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Success Means Never Having to Admit You Are Unhappy!

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The camera makes everyone a tourist in other people’s reality, and eventually in one’s own. The first and most important consequence of the principles established in life is that general will can direct the forces of the state according to the purpose for which it was instituted, which is the common good. For if the opposition of private interest made necessary the establishment of societies, it is the accord of these same interests that made is possible. It is what these different interests have in common that forms the social bond, and, were there no point of agreement among all these interests, no society could exist. For it is utterly on the basis of this common interests, no society could exit. For it is utterly on the basis of this common interest that society ought to be governed. I therefore maintain that since sovereignty is merely the exercise of the general will, it can never be alienated, and that the sovereign, which is only a collective being, cannot be represented by anything but itself. Power can perfectly well be transmitted, but not the will. In fact, while it is not impossible for a private will to be in accord on some point with the general will, it is impossible at least for this accord to be durable and constant. For by its nature the private will tends toward having preferences, and the general will tends toward equality. Even if it ought always to exist, it is even more impossible for there to be a guarantee of this accord. This is not the result of art but of chance. The sovereign may well say, “Right now I want what a certain human wants or at least what one says one wants.” #RandolphHarris 1 of 22

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However, it cannot say, “What this human will want tomorrow I too will want,” since it is absurd for the will to tie its hands for the future and since it does not depend upon any will’s consenting to anything contrary to the good of the being that wills. If, therefore, the populace promises simply to obey, it dissolves itself by this ac, it loses it standing as a people. The very moment there is a master, there no longer is a sovereign, and thenceforward the body politic is destroyed. This is not to say that the commands of the leaders could not pass for manifestations of the general will, so long as the sovereign, who is free to oppose them, does not do so. In such a case, the consent of the people ought to be presumed on the basis of universal silence. The Third Wave rhythms spring from deep psychological, economic, and technological forces. At one level they arise from the changed nature of the population. People today—more affluent and educated than their parents and faced with more life choices—simply refuse to be massified. The more people differ in terms of the work they do or the products they consume, the more they demand to be treated as individuals—and the more they resist socially imposed schedules. However, at another level the new, more personalized Third Wave rhythms can be traced to a wide range of new technologies moving into out lives. Music streaming, Movie streaming, streaming of television shows, and music video streaming, for example, make it possible for televiewers to listen to millions of songs and watching thousands of filmed programs at times of their own choosing. #RandolphHarris 2 of 22

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Television has stopped dictating the schedules of even the worst tube addicts. In fact, digital streaming platforms even have more programs available than the television. The power of the great networks—the NBCs, the BBCs, or NHKs—to synchronize viewing is coming to an end. Eventually all television will be provided through the Internet, which subscribers will be able to pick up a wireless signal like over air TV, and will be able to watch any program they want, so it will probably be impossible to synchronize television schedules or interrupt programs with breaking news. The computer, too, has recast our schedules and even our conceptions of time. Indeed, it is the computer which has made flextime possible in large organization. At its simplest it facilitates the complex interweaving of thousands of personalized, flexible schedules. However, it also alters our communication patterns in time, permitting us to access data and exchange in both “synchronously” (id est, simultaneously) and “asynchronously.” What that means is illustrated by the growing numbers of computer users who are today engaged in “computer conferencing.” This permits a group to communicate with one another through terminals in their homes or offices. For instance, 660 scientists, futurists, planners, and educators today in several countries have the ability to conduct lengthy discussions of energy, economics, decentralization, or space satellites with one another through the Electronic Information Exchange System, Internet, and Cisco TelePresence, which is designed to link two physically separated rooms so they can resemble a single conference room, regardless of location. #RandolphHarris 3 of 22

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Cisco Systems documented the Telepresence concept and implementation details in the book Cisco TelePresence Fundamentals, where the difference between Telepresence and Videoconferencing, is that TelePresence is prevalent at that point in time, is higher quality, more simplistic, and by far more reliable. With some systems there is a choice of either instant or delayed communication. Many time zones are apart, each user can choose to send or retrieve data whenever it is most convenient. If one feels like it, a person can work at 3.00 A.M. Alternatively, if they choose, several can go on line at the same time. However, the computer’s effect on time goes much deeper, influencing even the way we think about it. The computer introduces a new vocabulary (with terms like “real-time,” for example) that clarifies, labels, and reconceptualizes temporal phenomena. It has replaced the clock as the most important timekeeping or pace-setting device in society. Computer operations take place so rapidly that we routinely process data in what might be termed “subliminal time”—intervals far too short for the human senses to detect for the human senses to detect or for human neural response times to match. We now have computer-operated 3D printers, which lets you sculpt real-World designs from leather, wood, plastic and more. Furthermore, computer scientists are now speaking in terms of nanoseconds (billionths of a second)—a compression of time almost beyond our powers to imagine. It is as though a person’s entire working life of, say 80,000 paid hours—2,000 hours per year for forty years—could be crunched into a mere 4.8 minutes. #RandolphHarris 4 of 22

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During Second Wave civilization machines were clumsily synchronized to one another, and people on the assembly line were then synchronized to one another, and people on the assembly line where then synchronized to the machines, with all the many social consequences that flowed from this fact. Today, machine synchronization has reached such exquisitely high levels, and the pace of even the fastest human workers is so ridiculously slow by comparison, that full advantage of the technology can be derived not by coupling workers to the machine but only by decoupling them from it. Put differently, during Second Wave civilization, machine synchronization shackled the human to the machine’s capabilities and imprisoned all of social life in a common frame. It did so in capitalist and socialist societies alike. Now, as machine synchronization grows more precise, humans, instead of being imprisoned, are progressively freed. One of the psychological consequences of this is a change in the very meaning of punctuality in our lives. We are moving now from an across-the-board punctuality to selective or situational punctuality. Being on time—as our children perhaps dimly sense—no longer means what it used to mean. Punctuality, as we saw earlier, was not terribly important during First Wave civilization—basically because agricultural work was not highly interdependent. With the coming of the Second Wave one worker’s lateness could immediately and dramatically disrupt the work of many others in factory or office. Hence the enormous cultural pressure to assure punctuality. #RandolphHarris 5 of 22

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Today, because the Third Wave brings with it personalized instead of universal or massified schedules, the consequences of being late are less clear. To be late may inconvenience a friend or co-worker, but its disruptive effects on production, while still potentially severe in certain jobs, are less and less obvious. It is harder—especially for young people—to tell when punctuality is really important and when it is demanded out of mere force of habit, courtesy, or ritual. Punctuality remains vital in some situations but, as the computer spreads and people are permitted to plug into and out of round-the-clock cycles at will, the number of workers whose effectiveness depends on it decreases. The result is less pressure to be “on time” and the spread of more casual attitudes toward time among the young. Punctuality, like morality, becomes situational. In short, as the Third Wave moves in, challenging the old industrial way of doing things, it changes the relationship of the entire civilization of time. The antiquated mechanical synchronization that destroyed so much of the spontaneity and joy of life and virtually symbolized the Second Wave is on its way out. The young people who reject the nine-to-five regime, who are indifferent to classical punctuality, may not understand why they behave as they do. However, time itself has changed the “real World,” and along with it we have changed the ground rules that once governed us. The term social anxiety refers to “anxiety resulting from the prospect of presence of personal evaluation in real or imagined social situations.” Anxiety is experienced as an aversive cognitive and affective state accompanied by heightened autonomic arousal that can be extremely debilitating. (However, in some cases social anxiety can facilitate behaviour and be adaptive.) #RandolphHarris 6 of 22

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In particularly severe instances, this phenomenon may develop into the clinical syndrome of social phobia. People with social phobia have an intense and debilitating fear of social or performance situations in which there will be exposure to unfamiliar others or scrutiny by others. To cope with this fear, many people will avoid any social situations in which novelty or scrutiny may be present; this avoidance sometimes culminates in a reclusive lifestyle. The most fear-provoking stimuli include speaking in public, entering a rom occupied by others, meeting strangers, eating in public, and writing in public. Fore those who have social phobia, exposure to such social situations may cause panic attacks. Less sever and/or more circumscribed forms of social anxiety including communication apprehension, public speaking anxiety, and shyness. These concepts overlap considerably with the symptomatology of social phobia. The general concept of social anxiety may be manifested as a clinical disorder (exempli gratia, social phobia), as an enduring trait (exempli gratia, shyness), or as a momentary state (exempli gratia, social anxiety). There is generally a lifetime prevalence of 13.3 percent for social phobia. The lifetime prevalence of this disorder is higher in women (15.5 percent) than in men (11.5 percent). Social phobia is also more common among those with lower income and less education, as well as among those who are unemployed, unmarried, and/or residing with their parents. Inherent in these demographic correlates is a subtext of social dysfunction. #RandolphHarris 7 of 22

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Milder versions of social anxiety are far more common than social phobia. Such forms of social anxiety as communication apprehension and heterosocial anxiety are evident in 20-30 percent of most samples studied. Social phobia most commonly has its onset during adolescence. In addition to being especially prevalent in the population, social phobia has a devastating impact on quality of life. Problems with family relations, educational attainment, employment, marriage, and romantic relationships, and friendships are evident in a majority of patients with social phobia. As reflected in these domains of psychosocial functioning, this disorder can be exceptionally pervasive, marring numerous aspects of people’s social lives. Even those with subthreshold social phobia suffer social consequences similar to those of individuals with diagnosable social phobia. These findings lend credence to the argument that social phobia is simply a more intense and enduring form of social anxiety. Social phobia is a rather recent discovery. A lack of attention to or awareness of this serious problem led to its characterization as a “neglected anxiety disorder.” Recently, some have called for a new name for this problem: social anxiety disorder. Social anxiety disorder more appropriately connotes the pervasiveness and impairment that is evident among those with the disorder, and also helps to distinguish it from specific phobias (which are often very circumscribed, such as fear of spiders). Because of its brief history as a recognized psychological disorder, the understanding of this problem is informed by research on related problems, such as reticence, shyness, communication apprehension, and what many refer to simply as “social anxiety.” #RandolphHarris 8 of 22

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All of these constructs are associated with apprehensiveness about being judged negatively by others, and fear that one will not be able to project a desired image. Research on these related constructs essentially examines the behavioural manifestations of social anxiety and as such contributes to our understanding of this problem. In the domain of interpersonal communication, people with social anxiety harbour doubts about their ability to make a desired impression on others. Social anxiety is clearly associated with social skills deficits, and socially anxious individuals tend to hold negative expectations about how they will perform in social contexts and how other people will react to them. At the intersection of interpersonal communication and general personal relationships, people with social anxiety frequently encounter interpersonal rejection; loneliness and relational distress are other common themes of general personal relationships. Often such relationships are simply lacking. (Indeed, the difficulties experienced by socially anxious people in forming relationships partially account for why family-of-orientation experiences are not discussed in this essay, since such people are less likely than others to form stable romantic relationships or marry, and thus to create families of orientation. Another reason is that there simply have not been many research studies on romantic and marital relationships among the socially anxious.) People with social anxiety often have a history of problems associated with family-of-origin experiences. Their families of origin often exhibit excessive cohesion and poor adaptability. #RandolphHarris 9 of 22

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Socially anxious people frequently have a history of parental abuse, overinvolvement, and parental modeling of maladaptive attitudes and behaviour. Social anxiety is highly comorbid with loneliness and depression. “What I fear comes upon me, and what I dread befalls me,” reports Job 3.25. One problem with people with social anxiety disorder is perhaps they need to expand their horizons and change their thinking. Get a better vision of what is possible. Fear has created a stronghold in the minds of many. However, sometimes this fear is rational and needs to be listened to. Other times it is irrational and needs to be adjusted. Mentally, some people think that they are unlikable and that is keeping them in bondage physically. However, many people need to get a fresh vision of what God can do in their lives. One should start seeing oneself as popular, happy, well-adjusted, successful, and in their dream home. Look through the eyes of faith and see yourself living the life of your dreams. Throughout the day, meditate on God’s Word. Go around dwelling on the fact that you are a blessed child of the Most High. Remind yourself of the Scripture that says, “No good thing will God withhold from me when I walk uprightly.” Remember that you are a gift from God. Fear often creates a barrier that blocks one’s ability to conceive the blessings of God. Develop a fresh vision of what God can do, and overcome the fear, as you take on an entirely new dimension. Many people dwell on the negative and then wonder why nothing good ever happens to them. It is because their minds are focused in the wrong direction. One cannot constantly think thoughts of worry and fear and expect to have any kind of success in one’s life. #RandolphHarris 10 of 22

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The Scripture tells us, “God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and love and of a sound mind,” reports 2 Timothy 1.7. The Amplified Bible describes a sound mind as “well-balanced mind” and adds “discipline and self-control.” In other words, to live in success, we must discipline our minds to think thoughts that are consistent with God’s Word. Every day you will have negative thoughts that come at you and disturb your peace of mind. You cannot avoid them. However, you can choose whether you will give them life by focusing on them. You can control the doorway to your mind, reject the negative thoughts, and choose to dwell on something good. Lord God, Holy Father, may You be blessed now and forever. As You wish, so it is done. May Your servant rejoice in You, not in oneself and no in any other; You alone are my True Joy and Honour, O Lord; You alone are my Hope and my Crown. What do I have except what I receive from You? Paul asked that in his First Letter to the Corinthians (4.7). What do I receive, except what I have not earned or deserved? All if Yours, not only what You gave me, but also what You did for me. As the Psalmist put it (88.15), “I am a pauper, and have been in the throes since I was a youth.” I would like to say my soul has never been moved to tears, but I cannot. I would like to say my soul has never ever been thrown into confusion, but I cannot. Oceans of passions never leave me in calm. I desire the joy of peace, and I demand the peace Your children enjoy; the lambs in Your pasture You feed in the light of consolation. If You grant me peace, if You flood me with joy, Your servant’s soul will be full of melody and prayerful noise. #RandolphHarris 11 of 22

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However, if You absent Yourself from me without notice, as You have this very bad habit of doing, I will run afoul on Commandment Street; as the Psalmist named it (119.35). With You just a memory, I will beat my breast and bend my knees. That is because I am no the person I was yesterday or even the day before yesterday. That was when Your lantern was swinging above my head; Job had the same experience (29.3). And that was when Your huddled wings protected me like an umbrella from falling temptations; the Psalmist had the same experience (17.8). The Bible says, “This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, for then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have success,” reports Joshua 1.8. Notice, God said if we will think about His Word day and night, and fill our minds with thoughts of faith and victory, then we will have successful lives. To meditate means to think about the same thing over and over. What are you meditating on? What is going on in your mind? Your consistent thoughts will determine what kind of life you live. If you go around full of fear all the time, you may not realize it, but you are actually believing for the negative. You are activating the enemy’s power. When you do that, if you do not get just what you are believing for, do not be surprised. The Old Testament story of Job has many lessons for us, but one especially powerful principle is revealed early in the calamities that came upon that good man. He lamented, “The thing I greatly feared came upon me. And that which I dreaded has happened” reports Job 3.25. When good people agree with the enemy, one is given the right to bring bad things into being. #RandolphHarris 12 of 22

