its existence within the self, study all the alternatives as rationally as one can in the light of one’s value system, make a decision, act on it, and accept all the consequences. Among the consequences to be accepted are regrets over what one has lost in connection with the abandoned alternatives. No decision can ever be made without some fear that it is the wrong decision. There is nothing inconsistent with healthy personality in the idea that a decision, once made will still leave the person uncertain that it is the best or “rightest” one. #RandolphHarris 12 of 18
Existential conflicts frequently arise where each choice has positive values and negative implications associated with it. Any alternative, if chose, will affect one’s life profoundly. To make decisions, such as whether to marry or not, to take this job or that, calls for courage. The ability to decide such conflicts is an attribute of healthy personality. Such courage seems to grow out of past experiences at decision-making, experience that fosters independent security. The younger generation is generally viewed as being too laid back, apathetic, narcissistic, self-indulgent, and sensual. There are periods when a species or an individual or a nation needs to lay back, mellow out, cocoon-quiescent and recoup. Intelligent pursuit of happiness is a challenge of the human experience. However, this quiescence is more apparent than real. The spellbreaker, or internal release, is the element which lifts the injunction and frees the person from his script so that he can fulfill his own autonomous aspirations. It is a pre-set “self-destruct” which is obvious in some scripts but has to be hunted for or decoded in others, much like the pronouncements of the Delphic oracle which served the same function in Ancient Greece. Not much is known about it clinically, because people come for treatment just because they cannot find out. #RandolphHarris 13 of 18
For example, in a “Waiting for Rigor Mortis” or “Sleeping Beauty: script, the patient thinks she will be freed of her frigidity when she meets the Prince with the Golden Apples, and may very likely feel that the therapist is that Prince. However, he declines the honour, mainly for ethical reasons, but also because when he previous (unlicensed) therapist took on the job, his Golden Apples turned to dust. Sometimes the spellbreaker is merely ironic. This is a common situation in losers’ scripts: “Things will be better after you are dead.” The internal release may be event-centered or time-centered. “When you meet a Prince,” “After you die fighting,” or “after you have three children” are event-centered antiscripts. “When you pass the age at which your father died,” or “After you have stayed with the company thirty years” are time-centered. Whoever puts a moral purpose into life automatically lifts himself above the physical level of mere animality. For him begins a struggle between the slavery of sense and the freedom of enlightenment, between blind emotion and deliberate will, between inward weakness and inward strength. Henceforth, he seeks happiness rather than pleasure, the calm of a satisfied mind rather than the excitement of satisfied senses. If this is a stoic ideal, it is a necessary one, for he must conquer himself. He hates himself, and no man can live in peace with what he hates. #RandolphHarris 14 of 18
The Sacramento Fire Department protects the people of Sacramento with public education, fire suppression, rescue, and emergency medical services. The Sacramento Fire Department partners with the community to mitigate risks, and responds to all calls for service with skill, dedication, and compassion. “We were asleep, and the alarm came at about 5.55 on a Sunday morning. My company, Engine XX was first in. It was a one-family row house, two floors and a basement. It started as a fire in the basement and had spread to the first floor. I was the nozzle man. We knocked down the floor fire on the first floor, then we tried to find the entrance to the basement. We stumbled around in the living room because there was so much furniture in it and we couldn’t see in the smoky darkness. The family had redone the basement, and instead of opening a door and going down steps to the basement, you had to open the door and walk about eight feet before you came to the steps. We didn’t know that at the time. It’s an unusual arrangement for that kind of house. Anyway, we couldn’t find the basement. It started getting real hot in there, and everything started cracking. The lieutenant, Y, said, ‘Too hot. Let’s get out of here.’ Before we could make a move, the floor collapsed and knocked us down. The fire just took off, and we were trapped in there. I was slightly unconscious for a while, then I had to pause a little while to get my senses together, because I was burned on my forehead. #RandolphHarris 15 of 18
“Lieutenant Y was in worse trouble. He was dazed. I had to get him out of there. I grabbed him under the arms and started to lead him toward the back door, but we stumbled over the furniture, and we tripped and fell. So I grabbed him by the hand, and my glove came off. The next thing I knew, my hand was badly burned. Then I started dragging him along the floor, and the next thing I knew, I was stuck. My air mask had stuck on a table or chair or something. I was stuck, and I couldn’t move. It was real scary. It was like being in hell, really. I thought, ‘Lord, don’t let me die like this. I deserve a chance.’ I thought about my wife. We were only married a year. I said, ‘Wow, I’m going to leave my wife right now, and my family.’ The way it happened, it was unbelievable. I was totally stunned. I didn’t believe I would be in a situation like that. From my training and previous experience in other fires, I knew we had to get out of there. I tired as hard as I could to get us out, but every time I tried to move, somehow I was getting weaker and weaker. I thought it was hopeless. Then my air bottle ran out of oxygen. I thought I was going to die of suffocation. I was just hoping I wouldn’t burn to death. But the fire didn’t seem like it was coming toward us anymore. I could hardly breathe in my air mask, and I had too much smoke in my chest. Just then, the other guys managed to get back in there and pull us out. #RandolphHarris 16 of 18
“At the hospital they put a tube into my lungs. They could hardly get it down there, my throat was so swollen. It had been burned by the heat. They were showing it down there, and I was scared. They finally got it down. I don’t remember much of my first three days in the hospital. A lot of people said they came up to see me, but I don’t remember who. I asked somebody if everybody had made it out od the fire all right, and they said no. I saw the other two firefighters who were hurt, but I didn’t see Lieutenant Y. I kind of figure he had died. After the third or fourth day, everything started hurting real bad. My hand. My face. I was in a lot of pain. It took me a while to get over that. The first day was hardest for my wife. She was really hurt to see me, but she tried to hold it back. Afterwards, she didn’t want me coming back to the department, but I told her that that was what I wanted to do. So she respects that, and she supports me. I was in therapy for a year and a half for my hand, using grips and putty. Then I went to this physical therapy center and did all sorts of other things, exercising every day, working with my hand to build things. Today my hand is not as good as it was, but it’s okay. The department was excellent, supportive in every way. Everybody came up to see me, even guys I didn’t know. It seemed like the whole fire department was at the hospital. Anything I wanted or needed, they got for me. They treated me excellently. #RandolphHarris 17 of 18
“I was off the job for about five and a half months, then I was put on light duty for about a year. Now I’m back on the job full-time. Everything is pretty cool. I’m lucky to be alive, right?” Professionalism leads the Sacramento Fire Department to continuously improve their knowledge and skills, always striving to be “first in” with excellent service. The Sacramento Fire Department also strives to sustain and improve the health, safety, convenience, and welfare of the citizens of Sacramento and to plan for the future development of the community. You can help save lives and property by donating to the Sacramento Fire Department. And remember parents, please raise your children to love America, to be patriotic, to love God and Jesus, respect law and others, treat others with dignity and respect, and remind them of the importance of education. To help America survive the global recession and bring manufacturing jobs back to America and to get American wages at pace with inflation, it is important to buy America cars, American meat, American produce and other American made goods and services. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic, for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible with Liberty and Justice for all. Our Father, our King, be gracious unto us and answer us, for we are wanting in good deeds; deal with us in charity and lovingkindness, and please save us. #RandolphHarris 18 of 18
The Winchester Mystery House
The Menagerie Oddities Market is back this Holiday season!
On every Saturday from November 30 to December 28, from 11am to 5pm, Winchester Mystery House will host the 6th annual Menagerie Holiday Oddities & Curiosities Market, with new vendors every week. Join the Yuletide Oddventure and stuff those stockings with something weird they won’t forget this holiday season! 🎄
Link in bio for more information! https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
America Love it or Leave it: How Can a Lost Mind be Recovered?
Our life experiences are distracting us and dulling our spiritual view so much so that we are not focusing on that which matters most. I wonder, do we miss opportunities to learn of the Lord and feel His love? Do we miss opportunities to share with others—especially children—that which matters most, the gospel of the Lord, Jesus Christ? We have all seen children and youth standing in the crowds confused and wanting to know what matter most. I can almost hear this child and other children crying out the words so many of us have sung, “Please teach me to walk in the light.” Are we teaching our children to know, feel, and rejoice in the beauty, power, and miracles of the gospel of Jesus Christ? Let us nurture our children concerning Him whom we call the Lord Jesus Christ. Let us teach our children the grand saving principles of the gospel. Children require the ability to knock that having faith in the Saviour and following Him will help them to receive peace in this beautiful World that is experiencing trials and tribulations. As you include your children at your family dinner table, as you involve them in daily prayer and scripture study and in family home evening, you are following the example of the Saviour by loving and teaching them. As you do this, let them know that together your family is striving to keep the commandments and to be worthy to be an eternal family. #RandolphHarris 1 of 26
It may be during the information one-on-one times that the Spirit will prompt us to ask just the right questions or to say just the right thing to help our children know and feel the light of the Lord. If we make the opportunities, the Spirit will guide us. We have wonderful, capable children in our midst. We can help them find peace in this life and in the life to come. After all, you do not want to raise your children to be on the run, to have to dye their hair to evade law enforcement. Some people who do not walk in the foot steps of the Lord end up having to live underground and join the Weathermen Underground tribe. You do not want your children to have to work with dope dealers to raise a quarter of a million dollars to pay manic guerrillas to keep them safe, to pay for hair dye, and fast cars as they drive up Highway 101 to north Oakland. There is the chance that the police and CHP will throw up roadblocks and you will have to stay at a stash pad and wait it out before the coast is clear to drive to Salt Lake City. It is better to raise your children to be American Legion hunting-fishing guys, or a soft Middle American woman, or everyone’s TV girl—a Holy Family. It is best to become a Holy Family of Elegance. When it comes to psychotherapy, words themselves are vague and insecure and our ignorance so great that we tend in desperation to assume meaning where none exists. #RandolphHarris 2 of 26
Let us recognize that the true nature of psychosis is a mystery. (And the nature of the most prevalent convulsive treatment, electroshock, is called a “mystery within a mystery” by the most authoritative book on the subject.) One of our problems, then, is how to deal with a subject consisting of experience which at its worst is indescribable from the inside and incomprehensible from the outside, and this without using words which are themselves confounding. “Psychosis,” for instance, has an authoritative, antiseptic sound, but its real sterility lies mainly in its lack of clear meaning. It simply replaces “madness”—now a literary term, and “insanity”—which represents a dated legal concept. Falling into pseudoscientific conventions of language will not help. At the present stage of knowledge, the questions are well enough represented by asking simply: What does it mean to “lose one’s mind”? How can a “lost mind” be recovered? For that matter, how is the mind developed in the first place? It is our assumption that “mind” develops and exists beyond brain, and following from this, the assumption of social psychological origin of much mental disturbance. It sounds simple, but there is by no means wholehearted agreement in the field on this issue. Current work on molecular structure and the chemistry of schizophrenia, for instance, challenges psychological assumptions. #RandolphHarris 3 of 26
It is possible, of course, that biochemical methos of treatment will develop actual cures for psychotic states, thus outmoding psychotherapy. No less a therapist than Dr. Freud thought so in regard to schizophrenia. Also fashionable are experiments with drugs which induce pseudo-psychotic states, which suggest to some that if such states can be caused by chemical means, they can also be cured by chemical means, and further that the mechanism of disturbance is fundamentally biochemical. Undeniably there is always a biochemical basis for behaviour of the human organism. However, this does not rule out psychological influence, in either the sickening or the healing process. It is certain that anxiety can cause diarrhea. Chemical mechanism? Surely. And a virus or a laxative might cause the same apparent result, but that would not alter the fact that anxiety, a psychological state, can and does cause diarrhea (as surely as a nonchemical state may cause someone ten feet away to blush). Nor would it mean, more obviously but no more truly, that even though the eventual chemistry, mechanism, and result are the same, two different causes (laxative and anxiety) are therefore the same. Nor would it mean than an antidote for diarrhea is a specific treatment for either anxiety or a virus, or that a specific for one is of any use for the other. #RandolphHarris 4 of 26
Similarly, a chemically induced psychotic state may not be a true psychosis even though it has the same appearance in terms of hallucinations and like effects. A chemical antidote for the pseudo-psychosis is not necessarily effective for a true psychosis, even though a chemical mechanism exists in either case. Psychological influence is not eradicated by the artificial imitation of its effects. Even though “tranquilizers” will tranquilize, so will a blow on the head, and neither one is equivalent to, or can deny the existence of, “peace of mind.” That which we call a “psychosis” is not a disease. It is a learned behaviour, exaggerated to a point of no return, id est, where control is lost and the exaggerated behaviour “takes on a life of its own” temporarily. Because this exaggeration is so overwhelming, so much beyond our ordinary capacity to assimilate, it appears to us that we are no longer dealing with, for instance, ordinary suspicion, but something quite different—“paranoia.” Then it appears that psychosis is not of the same order, not on the same continuum, as “normal” or “neurotic” behaviour. However, as psychotic behaviour becomes more common it is seen as a form of maladjustment similar in kind ot lesser degrees of maladjustment, though so much greater in quantity that it seems different in quality too. #RandolphHarris 5 of 26
There is one sense, unfortunately, in which it is different. A boulder balanced on the edge of a precipice can be pressed ounce by measured ounce toward rolling off. Each ounce is just like the last, but when the quantity of pressure totals to the “breaking point,” the quality of the consequences changes radically. No longer will the relief or counterpressure of one ounce recover the balance. Even if the boulder is not smashed in the fall, an enormous effort is required to restore it to its original position. It is because of this effort (which so few can make, and so many need) that it is necessary to prevent the “psychotic situation” in life. The “psychotic situation” is a precondition to the psychotic state, which may or may not follow. In our society, there is an overwhelming emphasis on thinking. In school, we were taught almost entirely to think rather than to feel. We were told to “use our heads,” to think through problems, to study hard and be sensible. This approach is supposed to lead to success in the World. The trouble is, while thinking is unquestionably important, it is of limited value. Thinking, you see, is entirely concerned with the past and the future. We cannot think about the present moment; we can only feel it. The present, a microscopic dot on the line from past to future, does not lend itself to thinking—for the simple fact that thinking takes time. The moment we think, even if we think about “now,” it is already in the past. Thinking can help us learn from the past and plan for the future, but it cannot help us experience the now. #RandolphHarris 6 of 26
Thinking results in action. First we think, then we do. We are a society of thinkers and doers. However, we are also a society of manipulators because all this emphasis on the mind has taught us to be cunning and calculating. When we use our heads only, we become manipulators—functioning with only part of our human capacity. So thoroughly are we oriented to doing, we shy from theories that tell us there is nothing we can do about a situation. The truth is, in some situations, there is absolutely nothing we can do. Sometimes no actions can be taken to help a person be confident. One must be confident, be secure, be powerful—and to do that, one must discover his core being. A system based on thinking is limited because it is based on concepts and theories borrowed from others, generally others’ books. It is borrowed knowledge—and borrowed knowledge does not overcome ignorance; it hides ignorance. Borrowed knowledge is “knowing without knowing.” The more of it we amass, the more darkness and ignorance we keep in our inner cores. We can develop our logic, but logic alone leads only to conclusions, never to the truth. Because the truth needs no proof. It does, however, need the heart. This is where experience comes in. Knowledge of the truth comes from our experience of it, from a feeling which originates deep down in our cores. It is totally individual, intensely personal, and entirely subjective. #RandolphHarris 7 of 26
You cannot know what love is by reading about it. You must experience it. You cannot take a course in love—or confidence, or any other value for that matter. Books and course are things of the mind. Values are things of the heart as well as the mind, and they come from within. However, people spend so much time in school and not everyone believes in God, nor do they go to church. Therefore, it might be conducive to offer a psychology class on how to love. People spend so much time learning how to think and how to hate. If we taught people how to express platonic love in college, it might generate better human beings that are able to deal with stressful situations and will be less critical of others’ perceived faults. Some people view themselves as weak and powerless because they have never experienced their own personal power. All of the doing is merely activity at the circumference of one’s true self. In the focusing process, one can break through the circumference and find something else. In surrendering to helplessness, one may discover a capable self in one’s core. The “something” that one finds is the real I. And finding it, one knows, intuitively, that one had and still has power. Note that, in this experience, one does not actually do anything. A man may not know what to do. However, that is not important. #RandolphHarris 8 of 26
When the right thing to do comes alone, he will do it, based on his new, intuitive knowledge that he can do it. Not borrowed knowledge, from books or lectures or friends, but intuitive knowledge from within. Some people will thus have an instantaneous experience of mastery. When control is so perfect that he can never again raise his voice in anger, he needs turn attention to only one other passion—the spiritual. Such a chaste aloofness will help with mental, spiritual, and emotional clarity. When desires die without regrets, he begins to taste real peace. When cravings slough off naturally, like a serpent’s skin, he finds tranquil happiness. If not all of it, the man who can win his way to freedom from anger and finally liberate the mind from passion may need much of his lifetime for the work; but what he gains is of inestimable value. For this brings him closer to awareness of the Overself. As aspiration for the Overself grows stronger, other desires grow weaker. If you are ever to emerge from the darkness, you must possess an insatiable longing for light. He arrives at purity by a cultivated discipline of the mind rather than by a forcible atrophy of the senses. If he can find it and heed it, the thread-like intuition which will lead him out of animality into serenity will be his best guide. It is not possible for these finer elements to become, little by little, paramount in his outlook, consciousness, and conduct without a corresponding decline in the coarser ones. #RandolphHarris 9 of 26
He will gradually become the ruler of his physical appetites and then the master of his bodily desires. Indeed, as all his longings for the Overself slowly gather themselves together into a great dedicated life, there is an equally great shift-over from the terrestrial part of his being to the truly human, allied with an opening-up of the angelic or divine part. The fruits of extravagances involving pleasures of the flesh, the harvest of promiscuity of pleasures of the flesh, the gleanings of irresponsibility with pleasures of the flesh, and the gratifications of license involving pleasures of the flesh must be subjected to the hard discipline of reason. Those who will not do so must sooner or later pay the price in fears, anxieties, irritations, regrets, disillusionments, shames, and despairs. So long as a man identifies himself with the physical body, so long will he perforce have to identify himself with its desires and passions. Only when he transfers this self-identification to the infinite mental being can he completely detach himself from them. When they are still in subjection to passion, of what use is it for men to talk of freeing themselves from subjection to egoism? The student of philosophy will try to comprehend the sensations got from sensual pleasures impartially and impersonally. Man knows instinctively what will give him momentary emotional satisfaction; he must wrestle with reason to know what will give him deep enduring happiness. #RandolphHarris 10 of 26
When different pleasures compete for suffrage or when duty competes with desire, reason must arbitrate. Desire carried to an undue extent becomes a passion disturbing to the equilibrium of life and character. When a man finds that despite all his efforts to improve himself and reform his character, he still remains the same, it is an indication that new methods must be tried. The scourging of the flesh may be needed by, and may help, those who find their overheated passions and lusts get out of hand. However, it will not end those troubles of man, even though it may tame them for a time. Something more must be added, or must replace them—first, knowledge; second, work on the process of attention. The instinctual animal urge plus the ambitious drive for power and the personal desire for property keep men from spiritual aspiration. If he is filled with selfish interest alone, seeking the fulfilment of personal ambitions irrespective of any higher considerations; if terrestrial passion drives him and greed dominates him, he blocks his own way. Purification from such attachments must be the first endeavour. Pleasures which corrupt character are undesirable; but those which uplift character (like the finest works of Aaliyah, Beethoven and Handel) are desirable. There is a level of tension below which the person can think rationally and act effectively. #RandolphHarris 11 of 26
When tension increases above this point, efficiency breaks down, and irrational thinking and expressive behaviour takes the place of rational thinking and effective action. This point on the tension continuum is called the frustration threshold. It varies from person to person, and within the same person at different times. A mother wants her house to be clean and orderly. In the forenoon, her three-year-old daughter Annie might spill a glass of milk, leave her Barbie dolls in disarray, and scatter magazines all over the newly cleaned living room. The mother’s reaction at the time is one of mild anger, followed by efficient attempts to set things straight. At five-thirty in the afternoon, the child repeats her efforts at messing up the house. This time, the mother “explores”—she sends the child to her room, screams, and is unable to prepare supper until she has vented her tension. Optimum physical health produces a high frustration threshold. A sick or exhausted person has less energy to cope with tension and is more easily frustrated than one who is fit. People who manage to survive the extremely corrupt Sacramento City—a so-called death camp—have pointed out that a strong commitment to life and a sense of mission to fulfill were definite factors in survival. Individuals with such a sense of mission were less readily frustrated by the deprivations, stresses, and pressure of extremely hostile environments. #RandolphHarris 12 of 26
When Zorba, the Greek, was unable to express his grief following the death of his beloved son, he danced a Cretan dance until he dropped from exhaustion. On another occasion, when he felt he had at last found the solution to a problem of brining logs down a mountainside, again he danced. Finally, when the plan to bring logs down the mountain failed, and his boss’s investment was dismally lost, the boss asked Zorba to show him how to dance, and the two men danced and laughed like madmen. When someone has access to such means of self-expression, as in dance, violent exercise, painting, or song, that person can release the inevitable frustration of life without recourse to mindless, destructive outlets of tension. As Reich pointed out, sexual orgasm also provides a natural means for the dissipation of tension. In fact, prolonged privation of pleasures of the flesh is a common cause of frustration. It is however, a mistake to think that other frustrations, such as material misunderstandings, are all relieved by pleasures of the flesh. Nothing is more revealing in this respect than the famous lampoon, read b y Dolmance in the Philosophie du Boudoir, which has the curious title: People of France, one more if you want to be republicans. Pierre Klossowski is right in attaching so much importance to it, for this lampoon demonstrates to the revolutionaries that their republic is founded on the murder of the King—who was King by divine right—and that by guillotining God on 21 January 1793, they deprived themselves forever of the right to outlaw crime or to censure malevolent instincts. #RandolphHarris 13 of 26
The monarchy supported the concept of a God who, in conjunction with itself, created all laws. As for the Republic, it stands alone, and morality was supposed to exist without benefits of the Commandments. It is doubtful, however, that Sade, as Klossowki maintains, had a profound sense of sacrilege and that an almost religious horror led him to the conclusions that he expresses. It is much more likely that he came to these conclusions first and afterwards perceived the correct arguments to justify the absolute moral license that he wanted the government of his time to sanction. Logic founded on passions reconclusions before the premises. To be convinced of this we only have to appraise the admirable sequence of sophisms by which Sade, in this passage, justifies calumny, theft, and murder and demands that they be tolerated under the new dispensation. It is then, however, that his thoughts are most profound. He rejects, with exceptional perspicacity for his times, the presumptuous alliance of freedom with virtue. Freedom, particularly when it is a prisoner’s dream, cannot endure limitations. It must sanction crime or it is no longer freedom. On this essential point Sade never varies. This man who never preached anything but contradictions only achieves coherence—and of a most complete kind—when he talks of capital punishment. #RandolphHarris 14 of 26
An addict of refined ways of execution, a theoretician of sexual crime, he was never able to tolerate legal crime. “My imprisonment by the State, with the guillotine under my very eyes, was far more horrible to me than all the Bastilles imaginable.” From this feeling of horror, he drew the strength to be moderate, publicly, during the Terror, and to intervene generously on behalf of his mother-in-law, despite the fact that she had had him imprisoned. A few years later Nodier summed up, perhaps without knowing it, the position obstinately defended by Sade: “To kill a man in a paroxysm of passion is understandable. To have him killed by someone else after a calm and serious meditation and on the pretext of duty honorably discharged is incomprehensible.” Here we find the germ of an idea which again will be developed by Sade: he who kills must pay with his own life. Sade is more moral, we see, than our contemporaries. However, his hatred for the death penalty is at first no more than a hatred for men who are sufficiently convinced of their own virtue to dare to inflict capital punishment, when they themselves are criminals. You cannot simultaneously choose crime for yourself and punishment for others. You must open the prison gates or give an impossible proof of your own innocence. Even if only once, from the moment you accept murder, you must allow it universally. #RandolphHarris 15 of 26
Permissions are the chief therapeutic instrument of the script analyst because they offer the only chance for an outsider to free the patient from the curses laid on him by his parents. The therapist gives permission to the patient’s Child by saying either “It is all right to do it,” or “You do not have to do it.” Both say to the Parent “Let him alone.” Thus, there are positive and negative permissions. In a positive permission, or license, “Let him alone!” means “Let him do it!” This cuts off the injunction. In a negative permission, or external release, it means “Stop pushing him into it!” This cuts off the provocation. Some permissions can be regarded either way. This is particularly true of antiscripts. Thus, when the Prince kissed Sleeping Beauty in the Wood, he was offering her both a license to wake up and a release from the witch’s curse. One of the most important permissions is a license to stop acting stupid and start thinking. Many patients of advanced years have not had a single independent thought since early childhood, and have quite forgotten how it feels to think, or even what thinking means. With properly timed permission, however, they are able to come through, and are more than delighted when they say out loud at the age of sixty-five or seventy what may be the first intelligent observation of their adult lives. #RandolphHarris 16 of 26
Often it is necessary to undo the work of previous therapists in order to give a patient permission to think. Some of them have spent years in mental hospitals or clinics where the slightest attempt on their part to think independently came up against powerful resistance from the staff. There they were taught that thinking is really a sin called “intellectualzing,” to which they must confess promptly and promise never to indulge in again. Many addictions and obsessions are based on parental come-ones. “Do not stop taking drugs (or you may stop coming home to ask for money)” says the mother of the heroin addict. “Do not stop thinking about pleasures of the flesh,” says the parent of a lecher or a nymphomaniac. And the whole concept of permissions as a therapeutic instrument was started by a gambler who said: “I do not need someone to tell me to stop gambling, I need someone to give me permission to stop, because somebody in my head says I cannot.” A permission, then, allows Jeder to be flexible, instead of responding with fixed patterns frozen by slogans and controls. This has nothing to do with “permissive up brining,” since that is full of imperatives, too. The most important permissions are to love and to change and to do things well. #RandolphHarris 17 of 26