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Therefore, recognize what your negative thoughts and comments are doing. You are giving the enemy a foothold, an open door, a free shot as you and your family. Make up in your mind to be healthy, successful at your jobs, believe your business will grow, teach your children the word of God so they can choose good friends. When we live with fear, expecting the worse, we are agreeing with the enemy, and opening the door to all the troubled one can bring us. One can either act in faith and receive God’s blessings and favour, or one can act in fear and receive the defeat and misery from the enemy. Set your mind in a new direction, mediating on the good things of God. The things we fear can come upon us. Get in the habit of meditating on God’s Word, and you will discover that God has a great plan for your life. You will find that God is guiding you, that He is bigger than any of your problems, and He can turn any situation around in your favour. Your thoughts should be, I know something good is going to happen to me. I know God is at work in my life. I know my business is going to prosper. I know my family is going to thrive; my children are going to excel. God wants us to dwell on thoughts of faith, success, and grace. If you would simply start thinking the right thoughts, thoughts that are consistent with the beneficial principles of God’s Word, you could see your whole life turn into a success. A note on barter and money: The rise of the prosumer compels us to rethink the future of bater, too. Barter is becoming big business these days. It is not limited to small transactions between individuals, swapping a used sofa, let us say, for some auto repair services, or exchanging legal services for dental care. (Large numbers of people are discovering that barter can help them avoid taxes.) #RandolphHarris 13 of 22

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Bartter is becoming more important in the World economy, too, as countries and corporations—uncertain about the fast-changing relationships between hard and soft currencies—swap il for jet fighters, coal for electricity, Brazilian iron ore for Chinese oil. Such barter is a form of exchange. Father, please help me to dwell on thoughts that are pleasing to You, thoughts of a great future, of my family enjoying Your good gifts and having lives characterized by usefulness significance, and blessing. I pray thee, O God, that I may be beautiful within. As we move deeper into our understanding of human personality, we come to the fact that personality is dynamic, not static, in nature. Life itself is dynamic and changing. Human beings have four basic polarities: anger, love, strength, and weakness. These polarities come from the spiritual core of every person. They form a basis for understanding an individual’s personality and relationships to others. These polarities can be viewed as the “latitude and longitude” of the self. Love is the polar opposite of anger. Strength is the polar opposite of weakness. What the reader must project into these dynamics is the quality of continuous movement. Even in the closets of relationships, love eventually gives way to anger. And for even the most confident or capable person, the sense of strength and adequacy eventually gives way to anger. And for even the most confident or capable person, the sense of strength and adequacy eventually gives way to a sense of weakness or vulnerability. Likewise, anger that is expressed honestly and directly often generates feelings of love and tenderness. And weakness that is humbly experienced generates feelings of adequacy and strength. #RandolphHarris 14 of 22

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The love/anger continuum enables us to be expressive all the way from agape love (the unconditional love that God has for humankind) to strong anger (a rightful anger at the violation of human rights). Self-actualizing people can express tender love or anger with ease. They are competent and strong, yet are keenly aware of their weaknesses. Thus, the actualizing lifestyle involves the dynamic and rhythmic experience of each and every one of these dimensions as they are deemed appropriate to every moment in life. Both ends of the continuum must be experienced to live life to the fullest. To love someone is to be close to one, often giving pleasurable “strokes” or messages that one is regarded as precious. Love involves a warm, nonjudgmental empathy that reaches deep into the heart of the other. Parents often experience this feeling for their children. Or spouses for each other. Persons who have grown significantly in Christlikeness experience tender and consistent love for all humanity—the reach out emotionally to men, women, and children wherever they encounter them. However, closeness also means “rubbing each other the wrong way” from time to time. And then it becomes appropriate to say “ouch” or “that irritates me.” This is the function that anger serves in a relationship.  Many Christian married couples have a great deal of trouble expressing their anger to each other. They get angry, all right, but they tend to repress it rather than express it clearly. Anger that is repressed—or pushed out of one’s awareness—usually comes out behaviourally as either depression or nagging. Therefore, couples that do not honestly level with themselves and with each other about their anger maintain only a pretense of a loving relationship. Underneath they remain irritable, frustrated, and most probably critical with each other in subtle ways. #RandolphHarris 15 of 22

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Even the word “encounter” has connotations that portray both ends of the love/anger polarity. One the one hand, encounter can imply a warm and tender sharing between persons. On the other hand, it can mean a fight or skirmish, as in a hostile encounter between troops. The word captures two opposing, yet complementary, aspects of being human—the aspect of “being with” others is an empathic way, and that of “being against” others in a confronting way. These two meanings are brought together when we speak of confrontation with caring. This is the kind of latitude that people need in order to develop honest, loving, and growth-oriented relationships. In human relationships this dialectic is never fully resolved, for we are constantly alternating between being alone and being with others, between giving ourselves to others and rediscovering ourselves in opposition to them, between cooperation and conflict. The point is that both aspects are necessary for balanced, expressive human interaction. One of the problems in many churches is the fear of open and direct communication. Many Christians have been taught to be polite and keep smiling. They do not know how to honestly and constructively express their disagreements, annoyances, or anger. Instead, they bottle it up inside. The perpetual smile, then, becomes a phony mask that overs up an angry heart. The irony is that the anger does come out, but in the form of gossip or dissension rather than creative conflict.  A pastor was recently consulting with our firm about a troublesome situation developing in his congregation. He was revealed that some of the church members had been dissatisfied with his ministry over the past two years. #RandolphHarris 16 of 22

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He had heard through the DMs (Direct Messages on an Internet Social Media Account) that some members were planning to split the church and set out on their own. When asked whether or no he sought out the dissenting members in order to express his feelings to them, the pastor replied that he did not believe in sharing his feelings. “Pastors are not supposed to get mad or frustrated,” he said. The consultant challenged that assumption and suggested that if he leveled with the people, they might also level with him. If he shared his feelings of hurt, frustration, and anger with them, then they might share their feelings with him. Out of such honest expression of feelings could come new information and greater wisdom for guiding the church. The pastor was reluctant, but chose to take the risk. Within the next week he and his wife sent DMs to those who opposed his leadership and scheduled meetings to visit their homes. He shared his deepest feelings and concerns with them, then listened to them. Much to everyone’s surprise, air began to be cleared of resentment and bitterness and the DMs that caught on fire cooled down. The people involved began to breathe easier, owing to the relief of having gotten things off their heart and mind and soul. With a greater flow of information, everyone felt more confident in the possibility of a constructive outcome to the initial firestorm in the DMs. The pastor even stated that if the consensus of feelings came to be that he should resign from the church, he would do so in good conscious and with respect for the honest sentiment that had been shared. And to next time just send him a message in his in-box. It looks as though that will not happen, because members of the congregation have become much warmer and more open to one another as a result of the honest, ongoing exchange of views and feelings. #RandolphHarris 17 of 22

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In considering the strength/weakness continuum, we want to deal first with the two-edged sword of pride. We can easily be conditioned by our cultural emphasis on competition, industriousness, and performing to develop an exaggerated sense of self-sufficiency. Describing one side of the sword, Augustine believed that excessive pride was the greatest of all sins because it alone had the power to sever our humble reliance upon the Creator. So in one way, pride can cause a separation between out core self and God. Yet when managed artfully, it is healthy to have pride in one’s strengths. That kind of pride is a wise acceptance and awareness of one’s capabilities. Thereby, one can also gain an understanding of one’s limitations or weaknesses. No one remains “king of the mountain” indefinitely. Actualizing requires that each person, no matter how strong or gifted, accept that one is equally weak, often foolish, and makes many mistakes. The scriptures emphasize that “pride goeth before the fall” only to surface the reliable truth that actualizing one’s strengths is possible only when one has the courage to become aware of one’s weaknesses as well. Dealing with pride has been very difficult for me. It is hard to share my weaknesses openly. This may be due to the fact that I have felt attacked by others over the years for some of the important values I have adopted. So I have countered by always building a case to show that I am right and they are wrong. I am tired of doing this. I am gradually learning that I do not always have to be right or perfect. Increasingly I am able to let down my defenses and share my secret fears, weaknesses, and needs. #RandolphHarris 18 of 22

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A healthy and realistic acceptance of our weaknesses and limitations is the basis for humility. However, in order to balance a genuine sense of humility in our lives, we need to cultivate an awareness of courage and personal power. This we would call the strength dimension of personality. To ask which polarity is the most important in living would be like asking which child is more important. They all are essential for living life fully—and each emerges rhythmically in daily living. An interesting biblical description of such a lifestyle is found in Moses. We discover that he was both “the meekest man who ever lived” and a man of such courage that he led a nation from Egyptian Exodus, through forty years of wandering in the wilderness, on into the land that God had originally promised them. Moses was so angry at the rebellious behaviour at Sinai that he threw down and shattered the rock tables upon which God had inscribed the Ten Commandments. The next moment, however, we find him interceding with God in a profoundly unselfish and loving way for the well-being of those with whom he had just been so angry with. So in Moses we meet a man who expressed the polarities of love/anger and strength/weakness to the fullest. We see a man who talked with God as friend to friend and yet expressed his feelings deeply and honestly to people. Even with God he expressed one’s feelings directly. At the site of the burning bush, he declared his fear, his lack of confidence, and his embarrassment at the prospect of becoming leader of the Israelite nation. So God promised that Aaron would speak for him to the people. Then when Pharaoh did not immediately release the Israelites as Moses thought he would, Moses angrily asked God what had gone wrong. #RandolphHarris 19 of 22

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Perhaps the scriptures pay such great honour to Moses partly because he was a person who gave all dimensions of oneself so honestly to his lifelong encounters with God and people. Psychology is supposed to pay tribute to human dignity. It is similar to religion as it is full of such wonderful topics as love, joy, and personal fulfillment. How many of you will become great someday? Well, the greatest limitation in your lives is your lack of personal vision and confidence. Actualizing people believe in their strengths and greatness. Actualizing Christians must experience their greatness as well as their limitations. This means feeling confident, strong, talented, and powerful, or weak, humble, and yielding as such feelings are appropriate to one’s life. Actualizing is cultivating a willingness to risk expression of the entire range of human feelings. Contrary to popular belief, the result of emotional freedom is not alienation or increased vulnerability, but decreased anxiety, close and meaningful relationship, self-respect, and social adaptivity. The actualizing Christians discovers and utilizes this principle. The invitation that God extends to people is to become aware, feeling-full persons like oneself. Both poles, and every level of intensity in between them, need to be developed so that we can come to experience life in the fullest and most sensitive way. Instead of being one or the other, the actualizing Christian is balanced: both strong and weak, both assertive and caring. Growth involves increased refinements of the skills involved in interweaving all the strands onto the loom of one’s inner calling from God. A striking and irreplaceable work of art emerges over time—one’s unique identity which is in essence the gift of oneself to God’s Universe. #RandolphHarris 20 of 22

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All tapestry, being handwoven, is imperfect, as all humans lives are imperfect. The imperfections do not detract from the original beauty, but rather contribute to the novel design of each person’s individuality. The feeling that one belongs to THAT to which all the Universe also belongs, is with one the moment the glimpse is over. If, as a full realization, it passes away with the experience, an afterglow remains as a residue, a strong conviction persists for years later. The Glimpse which discloses Heaven refines the mind as it does so, otherwise the two would remain too far from one another to make vision possible. Whoever has had this beautiful experience, felt its glorious freedom and known its amazing serenity, as had something which one will always remember. Even after one has fallen utterly away from both freedom and serenity, when darkness bitterness or degradation are one’s melancholy lot, the knowledge that a life of truth goodness and beauty is somewhere and sometime possible will continue to haunt one. The glimpse, when finally it does come, compensates for all the struggles and difficulties of the years that precede it. One can look back upon them with complete detachment, perhaps even smile at them. Even the sufferings seem no longer what they were, but diminish into unimportant little incidents. Yes, the Glimpse will gently go away, its fine exaltation will subside, but neither its lustrous meaning nor its loving memory will ever be forgotten. Even merely knowing that one has had such a glimpse gives one some kind of reassurance about life, some little security within oneself, some degree of faith that a higher power is taking care of the Universe—and hence of oneself. It may seem incredible that so short a glimpse should leave so large an effect, so misty a comprehension should give so profound a revelation, but so it is. #RandolphHarris 21 of 22

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The isolated glimpses will have this effect, that they will not only whet one’s appetite for farther ones but also for a lasting identity with the Overself. Ambition may remain but its objects will not. How could they when their triviality is so glaringly exposed by the Glimpse? If the beauty of one’s experience penetrates one’s heart deeply enough, it will not fail to bring about a change in one’s life. It will also point out the direction in which the change is to be made. Deep peace of the flowing air to you, which fans your face on a sultry day, the air which you breathe deeply, rhythmically, which imparts to you energy, consciousness, life. Deep peace of the flowing air to you! Deep peace of the quite Earth to you, who, herself unmoving, harbours the movements and facilitates the life of the ten thousand creatures, while resting contented, stable, tranquil. Deep peace of the quiet Earth to you! Our God and God of our Fathers, remember one who followed Thee as to the seas flows water, Thy blessed son, like tree well set where rivers met of water. Wherever one moved, Thou wast one’s shield, in fire or field or water, and Heaven-proved, his seed he sowed, wherever flowed a water. For Abram’s sake send water! Remembers one whose heralds three beneath the tree had water. Whose sire was won to do Thy will, one’s blood to spill oneself as high in faith could soar, one’s heart to pour like water. Where Earth lay dry, one dug and found deep underground the water. For Isaac’s sake send water! Remember one, one’s staff who bore from Jordan’s shore O’er water, and rolled the stone—one’s love to tell—from the well of water, and, wrestling hard, achieved to tire a prince of fire and water. Hence Thy regard one safe to bear through fire and air and water. For Jacob’s sake send water! #RandolphHarris 22 of 22

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CRESLEIGH HAVENWOOD

Lincoln, CA | from the mid $600s

Now Selling!

Now selling! Cresleigh Havenwood features four distinct floor plans ranging from 2,293 – 3,489 square feet and offering up to five bedrooms. 

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There is room for everyone in this two-story home featuring 5 bedrooms, 4 ½ baths and a 3-car garage.  Gather around the large formal dining room table for holidays, benefit from the open-concept family room with soaring ceilings to the 2nd story or work from home in the private study.

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Each plan has been thoughtfully designed and includes great features such as single story homes, guest suites, optional offices, garage workshops, and more! Get the most out of your new home with Cresleigh’s All Ready smart home featuring all the connectivity needed to keep your house running. Best of all, each Cresleigh home comes with owned solar included! 

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Located off of Virginiatown Road and McCourtney Road, residents of the 83 homesites of Cresleigh Havenwood will benefit from a brand new neighborhood in the charming City of Lincoln. Palo Verde Park, is  just down the street and there’s plenty of recreation to take part in all around town. https://cresleigh.com/havenwood/

#CresleighHomes

Good Things Often Happen to Bad People!

We are the people of this generation, bred in at least modest comfort, housed now in universities, looking uncomfortably to the World we inherit. Loneliness is a discrepancy between a person’s desired and achieved relationships with other people. Depression and loneliness are two psychological problems that are strongly associated. There are a great number of interpersonal, as well as psychological, similarities between the two problems. Problems with social skills are equally evident among depressed persons and lonely individuals. Difficulties in establishing and maintaining rewarding and intimate relationships are also very prevalent in loneliness. Both depressed and lonely people have a difficult time making friends, communicate poorly with family members, and experience low social integration. As in the case of people with depression, there is reason to suspect the family relationships of people who are lonely. Children’s loneliness tends to be positively correlated with that of their parents, just as in depression. What the lonely person appears to long for are meaningful and intimate friendships. Relationships with family members, on the other hand, do little to prevent or ameliorate the experience of loneliness. In fact, the more social support students have from their family, the more lonely they are. Although the increased family support may have been a result of the students’ loneliness, it is clear that these types of relationships do little to help a lonely person’s situation. In fact, very close family relationships may set up people for future loneliness. Retrospective reports of early childhood experiences indicate that children who had an excessively close, warm, and nurturing relationship with at least one parent were significantly more lonely as elderly adults than a group of controls. #RandolphHarris 1 of 16

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When it comes to producing lonely children, the effects of overinvolvement from parents can be as noxious as underinvolvement or neglect. This is due in part to the fact that parental overinvolvement can create a sense of narcissism in the child. It has also been suggested that extremely close parent-children build great expectations that other relationships chronically fail to meet, and that such relationships may displace the interactions that children would have with peers. Given the extent of problems with social skills, personal relationships, and family relationships in both depression and loneliness, the exceptionally high rate of comorbidity between these two problems is understandable. Why is it that these two pervasive problems should coexist with such regularity? Well, in addition to sharing common interpersonal and psychological antecedents, problems such as depression and loneliness are causally related to each other. From an interpersonal standpoint, there are several plausible versions of such relationships. Firs, people who are depressed often infect others with their negative mood and elicit interpersonal rejection. As this rejection accumulates and personal relationships become scarce, depressed persons would be expected to experience loneliness. If we look at these variables in reverse order, depression may be a more generalized reaction to prolonged loneliness. Momentary or state loneliness may be a painful experience that many can endure without global distress. However, as loneliness persists, people may become emotionally worn down, resulting in a major depressive episode. Human beings are inherently predisposed to find rewards in social relationships. #RandolphHarris 2 of 16

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For people who become chronically dissatisfied with the quality of such relationships, depression may be viewed as the inevitable consequence of this extinction of social rewards. Finally, depression and loneliness may each be associated with common interpersonal and psychological variables that contribute to each condition. One such interpersonal variable may be shyness. People who are characteristically shy, and lacking social support, are particularly vulnerable to developing depression. However, this relationship is partially mediated by the experience of loneliness, which is itself predicted by the interaction of shyness and low social support. Loneliness is conceptualized as a proximal contributor to depression, which indicates that its presence is a sign of impending depression. Presently, there is at least some support for the view of loneliness as a casual factor in depression. Ultimately, depression and loneliness may share a common causal origin, one of which may be shyness. Both depression and loneliness have clear links to problems with interpersonal communication and relationships. These include deficits in social skills, and problems with general personal as well as family relationships. Such problems, when sufficiently severe and chronic, surely have the potential to precipitate episodes of either state. However, interpersonal communication problems are certainly not the cause of all cases of depression or loneliness. Depression is one of the most common mental problems. Depression is highly comorbid with loneliness and has a very powerful relationship with disrupted communication behaviour and troubled interpersonal relationships. #RandolphHarris 3 of 16

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Racism is a mental health issue because racism causes trauma. And trauma can lead to mental illnesses, which need to be taken seriously. Systemic racism (also called structural or institutional racism) is racism that exists across society within, and between institutions/organizations across society. It refers to the complex interactions of large scale societal systems, practices, ideologies, and programs that produce and perpetuate inequalities for marginalized groups. The key aspect of structural or systematic racism is that these marco-level mechanisms operate independent of the intentions and actions of individuals, so that even if individual racism is not present, the adverse conditions and inequalities for marginalized racial groups will continue to exists. Examples are housing discrimination, government surveillance, social segregation, racial profiling, predatory banking, access to healthcare, hiring/promotion practices, and mandatory minimum sentences. God loves all His children and makes salvation available to all. God created he many diverse races and ethnicities and esteems them all equally. As the Book of Mormon puts it, “all are alike unto God.” “Throw off your old evil nature and your former way of life, which is rotten through and through, full of lust and deception. Instead, there must be a spiritual renewal of your thoughts and attitudes,” report Ephesians 4.22-23. You may not realize it, but you can choose your thoughts. Nobody can make you dwell on something. One decides what one will entertain in one’s mind. One’s mind is similar to a giant computer in that one’s brain stores every thought one has ever had. When can one stare at the Sun without a parasol, that is to say, contemplate God’s clarity without blinking an eye? #RandolphHarris 4 of 16

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The fact that our brains are supercomputers is encouraging when one is trying to find one’s car keys, but it is not such good news when one considers the amount of smut, foul language, ungodly concepts, and other negative input with which we are inundated every day of our lives. Nevertheless, simply because a destructive thought is stored in one’s mental computer does no mean one has to pull it up and run it on the main screen of one’s mind. Only when one’s senses the desire of Eternal Beatitude rising in one’s soul is when we can fully understand the Word of God. Only when one thinks one’s soul is about to make the Grand Exit. To hasten that time, open your heart, spread wide your desire, and accept this holy inspiration. Return the fullest thanks to Supernal Goodness; she has dealt so decently with you, visited you so thoughtfully, grabbed hold of you so powerfully, before your own fat self fell to the Earth. Just do not think you had anything to do with any of this. You did not think it up, and you did not sweat it out! However, it had everything to do with Supernal Grace and Divine Kindness. However, if you make the mistake and start dwelling on the negative aspects of life, those thoughts will affect your emotions, your attitudes, and—if you continue to give it free rein in your mind—it will inevitably affect your actions. You will be much more prone to discouragement and depression, and if you continue pondering those negative thoughts, they hold the potential to sap the energy and strength right out of you. You will lose your motivation to move forward in a positive direction. The more we dwell on the enemy’s lies, the more garbage we willingly allow one to dump into out minds. It is also as though we have flung the door wide open and put up a sign that reads: “Trash goes here!” #RandolphHarris 5 of 16

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What are you allowing your mind to dwell on? Are you constantly contemplating negative things? How you view life makes all the difference in the World—especially for you! It is unrealistic to ignore problems and live in denial, pretending that nothing bad ever happens to us. Bad things do sometimes happen to good people, just as good things often happen to bad people. Pretense is not the answer; nor is playing semantic games to make yourself sound more spiritual. If you are sick, it is okay to admit it; but keep your thoughts on your Saviour. If your body is tried, your spirit is weary, sometimes the most rational and spiritual thing to do is to get some res. However, focus your thoughts on the Saviour who has promised, “Those who wait on the LORD shall renew their strength,” reports Isaiah 40.31. Tough times come to all of us. Jesus Christ said, “In this life you will have trouble, but be of good cheer, for I have overcome the World,” reports John 16.33. He was saying that when troublesome times come, we can choose our attitudes. We can choose to believe that Jesus Christ is greater than our problems; we can choose the right thoughts. Today, if you will dwell on the promises of God’s Word, you will be filled with hope and grace. You will develop a successful and faithful attitude. Like bees to flowers, you will draw the sweetness of God. Many people want to wait until their situation improves before they have an attitude of gratitude. Unfortunately, that is not going to happen. One has the lexical order wrong. One must show an attitude of gratitude first, and then God will turn your situation around. As long as you harbour that poor, defeated foolish and ghoulish outlooks, one will continue to live in doom and gloom. “Strip off that old nature and put on the new man. Be constantly renewed in the spirit of your mind, having a fresh mental and spiritual attitude,” reports Ephesians 4.22-24. #RandolphHarris 6 of 16

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You cannot sit back passively and expect this new person to suddenly appear, much like a baby cannot sit there with a poopy diaper and expect it to magically become fresh and clean without any effort. The baby has to cry and scream until he gets a clean diaper. “As a person thinks in one’s heart, so one will become,” reports Proverbs 23.7. Wen one thinks thoughts of failure, one is destined to fail. You will be stuck in the poopy pamper. When one thinks thoughts of mediocrity, one is destined to live an average life. However, when one aligns one’s thoughts with God’s thoughts and one starts dwelling on the promises of His Word, when one constantly dwells on His success, favour, faith, power, and strength, nothing can hold one back. Make up your mind today to think optimistically, excellent thoughts, and one will be propelled toward greatness, inevitably bound for increase, promotion, and God’s supernatural blessings. As you stockpile your virtues and increase your holdings in humility, you will be preparing to battle for God, and eventually to buttle for God, as is the duty of a fervent servant soul. Flame glows, as you have no doubt noticed, but without smoke it does not ascend. So as the desires for Celestials on your part flame up, they do not smoke; that is to say, they are not free from the temptation of carnal affection. You do the right things for the honour of God—that is to say, pray desiringly to Him—but all is not right with you. Why? More soot than wisp. Is that not the case with your own desire? You have clouded your own mind into thinking that your desire was perfectly suitable. However, it was not. It was not white smoke rising; it was just black soot falling. How to put time to good effect. Do not go looking for delectables for yourself. Do find what is acceptable and honourific to God. #RandolphHarris 7 of 16

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If you can make this midlife correction, then you will prefer God’s regulations to every desideratum of yours, whether in the past or the future, and follow it cheerfully. I know your desire, and many of the times God has heard you lusting for it in the night. You would like to be cavorting around the playing fields of the Lord with the children of God; Paul would have it that way, that is what he wrote to the Romans (8.21). That will be then, but here is now. The thought of the Eternal Home and Celestial Homeland delights you. Alas, that hour has yet to come. Yours is another clock, ticking another time. The time for war, the time for labour, the time for temptation. Replenish your depleted soul with the Summum Bonum—that should be your wish. However, alas, the time is not ripe. God is the One. Look for God, until the Kingdom of God comes; Luke has quoted Him on this already (22.18). Today, I chose to dwell on good thoughts, thoughts that based on the truths of Your Word, Father; thoughts that will build me up rather than tear me down. Thank You for renewing my mind and giving me a fresh new attitude of hope. Up to this point, My dear friend, you had to be put to the test and exercised in many different situations. For these, intermediate consolations have been issued to you, but the Final Lump Sum is not due jus yet. Therefore, stay cheery and keep in fighting trim. Especially when it comes to fighting against, as well as to just enduring, the contraries of nature. “Rejoice in the Lord always [delight, gladden yourselves in Him]; again I say, Rejoice. Let all humans know and perceive and recognize your unselfishness (your considerateness, your forbearing spirit). The Lord is near [He s coming soon]. #RandolphHarris 8 of 16

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“Do not fret or have any anxiety about anything, but in every circumstance and in everything, by prayer and petition (definite requests), with thanksgiving, continue to make your wants known to God. And God’s peace [shall be yours, that tranquil state of a soul assured of its salvation through Christ, and so fearing nothing from God and being content with its Earthly lot of whatever sort that is, that peace] which transcends all understanding shall garrison and mount guard over your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. For the rest, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is worthy of reverence and is honourable and seemly, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely and loveable, whatever is kind and winsome and gracious, if there is any virtue and excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think on and weigh and take account of these things [fix your mins on them], reports Philippians 4.4-8. Often you have to do what you do not want to do; and it is important to leave behind what you truly hold dear. That will forward others’ interests, but it will not necessarily promote yours. What some will say will be heard, but there is no guarantee that what you will say will be worth hearing. Some will beg on the streets, and their pockets will be filled; you will hold your hand out on the corner, and no one will look your way. Some will develop a large following, but you will remain a comparative unknown. Bits and bobs will be done by others, but your immense contributions will go unnoticed. Because of experiences like these, your nature will always be thrown into a hissing fit. However, if you can manage to hang on to your tongue, you will take a giant stride along the path of spiritual progress. In these and many similars, the faithful servant of the Lord usually has to be proved; that is to say, to bring oneself low and to snap one’s attachment to all things. #RandolphHarris 9 of 16

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Die you must to the things of this World, as you already know. However, there is scarcely somesuch in which you need to die more than this; namely, to endure, to suffer what makes your will scream, what does against your grain, what makes you wince at the mere scrape of it. That is especially so when disconveniences are the order of the day. Why? They just do not make sense to you. Even so, because you do not dare resist the Higher Power, you insinuate yourself into an already existing line of authority. Now that must seem hard to you, My dear friend—to walk around awaiting the nod from another Devout who is no worthier than yourself. It is like looking into a mirror and trying not to see yourself. However, think of the fruit of these labours, My dear Devout, the swiftly approaching End and the extravagantly large Reward. Do that, and you will lose your grounds for complaint, but you will surely have the strongest possible ground for patience. From just a small investment in Free Will Limited here on Earth, you will be able to trade up to Free Will Forever in Heaven. There is where you will find everything you want, everything you can possibly desire. You will have the faculty of doing nothing but good, without fear of losing a thing. Yours will be always one with Mine—no secrecies, no privacies. There, nobody will cross you; nobody will complain about you. Nobody will trip you up. No one will go around you. All your desiderata will be present to you at once and the same time, and each and every one will entertain your whole spirit, filling you with refreshment and continuing to top you off. In Heaven, God will match Celestial Comelies—that is to say, glories—with each of the Earthly Uncomelies—that is to say, contumelies—you have had to endure; the woolly white pallium of distinction, as Prophet Isaiah might have put it (6.13), in place of the rough bronze monk’s cloth of sorrow; a seat in the Kingdom of the Ages in place of your stool of ignorance. #RandolphHarris 10 of 16