A person with permission is just as easy to spot as one who is all tied up. “He sure has permission to think,” “She sure has permission to be beautiful,” and “They sure have permission to enjoy themselves,” are Martian expressions of admiration. (One of the frontiers of script analysis is the further study of permissions, primarily through observation of eye movements in very young children. Thus, in some situations the child glances sideways at his parents to see if he has “permission” to do something; in other cases, he seems to be “at liberty” to follow his own inclinations without consulting them. Such observations, carefully evaluated, may result in a significant distinction between “permissions” and “liberties.”) The term Genetic Counseling indicates that a genetic consumer consciousness is dawning. The emphasis is on genetic disorder, not upon genetic endowment, but this is to be expected. A new technology always appeals to hive-security first as a way of dealing with danger. Awareness of genetic disorder precedes awareness of genetic excellence, just as psychiatry precedes self-actualized psychology. Pathology precedes potential. When the experts in a hive begin treating “broken-down personalities” they have recognized the existence of “personality.” The next step is for healthy individuals to take charge of their own “selfs.” #RandolphHarris 18 of 26
New technology always appeals to hive-security first. The Ad Hoc Committee on Genetic Counseling of the American Society of Human Genetics described genetic counseling as a “communication process which deals with the human problems associated with the occurrence, or the risk of occurrence, of a genetic disorder in the family.” This one-day workshop is primarily for health professionals who want to learn how to do genetic counseling or who want to strengthen their skills in this field. Hidden in this course description are valuable neurogenic clues, evolutionary evidence, which is easily overlooked by hive observers because it reveals much about the neurogenetic stage of the give culture—and of the planet. Genetic counseling appeared a generation after personality counseling. When an advanced, post-political culture offers courses in “Job Counseling,” “Personality Counseling” or “Martial Counseling,” Evolutionary Agents know that a move towards self-actualization is occurring—a free-mobile-individually oriented society is emerging. The military defense groups are willing to train those who are willing to be trained and have a good temperament and they simply do not bother training those who lack discipline. Being part of the United States of America’s armed forced is an honour and a privilege. It is ridiculous for an organization to even attempt to train some hundred thousand men in the State’s twilight of decline when, only a few years before, the State disgracefully abandoned one hundred and seventy million. #RandolphHarris 19 of 26
The proud members of the Sacramento Fire Department are committed to providing the highest quality and highest level of courteous and responsive services to the residents, businesses, and visitors of Sacramento. They ensure Sacramento City can respond to, recover from, and mitigate against any hazard that affects their city, the region, the state and beyond. “I like ladder work. It’s probably the most dangerous jobs in firefighting, and the real purpose of it is to go in and look for anyone trapped in a fire. You’re more or less on your own, you’re not with the rest of the men, and you don’t have the benefit of the hose line. I was assigned the SCBA (self-contained breathing apparatus) that day. We got the call to a fire in a three-story dwelling. We are second in. Another engine and ladder company was ahead of us. When I got off the truck, I was all prepared to go in the building. It was a strange fire, actually—a kerosene heater, which was overfilled. It has been knocked over, and the kerosene went between the floor and the wall down into the basement from the first floor and was ignited by the hot water heater. So the fire ran up the walls to the upper floors, and the flames were coming out the third-floor windows when I got there. As I say, I had my air pack on. I went around to the back alley before the other guys. #RandolphHarris 20 of 26
“The first company was still trying to get the ladders up in this narrow alley. I went up some steps to the kitchen door and kicked it open. A couple of guys were already in there on the floor. They didn’t have packs, so they were taking a beating from the smoke. One of their ladder guys also had a pack, so his chief put him on a hose, and he said to me, ‘Go down to the basement with this guy and give him a hand with the tip.’ Engine or ladder man, it didn’t matter to him. He saw we both had packs, and it was pretty smoky. I helped this guy drag the line, and we both went down to the basement from the kitchen very quickly, because it was like a chimney. It was getting real hot, and the fire flashed over us. He hit it with water and knocked it down. There was a small window next to the steps, and he was trying to fog the smoke out the window. The heat was coming toward us the whole time. Then apparently somebody saw how bad it was getting and called, ‘Everybody out of the basement.’ There were only the two of us there. I didn’t hear it. The guy on the tip supposedly did and told me he was leaving. Again, I didn’t hear him. He closed down the hose, and all of a sudden he was gone. I learned later that he went out the window. He had to take the pack off to fit through the window, it was so narrow. I didn’t know he had left. #RandolphHarris 21 of 26
“So the water was stopped, and I was lone in the basement. I couldn’t go back up the steps to the kitchen, because when he shut down the water the fire had flashed over again and set fire to the stairs. You see, the water wasn’t really putting the fire out, but it was keeping the heat away from us. Now it was getting very hot. It was very dark, it was smoky, I couldn’t see. I was down on my stomach on the basement floor, looking for the back door I knew was there, but I couldn’t see it. I was probably only ten feet from it the whole time. I became a little disoriented, but I didn’t panic. I had been in basement fires before, and I knew you shouldn’t panic. I thought, ‘Now, how did I get into this situation. I don’t have any water. I don’t have anyone with me.’ I could see that the fire had engulfed the kitchen steps and I couldn’t make it up there. I knew there was a back door there somewhere, but the people had been remodeling the basement, and I had to feel my way through a lot of debris. There was paneling against one wall, and I thought that might have been the door. I slid on it like a slide and fell to the floor. I say there for a second, and said, ‘I gotta compose myself, or I’m going to be in trouble here in a minute.’ I thought to myself, I’ve been through a lot in my life. I probably should have been dead eight times over. ‘Well,’ I said to myself, ‘I haven’t come this far to die in this person’s basement. This can’t happen to me. I’m going to survive. I’m not going to die in this guy’s basement because he was overfilling his kerosene heater.’ I got mad then. I remember. I said, ‘Dammit, I’m not staying here. I’ve got to get out.’ #RandolphHarris 22 of 26
“So what I had to do was raise my mask and holler for help. If I hadn’t done that, they wouldn’t have found me, because they didn’t know I was in there. This guy didn’t tell them I was still down there, and my lieutenant hadn’t ordered me to go down there; he thought I was on one of the upper floors. It was the chief of the other company who had sent me down there. They heard my hollering, and they were saying, ‘Come this way. This way.’ I would put my mask back on and walk toward their voices. I couldn’t see anything, so I was going by their voice. But they couldn’t hear me with my mask on. They didn’t know where the hell I was. It was getting harder and harder. It was very hot down there. I burned my ears, and I still had my helmet on. I knew if I didn’t get to that door soon, I wouldn’t make it, so I just kept going. I pushed things out of the way, and finally, after what seemed like an eternity, I had my hand stretched out like a blind man, and somebody grabbed my hand, and they pulled me out. One of my boots came off, and my helmet fell off. They never found my helmet, it had melted away, and the only thing left of my boot was the sole. There are points that I don’t recall. I didn’t actually black out, but I think it was my mind acting it out for me. I don’t recall exactly how I got to that back door. I was just glad to feel someone’s hand. I was kissing the floor, and the gentleman who grabbed my hand was in the doorway. He couldn’t advance any further. In fact, he was on the ground, and somebody had hold of his legs. #RandolphHarris 23 of 26
“I didn’t realize I was saved until I was in the rescue squad actually. I was on my way to the hospital, and I was holding the oxygen mask over my face, and I started crying. It finally hit me that I had almost died. I don’t normally cry. I believed I was going to be all right. I knew I was hurt, but I also knew I was going to make it. The first night in the hospital was hell. I had a tube going down my mouth into my lungs. It has a ballon-type thing at the end of it to keep the air passages open. Everything in there was swelling, and I would have chocked otherwise. And they were pulling a lot of things out of my lungs and throat, big pieces of black stuff. I didn’t know I had taken that much smoke, I had thought it was mostly heat. They gave me morphine, but I was conscious when they were putting that thing down my throat. It makes you gag. They refused to give me more morphine, saying they had given me enough already. When I wanted to say something I had to write it down, because I couldn’t speak. So the first night I was going in and out of consciousness. I kept writing down, ‘If you don’t take this tube out of my throat, I’m going to pull it out myself.’ I was a terrible patient that first night. I was in intensive care, and the orderlies, nurses, and doctors were at the desk fifteen feet from me, drinking soda. My mouth was so dry, I wanted some water, and they wouldn’t give it to me. They’d say, ‘Okay, we’ll get you something,’ thinking I’d go to sleep and forget. I would wake up an hour later, and nothing would be there. #RandolphHarris 24 of 26
“My father was there within an hour. He’s a fireman, too, and he heard the call come on the fire radio. He knew, before he was told, that I was in trouble. He heard the call for the rescue squad, and he said, ‘I knew it was you.’ The commissioner came, and so did a couple of guys I work with and my wife and my mother. Everyone showed a lot of concern, and everyone was as nice as could be. It meant a lot to me. Because it was nice to see familiar faces. The next day I was more relaxed. I didn’t fight the tube, I just tried to make the best of it. Then I felt lucky. I felt glad to be alive. I was released from the hospital a week later, and after a few days at home, I was mad. Angry that I got hurt when I shouldn’t have been hurt, that my whole life had changed. I don’t like changes. I’m used to going to work, and now I had to stay home. I wanted to get out of the house and couldn’t. I was miserable as hell, I was climbing the walls. I took a lot of it out on my wife. She had had a back operation less than a year earlier and was bedridden. Then she had had a premature baby, and my son was in intensive care for two months. He had just gotten out of the hospital and weighed only 21/2 pounds (1.14 kilograms). So she was dealing with her back, and the baby was home on a monitor and she was worrying about him breathing, then I came home and she worried about me breathing. So her back was forgotten for a time, and now it’s in terrible shape. #RandolphHarris 25 of 26
“I was miserable even to the kids. I was jumpy all the time. I was physically hurt, and I was still spitting up things. My ears were burned, and the doctors told me I would need glasses, because my corneas were burned. I became depressed, and I was mad. The only ones to take it out on were my wife and kids. I feel bad for them now, but they understood. My wife was great. She had a lot of patience with me.” The Sacramento Fire Department strives to build a safer and more resilient Sacramento. Firefighters and EMT put their lives on the line every day, several times a day to provide the highest quality and highest level of courteous and responsive service possible. In an effort to keep the country cohesive, please raise your children to love America, to be patriotic, to love God and Jesus Christ and buy American cars and other American goods and services. Also, please respect law and order, and treat others with kindness and respect. To ensure that you have a bright future, please take your education seriously, and be sure to actually read your books. And remember to “Just Say ‘No’ to Drugs.” Even marijuana can be deadly. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. O beautiful for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain, for purple mountains majesties above the fruited plain! America! America! God shed His grace on three, and crown thy good with brotherhood from sea to shining sea! O beautiful for pilgrim feet, whose stern, impassioned stress, a thoroughfare for freedom beat across the wilderness! America! America! God mend thine every flow, confirm thy soul in self-control, Thy liberty in law! O beautiful for patriot dream that sees beyond the years, Thine alabaster cities gleam, undimmed by human tears! America! America! God shed His grace on thee, and crown thy good with brotherhood from sea to shining sea! God never gave us express allowance, only He gave us reason, charity, nature and good example to bear us out. #RandolphHarris 26 of 26
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A Ransom for Many
Evil is a deviation from the good due to a human deflect in cognition or intention that leads to mistaking appearance from reality. Prudently, most men sink into nameless graves, and now and then, a few forget themselves into immortality. In the day-to-day process of living, with all its trails, challenges, and discouragements, we often underestimate our own God-given attributes and abilities which makes it possible for each of us to pattern his or her life after that to the Saviour and, in fact, do some of the things He did as He lived here among men. We may never personally experience the miracle of raising the dead, or be one to turn water into premium cranberry juice. We may not be one of thousands who may be fed from a few loaves and fishes, or be part of the miraculous experience of walking on a stormy sea. However, for each one of us, there are several Christlike patterns of living we can be a part of in our mortal sojourn. For instance, with us here today, there are more than a few who display unquestioning obedience to whatever is asked of them—as did He. There are those who are complete in their forgiveness of the offenses of others—as was He. The list of Christlike attributes and patterns of living goes on and on, as does the list of those who will continue to strive to be obedient, however difficult it may be. Thank Heaven for those who keep trying! They cannot fail. #RandolphHarris 1 of 20
It is incredible to think, at first, that man’s fate, all his nobility and all his degradation, is decided by a child no more than six years old, and usually three, but that is what script theory claims. After talking to a child of six, or maybe three, it is a little easier to believe. And it is extremely easy to believe by looking around at what is happening in the World today, and what happened yesterday, and seeing what will probably happen tomorrow. The history of human scripts can be found on ancient monuments, in courtrooms and morgues, in gambling houses and letters to the editor, and in political debates, where whole nations are talked down the righteous road by somebody trying to prove that what his parents told him in the nursery will work for the whole World. However, fortunately, some people have good scripts, and some even succeed in freeing themselves to do things their own way. Human destiny shows that, by diverse means, men come to the same ends, and by the same means they come to diverse ends. They carry their scripts and their counter scripts around in their heads in the form of Parental voices telling them what to do and not do, and their aspirations in the form of Child pictures of how they would like it to be, and among the three of them they put their shows on the road. #RandolphHarris 2 of 20
There they find themselves entangled in a web of other people’s scripts: first their parents, then their spouses, and over all of them, the scripts of those who govern the places where they live. There are also chemical hazards like infectious diseases, and physical ones, such as hard objects that the human body is not constructed to withstand. The script is what the person planned to do in early childhood, and the life course is what happens. The life course is determined by genes, by parental background, and by external circumstances. An individual whose genes cause intellectual disabilities, physical deformity, or early death from cancer or another disease or virus, will have little opportunity to make his own life decisions or to carry them through to completion. The course of his life will be determined by inheritance (or perhaps birth injury). If the parents themselves suffered from severe physical or emotional deprivation as infants, that may destroy their children’s chances of carrying out a script, or perhaps even of forming one. They may kill their offspring by neglect or abuse, or condemn them to life in an institution from an early age. Diseases, viruses, accidents, oppression, and war may terminate even the most carefully thought out and best supported plan. So can a walk or a drive through the script of an unknown person: an assassin, thug, or car-crasher. #RandolpHarris 3 of 20
A combination of these—genes plus oppression, for example—may close so many avenues to members of a certain line that they have few choices in planning their scripts, and it may make a tragic life course almost inevitable. However, even with strict limitations, there are nearly always some alternatives open. An aerial bomb, an epidemic, or a massacre may leave no choice at all, but at the next level, the person may be able to choose between killing, being killed, or killing himself, and there his choice will depend on his script, that is, the kind of decision he made in early childhood. A selfless person is one who is more concerned about the happiness and well-being of another than about his own convenience or comfort, one who is willing to serve another when it is neither sought for nor appreciated, or one who is willing to serve even those whom he dislikes. A selfless person displays a willingness to sacrifice, a willingness to purge from his mind and heart of personal wants, and needs, and feelings. Instead of reaching for and requiring praise and recognition from himself, or gratification of his own wants, the selfless person will meet these very human needs for others. Remember the words of the Saviour as He taught His disciples on an occasion when personal recognition was being sought: “But Jesus called them to Him, and saith unto them, …whosoever will be great among you, shall be your minister: And whosoever of you will be the chiefest, shall be servant of all. For even the son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many,” reports Mark 10.42-45. #RandolphHarris 4 of 20
The difference between life course and life plan can be illustrated by considering two rodents used in an experiment to show that the early experiences of a mother rodent can affect the behaviour of her offspring. The first animal was named Victory Purdue-Wistar III, or Victor for short. (Purdue-Wistar was the actual surname of the rodents used in this experiment, and Victor and Arthur were the forenames of their godfathers, the experimenters.) Victor came from a long line of experimental subjects, and his genes suited him for this station in life. His mother, Victoria, had been handled and caressed when she was a pup. His distant cousin, Arthur Purdue-Wistar III (Arthur) was equally suited to being an experimental subject. His mother, Arthuria, had been left in her cage and was never handled or caressed when she was little. When the two cousins grew up, it was found that Victor weighed more, explored less, and dropped his excretions more often than Arthur did. What happened to them in the long run, after the experiment was over, is not stated, but it probably depended upon external forces, such as what the experimenters needed to use them for. Thus, their life courses were determined by their genes, their mothers’ early experiences, and decisions made by stronger forces over which they had no control and to which there was no appeal. Any “scripts” or “plans” they wanted to carry out as individuals were limited by all this. #RandolphHarris 5 of 20
Thus Victor, who liked to vegetate, could so indulge himself; while Arthur, who wanted to explore, was frustrated in his cage; and neither of them, however strong the urge, could seek for immortality through reproduction. Tom, Dick, and Harry, distant cousins of Victor and Arthur, had a different experience. Tom was programed to press a lever to avoid getting an electric shock, and as a reward he would get a pellet of good. Dick was programmed the same way, expect that his treat was a drink of alcohol. Harry was also programmed to avoid the unpleasant shock, and his reward was a pleasant shock instead. Then they were switched around so that in the long run all three of them learned all three of the programs. After that, they were put in a cage with three levers: one for food, one for alcohol, and one for the pleasant shock. Then each one could make his own “decision” as to how he wanted to spend his life: eating, lying in a drunken stupor, or getting electric thrills, or any combination or alternation of these. Furthermore, there was a treadmill in the cage, and each one could decide whether he wanted to take exercise along with his other rewards. This was exactly like a script decision, for each rodent could decide whether he wanted to spend his life as a gourmand, an alcoholic, a thrill-seeker, or an athlete, or whether he preferred a moderate combination. #RandolphHarris 6 of 20
However, although each could follow his “script decision” and take the consequences as long as he remained in the cage, the actual outcomes of their lives depended on an external force majeure, for the experimenter could interrupt the experiment and break up the “script” whenever he felt like it. Thus, their life courses and their life styles were largely determined by their “life plans” up to the final outcome, which was decided by someone else. However, these “life plans” could only be chosen from among the alternatives offered by their “parents,” the experimenters who programmed them. And even that choice was influenced by things that had happened to them earlier. Although men are not laboratory animals, they often behave as though they are. Sometimes they are put in cages and treated like rats, manipulated, and sacrificed at the will of their masters. However, many times the cage has an open door, and a man has only to walk out if he wishes. If he does not, it is usually his script which keeps him there. That is familiar and reassuring, and after looking out at the great World of freedom with all its joys and dangers, he turns back to the cage with its buttons and levers, and knowing what if he keeps busy pushing them, and pushes the right one at the right time, he will be assured of food, drink, and an occasional thrill. But always, such a caged person hopes or fears that some force greater than himself, the Great Experimenter, or the Great Computer, will change or end it all. #RandolphHarris 7 of 20
The forces of human destiny are foursome and fearsome: demonic parental programming, abetted by the inner voice the ancients called the Daemon; constructive parental programming, assisted by the thrust of life called Phusis long ago; external forces, still called Fate; and independent aspirations, for which the ancients had no human name, since for them such were the privileges mainly of gods and kings. And as a resultant of these forces there are four kinds of life courses, which may be mixed and lead to one or another kind of final destiny: scripty, counterscirpty, forced, and independent. What can we do to cultivate and nurture the divine quality of selflessness? May I suggest, as a first step, that there be an incredibly careful, introspective evaluation. Consider the behavioural patterns we have just referred to. As part of this self-evaluation process, uless we recognize a need to change, it is important to remember there can be no successful change in any of us. That must come first. With the recognition of the need to improve, may we now suggest that as part of the process of cultivating and nurturing the attribute of selflessness, we begin to develop an attitude of service—the ongoing desire for the well-being of others. A beginning would be feeling empathy for those who need uplifting, then acting with caring thoughtfulness. #RandolphHarris 8 of 20
Once, I welcomed this beautiful and friendly German shepherd, Mr. Peepers, who belonged to the neighbours, and chased away an ugly dog who slithered like a snake. Leo asked me, “Why do you chase Snakey away?” I said, “Because he is ugly. I do not like him.” Leo said, “Mr. Peepers likes him. Mr. Peepers lets Snakey eat from his plate.” I was very ashamed, and confused and troubled about how I had come to feel about Snakey as I did. I was touched by the matter-of-factness of Leo’s observation, and disturbed that I had tried to impose my prejudice on seven-year-old Leo. Next time that Snakey came on our land, I called him, and when he came to me, I patted him on the head. He wriggled all over with happiness, and his “ugly” little eyes became so bright and dancing that they seemed to shoot out sparks. I shared his joy and loved him. It seems to me that in education it is more important to question than it is to give answers. This is hardly the way it is done about in school. I think that “education” is the chief reason why so often when I am asking a question, I feel that I must try to give an answer, rather than saying “I do not know” or asking another question. Recently when I was being interviewed on a podcast to arrive at something (which we did not—we threw out the tape) I noticed that when the interviewer asked a question, I struggled to answer it, when the thought in my head was “That question is not going to arrive at what you want. Could you ask another question?” If I had thrown out most of the questions this way, we would not have had to throw out the tape. #RandolphHarris 9 of 20
Another thing about accepting truth is that non-acceptance often brings about a fiction. A Hawaiian woman told me that Hawaiian mythology as it is written in books is all wrong. I asked her how this had happened. She said, “Oh, the haoles (white people) asked us about it and then laughed at us for what we told them. So then we told them lies which they believed, and we laughed at them.” I have seen this happen with Navajos and anthropologists. One sees it happen all the time within a family. How can it be different in psychotherapy? How can there be a good interpersonal relationship without respect on both sides? I do not always respect everyone, but when I do not, it is good for me to know this, and to know that I cannot at such times be helpful to another person. If I “try to help” someone when I do not feel respect for them, I am fooling myself. I am not responding to them, but to some notion of what I “should” do for people, even though I may truly wish to be helpful. I must not conceal from myself that I am not being helpful. Limitation is comprehensive and difficult to define because it concerns the elusive concept of “self.” What I mean here is perhaps best indicated by William James’s concept of the “real self” as distinguished from the material and social self. In simple terms it concerns what I really feel, what I really want, what I really believe, what I really decide. It is, or should be, the most alive center of psychic life. It is this psychic center to which the appeal is made in analytical work. #RandolphHarris 10 of 20
In every neurosis its scope and its aliveness are decreased, for genuine self-regard, native dignity, initiative, the capacity to take responsibility for one’s life, and like factors that account for the development of self have always been battered. Moreover, the neurotic trends themselves have usurped a great deal of its energies because—to resume an analogy previously used—they turn a person into an airplane driven by remote control. In most instances there are sufficient possibilities for recapturing and developing the self, though the strength of these possibilities is difficult to estimate at the beginning. However, fi the real self is considerably damaged, the person has lost his own center of gravity and is directed by other forces, from within or from without. He may over adapt himself to his environment and become an automaton. He may find his only right to existence in being helpful to others, and thus be socially useful though his lack of any center of gravity within himself is bound to hamper his efficiency. He may lose all inner sense of direction, and either drift aimlessly or be entirely directed by a neurotic trend. His feelings, thoughts, and actions may be almost entirely determined by an inflated image which he has built up of himself: he will be sympathetic not because he really feels it, but because to be sympathetic is part of his image; he will have “friends” or “interests” because those friends or interests are required by his image. #RandolphHarris 11 of 20
Maslow proposed the term peak experiences to describe occasions of great joy, moments of intense happiness and satisfaction that may be occasioned by knowing one is loved, by a fulfilling intimate relationship, by the completion of a long and difficult project, or even by eating simple fare after a period of long privation. An intensely contested game of gold, tennis, or handball can be a “high.” Maslow argued that the World is seen in its essence, as it really is, during and after such occasions of peaking. He further asserted that such moments are times when a person “has it together,” is more integrated, less self-conscious; indeed, is more fully functioning and less armoured against the World. Although Maslow chose the term peak experiences (current slang uses the terms highs, or ups as opposed to downs), I would like to extend its meaning and use Ted Landsman’s term positive experiencing. Positive experience refers to all occasions of pleasure, fun, satisfaction, completion of projects, fulfillment of hopes—the good moments in life. Of course, when these are undergone to bring about some meaningful and hoped-for outcome, positive experience can also include pain and suffering. #RandolphHarris 12 of 20
Positive experience, then, is what life is lived for. This statement is not a return to a hedonistic theory of human life, because meaningful positive experience goes beyond, through it includes sensuous pleasure. Positive experience includes the experience of the fulfillment of meaning. When a person lives a life that does not yield its due measure of positive experiencing, that person begins to lose morale. He becomes increasingly dispirited and hopeless, and under these circumstances may even attempt suicide. Certainly, sudden reductions in customary positive experiences, and with no apparent hope of amelioration, are likely factors in reduced resistance to infectious ills. Positive experiencing is good for physical, psychological, and spiritual health. Indeed, one definition of love for another is concern that positive experiencing will come his way more often. Health personality entails the ability to act in ways that produce positive experiencing for the self and for others. Two kinds of experiences seem to contribute to the development of the healthy personality or to becoming a “beautiful and noble person,” as described by Landsman—first, the positive experience, significant experiences of joy, happiness, warmth, and so on; and secondly, those negative or unhappy experiences that result in a strengthening of the self or in learning about the self. #RandolphHarris 13 of 20
The positive experience of being loved, for example, is clearly a growth-facilitating happening. Healthy children and adults need a consistent flow of these experiences to, at the very least, be sure that life is a joyous experience or that life holds the potential for joy, delight, ecstasy, compassion, warmth, and so on. Rizzo and Vinacke askes a sample of people of wide ages ranges about their critical experiences and found that those who described these experiences as being happy (or positive or mixed) also made high scored on the Personality Orientation Inventory, indicating high self-actualization. The desire for motherhood is Nature’s urge in the individual; it is entirely on par with the illusions of intimacy. See if for what it is worth, no more or less, and leave the rest to fate; if it comes or you may then enjoy it. If it does not, you will remain undisturbed. The patent, the husband, or the wide who demands continuous attention and undivided devotion, who assumes as a natural right the duty of making decisions for one, turns a home into a goal. The only relatives he recognizes are not blood ones but loves ones, inner and outer, lasting spiritual affinities not temporary physical accidents, mental and not geographical ones. Family life gives great joys on the one hand, and grave anxieties on the other. It was always like that, and we cannot alter but must accept it. #RandolphHarris 14 of 20
With all its ups and downs, the householder life is the best after all. Most of the qualities needed for spiritual development can be got from it. Parents should respect the child’s individuality and not let it get too dependent and too attached, thus robbing it of the capacity to grow mature and self-reliant. The over-protectiveness of fear-ridden mothers toward their children and the over-possessiveness of comminating mothers show a lack of faith in the one case, and a lack of understanding in the other. It is part of family relationship for the children to identify themselves, by extension, with their parents. Thus, it is what the French call “egoisme a deux.” Relationship is a matter of soul, not a measure of blood. Once across the threshold of puberty, the boy begins the unfolding of the emotional nature. Each child will then develop his own individual feelings and passions as a process of growth towards manhood. How can this be done unless the young begin at the same time to develop away from utter dependence upon the mother? They must begin in however small a degree to claim their freedom and move away emotionally from their physical source. All this is to be accomplished by stages and not all at once until maturity is reached. Then, just as the fledgling bird must emerge from the nest and learn to fly even at the risk of falling, so the young must learn to stand on their own feet in order to reach maturity. #RandolphHarris 15 of 20