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In Heaven, making special guest appearances will be two fruits of Obedience. Labour of Penitence will rejoice, and Humble Subjection will be crowed with glorious fanfare. That will be then, but this is now. Incline yourself humbly under than hands of Humankind. Do not let yourself get hot and bothered about what someone may have said about your or another may have ordered you to do. However, take great care that whether a Prelate, a Priest, or a Devout demand something of you, you do it whole and entire for the good of the situation and to fulfill all expectations. Odd thing, though! One person asks for a tit; another, for a tat; both become celebrities and are praised to the skies. However, when you do the very same thing, no joy or glory attaches to you. Why? It is that your only joy, if I may say it, My dear Devout, will be found in contempt of self. Which may not be so bad if it means in the Long Run that you will become My pride and joy. One desire, and one alone is all you need, this side of death or that side of life: that God will always be glorified in you. “And my God will liberally supply (fill to full) your every need according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus. To our God and Father be glory forever and ever (though the endless eternities of the eternities). Amen (so be it),” reports Philippians 4.19-20. Lord, do not fully understand the meaning of this experience. I am filled with awe. Your love goes beyond anything I could ever have imagined. I know that someday I will trust you so much that I will not feel afraid; I will not draw back when you express your love to me. Thank you for being so patient. I have much to learn. Good night. Many Christian readers think that psychology undermines faith. #RandolphHarris 11 of 16

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However, if your faith is built on the foundation that learning to love God with your whole being, and learning to love others as yourself is the highest priority of the Christian life, then our message will affirm your faith. A psychological understanding of personality can contribute to the effectiveness with which Christians seek to live out their faith. We are also concerned with relationships between person and between a person and God. How can anyone, including a growing Christian, get the most out of life? We have coined a term—“the actualizing Christian”—to describe an approach to living a Christian life based on awareness, honesty, and trust. We believe this lifestyle leads to the graced fulfillment of one’s God-given potentials in life. It results in the full development of one’s personality and the increased capacity to have intimate and enduring relationships with others and God. Actualizing is a lifelong process, not a final state or a rigid ideal of perfectionism. It is a vision of how we can grow throughout the stages of life. The journey of actualizing is an opening of new doors, a becoming, a probing, a going inwards to one’s center, a developing of relationships. Every arrival is a new beginning! We believe that the growth of many people, especially those raised in the New World culture, has been limited by a lack of trust of their whole being—intellectual, emotional, physical, and spiritual. For many people, “head knowledge” is the stuff of life. If it is not logical, rational, and objective, then it is not so important. So these individuals have great difficulty experiencing their intuition or expressing their feelings. For others, emotionality is overemphasized at the expense of clear thinking and responsible planning. Yet others have difficulty when it comes to the body. They consider the body as somehow evil or at least neutral and fail to recognize the importance of the physical realm of human existence. #RandolphHarris 12 of 16

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One of the awesome affirmations of the Christian faith is that Jesus, the Son of God, expressed His deity through a human body. He clearly demonstrated that the physical realm is important and, beyond that, that it is to be valued positively. Actualizing Christians rely upon important information derived from their entire natural and supernatural beings. The growing Christian learns to listen carefully to the messages of the body. A headache may mean we are too tense about life. A backache may mean we have chronically overextended ourselves. An ulcer may mean that we hate someone. In actualizing, we learn to respect the wisdom of our own feeling and inner intuition. This this is called the wisdom organism. Time and again in my clients, I have seen simple people become significant and creative in their own spheres, as they have developed more trust of the process going on within themselves, and have dared to feel their own feelings and express themselves in their own unique ways. The actualizing Christian learns throughout life by continually exploring, expanding, and revising the meaning of one’s beliefs and values. In this open-ended approach, there is a desire to always grow beyond one’s prejudices and premature conclusions about life. In psychological terms, one has an open perceptual field in which new configurations of meaning constantly emerge. In religions terms, one tends to be sensitive to the heart and mind of Christ—one is easily moved by the spirit of God. Everything in the World is moving dynamically in the direction of completion, fulfillment, and actualization. Through the process, there is a vital link between the person’s or thing’s actual characteristics at a given moment and what will characterize it as a fully developed entity. #RandolphHarris 13 of 16

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For instance, the acorn has within it the potential of becoming an oak tree. However, it is only through the process of growth over time that the tiny acorn experiences transformation and actualization. The idea behind entelechy is that the ultimate end or purpose toward which the acorn is developing is embedded in the acorn itself. The internal blueprint pushes, energizes, and guides the acorn in fulfilling its project of becoming a mature oak. In much the same way the person who is rooted in God is being transformed over time into the unique individual that one was created to be. Although the actualizing process is pleasurable, it is not simply a hedonistic pursuit of fun or happiness. There will be real travail for anyone who desires to become a genuinely actualizing person. However, there will be real joy too—the joy of being what one is and becoming more of what one can be. This involves risk, faith, vulnerability, and adventure. We need to learn to place a high priority on our growth toward authentic personhood. It will not happen automatically. Even if we want to, we cannot change ourselves suddenly and drastically. Rather, real and enduring change is a gradual, steady process of becoming. It is nurtured by the courageous acceptance of our whole being—strengths and weaknesses, virtues and vices, talents and deficits. And, if we take it for granted, it may never occur. Just as the athlete trains and warms up before the beginning of the hundred-yard dash, we must learn how to warm ourselves up to the process of actualizing. It does not happen all at once. We need to discover our energies; heighten our awareness of the challenges for meaning that life is inviting us to embrace; and gain access to the spiritual resources of the core of our being. Only then will we be able to live life with sensitivity, wisdom, and vitality that is possible for us. #RandolphHarris 14 of 16

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Learning to live such a life requires concrete and specific guidelines. First of all, the spiritual core, the center of the personality, provides the function of lending stability to the always-evolving nature of the person. The physical appearance of the person changes throughout life in definite ways. The emotional responses change through a single day. The values and attitudes are altered over the course of weeks, months, and years. However, the core self, the center of spiritual identity, remain the same. Recognize and affirm that you are a Center of pure self-consciousness and self-realization. This is the permanent factor in every varying flow of your personal life. It is this which gives one the sense of being, or permanence, of inner security. You are a center of awareness and power. The spiritual core is an individual’s God-given personhood, one’s “God within.” The Holy Spirit dwells here. The core reflects the fact that one is made in the image of God, and shares with God the capacity for awareness, choice, and intimacy. Whether that potential is fully realized during the course of a person’s lifetime depends on one’s responsiveness to the wisdom of the core. The fact remains that the awakening to the Overself leaves great witness and striking testimony that it has passed over a humans’ head. It brings new and subtle powers, an altered outlook upon people and events, and a deep calm in the very center of one’s being. When one is given one’s primal glimpse of the spiritual possibilities of humans, one is immeasurably exalted. When one discovers the dynamic power of the Overself for the first and hears the beautiful hidden rhythm of its life, one’s heart becomes as the heart of Hercules and for hours, days, or weeks one walks on air. #RandolphHarris 15 of 16

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One begins to price is fleshly desires at their true worth and treads them under foot. One has been permitted to taste of the spirit’s fruits, and one knows that they alone are good. A sense of being lifted up from all Worldly cares will pervade one for some time as an afterglow of this experience. The gracious feeling swims away again and leaves one not forlorn but forsworn. One will never gain be alone. The remembrance of what happened is by itself enough to be company for one the rest of one’s life. Through our blessings and invocations, we acknowledge this network of forces that flows through the World, awakening the deeper levels of our consciousness to effect these patterns of change. Deep peace of the running wave to you, of water flowing, rising, and falling, sometimes advancing, sometimes receding. May the stream of your life flow unimpeded! Deep peace of the running wave to you! O look down upon us from Thy dwelling place on high and forgive Thy servant who now worships before Thee, so that Thou wilt prolong one’s days and pardon one’s sins, iniquities, and transgression. Extend Thy right hand to receive one in perfect repentance, and open Thy good treasure to satisfy thirsting creatures, as it is written in the Scripture: The Lord shall open unto thee His good treasure, the Heaven, to give the rain unto your land in its season and to bless all the work of your hand. Amen. Praised art Thou, O Lord our God and God of our fathers, God of Abraham, God of Isaac, and God of Jacob, mighty, revered and exalted God. Thou bestowest  lovingkindness and possesses all things. Mindful of the patriarchs’ love for Thee, Thou wilt in Thy love bring a redeemer to their children’s children for the sake of Thy name. O King, Thou Helper, Redeemer and Shield, be Thou praised, O Lord, Shield of Abraham. Thou, O Lord, art mighty forever. Thou callest the dead to immortal life for Thou art mighty in deliverance. #RandolphHarris 16 of 16

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CRESLEIGH HAVENWOOD

Lincoln, CA | from the mid $600s

Now Selling!

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Now selling! Cresleigh Havenwood features four distinct floor plans ranging from 2,293 – 3,489 square feet and offering up to five bedrooms.  Each plan has been thoughtfully designed and includes great features such as single story homes, guest suites, optional offices, garage workshops, and more!

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Get the most out of your new home with Cresleigh’s All Ready smart home featuring all the connectivity needed to keep your house running. Best of all, each Cresleigh home comes with owned solar included! 

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Located off of Virginiatown Road and McCourtney Road, residents of the 83 homesites of Cresleigh Havenwood will benefit from a brand new neighborhood in the charming City of Lincoln. Palo Verde Park, is  just down the street and there’s plenty of recreation to take part in all around town. https://cresleigh.com/havenwood/

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#CresleighHomes

The Dead and the Living Can Never be One—God Has Forbidden it!

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Life is richest when you realize that we are all snowflakes. Each of us is absolutely beautiful and unique. And we are here for a very short time. Mrs. Winchester was a pretty little brunette, rather pale, with dark hair, brilliant brown eyes, a resolute mouth and a bright, intelligent expression. She was orderly, trim and feverishly energetic, and seemed to live every moment of her life. The Winchester mansion was like a paradise on Earth; and in this light I still regarded it, until a great change came over the temperature, and the month of April introduced me to red-hot winds, sleepless nights, and the intolerable “brain fever” bird. The next morning, rested and invigorated, we set out on a tour of inspection; and it is almost worthwhile to undergo a certain amount of baking on the sweltering heat of the plains, in order to enjoy those deep first draughts of cool hill air, instead of a stifling, dust-laden atmosphere, and to appreciate the green valleys and blue hills by force of contrast to the far-stretching, eye-smarting, white glaring roads that intersect the burnt-up plains—roads and plains that even the pariah abandon, salamander though he be! No doubt the work of some extremely roughish-looking and grotesque imps and demons, who were inflicting various torments. However, to our delight and surprise, Mrs. Winchester had by no means overdraw the advantages of her new estate. The Grand Queen Anne Victorian mansion was solidly built of wood, brick, and stone, nine storied, and ample in size. It stood on kind of a shelf cut out of the hill side, and was surrounded by a pretty flower garden, full of roses, fuchsias, carnations. There was also a fruit orchard, many exotic trees and plants, and an avenue of palm trees. #RandolphHarris 1 of 10

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There was a delightful, flagged verandah. The stairs were very steep. At the head of them, the passage and rooms were repeated. There were very small nooks, a switchback staircase, which has seven flights with forty-four steps, rising only about nine feet, since each step was just two inches. Miles of twisting hallways, secret passageways in the walls, a labyrinth of rooms, and dressing-rooms, 13 bathrooms, and plenty of good water. From the fourth-floor balcony, there was a glorious view, across a valley, far away, to the snowy range. As we looked around the drawing-room, here were carpets, curtains, solid, very solid chairs, and Berlin wool worked screens, a card-table, and any quantity of pictures. All the rooms were well, almost handsomely, furnished, in an old-fashioned style. There was no  scarcity of wardrobes, looking-glasses, or even armchairs, in the bedrooms, and they pantry was fitted out—a most singular circumstance—with a large supply of handsome glass and china, lamps, old moderators, coffee and tea pots, plated side dishes, and candlesticks, cooking utensils and spoons and forks, wine coasters, and a cake-backet. The chins was Spoke, the plate old family heirlooms, with a crest—a winged horse—on everything, down to the very mustard spoons. There were gold- and silverplated chandeliers, imported Tiffany art glass windows, German silver and bronze inlaid doors, Swiss molded bathtubs, rare precious woods like mahogany and rosewood. Handsome Dresden china vases, nice boxes of firewood in every room, clocks, real hair mattresses—in short, it was a treasure trove. It was well built with some peculiar effects such as stairs that lead to the ceiling, doors that go nowhere and that opened onto walls, and chimneys that stop just short of the roof. #RandolphHarris 2 of 10

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It is estimated that there were some 500 to 600 rooms in the house. However, it is haunted! According to a Boston medium, Mrs. Winchester and her family and her fortune were being haunted by spirits. Supposedly the untimely deaths of her daughter and husband were caused by these spirits, and it was implied that Mrs. Winchester would be the next victim. We soon forget about the dismal prophecy, being too gay and too busy to give her, or it a thought. We had so many engagements—tennis parties and tournaments, picnics, concerts, dances and little dinners. We ourselves gave occasional afternoon teas in the verandah, using the best Spode cups and saucers and the old silver cake-basket, and were warmly complimented on our good fortune in being guests in such a charming house and garden. Mrs. Winchester also had an African grey parrot—a rare bird indeed—and a cute little dog named Zip. Later that night, we had dinner in a handsome and somewhat antique-looking room. A cheerful wood-fire blazed in the capacious hearth; a little at one side an old-fashioned table, with richly-carved legs, was placed—destined, no doubt, to receive the supper, for which preparations were going forward; and ranged with exam regularity stood the tall-backed chairs whose ungracefulness was more than counterbalanced by their comfort. A stranger stopped at the door of the room, and displayed his form and face completely. He wore a dark coloured cloth cloak, which was short and full, not falling quite to the knees; his legs were cased in dark purple silk stockings, and his shoes were adorned with roses of the same colour. The opening of the cloak in front showed the undersuit to consist of some very dark, perhaps sable material, and his hands were enclosed in a pair of heavy leather gloves which ran up considerably above the wrist, in the manner of a gauntlet. #RandolphHarris 3 of 10