What holds true for psychology holds true also for sociology. If I am not concerned with society, then my thinking about society has no focus; it is nothing more than a blind groping, even if the blindness is hidden by a collection of “data” and impressive statistics. If I am concerned with man—and how can concern with the individual man be separated from concern with the society of which he is a part?—I am struck with the suffering that society causes, and I am prompted by the wish to reduce the suffering so as to help man to become fully human. If one is concerned with man, then this concern poses various questions: how can man be free, how can he be fully human, how can he become what he could be? It was this concern which prompted Marx to make his great discoveries. They, like any other scientific discovery, were not at all correct; in fact, the history of science is the history of errors. This holds true for Marx’s as it does Dr. Freud’s theories. What matters is not that a new insight is necessarily the last word of truth, but that it is faithful, that it is conducive to further discovery, and more than that: that in discovering truth, man changes himself because he becomes more awake and can transmit this greater awakedness to those who follow him. The interrelation between concern and knowledge has often been expressed—and rightly so—in terms of the interrelation between theory and practice. As Marx once wrote, one must not only interpret the World, but one must change it. #RandolphHarris 16 of 20
Indeed, interpretation without intention of change is empty; change without interpretation is bling. Interpretation and change, theory, and practice, are not two separate factors which can be combined; they are interrelated in such a way that knowledge becomes fertilized by practice and practice is guided by knowledge; theory and practice both change their nature once they cease to be separate. The problem of the interrelation between theory and practice has still another facet, the connection between intelligence and character. To be sure, every individual is born with a certain level of intelligence, and no psychological factors are responsible for his being either an idiot or a genius. However, idiots and geniuses are exceptions; what impressed me more and more was the stupidity of most people who do not fall under wither of these extreme categories. I am not referring to the lack of the sort of intelligence, which is measured by intelligence tests, but to the incapacity for understanding the less obvious causes of phenomena, of grasping contradictions within the same phenomenon, of making connections between different and not obviously related factors. This stupidity is most apparent in the views people have about personal relationships and social affairs. Why is it that people cannot see the most obvious facts in personal and social affairs and, instead, cling to cliches which are endlessly repeated without ever being questioned? #RandolphHarris 17 of 20
Intelligence, aside from the native faculty, is largely a function of independence, courage, and aliveness; stupidity is equally a result of submission, fear, and inner deadness. If an essential part of intelligence consists in the ability to make connections between factors which so far have not been seen as being related, the person who sticks to the cliché and to convention will not dare to recognize such connections; the person who is afraid of being different will not dare to recognize fictions for what they are, and hence will be greatly impeded from uncovering reality. The little boy in the story of the emperor’s clothes who sees that the emperor is naked, is, after all, not more intelligent than the adults, but he is not yet so eager to conform. Furthermore, any new discovery is an adventure, and the adventures require not only a certain degree of inner security, but also a vitality and joy which can be found only in those for whom living is more than releasing tensions and avoiding pain. To reduce the general level of stupidity, we need not more “intellect” but a different kind of character: men who are in love with life. However, there are dangers to intellectualization and the misuse of words. Words can be used without meaning what they purport to mean; words can be empty shells, and one can learn certain philosophical, religious, and political ideas as one learns a foreign language. #RandolphHarris 18 of 20
The Sacramento Fire Department promotes safety, protects life and property every day. “I remember one day I was detailed over to the battalion chief to be the chief’s aide. Guys referred to the aide as a double-dealing, double-clutching, clipboard-carrying apple polisher. This was all in fun, though, because the chief’s aide had to be a guy who was experienced and knew what he was doing. He was also the guy who approved vacation switches. So one summer day when the sidewalks of Sacramento were steaming hear, there was a job in one of the old tenement buildings, and, like always, hundreds of people crowded the sidewalk. It was my job, after the fire was put out, to talk to the people who had been burned out of their apartments and get all the information from them about the people who lived there and the possession lost in the fire. If they had the Crown Jewels from the Tower of London stuck in a back closet, I wanted to know about it. There was one woman sitting on the stoop. She was about twenty-four years old, good-looking, with those wide eyes that seem to convey innocence. I asked her her name. She said, ‘Famali Jenkins. I wrote it down, thinking it was a kind of exotic name. In the black culture there are many exotic names, particularly if they’re using African names. I asked her to spell it. #RandolphHarris 19 of 20
“She said, ‘F-E-M-A-L-E.” Her name was Female Jenkins, and my first inclination was to laugh. Then it dawned on me that probably when she was born, in the hospital that brought her forth to be one of God’s children, the mother had no immediate name to give to the hospital authorities, so they jotted in her sex, thinking, I suppose, that the real name could be inserted sometime in the future. Well, the real name never got attacked, and here the girl child of the Jekins family was left with this mark on a piece of paper for the rest of her life. Here she was on a crowed stoop in Midtown Sacramento, beneath her still smoldering apartment, telling me that her name is Female.” The Sacramento Fire Department’s mission is fire protection and to respond to emergency situations, and they make a point to do this with compassion. You can help save lives by donating to the Sacramento Fire Department. And remember, even if things are not going well, and you are a bit tired and sad, raise your children to love America and be patriot citizens. Also, let them know how important it is to love God and Jesus Christ and to be ethical and moral, and to obey the laws. We can help stop corruption and evil one person at a time. It only takes five good people to facilitate a change in a small group. To show support for America, remember to buy American cars and American made products. Respect law and order and treat others with dignity and kindness. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic, for which it stands, One Nation, under God, Indivisible with Liberty, and Justice for all. God is in His holy Temple, Earthly thoughts be silent now, while reverence we assemble, and before His presence bow. He is with us, now and ever, when we call upon His name, aiding every good endeavour, guiding every upward aim. #RandolphHarris 20 of 20
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Oh, Beautiful for Patriot Dream
The individual American is free at any time to escape from the consequences of an injustice which he has suffered at the hands of a political party, or which he thinks he has suffered—in other words, make his voice heard by voting or recalling a politician. It is in the interests of the nation to remove the cases of social unrest. The sentiment of the American people alone is to solve the dispute in an honourable way; or, to put the case more correctly, matters would not have come to such a dispute at all. If unsocial and dishonourable treatment of men provokes resistance, then the citizens can convince Congress to impose its decision in the conflict until the constitutional legislative authorities do away with the evil through legislation. Therefore, it is evident that if the people are to have any chance at all of winning through in the struggle for their country, they must be grouped with their fellow Americans and present a united front before the state, who incorporates in its own body the massed strength of the vested interests of the people or the country an undertaking which it conducts. Thus, when the people are united, they can inculcate and strengthen a sense of social responsibility in the country and open the road to practical results. In doing this, they tend to remove those causes of friction which are a continual source of discontent and complaint. #RandolphHarris 1 of 17
Democrats do not fulfil this much-desired function of the Constitution of the United States of America, or they have rendered in ineffective by sabotaging it through their political influence. Democrats have accordingly seized political advantage through theft, violence, and coercion and have taken the country under their exclusive power, without any protest from Republicans and patriots. In this way, they have established for themselves a solid bulwark behind which they can safely pervert our youth, destroy American traditions, and retire whenever a struggle is assumed, or a critical aspect of their fraud is uncovered. Thus the genuine purpose of the Republic gradually falls into oblivion, and is replaced by communism. For the Democrats never trouble themselves to respect and uphold the original purpose of the Constitution of the United States of America which is the movement the country was founded on. They simply overtake the Movement, lock, stock, and barrel, to serve their own political ends. Within a few decades, the United States of America will be transformed, by the Democratics, from an instrument originally fashioned by God for the defense of human Christianity and human rights into an instrument for the destruction of the national economic structure. If one side be sufficiently unscrupulous and the other sufficiently inert and docile, the interests of the American citizens will not be allowed for a moment to cross the path of its true purpose. In this case, our capitalistic nation will be turned into a communistic territory. #RandolphHarris 2 of 17
As of the beginning of the year 2000, the Democratic party has already ceased to recognize the purpose for which it has been founded. From year to year, it fell more and more under the political control of communist nations, until it is finally being used as a battering-ram against national security. Democrats have shattered, by means of constantly repeated blows, the fortification of the National Security Division, and the National Treasury of which so much time and care had been used to create. Now, these communist forces have crept out of the horse, opened the gates, and are allowing America to be invaded by hostile undocumented populations, ultimately destroying the country, as the Democrats deprive the people of their economic foundations. Attention to the real interests of the American people, on the parts of the Democrats, have steadily decreased. If the social and cultural demands of the broad masses remain unheeded under these cunning leaders, the gloomy prospect which has presented itself to this beautiful nation will create so much anxiety among the people that they will be unable to suppressed and oppose even the more blatant authoritarian tactics. And conditions will be such that those Democratic leaders will not have to even trouble about attempting to justify their unconstitutional actions. #RandolphHarris 3 of 17
As the masses are taught to suffer in silence, human rights will become less significant and the possibility of satisfying the American Dream will dwindle and whatever stance the few patriots that are left may take will become less and less effective. This will be in part because of the diabolical plant to weaken their fighting power by persuading the masses to paralyze the second amendment for it is just a ridiculous measure. However, it is amazing that Democratics think that the only thing that is valid in America is a poem on the statues of liberty, but the Constitution of the United States of America can be discarded like a dirty Pamper. If one remembers what a small measure of thinking power the broad masses possess, one will not be astonished by these allegations. Our ancestors did not receive the land we live on as a present from Heaven, but they had to risk their lives and fight for it. In the future, we will not obtain the land, and the life it offers for our nation, through any act of Heavenly generosity. We will only obtain the land we need through the might for the victorious swords. The scriptures tell us the Lord established the Constitution of the United States of America. “And for this purpose have I established the Constitution of this land, by the hands of wise men whom I raised up unto this very propose, and redeemed the land by the shedding of blood,” reports Doctrine and Covenants 101.80. #RandolphHarris 4 of 17
Even a divine constitution requires something further; it demands a kind of people who will, by their very natures, receive and respect such a constitution and function well within the conditions it establishes. Where indeed shall we find such a people today? Hod has mane it possible for the holy priesthood and the Church to be restored upon the Earth—the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ—but only in America. Can you understand the way God has worked? Commit yourself to preach the message of the Lord’s glorious achievement in America and teach it to your children. This is a time when we can afford to be patriotic, in the best sense of that term. There is reason to be proud that we live in an established land that has been conditioned by the Lord so that His gospel could be restored. The purpose of America is to provide a setting wherein that is possible. How shall we honour of founding fathers and those who have served this mighty country? First, by striving to make our citizenry the righteous people of the Lord. And second, by telling the story of what the Lord has done for you and me and this great nation. God lives and Jesus is the Christ. “And now, we can behold the decrees of God concerning this land, that it is a land of promise; and whatsoever national shall possess it shall serve God, or they shall be swept off when the fulness of His wrath shall come upon them. And the fulness of His wrath cometh upon them when they are ripened in iniquity. For behold, this is a land which is choice above all other lands; wherefore he that doth possess it shall serve God or shall be swept off; for it is the everlasting decree of God. And it is not until the fulness of iniquity among the children of the land, that they are swept off,” reports Ether 2.9-10. #RandolphHarris 5 of 17
If he has lost his employment, if serious illness descends on his family, it is natural and pardonable for a married man with responsibilities to worry or to be anxious; but if he is also philosophically inclined, he will check his worry and anxiety by calm reasoned analysis followed by prayer, meditation, and finally a handing of the problems over to the higher power. It is not that he is to be without pity for the misfortunes and miseries of others—such a thing would be impossible—but that he insists on taking a larger and longer view of them. It is better that we pass by unnoticed rather than be praised or blamed. For then there will be no strain on our peace of mind. If praised, we may swell with pride. If blamed, indignation may disturb our feelings. He may not give more than a part of himself to these lesser loves. His deepest feelings must remain remote from them. Conquest of the emotional nature and knowledge of the truer character of death will be evidenced when, at the actual passing of a near one, he seems insensible to grief. To be detached from anything means that he can take it or leave it alone. Ambition wears thin with time or even wears out altogether. The hour may come when it means nothing and when a man feels nothing of it. #RandolphHarris 6 of 17