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In one hand he carried his walking-stick and his hat, which he had removed, and the other hung heavily by his side. A quantity of grizzled hair descended in long tresses from his head, and its fold rested upon plaits of a stiff ruff, which effectually concealed his neck. So far all was well; but the face!—all the flesh of the face was coloured with the bluish leaden hue which is sometimes produced by the operation of metallic medicines administered in excessive quantities; the eyes were enormous, and the white appeared both above and below the iris, which gave to them the impression of insanity, which was heightened by their glassy redness; the nose was well enough, but the mouth was writhed considerably to one side, where it opened in order to give egress to two long, discoloured fangs, which projected from the upper jaw, far blow the lower lip; the hue of the lips themselves bore the usual relation to that of the face, and was consequently nearly black. The character of the face was malignant, even satanic, to the last degree; and, indeed, such a combination of horror could hardly be accounted for, except by supposing the corpse of some atrocious malefactor, which had long hung blackening upon the gibbet, to have at length become the habitation of a demon—the frightful sport of satanic possession. It was remarkable that the worshipful stranger suffered as little as possible of his flesh to appear, and that during his visit he did not once remove his gloves. There was something indescribably odd, even horrible about all his motions, something undefinable, something unnatural, unhuman—it was as if the limbs were guided and directed by a spirit unused to the management of bodily machinery. #RandolphHarris 4 of 10

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The stranger said hardly anything during his visit, which did not exceed half an hour; and the host himself could scarcely muster courage enough to utter the few necessary salutations and courtesies; and, indeed, such was the nervous terror which the presence of Theophilus Dunn inspired, that very little would have made all his entertainers fly bellowing from the room. During his stay he did not once suffer his eyelids to close, nor even to move in the slightest degree; and further, there was a death-like stillness in his whole person, owing to the total absence of the heaving motion of the chest caused by the process of respiration. These two peculiarities, though when told they may appear trifling, produced a very striking and unpleasant effect when seen and observed. He saw a shadowy and ill-defined form gliding into the apartment. Sharp guests of wind and warning rumblings of thunder that seemed to shake the mountains, blew away the table cloth. As it was whirling into space, Dunn drew his sword, and raising the candle as o throw its light with increased distinctness upon the objects in the room, he entered the chamber into which the figure had glided. No figure was there—nothing but the furniture which had belonged to the room, and yet he could not be deceived as to the fact that something had moved before them into the chamber. A sickening dread came upon him, and the cold perspiration broke out in heavy drops upon his forehead; nor was he more composed when he heard the increased urgency, they agony of entreaty, which Mrs. Winchester implored him not to leave for a moment. “I saw him,” she said. “He is there! I cannot be deceived—I know him. He is by me—he is with me—he is in the room. Then, for God’s sake, as you would save me, do no stir from beside me!” #RandolphHarris 5 of 10

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Mrs. Winchester had it prevailed upon her to lie down upon the bed, where she continued to urger everyone to stay by her. She frequently uttered incoherent sentences, repeating again and again, “The dead and the living cannot be one—God has forbidden it!” and then again, “Rest to the wakeful—sleep to the sleep-walkers.” There was a Greek curse inscribed on a lead tablet in the drawing room from the city of Selinus in Sicily. Mrs. Winchester used it to communicate with gods and spirits. A spirit had been summoned and bound to the tablet to make sure the curse was effective. Souls after death do as yet love their body which they left, as those souls do whose bodies want due burial or have left their bodies by violent death, and as yet wander about their carcasses in a troubled and moist spirit, being, as it were, allured by something that hath an affinity with them. Many spirits had been invoked that night, this one had been brought out and seated on a sixteen-sided stand (an improvement on the double pentacle called Solomon’s seat). Mrs. Winchester lay in the inner chamber, the door of which was open; and by the side of the bed, at her urgent desire, stood her niece Marion “Daisey” Marriam Marriott; a candle burned in the bedchamber, and three were lighted in the outer apartment. Sir Lancelot Charles Lee Brenton arrived, and cleared his voice, as if about to commence a prayer; but before he had time to begin, a sudden gust of air blew out the candle which served to illuminate the room in which Mrs. Winchester lay, and she with hurried alarm, explained: “Sir Lancelot, bring in another candle; the darkness is unsafe.” Sir Lancelot stepped from the bedchamber into the other, in order to supply what she desired. “O God! do not go, Sir Lancelot!” shrieked the unhappy Mrs. Winchester; and at the same time she sprang from the bed and darted after him, in order, by her grasp, to detain him. #RandolphHarris 6 of 10

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However, the warning came too late, for scarcely had he passed the threshold, and hardly had Mrs. Winchester has time to utter the startling explanation, when the door which divided the two rooms closed violently after him, as if swung to by a strong blast of wind. Sir Lancelot and Dunn both rushed to the door, but their united and desperate efforts could not avail so much as to sake it. Shriek after shriek burst from the inner chamber, with all the piercing loudness of despairing terror. Sir Lancelot and Dunn applied every energy and strained every nerve to force open the door; but all in vain. There was no sound of struggling from within, but the screams seemed to increase in loudness, and at the same time they heard the bolts of the latticed window withdrawn, and the window itself grated upon the sill as if thrown open. One last shriek, so long and piercing and agonized as to be scarcely human, swelled from the room, and suddenly there followed a death-like silence. A light step was heard crossing the floor, as if from the bed to the window; and almost at the same instant the door gave way, and yielding to the pressure of the external applicants, they were nearly precipitated into the room. It was empty. The window was open, and Sir Lancelot sprang to the chair and gazed out upon the fruit orchard and the lake below. He saw no form, but he beheld, or thought he beheld, the waters of the broad lake beneath settling ring after ring in heavy circular ripples, as if a moment before disturbed by the immersion of some large and heavy mass. No trace of Mrs. Winchester was ever after discovered, nor was anything certain respecting her mysterious wooer detected or even suspected; no clue whereby to trace the intricacies of the labyrinth, and to arrive at a distinct conclusion was to be found. #RandolphHarris 7 of 10

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However, an incident occurred, which, though it will not be received by our rational readers as at all approaching to evidence upon the matter, nevertheless produced a strong and a lasting impression upon the mind of Sir Lancelot. Many years after the events at the Winchester Mansion, which we have detailed, Sir Lancelot, then remotely situated, received an intimation of his father’s death, and of his intended burial upon a fixed day in an independent chapel in Bath late in the day upon which the funeral was appointed to take place. The procession had not then arrived. Evening closed in, and still it did not appear. Sir Lancelot strolled down to the church—he found it open; notice of the arrival of the funeral had been given, and the vault in which the body was to be laid had been opened. The official who corresponds to our sexton, on seeing a well-dressed gentleman, whose object was to attend the expected funeral, pacing the aisle of the chapel, hospitably invited him to share with him the comforts of a blazing wood fire, which as was his custom in winter time upon such occasions, he had kindled on the hearth of a chamber which communicated by a flight of steps with the vault below. In this chamber Sir Lancelot and his entertainer seated themselves; and the sexton, after some fruitless attempts to engage his guest in conversation, was obliged to apply himself to his tobacco-pipe and can to solace his solitude. In spite of his grief and cares, the fatigues of a rapid journey of nearly forty hours gradually overcame the mind and body of Sir Lancelot Charles Lee Brenton, and he sank into a deep sleep, from which he was awakened by someone shaking him gently by the shoulder. He first thought that the old sexton had called him, but he was no longer in the room. #RandolphHarris 8 of 10

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There was a kind of ghostly twilight. The ghostly lights passed and disappeared in the gathering darkness. He roused himself, and as soon as he could clearly see what was around him, he perceived a female form, clothed in a kind of black robe of muslin, part of which was so disposed as to act as a veil, and in her hand she carried a lamp. She was moving rather away from him, and towards the flight of steps which conducted towards the vaults. Sir Lancelot felt a vague alarm at the sight of this figure, and at the same time an irresistible impulse to follow his guidance. He followed it towards the vaults, but when it reached the head of the stairs, he paused; the figure paused also, and turning gently round, displayed, by the light of the lamp it carried, the face and features of the beloved, Sarah Winchesters. There was nothing horrible, or even sad, in the countenance. On the contrary, it wore the same arch smile which used to enchant him long before in his happy days. A feeling of awe and interest, too intense to be resisted, prompted him to follow the specter, if specter it were. She descended the stairs—he followed; and, turning to the left through a narrow passage she led him, to his infinite surprise, through the door to nowhere, into what appeared to be an old-fashioned Victorian apartment. Abundance of costly antique furniture was disposed about the room, and in one corner stood a four-post bed, with heavy black cloth curtains, and by the light of the lamp which she held towards its contents, she disclosed to the horror stricken clergyman, sitting bolt upright in the bed, the livid and demoniac form of Theophilus Dunn. Sir Lancelottt had hardly seen him when he fell senseless upon the floor, where he lay until discovered, on the next morning, by persons employed in closing the passages into the vaults. He was laying in a cell of considerable size, which had not been disturbed for a long time, and had fallen beside a large coffin which was supported upon small stone pillars, a security against the attacks of vermin. #RandolphHarris 9 of 10

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To his dying day Sir Lancelot was satisfied of the reality of the vision which he had witnessed, and he has left behind him curious evidence of the impression which it wrought upon his fancy, in a painting executed shortly after the event we have narrated, and which is valuable as exhibiting not only the peculiarities which have made the Winchester Mansion sought after, but even more so as presenting occurrences in Mrs. Winchester’s interviews and journals that defy explanation. However, Mrs. Winchester’s mysterious fate must ever remain a matter of speculation. Yes; sometimes at night the most terrible weeping and sobbing can be heard coming from the “Daisy bedroom,” and a phantom horse can be heard plunging in the carriage house, and the wild, unearthly and utterly appalling shriek. The scene of horrible dinner parities has even been seen in the dining room. A party of ghouls meets there a few times of year, after midnight, and are assembled with the spoils of the graves they have violated, and are feasting on the flesh of long-buried corpses. One of the servants even saw his own wife, who, by the way, never touched supper at home, playing no inconsiderable part in the hideous banquet. Hundreds of wild stories have appeared about this mysterious mansion. It seems odd that none of her relatives or former employees ever came forward to contradict these stories, despite the fact that many of them lived for forty years after the estate was opened for tours. For some reason, did they feel threatened by talking—or did they continue to guard Mrs. Winchesters privacy? At the Winchester Mystery House, we may never be able to separate fact from legend—so here are some stories that have been told since the late 1800s and early 1900s. We leave it to guests and readers to decide for themselves why Mrs. Winchester really built the house the way she did, or what is it really? A portal or just a museum? #RandolphHarris 10 of 10

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Winchester Mystery House is an extravagant maze of Victorian craftmanship—marvelous, baffling, and eerily eccentric, to say the least. Tour guides must warn people not to stray from the group or they could be lost for hours. Countless questions come to mind as you wander through the mansion—such as, what was Mrs. Winchester thinking when she had a staircase built the descends seven steps and then rises eleven? By the way, Harry Houdini, an occultist, was attracted to the Winchester and tried to escape from the mansiin blindfolded; he also died Halloween 1926.

Winchester Mystery House

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What it feels like walking through a microscopic spiderweb….🕷🕸

All Hallows’ Eve, Lost in the House tour tickets are still available for tonight. Hurry and purchase before they sell out!

🎟link: http://ow.ly/k5wM50GqWTb

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Why Does Misery Love Company?

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Since no human has a natural authority over one’s fellow human, and since force does not gives rise to any right, conventions therefore remain the basis of all legitimate authority among humans. If, says, Grotius, a private individual can alienate one’s liberty and turn oneself into the slave of a master, why could not an entire people alienate its liberty and turn itself into the subject of a king? There are many equivocal words here which need explanation, but let us confide ourselves to the word alienate. To alienate is to give or sell. A man who makes oneself the slave of someone else does not give oneself; one sells oneself, at least for one’s subsistence. However, why does a people sell itself? Far from furnishing one’s subjects with their subsistence, a king derives one’s own from them alone, and according to Rabelais, a king does not live cheaply. Do subjects then give their persons on the condition that their estate will also be taken? I fail to see what remains for them to preserve. It will be said that the despot assures one’s subjects of civil tranquility. Very well. However, what do they gain, if the wars one’s ambition drags them into, if one’s insatiable greed, if the oppressive demands caused by one’s ministers occasion more grief for one’s subjects than their own dissension would have done? What do they gain, if this very tranquility is one of their miseries? A tranquil life is also had in dungeons; is that enough to make them desirable? The Greeks who were locked up in the Cyclops’ cave lived a tranquil existence as they awaited their turn to be devoured. To say that a human gives oneself gratuitously is to say something absurd and inconceivable. If only for the fact that one who commits it does not have one’s wits about one, such an act is illegitimate and null. To say the same thing of an entire populace is to suppose a populace composed of madmen. Madness does not bring about right. #RandolphHarris 1 of 15

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Even if each person can alienate oneself, one cannot alienate one’s children. They are born humans and free. Their liberty belongs to them; they alone have the right to dispose of it. Before they have reached the age of reason, their father can, in their name, stipulate conditions for their maintenance and for their well-being. However, one cannot give them irrevocably and unconditionally, for such a gift is contrary to the ends of nature and goes beyond the rights of paternity. For an arbitrary government to be legitimate, it would therefore be necessary in each generation for the people to be master of its acceptance or rejection. However, in that event this government would no longer be arbitrary. Renouncing one’s liberty is renouncing one’s dignity as a human, the rights of humanity and even its duties. There is no possible compensation for anyone who renounces everything. Such a renunciation is incompatible with the nature of humans. Taking away all liberty from one’s will is tantamount to removing all morality from one’s actions. Finally, it is a vain and contradictory convention to stipulate absolute authority on one side and a limitless obedience on the other. Is it not clear that no commitments are made to a person from whom one has the right to demand everything? And does this condition alone not bring with it, without equivalent or exchange, the nullity of the act? For what right would my slave have against me, given that all one has belongs to me, and that, since one’s right is my right, my having a right against myself makes no sense? Grotius and others derive from war another origin for the alleged right of slavery. Since, according to them, the victor has the right to terminate the vanquished, these latter can repurchase their lives at the price of their liberty—a convention all the more legitimate, since it turns a profit for both of them. #RandolphHarris 2 of 15