Only the young are so eager to risk the perils of upward flight to fame. The reflective man is indifferent to Worldly ambitions as the aged man is tired of them. Philosophy leads its votaries to a somewhat similar detachment, by supplying new incentives, does not lead to negative results. The process of inner disentangling in the quest of total freedom may have to be wide-sweeping. Not only desires but also duties may have to go, not only long-hoarded possessions but also relatives and friends. There are those who regard such detachment as too cool, perhaps even too inhuman. They are displeased with this rule. They will let nothing disturb their tenderest affections, yet the ego lurks here too. Another good way to uncover the plot and some of the most important lines in a person’s script is to ask: “If your family life were put on the stage, what kind of play would it be?” Such family dramas are usually named after the Greek Oedipus and Electra plays, in which the boy competes with father for his mommy and the girl wants daddy for her own (the Electra complex). However, the script analyst must know what the parents, called for convenience Supideo and Artcele, are up to meanwhile. Supideo is the other side of Oedipus drama, and expresses the frank or disguised feelings of pleasures of the flesh of the mother for her son, while Artcele is the other side of Electra and shows father’s feelings for the girl. #RandolphHarris 7 of 17
A close inquiry will nearly always reveal rather obvious transaction which demonstrate that these feelings are not imaginary, even though the parent tries to conceal them, usually by playing “Uproar” with the child. That is, the disturbed parent tries to cover up his Childs feelings of pleasures of the flesh for his offspring by coming on Parental and ordering the offspring about in a quarrelsome way. However, on certain occasions they leak out, despite all efforts to disguise them by “Uproar” and other devices. Actually, the happiest parents are often those who openly admire the attractiveness of their children. The Supideo and Artcele dramas, like Oedipus and Electra, have many variations. As the children grow older, they may be played out as mother sleeping with son’s boyfriend or father sleeping with his daughter’s chum. Farther out and even more “gamy” versions are mother sleeping with daughter’s boyfriend or father sleeping with son’s girl. (This may occur when mother has no son of her won to play Jocasta with, and similarly if father has no daughter of his own.) This compliment may be returned by the young Oedipus sleeping with father’s mistress, or Electra with mother’s lover. Sometimes the family script calls for one or several members to be homosexual, with corresponding variations in the roles, incest between siblings, and later seductions of each other’s partners. #RandolphHarris 8 of 17
Any deviations from the standard Oedipus (son wondering or dreaming about pleasures of flesh with the mother) or Electra (daughter wondering or dreaming about father) roles will undoubtedly influence the whole life course of the person. The Church condemns any form of incest. Victims of incest often suffer serious trauma. Sometimes victims have feelings of shame or guilt. Victims are not guilty of sin. However, God’s love and the healing of Jesus Christ comes through his Atonement. “And Alma said: If thou believest in the redemption of Christ, thou canst be healed,” reports Alma 15.8. “And in came to pass that when he had thus spoken, all the multitude, with one accord, did go forth with their sick and their afflicted, and their lame, and with their blind, and with their dumb, and with all them that were afflicted any manner; and he did heal them every one as they were brought forth unto him,” 3 Nephi 17.9. In addition to, or beyond, the sexual aspects of the family drama, there are even more poignant ones. A jilted homosexual girl attacked her lover, held a knife to her throat, and cried: “You’ll let me give you these wounds, but you won’t let me heal them.” This perhaps is the motto of all family dramas, the origin of all parental anguish, the basis for youthful rebellion, and the cry of couples not yet ready for divorce. The wounded flee, and the cry above is the Martian translation of the ad: “Mary, come home. All is forgiven.” And that is why children stick with even the most miserable parents. It hurts to be wounded, but it feels so good to be healed. #RandolphHarris 9 of 17
There can be an honest relationship between mother and her child, real understanding and acceptance of the facts of each other—of each other’s World as it is. The converse of this would be the parent who is not seriously disordered, but who is disordered in a part of his (or her) personality which does involve the child. Then, even living in what we consider very good conditions, the child would be in trouble. This happens often. That statemen could make some parents look into themselves with fear and mistrust. “Is there something wrong with me which is affecting my child?” This is likely to make matters worse. It seems to me a better use of intelligence and energy to accept the fact that none of us is in as good shape as we could be, and work on that. If I move in the direction of being more acceptant of the child’s World as his, and accepting as his World what he says of himself, and being honest with him about my World and my own limitations (accepting myself), then both of us are getting out of whatever degree of trouble we may be in. Children and young people are helpful to me in doing this because they are still somewhat aliens in our World. As aliens, too, they are more likely to see the nonsense of some things we have lived with for so long at we do not notice that they do not make sense. They are more questioning than we are. When I join them in their questioning, I make better sense of myself. #RandolphHarris 10 of 17
One child helped me in the de-conditioning of myself simply by asking, of all sorts of things I required of him and of myself, “What is the point?” When I investigated this, usually there was not any. A limitation to analytical work is constituted by the prevalence of destructive tendencies, whether they pertain primarily to others or to the self. It should be emphasized that such tendences are not necessarily literally destructive, in the sense of an urge toward suicide, for example. More often they take such forms as hostility or contempt or a general attitude of negation. These destructive impulses are engendered in every severe neurosis. In greater or less degree they are at the bottom of every neurotic development, and they become intensified through the clashing of rigid, egocentric demands and illusions with the external World. Any severe neurosis is like a tight armour that prevents the person from having a full and active life with others. It necessarily engenders a resentment toward life, a deep resentment at being left out which Nietzsche has described as lebensneid. For many reasons hostility and contempt, regarding self and others alike, may be so strong that to let oneself go to pieces appears as an appealing way to take revenge. To say “no” to everything life has to offer remains the only assertion of self that is left. #RandolphHarris 11 of 17
Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler, already mentioned when discussing the factor of resignation, is a good example of a person in whom destructiveness toward others and self is prevailing tendency. How prohibitive such destructiveness is to self-development depends, as always, on the degree of severity. If a person feels, for example, that triumph over others is far more important than doing anything constructive with his own life, he is not likely to derive much benefit from analysis. If in his mind enjoyment, happiness, and affection, or any closeness to people, have turned into indications of contemptible softness or mediocrity, it may be impossible for him or anyone else to penetrate his armour of hardness. I have been trained in accordance with the strictly orthodox Freudian procedure of analyzing patient while sitting behind him and listening to his associations. This technique of psychoanalysis was modeled alone the lines of the laboratory experiment: the patient was the “object,” the analyst observed his free associations, dreams, et cetera, and analyzed the material produced by the patient. The analyst was supposed to be a distant observer, a mirror, rather than a participant. The longer I worked in this manner, the less did I feel satisfied. First, I often became tired and even sleepy during the analytic work; I often felt relieved when the analytic hour was over. #RandolphHarris 12 of 17
However, worse than that, I had less and less the feeling that I really understood the patient. To be sure, I had learned to “interpret,” and I had learned enough to interpret in such a way that usually the patient’s associations and dreams fitted into my theoretical expectations. However, I still was talking about that patient rather than to him—and I felt that much of what I ought to understand was escaping me. At first, I thought, quite naturally, that all these doubts were due to my lack of experience. However, when the doubts grew with my experience instead of decreasing, I began to have doubts about the method I was using. Stimulated and encouraged by colleagues who had has similar experiences, I began to grope about to find a new way. Eventually I found this to be a simple one: instead of being an observer, I had to become a participant; to be engaged with the patient; from center to center, rather than from periphery to periphery. I discovered that I could begin to see things in the patient which I had not observed before that I began to understand him, rather than to interpret what he said, and that I hardly ever felt tired any more turning the analytic hours. At the same time, I experience that one could be fully objective while being fully engaged. “Objective” here means to see the patient as he is, and not as I want him to be. #RandolphHarris 13 of 17
However, to be objective is only possible if one does not want anything for oneself, neither the patient’s admiration, nor his submission, nor even his “cure.” If the latter sounds like a contradiction of what I said before, namely, that is precisely the wish to help which fertilizes one’s thinking, I want to stress that, in fact, there is no contradiction. In the genuine wish to help I want nothing for myself, I am neither hurt in my self-esteem when the patient does not improve, nor am I elated about “my” achievement when he gets well. There continues to be much dispute over the human ability to transmit messages to others by thinking about the message with great intensity of concentration, and receive such messages transmitted by others. Disciplined scientific research into Esp has been done under J.B. Rhine, at Duke University Parapsychology Laboratory; by workers at the Menninger Clinic, in Kansas; at Maimonides Dream Laboratory in Brooklyn; and in several European countries. I have not been in any of these laboratories, or seen any demonstrations, but I cannot neglect the reports of findings that I take to be true, written by reputable and competent scientists. I regard it as a reasonable hypothesis that some such capacity for extrasensory communication is an innate human capacity that is but rarely developed because few people believe that it is possible, and perhaps, too, because it is not valued. #RandolphHarris 14 of 17
Indeed, if persons were capable of “tuning in” on everyone’s thoughts, or of intruding into the thoughts of others, everyday life would be impossible because of the constant inundation of messages. From the perspective of this hypothesis, the known adepts at sending and receiving messages must have been persons who were not trained for it, but who retrained the ability despite their socialization. In short, they could conduct extrasensory communication because nobody in their culture told them it was impossible. If there is one—his family life provides the first scene for his application of philosophy. There his opportunity is plainly visible, the area for the self-judgements of his philosophic conscience plainly marked out. When the family circle prepares the younger members for mature life, it does its duty. However, when it sets itself up as the supreme value of human existence and its loyalties or attachments as the supreme forms of human ethics, it overdoes duty and breeds evil. It stifles individual growth and crushes independent thought. It is nothing more than enlarged self-centeredness. It turns a means into an end. If over-emphasized, thus the influence of a useful institution becomes unhealthy and vicious. Parents who refuse to release their children, even when the latter are fully adult, who constantly fuss around them with over-solicitousness and hover around with over-protectiveness, belong to the patriarchal age. They stifle the children’s development, breed the daughter-in-law’s or the son-in-law’s resentment, and fill their own minds with unnecessary anxieties. #RandolphHarris 15 of 17
The Sacramento Fire Departments protects life and property through education, excellence, and commitment. The dedicated members serve our community with unwavering passion and professionalism. Thes firefighters provide the highest level of care, selflessly facing adversity every day to keep us safe. “When I arrived, there was a huge hole in the wall of a brick housing project. The main gas line that fed the whole unit was broken, and gas was pouring all over the place. It was not on fire, but the crews were stretching lines to cover, in case it did blow. They were evacuating the building, getting the people out as fast as possible. My brother X was the chief on the scene, and everybody was uptight, because this was the same platoon that had had the big propane explosion just a short time earlier. X was back only a few weeks from his injuries. The tension was pretty high. Well, we got the gas company on the scene, and things settled down. I was standing inside the building by the big hole in the wall. X said, ‘The rescue company is getting the guy out of the car.’ I couldn’t see any car. I looked at him, and said, ‘What car?’ He looked at me like I was slightly nuts. His hand was on the side of his face, and he pointed a finger up toward the ceiling. I looked and saw the rear end of a car sticking through the fire wall up at the ceiling. #RandolphHarris 16 of 17
“The guy had come barreling though a parking lot, hit an obstacle and gone up in the air, flew through the wall, broke the gas pipe, plowed through the fire wall, and got stuck in the ceiling. I didn’t see the rescue company because they were in an adjoining room, digging the guy out. So after the emotional tension, it ended up that the guy was drunk as a skunk, and he never even got hurt. The only thing that got hurt in the whole thing was my ego, when I said, ‘What car?’” The Sacramento Fire Department has a crucial mission to protect life, property, and the city’s assets during emergencies. You can help save lives by donating to the Sacramento Fire Department. To help keep the community save, it is also a good idea to teach your children to love America, to be patriotic, love God and Jesus Christ, buy American cars and other goods and services made in American. To ensure domestic tranquility, please teach your children to respect law and order, treat others is empathy, understanding, and respect. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic, for which it stands, One Nation, Under God, Indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for all. Wipe every cheek the tear, banish care and silence fear; all things work for the best; teach us the divine behest: Thou shalt rest. #RandolphHarris 17 of 17
The Winchester Mystery House
Now, let’s delve into some historical mysteries. Have you ever heard of The Winchester Mystery House? It Is a fascinating mansion in San Jose, California, known for its labyrinthine design, secret passages, and staircases that lead to nowhere. The story behind it is equally intriguing: Sarah Winchester, widow of the firearms magnate William Wirt Winchester, believed that she was haunted by the spirits of those killed by Winchester rifles. To appease them, she continuously built and renovated the house for 38 years until her death in 1922. The result? A sprawling, enigmatic mansion with over 160 rooms! 🏰
Please come and enjoy a delicious meal in Sarah’s Café, stroll along the paths of the beautiful Victorian gardens, and wonder through the miles of hallways in the World’s most mysterious mansion. For further information about tours, including group tours, weddings, school events, birthday party packages, facility rentals, and special events please visit the website: https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
Please visit the online giftshop, and purchase a gift for friends and relatives as well as a special memento of The Winchester Mystery House. A variety of souvenirs and gifts are available to purchase. https://shopwinchestermysteryhouse.com/
Do You Beat Him for that?