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However, clearly this alleged right to terminate the vanquished does not in any way derive from the state of war. Humans are not naturally enemies, for the simple reason that humans living in their original state of independence do not have sufficiently constant relationships among themselves to bring about either a state of peace or a state of war. It is the relationship between things and not that between humans that brings about war. And since this state of war cannot come into existence from simple personal relations, but only from real [proprietary] relations, a private war between one human and another can exist neither in the state of nature, where there is no constant property, nor in the social state, where everything is under the authority of laws. Fights between private individuals, duels, encounters are not acts which produce a state. And with regard to private wars, authorized by the ordinances of King Louis IX of France and suspended by the Peace of God, they are abuses of feudal government, an absurd system if there ever was one, contrary to the principles of natural right and to all sound polity. War is not therefore a relationship between one human and another, but a relationship between one state and another. In war private individuals are enemies only incidentally: not as humans or even as citizens, but as soldiers; not as members of the homeland but as its defenders. Finally, each state can have as enemies only other states and not humans, since there can be no real relationship between things of disparate natures. This principle is even in conformity with the established maxims of all times and with the constant practice of all civilized peoples. Declarations of war are warnings not so much to powers as to their subjects. The foreigner (be one kind, private individual, or a people) who robs, kills or detains subjects of another prince without declaring war on a prince, is not an enemy but a brigand. #RandolphHarris 3 of 15

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Even in the midst of war a just prince rightly appropriates to oneself everything in an enemy country belonging to the public, but respects the person and goods of private individuals. One respects the rights upon which one’s own rights are founded. Since the purpose of war is the destruction of the enemy state, one has the right to terminate the defenders of that state so long as they bear arms. However, as soon as they lay down their arms and surrender, they cease to be enemies or instruments of the enemy. They return to being simply humans; and one no longer has a right to their lives. Sometimes a state can be terminated without a single one of its members being vanquished. For war does not grant a right that is unnecessary to its purpose. These principles are not those of Grotius. They are not based on the authority of poets. Rather they are derived from the nature of things; they are based on reason. As to the right of conquest, the only basis it has is the law of the strongest. If war does not give the victor the right to massacre the vanquished peoples, this right (which one does not have) cannot be the basis for the right to enslave them. One has the right to terminate the enemy only when one cannot enslave one. The right to enslave one does not derive from the right to vanquish one. Hence it is an iniquitous exchange to make one buy one’s life, to which no one has any right, at the price of one’s liberty. In establishing the right of life and death on the right of slavery, and the right of slavery one the right of life and death, is it not clear that one falls into a vicious circle? Even if we were to suppose that there were this terrible right to terminate everyone, I maintain that neither a person enslaved during wartime not a conquered people bears any obligation whatever toward its master, except to obey one for as long as it is forced to do so. #RandolphHarris 4 of 15

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In taking the equivalent of one’s life, the victor has done one no favour. Instead of endling one’s life unprofitably one ends one usefully. Hence, far from the victor having acquired any authority over one beyond force, the state of war subsists between them just as before. Their relationship itself is the effect of war, and the usage of the right to war does not suppose any peace treaty. They have made a convention. Fine. However, this convention, far from destroying the state of war, presupposes its continuation. Thus, from every point of view, the right of slavery is null, not simply because it is illegitimate, but because it is absurd and meaningless. These words, slavery and right, are contradictory. They are mutually exclusive. Whether it is the statement of one human to another human, or one human to a people, the following sort of talk will always be equally nonsensical. I make a convention with you which is wholly at your expense and wholly to my advantage; and, for as long as it pleases me, I will observe it and so will you. One of the principle interpersonal problems for people afflicted with depression is rejection from other people. Depressed people are hypothesized to induce a negative mood in their interactional partners through a process of emotional contagion. This hypothesis is predicated on the assumption that it is an irritating, negative experience to interact with a depressed person. This is because of the depressed person’s excessive reassurance-seeking behaviours. Initially others are thought to react to these with supportiveness, but as their irritation with the depressed person grows, they respond with increasingly nongenuine support and reassurance. As a consequence of the negative mood induced through interaction with the depressed person, other people eventually respond with outright rejection and avoidance. #RandolphHarris 5 of 15

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Depressed people experience a great deal of rejection from others. The interpersonal rejection of depressed people has thus been characterized as a reliable and robust phenomenon. This interpersonal rejection effect associated with depression appears to be moderated by a number of different variables. For example, depressed males elicit more rejection from others, especially other females, than do depressed females. Some evidence also indicates that friends are less rejecting of depressed persons than strangers; and that other people who assumes a “helper” role are less rejecting; and those who rely on advice giving, and joking with the depressed person, are more rejecting. Other findings on moderators of the depression-rejection effect indicate that physically attractive depressed targets elicit less rejection from others, and depressed people who are low in self-esteem and seek reassurance from their partners are especially likely to elicit rejection. Depressed people may actually seek and elicit negative reactions from other people. Self-verification theory holds that people are motivated to preserve self-views to enhance their sense of predication and control. For depressed persons, self-confirming feedback would take the form of negative appraisals from others, or rejection since depressed people generally hold negative self-views. Indeed, a sizable body of research indicates that depressed people actually seek and desire negative feedback from other people. In a sample of child and adolescent psychiatric inpatients, symptoms of depression, but not anxiety, were positively associated with interest in receiving negative feedback from others. The quest for self-verification can perpetuate a state of depression: “Eventually, a depressogenic cycle may develop: The receipt of negative feedback will indue increased levels of depressive affect and related symptoms, which in turn will increase self-focus and the salience of negative self-views, thereby perpetuating the cycle. #RandolphHarris 6 of 15

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As psychologically damaging as interpersonal rejection may be, this type of feedback may actually be sought after by depressed people. Self-verification theory is not the only tenable explanation for depressed people’s desire for negative feedback. A related possibility is that people who are depressed and/or have low self-esteem may find security in associating with others who have a less than flattering view of them. Being viewed favourable could create a sense of tension and anxiety in such a person, because others would be expected eventually to discover the person’s “true” self, and presumably would be let down. This may create fear of rejection. On the other hand, being in a relationship with those who view the self negatively may be reassuring, since there is no need to worry about leaving a bad impression and being discovered as undesirable. Interactional perspectives on depression also suggests that depressed people induce a negative mood in others through interpersonal interactions. This has come to be known as the emotional contagion hypothesis. Several experiments designed to test this hypothesis have failed to document this negative mood induction effect (exempli gratia), although it may become more evident over repeated interactions with a depressed target person. Meta-analysis provides somewhat strong support for the hypothesis that depressed people induce a negative mood in others through social interaction. There is evidence that depressed people may actually produce symptoms of depression, not just a negative mood state, in other people with whom they have relationships (exempla gratia roommates, neighbours, spouses, et cetera). Indeed it is common to observe significant associations between dating partners’, roommates’, and spouses’ symptoms of depression. Misery loves company. However, rightfully, findings such as these must be interpreted with caution, as they could be the results of assortative mating (id est, depressed people seeking out other depressed people to form a relationship with) or reactions to common stressors. #RandolphHarris 7 of 15

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Through structural equation modeling with longitudinal data, there is evidence that the experience of common stressors can explain the relationship between partners’ levels of depression better than the direct effect from one partner’s depression to other’s can. In terms of assortative mating, there is substantial evidence indicating that people have a preference for mates with psychological distress similar to their own. Studies on depression in particular suggest that depressed people tend to marry other depressed people. Compelling evidence for this phenomenon came from a study showing not only that depressed people were married to other depressed people, but that the first-order relatives of these depressed spouses also exhibited increased prevalence of mood disorders. This implies that depression ran in the families of these people, and thus it is likely that each spouse brought depression into such a marriage, rather than becoming depressed as a result of marriage to a depressed spouse. With these important caveats in mind, it should be noted that some scientific evidence shows what appears to be the direct transmission of depression from one person to another. In one of the few studies with a design appropriate for demonstrating a causal relationship between interaction with a depressed person and contagion of depressive symptoms, it was demonstrated that over the course of 3 weeks, roommates of depressed students became more depressed themselves. This study provides tantalizing evidence to suggest that depressed people’s ill effects on others may reach far beyond simple negative mood induction, and may perhaps extend to the induction of depression itself. #RandolpHarris 8 of 15

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Another hypothesis in this interactional perspective on depression is that depressed people excessively seek reassurance from others, and that this reassurance seeking is irritating to others. A substantial body of data now exists to suggest that reassurance seeking is common in depressed people and can have corrosive relational effects. The tendency for depressed people to seek reassurance from others may be driven by their increased experience of negative life events and low self-esteem. The consequences of excessive reassurance seeking from others include an increase in the experience of minor stressors, which in turn predicts increases in subsequent depressive symptoms. Excessive reassurance seeking is the interpersonal linchpin in depression—responsible for both the contagion of depression and interpersonal rejection from others. Another component of this interactional perspective on depression is that that to receive empirical attention is the key assumption explaining why rejection from others serves to create, maintain, or worsen a state of depression in the recipient of that rejection. It has been demonstrated that depressed people are actually aware of other people’s reactions towards them, and negative interpersonal feedback can exacerbate their negative mod state. It has also been subsequently demonstrated that increased depressive symptoms following partner devaluation were particularly pronounced among dating women who had either low self-esteem or tendencies toward excessive reassurance seeking. Furthermore, depressed people are quite astute at detecting insincere positive feedback from others. Collectively, these studies show that depressed people are most likely aware of the reactions that other exhibit toward them, and that these negative reactions can exacerbate feeling and symptoms of depression. “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous! Do not tremble or be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go,” reports Joshua 1.9. #RandolphHarris 9 of 15

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Are you pretending to be something you are not, trying to be what everybody else wants you to be, living up to their expectations and following their dreams for your life? When one uses one’s creative powers one copies, in one’s limited way, the World-Mind. However, to the extent that one uses the to bring misery, injury, and perversity to others, or to oneself, one copies the opposing force. Ultimately, one must find fault with oneself when one seeks to trace the cause of most of one’s troubles. However, this will require one to bring great moral courage to the examination of one’s life course. For the personal ego is an inveterate alibi-hunter. If one is to overcome its insidious suggestions, its slippery arguments, one must see oneself in the worst light. It is not necessary that one should be conscious of one’s virtues, but it is necessary that one should be conscious of one’s faults. The ego’s interference shows itself in practical life no less than in mysterious life. Under its influence, people create a false and favourable mental picture of a situation, or of a person. They then expect one or the other to yield results that by their very nature could not be yielded. This leads to disappointment and unhappiness within themselves. Or the same people create a false but unfavourable picture and then severely criticize another for faults which do not exist outside the picture itself. This leads to disharmony and friction with others. From this simple instance we may see that the elimination of egotistic interference—a goal that philosophic discipline sets for itself—is not merely a theoretical affair for dreamers or hermits with nothing else to do, but is a practical affair promising great practical benefits for everyone who has to live or work in the World. The charge that philosophy is useless can only be made by those who have failed to inform themselves sufficiently about it. #RandolphHarris 10 of 15

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Our only enemies are those inside ourselves. They are our weakness and vices, our lower passions and intellectual deformities. It is better to fight them than to fight other humans. When the last word of the last argument against the realization of principles has been uttered, it will be found that all the obstacles lie inside and not outside us. There are mountains of selfishness, ignorance, and inertia in the human heart, but—as Jesus pointed out—faith can remove them. All history—recent, medieval, ancient, Occidental, and Eastern—tells us that we do not have to look very deep into the hearts of humans to find the presence of tigers, demons, savages, and brute creatures. The struggles and conflict, with humans and between them, come from the ego’s presence. The philosopher has to look very far into human history and very deep into human nature for the ultimate causes of human errors. The ego is behind each point of resistance in a human which holds one down from advancing further on this quest. What lies at the root of all these errors in conduct and defects in character? It is the failure to understand that one is more than one’s body. It is, in one word, materialism. It is a human’s own internal defects which shows their faces in many of the external troubles that beset one. Yet it is hard for one to accept this truth because one’s whole life-habit is to look outwards, to construct defensive alibis rather than to engage in censorious self-inquisitions. However, be assured that there is a cause for every decree of Providence. Whatever good or evil God creates, do not in any place or circumstance quarrel with one’s action or be aggrieved in thy heart. Therefore, the aspirant who is really earnest about the quest should develop the attitude that one’s personal misfortunes, troubles, and disappointments must be traced back to one’s own weakness, defects, faults, deficiencies, and indisciplines. #RandolphHarris 11 of 15

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Let one not blame them on other persons or fate. In this way one will make the quickest progress whereas by self-defending or self-justifying or self-pitying appointment of blame to causes outside oneself, one will delay or prevent it. For the one mean clinging to the ego, the other means giving it up. Nothing is to be gained by such flattering self-deception while much may be lost by it. One must bring oneself to admit frankly that one oneself is the primary cause of most of one’s ills, as well as the secondary cause of some of the ills of others. One must recognize that the emotions of resentment, anger, self-pity, or despondency are often engendered by a wounded ego. Instead of reviling fate at each unfortunate event, one should analyze one’s moral and mental make-up and look for the weaknesses which led to it. One will gain more in the end by mercilessly accusing one’s own stubbornness in pursuing wrong courses than by taking shelter in alibis that censure other people. Like a stone in a shoe which one stubbornly refuses to remove, the fault still remains in one’s character when one stubbornly insists on blaming things or condemning persons for its consequences. In this event the chance to eliminate it is lost, and the same dire consequences may repeat themselves in one’s life again. Therefore, do not copy anybody. Just be yourself. Be who God created you to be. God does not want a duplicate of someone else. God wants an original. That truth will set you free. God wants people to see who you are. That is all God requires you to be. And that is all He expects of you, as well. You may have some faults, some interpersonal issues you and God are refining. However, remember, God is in the process of changing you. #RandolphHarris 12 of 15

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If you choose to be happy with who God made you to be, and make a decision that today you are going to be the best you can be, God will pour out His favour in your life. Do not let the labours you have assumed on God’s account break your spirit. Do not let troubles God has sent you get you terribly down. God’s promises will strengthen and console you at every turn. God is flush enough to reward you beyond all means and measures. And remember this. You will not have to labour long for this, nor will you have to be dragged down by your dolors. Keep watch for a little while, and then you will see a swift end to all evils. The hour will come when all labour and tumult will cease. The passage of time will be short and pass quickly. In the meantime, do what you are doing; no need to stop. Labour faithfully in God’s Word. Write, read, sing, sigh, shush, pray, behave virilely against a contrary. Eternal Life is worth fighting for, large battles and small. Peace will surely come, but when? That is known only to the Lord. However, when it does come, then there will be no day, no night; only perpetual light, infinite clarity, firm peace, and safe rest. Then you will not be able to ask, as Paul asked he Romans (7.24), “Who will free me from this death ride in my carcass?” Nor will you be able to whoop “Woe!” as the Psalmist liked to preface important sayings (120.5), “my journey has been delayed once again!” As Isaiah partially foresaw (25.7-8), Death will take a header on thick ice, and Salvation will coruscate on thin ice. Anxiety will evanesce, and there will appear in her place Jollity, Beatitude, and all the other grand companions in the Heavenly Society. You should see the perpetual crows of the Saints in Heaven! Once the Contemptibles in this World, they got to join in the glory of the next World. #RandolphHarris 13 of 15

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As for you, My dear friend, you should immediately humble yourself. Stay in that lowly but not unlovely position until you come to the inevitable conclusion: You are subject to everyone and everything else. This you must do before you ever again assume a position of authority over another. Another thing. Do not waste your time watching all the days of your life to be happy ones. If you want to make hay with God, then thank Him profoundly for all the days of toil and trouble He has sent you. After all is said and done between you and God, to be accounted as nothing among humans—that should be your greatest loot! If only you would get the full flavour of these remarks and take them profoundly to heart! Then you would no dare utter a single syllable against them. When Eternal Life is the goal, should not all back-breaking tasks be borne with a grin? To gain or lose Heaven—that is not your normal task. Therefore, life your face to Heaven, and what you will see? All God’s Saints! While they were on Earth, it was just one battle after another; that is the way the Letter to the Hebrew put it (10.32). Now they rejoice, and they are refreshed; they are free from care and ready to rest. And they will remain with Jesus Christ without end in His Father’s kingdom; that is the promise He made in the Upper Room, and Matthew was the recordist that night (26.29). Knowing that You have a tremendous plan for my life gives me confidence to use the gifts and talents You have given me, Father. I appreciate my parents and others who have sown good things in my life, but it is my time to shine, my time to fulfill my destiny, and to become all that You intended for me to be. “As for you, keep in your heart what you have heard from the beginning. If what you heard from the first dwells and remains in you, then you will dwell in the Son and in the Father [always]. Ans this is what He Himself has promised us—the life, the eternal [life],” reports 1 John 2.24-25. #RandolphHarris 14 of 15

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I lie alone remembering changes how suddenly crystals grew from water falling. I hold my face beyond surprising rains. Because everyone can touch and see the body, whereas few can sense a mind, through prayer unusual powers can be displayed. Once must begin this work by accepting the tenet that one is not the body, only a tenant in the body. Otherwise one may fall into the danger of the inability to achieve mystical experience or practice spiritual thinking. Though God in the heights and the depths be potent, yet how can a nation at once be born? The radiant One shall redeem His people, and then at the evening it shall be morn! And up to Mount Zion shall march her saviours, for Zion hath travailed and bringeth forth, a voice is proclaiming in all her borders, thy tent-place enlarge both to south and north, Thy dwelling extend unto far Damascus, thy sons and thy daughters again to take, exult and be joyful, O rose of Sharon, beholding the sleepers of Hebron wake. Return unto Me, and be saved, O America, if only today ye would hear My voice! A man hath sprung forth, and he Branch his name is—yea, David himself, ‘tis King David, rejoice! Up, up! in the dust lie no longer buried! Ye dwellers in ashes awake and sing! The desolate city shall rise imperial to hail as aforetime her ransomed King. The name of the wicked shall God extinguish—He grants His anointed celestial grace. Then make of our seed an eternal people, preserving forever King David’s race. “For with God nothing is ever impossible and no word from God shall be without power or impossible of fulfillment,” reports Luke 1.37. A few days pass. The experience itself has now lodged in the shadows of memory. What is left to one as the after-effect of the Glimpse? What does one really possess as the gain from it? Only those who have felt it can know completely satisfying nature of the love which flows to and fro between the ego and the Overself at such enkindled moments. They may be gone the same day but they will reflect themselves in a whole lifetime’s aspiration thereafter. #RandolphHarris 15 of 15

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CRESLEIGH HAVENWOOD

Lincoln, CA | from the mid $600s

Now Selling!

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Now selling! Cresleigh Havenwood features four distinct floor plans ranging from 2,293 – 3,489 square feet and offering up to five bedrooms.  Each plan has been thoughtfully designed and includes great features such as single story homes, guest suites, optional offices, garage workshops, and more!

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Get the most out of your new home with Cresleigh’s All Ready smart home featuring all the connectivity needed to keep your house running. Best of all, each Cresleigh home comes with owned solar included! 

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Located off of Virginiatown Road and McCourtney Road, residents of the 83 homesites of Cresleigh Havenwood will benefit from a brand new neighborhood in the charming City of Lincoln. Palo Verde Park, is  just down the street and there’s plenty of recreation to take part in all around town. https://cresleigh.com/havenwood/

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Who Can Read the Future?

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Even if we do have a whiff of what is to come, the future can still hurt and maim. However, if we do no prepare for what many happen, then we will all suffer the gravest consequences. Wherefore, why have I not, a Devout who has firsthand knowledge of one’s own wretchedness, prepared better? Why have I relied so heavily on others more than I? Often times, Devouts are thought of as, or declared to be, Angels. In reality, we are only humans, and all too fragile humans at that. Problems such as martial distress, depression, anxiety, alcoholism, and loneliness are all understood within this paradigm as they by-products of maladaptive cognitive patterns. These cognitions include attributions for various events, memories of past situations and encounters, and expectations for the future. Adherents of the cognitive paradigm treat psychological problems with psychotherapy that attempts to challenge and correct maladaptive cognitions, in order to help a client see the self and World in a more realistic (and, ideally, more beneficial) light. Cognitive approaches still figure very prominently in our understanding of many mental health problems and in the ways they are treated. Attributional accounts of loneliness argue that lonely people often blame themselves for interpersonal failures, thus reducing their motivation to remedy their undesirable interpersonal situations. This attributional tendency, combined with negative expectations and evaluations of other people, serves to maintain an unfortunate interpersonal life for a lonely person. Furthermore, for others, exposure to an individual who models the problematic behaviour, and is rewarded for doing so, can lead to the acquisition of the problem behaviour by an observer (exempli gratia, the child or parent with the problematic behaviour). #RandolphHarris 1 of 19

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The observer is thought to hold cognitive representations of the behaviour in one’s mind, which then becomes the eventual stimulus for producing the behaviour in the absence of the model. A hypothesis such as this clearly draws on cognitive-behavioural therapy for psychological problems draws on principles of both cognitive and behavioural therapies—focusing on cognitive patterns, attributional styles, and maladaptive expectations, along with engaging in pleasant activities and learning to disassociate punishing responses with otherwise functional behaviours (exempli gratia, experiencing extreme nervousness when going to a party). Advocates of the biological paradigm explain mental health problems with an appeal to such factors as depletion or excesses of various neurotransmitters, genetic predispositions and vulnerabilities, disturbed endocrine functioning, and irregular anatomical structures of function in the brain. The causes and consequences of mental illness is often due to the misfortunes of life from which arise deprivation of love, poverty, family quarrels, ill-judged choice of a partner in marriage, [and] unfavourable social circumstances. Psychological problems are patterns of inadequate and inappropriate action in interpersonal relations. Depression, for example, is a chiefly destructive process. It cuts off impulses to integrate constructive situations with others. Only destructive situations are maintained, and these are extremely stereotyped. What a person does in any social situations is a function of at least two factors: First of all, one’s multilevel personality structure; and the activities and effect of the other one, the person with whom one in interacting. #RandolphHarris 2 of 19

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Students of interpersonal communication will immediately recognize the transactional and dyadic conceptualization inherent in the explanation of behaviour in social context. This conceptualization moves the locus of attention from purely internal psychological structures to the intersection of the self and the other. Social-interaction and interpersonal school tells of that among those seeking psychological treatment, the underlying problems usually turn out to be interpersonal in nature—frequently having the form, “I cannot (do something interpersonal).” Distressed and dysfunctional interpersonal relations are inextricably entwined with psychological distress. Because the World population has nearly tripled and many more people are being born with psychological problems and their parents do not see the need to have these problems addressed, it may be the group, and not the individual who has interpersonal problems. The majority group may have a deviant mental condition. Also, with religion being removed from government institutions and society, and declining church attendance, many people are not longer taught the Ten Commandments, so they have no guidelines as to how to behave. Therefore, the interpersonal approach suggests that treatment of psychological problems will be most effective when the social context is examined and modified. The focus of therapy is not on the individual, but on one’s important relationships with other people. Thus interpersonal therapy may involve the spouse, friends, and family members, in addition to the person who presents with the problem. Sometimes clients need to be taught how to improve the communication with other people, with the goal of building more desirable relationships. This can be achieved through social skills training. #RandolphHarris 3 of 19

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Interpersonal psychotherapy is a very well-developed and useful technique for treating psychological problems. Scientists have discovered that people often react in consistent and predictable patterns to a person with certain psychological problems. In such cases, it is impossible to overlook the powerful effect of such wide spread reactions on the mentally distressed individual. It is most intriguing to learn that other people often exhibit behaviour toward the ill individual that is itself sometimes reflective of psychosocial disturbances. Such observations inevitably lead to the question of which came firs: the psychopathology, or the harsh, odd, or ambiguous behaviours of others in the social environment? Another area of attention in the interpersonal paradigm is the architecture of current and past interpersonal relationships with significant others. There is almost always trouble to be found in the terrain of interpersonal relationships with people who are or will become psychologically distressed. There is clear support for the notion that these troubled relationships somehow contribute to the development and course of the psychopathology. What a tragedy it would be to go through life as a child of the King in God’s eyes, yet as a lowly peasant in our own eyes. “Whatever you ask in My name, that will I do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it,” John 14.13-14. Although interpersonal problems conceptually and empirically distinct, these disorders have a common correlate: disturbed and dysfunctional relationship with other people. Perhaps as a function of their inherently social nature, the well-being of most humans is inextricably entwined with the well-being of their interpersonal relations. #RandolphHarris 4 of 19

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When interpersonal relationships sour, when the ability (and/or motivation) to communicate and interact with others fails to develop or deteriorates, and when behavioural reactions from other people stressful, mental health begins to break down. Is something similar going on in your life? Is your self-image so contrary to the way God sees you that you are missing out on God’s best? God sees you as successful. However, you may see yourself as a failure. Family-of-origin experiences play a powerful role in creating and/or maintaining psychological problems. Looking back at the childhoods of people with psychological problems, one often finds poor family cohesion, neglect, abuse, parental overinvolvement or overprotection, hostility and criticism, and even parental modeling of dysfunctional behaviour and attitudes. Most of these family processes have been implicated in multiple psychological problems. For example, parental abuse and neglect appear to be relatively childhood experiences for people who later go on to develop depression, social anxiety, personality disorders, and substance use disorders. Similarly, excessive family cohesion (either too high or too low) can be found in the families of people with social anxiety, eating disorders, and substance use disorders. Obviously, the social environment in which a child develops a sense of self and relation to other people has an immense impact on not just current, but future, psychological well-being. When these family relations decompose into neglect, abuse, overprotectiveness, and excessive hostility and criticism, the probability of a child’s developing psychological problems increase dramatically. Psychological problems invariably damage the happiness of the marriage. Symptoms of these problems are very taxing for spouses—often to such an extent that spouses exhibit psychological problems of their own. #RandolphHarris 5 of 19

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At the same time, the deterioration of a marriage can precipitate a number of psychological problems, such as depression, alcoholism, and loneliness. Findings on family-of-orientation experiences again reinforce the notion that psychological problems spill over into immediate family relationships, and appear to be yoked to the quality of these relationships. Often times friendships and or intimate partner relationships are quite simply lacking for people afflicted with depression, social anxiety, personality disorders, and eating disorders. One interpersonal phenomenon that may inhibit the development of such relationships is rejection. Numerous studies show that people with psychological problems such as schizophrenia, eating disorders, depression, and social anxiety incite rejection from others. Even when personal relationships are available to an individual with a psychological problem, they are often characterized by turbulence and conflict. Findings on general personal relationships bring badly needed attention beyond past and present family issues. The most fundamental building blocks of personal relationships, verbal and nonverbal communication behaviours, are seriously alerted by psychological distress. In the case of problems such as depression, social anxiety, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, eating disorders, and substance use disorders, these communication problems are often studies under the rubric of “social skill deficits.” Social skills involve the ability to communicate with other people in ways that are appropriate and effective. The involve the knowledge of what behaviours are appropriate, the capability to exhibit these behaviours, and the motivation to mobilize and apply that knowledge and behavioural repertoire. You may have been hurt in your life, or maybe made wrong choices. However, if you have honestly repented and done your best to do right since then, you no longer have to live with guilt and shame. #RandolphHarris 6 of 19

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You may not have achieved the pinnacle of success, but do not let the physically, mentally or spiritually cripple you. You standing in life does not change God’s covenant with you. You are still the child of the Most High. God still has great things in store for you. Be bold and claim what belongs to you. “Search me [thoroughly], O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there is any wicked or hurtful way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting,” reports Psalm 139.23-24. I know it is not because of my goodness that Your kindness is extended, O God, but because of the covenant relationship I have been blessed to inherit. Please help me to better understand Your grace and Your goodness as I take my place at You table. Thank You, Father, for making a place for me! “Do not copy the behaviour and customs of this World, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will know what God want you to do, and you will know how good and pleasing and perfect His will really is,” reports Romans 12.2. Many social, physical, and emotional problems stem from the fact that people do not like themselves. They are uncomfortable with how they look, how they talk, or how they act. They do not like their personality. They are always comparing themselves with other people, wishing they were something different. Major depressive disorder is a pervasive illness with a lifetime risk of 10-25 percent for women and 5-12 percent of men. Among certain segments of society, such socially disadvantaged women, lifetime prevalence can be as high as 33 percent. In any given year 5 percent of the population, or approximately 15.5 million people, will be afflicted with major depression. This disorder is associated with a dangerously high mortality rate, as 4-6 percent of its victims die by suicide. #RandolphHarris 7 of 19

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Major depressive episodes are marked by the following symptoms: severely depressed mood, diminished interest in any activities, significant weight loss or gain, sleep disturbance, psychomotor agitation, intellectual disability, fatigue, feelings of worthlessness, and guilt, difficulty concentrating, and recurrent thoughts of death or suicidal ideation. For a formal diagnosis, these symptoms must be evident for a period of at least 2 weeks, but for many people with depression they may last months or even years. The interpersonal context of depression has drawn a great deal of empirical that excessive reassurance seeking is an issues that elicits feelings of interpersonal rejection, perhaps because of emotional contagion (id est, they make other people feel sad, depress, and hostile). The general personal relationships of people with depression are often lacking or distressed, contributing to a high comorbidity with loneliness. The family-of-origin experiences of people with depression are marked by relatively high rates of neglect, abuse, low parental care, and even signs of rejection from parents. The family-of-orientation experiences associated with depression are characterized by very high rates of material distress and parenting problems. Again, there is remarkable comorbidity between depression and loneliness. However, you can be happy with who God made you to be, and quit wishing you were someone or something different. If God wanted you to look like anyone else, He would have made you look like them. If God had wanted you to have a different personality, He would have given you that personality. Do not compare yourself to other people; learn to be happy with who God made you to be. #RandolphHarris 8 of 19