The promise of “Holy War” gives a strange, yet pleasant sensation to our American sheep head players when they think others are now willing to shed their blood for us. However, there is in mankind today a counterforce to the sterility and dangers of a quantitative, anonymous mass culture; a new, if sometimes imperceptible, spiritual sense of convergence toward human and World unity based on the sacredness of each human person and respect for plurality of cultures. There is a growing awareness that equality may not be evaluated in mere numerical terms but is proportionate and analogical. For when equality is equated with interchangeability, individuality is negated and the human person extinguished. We stand at the brink of an age of World in which human life presses forward to actualize new forms. The false separation of man and nature, of time and space, of freedom and security, is acknowledged, and we are faced with a new vision of man in his organic unity and of history offering a richness and diversity of quality and majesty of scope hitherto unprecedented. In relating the accumulated wisdom of man’s spirit to the new reality of the World Age, in articulating its thought and belief, men are encouraged to seek a renaissance of hope and pride in their decision as to what his destiny will be. #RandolphHarris 1 of 24
Although the present apocalyptic period is one of exceptional tensions, there is also at work an exceptional movement toward a compensating unity which refuses to violate the ultimate moral power at work in the universe, that very power upon which all human effort must at last depend. In this way, we may come to understand that there exists an inherent independence of spiritual and mental growth which, though conditioned by circumstances, is never determined by circumstances. In this way, the great plethora of human knowledge may be correlated with an insight into the nature of human nature by being attuned to the wide and deep range of human thought and human experience. In spite of the infinite obligation of men and in spite of their finite power, in spite of the intransigence of nationalism, and in spite of the homelessness of moral passions rendered ineffectual by the scientific outlook, beneath the apparent turmoil and upheaval of the present, and out of the transformations of this dynamic period with the unfolding of a World-consciousness, man has quickened the unshaken heart of well-rounded truth and is interpreting the significant elements of the World Age now taking shape out of the core of that undimmed continuity of the creative process which restores man to mankind while deepening and enhancing his communion with the universe. #RandolphHarris 2 of 24
The demand which the quest makes upon his feelings is often a harsh and exacting one. He must see each troubling situation which concerns him without allowing personal emotions to interfere with the truth of vision. He must displace hot resentment, for instance, by calm detachment. It is a battle of self against self and consequently invisible to and unnoticed by other men. No one will help him here. To be detached simply means not letting yourself get into the power of anything or anyone who can hurt, damage, or destroy you inwardly. Those who live in the World but are not if it must work with complete detachment from the fruits and results of their activity. However, how could any aspiring student achieve this? Only the master, the man who has uncovered his identity as Overself could succeed in labouring without caring what rewards he got or what effects he brought into being. It is not a petrifying ascetic coldness but a benevolent inherent calm. The practice of detachment helps in the practice of meditation, while the reverse is also true. It is pure but calm feeling unmixed with the desires, passion, perturbations, and inflammations of the ordinary unawakened and unevolved man. Does this detachment mean that nothing is to make any difference in him? No, it means rather that he may let the different effects produce themselves but only under the check and control of a deeper abiding serenity. #RandolphHarris 3 of 24
He who can detach himself from emotion even while he continues to feel it, becomes its true master. It would be a mistake to confuse detachment with callousness or to think that the conquest of emotion means the lack of all feeling. He who is possessed by the one and has achieved the other, may still have his sympathies unimpaired, and brought to a greater self-identification with other men than before. However, they will not be uncontrolled. Wisdom and knowledge, ideality and practicality will balance them. The degree of attachment is measurable by the degree of emotional involvement. Therefore, to become detached is to become emotionally detached. The disillusionments which come from personal contact with the defects or deficiencies of human nature will not make him cynical, will not even make him sad. A cold, heavy and death-like apathy is not the indifference, or the detachment, taught here. In the World of artists—using the word broadly to include all who practice any of the arts—one too often notices an easy, careless way of living, a lack of any worthwhile purpose, and consequently a lack of any worthwhile self-discipline. This merely egoistic casualness drifting through the years, is a counterfeit of the true detachment taught by philosophy. #RandolphHarris 4 of 24
It is not so easy to assume an air of detachment in the deeper levels of one’s being as it is on the surface. To be unattached gives one lighter touch in dealing with the affairs and events of life, takes out some of the unnecessary solemnity and nerve-racking hurry. The emotional results of undergoing a misfortune or an affliction can be made a part of oneself or can be separated out by refusing identification with them. One may seek the real I which never changes and so become detached from them. It is this self whose presence in one makes it possible to be conscious of those results. The wise man had better cast the plaudits of the multitude out of his ears; it is all noise, for the mob does not understand him. He has pleased them for today; but tomorrow, when he displeases them, they will be as ready to destroy him. He should be prepared to receive abuse with the same equanimity with which he is ready to receive praise. It is comparatively easy to be detached from past circumstances, for the feelings they aroused are not quiet or dead; but can he be so detached about present ones? Yet no less an achievement than this is required of him. When detachment is used as an excuse for escape, it is being misused. #RandolphHarris 5 of 24
It is not that he is above having admirations and aversions, preferences, and distastes, but that he tries to stand aside mentally even while they register on his feelings. Detachment does not mean that he regards his outer performance in the World and his inner thoughts about the World with the utmost solemnity. No! the day will not pass without a little lightheartedness about it all. Why? Because he knows very well that it is just like a dream into which he is peeping—a passing show, as Shakespeare also knew. We may express our disenchantment with life in exactly opposite ways—either with a grim scowl or with a quiet smile. It is not only a matter of temperament but also of our World-view. The two combine to make the result which we express. In the last and supreme disenchantment—which is death itself—a third factor enters to effect this result. Out of the understanding which ripens and deepens with the philosophical work, he becomes grateful for one result. This is the transmutation of those resentments and bitternesses which follow some experiences into needed instruction and growing detachment. His aim being the contrary of most people’s aims, he tries to depersonalize his attitudes and reactions. What relief he feels with even partial freedom from the burden of self-consciousness! How heavy a load is borne by those who see or react with ego-centered nervousness. #RandolphHarris 6 of 24
The eventual aim of human evolutionary experience is to make us learn to love the Overself more than anything else. Therefore, any personal attachments which we continue to hold within the heart must be purified in quality, while at the same time kept subordinate to our larger attachments to the Quest. He must fully understand his situation, both regarding business responsibilities and the duties towards his family—perhaps a wife and mother. It is part of this belief that such responsibilities must be honourably and effectively discharged and truth should be able to help him to do so rather than relieve him from them. “And truth is knowledge of things as they are, and as they were, and as they are to come; and whatsoever is more or less than this is the spirit of that wicked one who was a liar from the beginning,” reports Doctrine and Covenants 93.24-25. How can we know the truth? People bring with them many customs, traditions, and practices from their earlier beliefs. Not all these practices conform to the will of the Lord. Not only must we teach by Spirit, but we must also receive by the Spirit. “And again, he that recieveth the word of truth, doth he receive it by the Spirit of truth or some other way? If it be some other way it is not of God,” reports Doctrine and Covenants 50.19-20. #RandolphHarris 7 of 24
If we do not receive the truth by His spirit, it is not His word. “Pilate therefore said unto him, Art thou a king then? Jesus answered, Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end I was born, and for this cause came I into the World, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Everyone that is of the truth heareth my voice,” reports John 18.37. We must prepare our hearts and our minds with a sincere desire to know the truth. “For behold, my brethren, it is given unto you to judge, that ye may know good from evil; and the way to judge is as plain, that yet may know with a perfect knowledge, as the daylight is from the dark night. For behold, the Spirit of Christ is given to every man, that he may know good from evil; wherefore, I show unto you the way to judge; for everything which inviteth to do good, and to persuade to believe in Christ, is sent forth by the power and gift of Christ; wherefore ye may know with a perfect knowledge it is of God,” reports Moroni 7.15-16. Now that we have explored some of the ways in which the World can be experienced by everyone, we turn to the problem of how persons do experience their World, as function of their culture and individual upbringing. Both Rorschach and Jung called attention to erlebnisty pus (literally, “experience type”). #RandolphHarris 8 of 24
Rorschach made inferences about the ways people habitually experience the World from their responses to his famous ink-blot test, whereas Jung inferred “type” based on his psychotherapeutic interviews. The widely used Myers-Briggs Personality Type Indicator uses Jung’s analysis of consciousness to describe such types. Persons who emphasize thinking and judging, in their usual waking consciousness, as opposed to persons who are more emotional and intuitive in their approach to the World, are examples of types. People become specialists at some kinds of experiencing. For example, creative writers are specialists at imagining and at remembering. Many college professors become specialists at thinking, with diminished or repressed ability to pay perceptual attention to what is going on around them. Eliade points out that shamans, in primitive tribes, are specialists at the self-induction of ecstatic states of consciousness, during which time they can “see” the future, healing illnesses, walking on coals, and other such feats. It may be that such capacities lie within everyone’s capabilities, but up brining and the need to adjust to the specialized environments within which we live prevent us from discovering and cultivating such ecstatic states. The distinction between resistance and limitation is merely one of degree. If strong enough, any resistance can turn into an actual limitation. Any factor that decreases or paralyzes a person’s incentive to come to grips with himself constitutes a possible limitation to self-analysis. #RandolphHarris 9 of 24
A deep-rooted feeling of resignation constitutes a serious limitation to self-analysis. A person may be so hopeless about ever escaping from his psychic entanglements that he has no incentive to make more than a halfhearted attempt to outgrow his difficulties. Hopelessness is present to some extent in every severe neurosis. Whether it constitutes a serious obstacle to therapy depends upon the number of constructive forces still alive or still to be revived. Such constructive forces are often present even though they seem to have been lost. However, sometimes a person has been so entirely crushed at an early age, or has become caught in such unsolvable conflicts, that he has long since given up expectations and struggles. This attitude of resignation may be entirely conscious, expressing itself in a pervasive feeling of futility concerning one’s own life or in an elaborate philosophy of the futility of life in general. Often it is reinforced by a pride in belonging among the few people who have not blinded themselves to this “fact.” In some persons no such conscious elaboration has taken place; they are merely passive, endure life in a stoical way, and no longer respond to any prospect of a more meaningful existence. #RandolphHarris 10 of 24
Such resignation may be hidden also behind a feeling of boredom with life, as in Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler. Her expectations are extremely meager. Life should be entertaining now and then, should provide some fun or thrill or excitement, but she expects nothing of positive value. This attitude is often accompanied—as it is in Hedda Gabler—by a profound cynicism, the result of a disbelief in any value in life and in any goal to strive for. However, a profound hopelessness may exist also in persons one would not suspect of it, persons who superficially give the impression of being capable of enjoying life. They may be good at enjoying company, enjoying eating, drinking, pleasures of the flesh. In adolescence they may have been promising, capable of genuine interests and genuine feelings. However, for some reason or other they have become shallow, have lost their ambition; their interest in work has become perfunctory, their relationships with people are loose, easily made and easily terminated. In short, they, too, have ceased to strive for a meaningful existence and have turned to the periphery of life instead. If a neurotic trend is what we might called it, quite a different kind of limitation is set to self-analysis with some inaccuracy, too successful. A craving for power, for example, may be gratified to such an extent that the person would scoff at any suggestion of analysis, even though his satisfaction with his life is built on quicksand. #RandolphHarris 11 of 24
If a longing for dependency is fulfilled in a marriage—a marriage, for example, between such a person and one who has an urge for domination—or in subordination to a group, the same holds true. Similarly, a person may successfully withdraw into an ivory tower and feel comparatively at ease by keeping within its precincts. This apparently successful assertion of a neurotic trend is produced by a combination of internal and external conditions. As to the former, a neurotic trend that “succeeds” must not conflict too sharply with other needs. A person is never entirely consumed by just one compulsive striving, with everything else blotted out: no human being is ever reduced to a streamlined machine driving in one direction. However, this concentration may be approximated. And external conditions vary infinitely. In our society, a man who is financially independent can easily withdraw into his ivory tower; but, if he restricts his other needs to a minimum, a person with scant resources can also withdraw from the World. One person has grown up in an environment that allows him to display of prestige or power, but another, though he started with nothing, makes such a relentless use of external circumstances that in the end he attains the same goal. #RandolphHarris 12 of 24
However, no matter how such a “successful” assertion of a neurotic trend is achieved, the result is a complete barrier to development by way of analysis. For one thing, the successful trend has become too valuable to be submitted to any questioning. And for another thing, the goal that is striven for in analysis—a harmonious development, with good relations to self and others—would not appeal to such a person because the forces that might respond to the appeal are too enfeebled. We have talked quite a lot about the unfortunate results that may arise from certain pathological pressures in the environment, but these pressures do not necessarily lead to poor mother-child relationships. Even a woman with a neurosis or psychosis may have an extremely healthy relationship with her child. That may surprise some of you; it did me when I first came across it. I once treated a woman in Jerusalem who was quite crazy, and had been for years. She had an unbelievably bad family life. Her husband was in jail at the time. She was his sixth wife, and I do not think he had gotten rid of some of the others. In any case, he was a well-known brigand. This woman brought her child of six to the clinic because she thought he was stealing. He had taken a pencil from school and she considered this stealing. Talking with her, we got a depressing picture. She said the child wet the bed and encopresis; that is to say, he messed himself. And he was overly aggressive. #RandolphHarris 13 of 24
However, when we examined the child, and we examined him very carefully because we could not believe our eyes, he appeared to be perfectly normal. He was a little aggressive and noisy, when compared with a child from Paris or London, but by the standards of his own environment, he was perfectly normal. When we asked him about wetting the bed, he explained first, that his mother could not afford to buy blue paint to put around the door; then, that there were ghosts outside and if one did not paint around the door with blue paint the ghosts came inside; and, finally, that in order to urinate at night he would have to go into the night where the ghosts were. It was very logical that he should wet the bed. As his encopresis, as we talked more with the woman, we discovered that this was due to the horrible food she gave him. He had diarrhea most of the time, and the hand-me-downs he wore were exceedingly difficult to undo. By the time he could unbutton his clothes, he would mess himself. Altogether, he seemed a perfectly normal little boy. She told us that she beat him terribly, and was afraid he would get epilepsy as a result. This sounded bad. I asked, “What do you beat him for? Do you beat him when he wets the bed?” She said: “No! What do you expect him to do? Everyone knows that a child wets the bed.” #RandolphHarris 14 of 24
I asked: “Do you beat him when he messes his pants?” She said, “What do you expect? He can’t take his buttons off. He’s got diarrhea. How would you expect him not to mess his pants. You wouldn’t expect me to beat him for that.” She also told me he masturbated. I asked, “Do you beat him for that?” She said, “No, that’s normal. A little child play with himself.” I asked, “Do you beat him for stealing?” “Oh no,” she said, “after all, that’s hereditary. His father is a brigand. At the moment he’s in jail. I wouldn’t beat him for that. Would beat a child just because his father was a criminal?” Finally, I asked, “What do you beat him for?” And she answered, “I have a severe noise in my head, but I’ve got rheumatism in my hand, so I hit him with a stick. Only I’m afraid if I hit him with a stick he ‘ll get epilepsy.” When I spoke to the child, he did not seem to mind. His mother had always beaten him. He said, “When mother gets nervous, she lets fly with a stick.” The interesting thing here is that the mother-child relationship was successful and extremely healthy. Whatever needs the child had, the woman was fulfilling. She was very warm and protective and she braved the child guidance clinic because the child had stolen a pencil. Here was a woman with frank psychosis, living under terrible conditions. Yet this was a healthy mother-child relationship and had produced a health boy. There was also a twin sister who seemed very normal. All of this showed us that a woman can have a gross disorder of personality and yet, if her relationship with the child does not involve that part of per personality which is disordered, you may get a child with a healthy personality. #RandolphHarris 15 of 24
An angry fairy says that Briar Rose will prick her finger with a spindle and fall down dead. Another fairy comments this to a hundred years of sleep. When she is fifteen, Briar Rose does prick her finger, and immediately falls asleep. At the same moment, everybody and everything else in the castle also fall asleep. During the hundred hears, may princes try to get her through the briars which have grown up around her, but none succeeds. At last, after the time is up, a prince arrives who manages to get through because the briars let him. When he finds the princess and kisses her, she wakes up and they fall in love. At the same moment, everybody and everything else in the castle takes up exactly where they left off, as though nothing had happened, and no time had passed since they fell asleep. The princess herself is still only fifteen years old, not 115. She and the price get married, and in one version, the live happily ever after; in another, this is only the beginning of their troubles. There are many magic sleeps in mythology. Perhaps the best knows is that of Brunhilde, who is left sleeping on the mountain with a ring of fire around her which only a hero can penetrate, and that is accomplished by Siegfried. In one or another, with slight alterations, almost everything in the story of Sleeping Beauty could happen. #RandolphHarris 16 of 24
Girls do not prick their fingers and faint, and they do fall asleep in their towers, and princes do wander around in the forest and look for faith maidens. The one thing that cannot happen is for everything and everybody to be unchanged and unaged after the lapse of so many years. This is a real illusion because it is not only improbable, it is impossible. And this is just the illusion on which Waiting for Rigor Mortis (WRM) scripts are based: that when the Prince does come, Rose will be fifteen years old again instead of thirty, forty, or fifty, and they will have a whole lifetime ahead of them. This is the illusion of sustained youth, a modest daughter of the illusion of immortality. It is hard to tell Rose in real life that princess are younger men, and that by the time they reach her age they have become kings, and are much less interesting. That is the most distressing part of the script analyst’s job: in break up the illusion, to inform the patient’s Child that there is no Santa Claus, and make it stick. If there is the patient’s favourite fairy tale to work with, it is much easier for both. If Rose does find the Prince with the Golden Apples, one of the practical problems with WRM is that she often feels out-classed and must find fault and play “Blemish” to bring him down to her level, so that he ends up wishing she would go back in the briars and fall asleep again. On the other hand, if she settles for less—the prince with the Silver Apples, or even ordinary Macintoshes from the grocery store—she will feel cheated and take it out on him, meanwhile always keeping an eye out for the Golden One. Thus, neither the frigid script nor the magic antiscript offers much chance for fulfillment. Also, as in the fairy tale, there is his mother to contend with as well as her witch. This script is important because a great many people in the World, in one way or another, spend their lives waiting for rigor mortis. #RandolphHarris 17 of 24
Being related, being engaged, means to be concerned. If I am a participant rather than a distant observer, I become interested (inter-esse means “to-be-in). “To-be-in” means not to be outside. If “I-am-in,” then the World becomes my concern. This concern can be one of destruction. The “interest” of the suicidal person in himself is the interest to destroy himself, just as the “interest” of the homicidal person in the World is that of destroying it. However, this latter interest is a pathological one; not because “man is good,” but because it is the very quality of life that it tends to sustain itself; “to-be-in” the World means to be concerned with life and the growth of myself and all other beings. Concerned knowledge, the “being-in” knowledge, then, leads to the desire to help; it is, if we use the word in a broad sense, therapeutically oriented knowledge. This quality of concerned knowledge had found its classic expression in Christian thought. When Jesus Christ saw an old, sick man, a dead man, He did not remain a distant observer; He was moved to think about the question how man can be saved from suffering. It was His concerned to help man which led to the creation of the Ten Commandments, which are guidelines of how man should live and how he can liberate himself from suffering. Once the orientation to the World has become one of passionate concern, all thinking about the World takes different paths. The simplest example for this is offered by medicine. #RandolphHarris 18 of 24
How many medical discoveries would have been made without the wish to heal? It is the same concern which underlies all Dr. Freud’s discoveries. Had he not been prompted by the wish to cure mental disturbances, how could he have discovered the unconscious in the various disguises in which it appears in symptoms and dreams? Quite obviously, random, and uninterested observation rarely leads to significant knowledge. All questions posed by the intellect are determined by our interest. This interest, far from being opposed to knowledge, is its very condition, provided it is blended with reason, that is, with the capacity to see things as they are, “to let them be.” The detachment which is taught by philosophy is not to be confused with the detachment which is preached by religio-mysticism. The first is a personal lifestyle for coping with the World; the second is an indifference to the World. It comes to this: that we must view our own life’s events in a bifocal manner, both impersonally and personally. The right way to regard possessions and property is to replace the sense of ownership by the sense of trusteeship. When Earthly things or human entities hold our heart to the exclusion of all else, they obscure the Overself’s light and shut out its peace. Such nonchalant detachment is not easy to attain. It is easy to renounce the things which we value lightly but hard to become inwardly aloof to those which we hold precious. Human preferences do exist; it is possible to pretend that they may not be there when they are—but this has to be paid for by self-deception. #RandolphHarris 19 of 24
The mission of the Sacramento Fire Department is to locate, suppress and extinguish fires and maneuver to protect the community by providing medical assistance. “It was on Squad X in Sacramento that I really learned what being a big city fireman was all about, because by that time I had graduated to the point where I was not just a fan who was riding. I was a member of the company and wore a helmet and worked as a fireman. Those experiences never leave you because you were challenged constantly. We had a district that was skid row, slums, and heavy industry. We probably had more fires and extra-alarm fires than any other company in the city. Also, we probably took more causalities than any other company, because of the nature of our district and the amount of heavy fire duty we did. The bond among us was tremendous. One of the things about a fire company, especially a busy, hard-working company, is the bond between you and your brothers on the company. It comes through shared experiences, and one of the great honors of my life is that firefighter I respect would accept me as one of them. That probably is the most gratifying of all—to be accepted as a firefighter by other firefighters. I think the greatest compliment anybody can ever pay to another person is to say simply, “He’s a good fireman.” Often you will hear firemen talk about someone, and they will finally come down to one sentence, “He’s a good fireman.” It says everything about a person. It means that the commitment is there, that they have stood the test, that they have been accepted because of what they delivered when it really counted. #RandolphHarris 20 of 24
“That was a tremendous influence on my life. The funny thing is that it has been thirty years now, and we all stay in touch. If today I had a problem or needed help, I could pick up the phone and call one of those guys, and, if I need be, they would be on the next plane to wherever I was. I feel the same way about them. Some of the memorable experiences you have on the fire department are not really spectacular fires. One that will always stand out in my mind was a snotty basement fire, in which we held our ground, and that meant all the difference between saving or not saving the building. There was no life hazard involved, and we didn’t have masks in those days. When we first went into that sub-basement we were crouching, then we were down on our knees, and finally we were close to the floor. There was a real bond between the six of us and our officer Lieutenant X, for having stood our ground. It wasn’t a very spectacular fire my most standards, but the fact that all of us stood together really meant something among ourselves. There’s another aspect of the fire life. I mentioned the case of my dad who was adopted by Engine X in Sacramento. I’ve noticed through the years that fire companies will do that with some unfortunate person. #RandolphHarris 21 of 24
“At Engine X and Squad X, we had a man, who lived in the basement of the firehouse. He was a shell-shocked veteran of World War II, and he couldn’t work or do anything, and there was no place for him. So he lived in the basement of the firehouse. He would take care of the furnace and help clean up the firehouse each day, and in return he got food, a warm place to sleep, and some people who care about him. When he died, it was the firemen who gave him a funeral. At Engine X, there was a “paisan” who was a guy, and apparently his family wouldn’t take care of him. But the firemen of Engine X did, especially a guy by the name of X. “Paisan” lived his entire life at that firehouse, being taken care of and trying to do things to help the firemen. When he died, it was also the firemen who gave him the funeral. I’ve known stories of this happening everywhere. It’s sort of a reflection of the kind of people that firemen are. When the Sacramento Fire Department band went to the Rose Bowl one year, they smuggled “Paisan” onto the plane with them. They took him to the Rose Bowl. One of the newspaper columnists complained that some “illegal people” had gone with the band. It was “Paisan,” and it was the trip of his life for him.” Majority of the people involved in the fire service are really decent people. I thin government tends to take the fire service for granted, because it causes them the least amount of trouble. #RandolphHarris 22 of 24
“The fire service when I started out as a kid was really a World unto itself, and it operated behind closed doors. They put out fires, and everybody loved the firemen. In the old days, especially in the big cities, the fire service was basically an Irish club, and everybody came predominately from the same background. The Irish dominated the fire service I grew up in. I would say that seventy-five percent of the people I knew as a kid in the fire department were Irish. It was a very cohesive group. Those days are gone. The fire service today is made up of everybody. One of the more tragic things at a fire is when people get out of a building and go back in. We had a fire in an auto body shop on a hot summer day. Everybody got out okay, and this one guy went back in to get a leather jacket. He was burned over 90 percent of his body. I remember a house fire in which a lawyer got out, an intelligent man, an educated man. He got out, and the building was heavily involved in a fire. And he went back in to get some papers or something. He dies in the fire. The things people do are amazing. In the winter time, we were coming down the street, and the whole side of the house was on fire. A guy was out there waving a blowtorch in one hand, and waving his other hand at us. He had been using the blowtorch to thaw pipes that had frozen. He set his whole house on fire.” #RandolphHarris 23 of 24
The Sacramento Fire Department promotes and protects the health and safety of the community through dynamic programs, professional services, and continuous quality improvement. They focus on key areas such as emergency response, fire prevention, and community education. You can help save lives by donating to the Sacramento Fire Department. Also, it is important to raise your children to love America and to be patriotic. By having pride in America, and purchasing American made cars and other goods and services, we can make America a creditor nation again and ensure that this sacred land will be enjoy by your family for generations to come. Teaching children to love God and Jesus Christ will also preserve our American heritage and allow us to make sure our children are set on a path that will lead them to success and help them reserve a seat in Heaven. The Ten Commandments in the Christian Bible are a good guideline of how everyone should live. Furthermore, by respecting law and order, we will ensure the tranquility of this great nation and make sure that we are setting an exemplary example for other nations to follow. And by treating others with dignity, respect, and compassion, this will ensure that we are following the golden rule, “Do on to others as you would have them do on to you,” reports Luke 6.31. By following the golden rule, we will attract more of God’s grace into our lives and others will treat with respect. I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic, for which it stands, One Nation, Under God, Indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for all. Earthly longings bid retire, quench the passions’ baneful fire; to the wayward, sin-oppressed, bring thou the divine behest: Thou shalt rest. #RandolphHarris 24 of 24
The Winchester Mystery House
The Winchester Mystery House is one of the most beautiful aristocratic residences in America. It is famous for its excellent architecture and its extravagant owner, Sarah L. Winchester. The palace complex is surrounded by a 150-year-old picturesque Victorian park. The mansion itself is older than the landscaping, as the original 18-room farmhouse was engulfed by this labyrinth in the mid 1800s.
Please come and enjoy a delicious meal in Sarah’s Café, stroll along the paths of the beautiful Victorian gardens, and wonder through the miles of hallways in the World’s most mysterious mansion. For further information about tours, including group tours, weddings, school events, birthday party packages, facility rentals, and special events please visit the website: https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
Please visit the online giftshop, and purchase a gift for friends and relatives as well as a special memento of The Winchester Mystery House. A variety of souvenirs and gifts are available to purchase. https://shopwinchestermysteryhouse.com/
Randolph Harris II International Institute 