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People with depression consistently evaluate their own social skills on such inventories more negatively than nondepressed people do. Consequently, it has been suggested that depressed people’s negative views of their social skills may be part of a more generalized negative self-evaluation bias. For instance, depressed people hold negative views of themselves and distort feedback from the environment in ways that are unfavourable. Although self-rating of social skills are undoubtedly contaminated by this bias, depressed people’s general tendency to evaluate themselves negatively does not fully account for the self-report social skills deficits often noted to be associated with the disorder. However, God does not want a bunch of clones. He likes a variety, and one should not let people pressure one or make one feel badly about oneself because one does not fit their image of who one should be. Be an original, not a version of someone else. Dare today to accept the person God made you to be and then go out and be the best you that you can be. God has given us all different gifts, talents, and personality for a reason. One only needs God’s approval. However, certainly, one should always be open to wise counsel. Do not be foolish and rebellious. Nor will you lose your liberty by focusing more on your spiritual life. Yet, we never have permission to live an ungodly life. However, we do have God’s permission to be successful, confident, and not allow outside pressure to mould us into something or someone we are not. Be secure in who you are. People with depression do not use paralinguistic behaviours with the same degree of “skill” as nondepressed people. Studies of the temporal aspects of paralanguage indicate that people who are depressed speak more slowly than nondepressed people do. #RandolphHarris 9 of 19

In fact, pause and duration is so powerfully linked to depression that many have argued for it as an indicator of an individual’s degree of depression. Investigation of speech production indicates that people with depression generally speak more quietly, and with more silences, and hesitancies, than nondepressed persons. When prompted by a topic, people with depression have more difficulty producing speech than nondepressed control do. There is evidence to suggest that people with depression speak in a monotonous tone and with lower pitch than nondepressed persons do. Depressed people are very skilled at communicating sadness and despair paralinguistically. However, they may be less concerned about cultural display rules that often proscribe the outward display of such emotional states. Alternatively, depressed people may be unable to mask their negative affects paralinguistically, since vocal cues such as pitch, speech rate, and intonation are difficult to control. “Deliver me, O Lord, from evil men; preserve me from violent men; they devise mischiefs in their heart; continually they gather together and stir up wars,” reports Psalms 140.1-2. God does not want us to be depressed. He wants us to enjoy life. God went to great lengths to make sure that each of us is an original. We should not feel badly because our personalities, tastes, hobbies, or even spiritual proclivities are not the same as another person’s. Some people are outgoing and energetic; others are timid and more laid-back. Some people like to wear suits and ties; other people like to wear jeans and a tee shirt. The only person that has to accept you for who you are is God. Have an attitude that you are going to enjoy the person God made you to be. #RandolphHarris 10 of 19

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Humankind’s worst enemy is itself. The enemies of Humankind are the members of its own household. Nor is there necessarily any truth in the Devout who finds a prophet, a messiah, behind every shadow. “Look, here He is! Oops! Where the devil did He go? He is over there now!” Matthew on You in Your last discourse (24.23). I learned this lesson to my loss. Would that I be goose in the future, and not just a gull for every bit of juicy gossip! Watch it, watch it, watch it. That is what someone says to me as one entrusts a secret. Keep to yourself what I am about to tell you. And so I do, but while I keep my lips sealed and believe I am keeping a secret, one does not hold one’s tongue. One wags it all over the house, betraying oneself and me, and then, before I can berate one, one is off to another monastery. From cautionary tales like this and the incautious people who tell them, protect me, O Lord. Do not let me fall into their hands, and do not let me repeat such a gaff ever again. Grant that I may speak in a straightforward manner, not with a forked tongue. What ai am unwilling to put up with others, I should avoid at all costs myself. A tangle of “not’s.” Not to say bad things about good people. Not to believe bad things about these very same people. Not to spread a shaggy story about someone else. Not to reveal my inmost secrets to anyone else but You, O Lord, now and always the Inspector General of Hearts. Not to be swept away by every barrage of verbiage, but simply to desire all esoterica and exoterica to be regulated according to the Divine Pleasure! #RandolphHarris 11 of 19

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How can Devouts and Celestial Grace enjoy safe conduct? They must flee human contact. They must avoid the winsome things of this World. However, they should always be on the lookout for the things that will bring them closer to the next World. Many a humble soul has died the death when someone’s outdated their virtuous life and held it up for public praise! Grace grows best under a bridge where it is dank and dark. On the bridge itself, it would be tromped by every itinerant temptation, tramped by very mercenary troop. Take the case of the frustrated parents. Second Wave civilization, as we saw, synchronized daily life, trying the rhythms of sleep and wakefulness, of work and play, to the underlying throb of machines. Raised in this civilization, the parents take for granted that work must be synchronized, that everyone must arrive at work at the same time, that rush-hour traffic is unavoidable, that meal times must be fixed, and that children must, at an early age, be indoctrinated with time-consciousness and punctuality. They cannot understand why their offspring seem so annoyingly causal about keeping appointments and why, if the nine-to-five job (or other fixed-schedule job) was good enough in the past, it should suddenly be regarded as intolerable by their children. The reason is that the Third Wave, as it sweeps in, carries with it a completely different sense of time. If the Second Wave tied life to the tempo of the machine, the Third Wave challenges this mechanical synchronization, alters our most basic social rhythms, and in so doing frees us from the machine. Once we understand this, it comes as no surprise that one of the fastest-spreading innovations in industry during the 1970’s was “flextime”—an arrangement that permits workers, within predetermined limits, to choose their own working hours. #RandolphHarris 12 of 19

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Instead of requiring everyone to arrive at the factory gate or the office at the same time, or even at pre-fixed staggered times, the company operating on flextime typically sets certain core hours when everyone is expected to show up, an specifics other hours as flexible. Each employee may choose which of the flexible hours one wishes to spend working. This means that a “day person”—person whose biological rhythms routinely awakens one early in the morning—can choose to arrive at work at, say, 8.00 A.M., while a “night person,” whose metabolism is different, can choose to start working at 10.00 A.M. or 10.30 A.M. It means that an employee can take time off for household chores, or to shop, or take a child to the doctor. Groups of workers who wish to go bowling together early in the morning or late in the afternoon can jointly set their schedules to make it possible. In short, time itself is being de-massified. The flextime movement began in 1965 when a woman economist in Germany, Mrs. Christel Kammerer, recommended it was a way to bring more others into the job market. In 1967 Messerschmitt-Bolkow-Blohm, the “Deutsche Boeing,” discovered that many of its workers were arriving at work worn out from fighting rush-hour traffic. Management gingerly experimented by allowing 2,000 workers to go off the ridge eight-to-five schedule and to choose their own hours. Within two years all 12,000 of its employees were on flextime and some departments had even given up the requirement for everyone to be there during core times. In some 2,000 German firms, the national concept of rigid punctuality had vanished beyond recall. #RandolphHarris 13 of 19

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The reason was the introduction of Gleitzeit; id est, sliding or flexible hours. At one time, more than 5,000,000 employees in Germany were on one or another form of flextime, and the system was being used by 22,000 companies with an estimated 4,000,000 workers in France, Finland, Denmark, Sweden, Italy, and Great Britain. In Switzerland, 15 to 20 percent of all industrial firms had switched to the new system for all or part of their work force. Multinational firms (a major force for cultural diffusion in today’s work), exported the system from Europe. Nestle and Lufthansa, for example, introduced it to their operations in the United States of America. According to a report by the American Management Association, 74 percent of all U.S. companies use flextime. Within a few years, it is projected that number will be 90 percent due to the pandemic. Among the American firms using flextime systems are such giants as Scott Paper, Bank of California, General Motors, Bristol Myers, and Equitable Life. Some of the more moss-backed trade unions—preservers of the Second Wave status quo—have hesitated. However, individual workers, by and large, see flextime as a liberating influence. Says the manager of the London-based insurance firm: “The young married women were absolutely rapturous about change-over.” A Swiss survey found that fully 95 percent of affected workers approve. Thirty-five percent men—more than women—say they now spend more time with the family. One mother working for Boston banks was on the verge of being fired because—although a good worker in other respects—she was continually turning up late. Her poor attendance record reinforced racist stereotypes. However, when her office went on flextime she was no longer considered late. #RandolphHarris 14 of 19

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It also turned out, reported sociologist Allan R. Cohen, “that she had been late because she had to drop her son in a day-care center and could just never get to the office by starting time. Employers, for their part, report higher productivity, reduced absenteeism, and other benefits. There are, of course, problems with any innovation, but according to the American Management Association, survey only 2 percent of the companies trying it have gone back to the old rigid time structure. One Lufthansa manager summed it up succinctly: “There’s no such thing now as a punctuality problem.” Humans are born free, and everywhere they are in chains. One who believes oneself the master of others does not escape being more of a slave than they. How did this change take place? I do no know. What can render it legitimate? Were I to consider only force and the effect that flows from it, I would say that so long as a people is constrained to obey and does obey, it does well. As soon as it can shake off the yoke and does shake it off, it does even better. For by recovering its liberty by means of the same right that stole it, either the populace is justified in getting it back or else those who took it away were not justified in their actions. However, the social order is a scared right which serves as a foundation for all other right. Nevertheless, this right does not come from nature. It is therefore founded upon convention. The most ancient of all societies and the only natural one, is that of the family. Even so children remain bound to their father only so long as they need him to take care of them. As soon as the need ceases, the natural bond is dissolved. #RandolphHarris 15 of 19

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Once the children are freed from the obedience they owed the father and their father is freed from the care he owned his children, all return equally to independence. If they continue to remain united, this no longer takes place naturally but voluntarily, and the family maintains itself only by means of convention. This common liberty is one consequence of the nature of humans. Its first law is to see to one’s maintenance; its first concerns are those one owes oneself; and, as soon as one reaches the age of reason, since one alone is the judge of the proper means of taking care of oneself, one thereby becomes one’s own master. The family therefore is, so to speak, the prototype of political societies; the leader is the image of the father, the populace is the image of the children, and, since all are born equal and free, none give up their liberty except for their utility. The entire difference consists in the fact that in the family the love of the father for his children repays him for the care he takes for them, while in the state, where the leaders does not have love for his peoples, the pleasure of commanding takes the place of this feeling. Grotius denies that all human power is established for the benefit of the governed, citing slavery as an example. His usual method of reasoning is always to present fact as a proof of right. Learned research on public right is often nothing more than the history of ancient abuses, and taking a lot of trouble to study the too closely get one nowhere. A more logical method could be used, but no one more favourable to tyrants. According to Grotius, it is therefore doubtful whether the human race belongs to a hundred humans, or whether these hundred humans belong to the human race. This is Hobbes’ position as well. On this telling, the human race is divided into herds of cattle, each one having its own leader who guards it in order to devour it. #RandolohHarris 16 of 19

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Just as a herdsman possesses a nature superior to that of one’s herd, the herdsmen of men who are the leaders, also have a nature superior to that of their peoples. According to Philo, Caligula reasoned thus, concluding quite properly this analogy that kings were gods, or that peoples were beasts. Caligula’s reasoning coincides with that of Hobbes and Grotius. Aristotle, before all the others, had also said that he took the effect for the cause. Every human born in slavery is born for slavery; nothing is more certain. In their chains slaves lose everything, even the desire to escape. They love their servitude the way the companions of Ulysses loved their degradation. If there are slaves by nature, it is because there have been salves against nature. Force has produced the first slaves; their cowardice has perpetuated them. I have nothing about King Adam or Emperor Noah, father of three great monarchs who partitioned the Universe, as did the children of Saturn, whom sone have believed they recognize in them. I hope I will be appreciated for this moderation, for since I am a direct descent of these princes, and perhaps of the eldest branch, how am I to know where, after the verification of titles, I might not find myself the legitimate king of the human race? Be that as it may, we cannot deny that Adam was the sovereign of the World, just as Robinson Crusoe was sovereign of his island, so long as he was its sole inhabitant. And the advantage this empire had was that the monarch, securely on his throne, had no rebellions, wars, or conspirators to fear. The evolution of each ego, of each entity conscious of a personal “I,” passes through three stages through immense periods of time. In the first and earliest stage, it unfolds its distinct physical selfhood, acquires more and more conscious of the person “I,” and hence divides and isolates itself from other egos. #RandolphHarris 17 of 19

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The ego is seeking to differentiate itself from them. It feels the need to asset itself and its interests. This lead inevitably to antagonism towards them. Its movement towards externality, a movement which must inevitably end in its taking the surface or appearance of things for reality, that is, in materialism. Here it is acquisitive. In its second and intermediate stage, it unfolds its mental selfhood and hence adds cunning to its separative and grasping tendencies, with intellect expanding to its extreme point. Here it is inquisitive. However, midway in this stage, its descent comes to an end with a turning point where it halts, turns around, and begins to travel backward to its original source. In the third stage, the return towards its divine source continues. Its movement is now toward internality and—through meditation, investigation, and reflection—it ultimately achieves knowledge of its true being: its source, the Overself. And as all egos arise out of the Overself, the end of such a movement is one and the same for all—a common center. Conflicts between them cease; mutual understanding, cooperation, and compassion spread. Hence, this stage is unitive. The central point of the entire evolution is about where we now stand. Human attitudes and relations have reached their extreme degree of selfishness, separateness, struggle, and division, have experience the resulting exhaustion of an unheard-of World crisis, but are beginning to reorient themselves towards an acknowledgement of the fundamental unity of the second stage and then abruptly begins to vanish from human life altogether. The separatist outlook must cease. Most of our troubles have arisen because we have continued beyond the point where it was either useful or needful. The unequal state of evolution of all these egos, when thrown together into a conglomerate group on a single planet, is also responsible for the conflicts which have marked humankind’s own history. #RandolphHarris 18 of 19

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These egos stand on different steps of the ladder all the way from savagery to maturity. The backward ego naturally attacks or preys on the advanced one. This, the purely self-regarding ego, which was once an essential pattern of the evolutionary scheme—a necessary goal in the movement of life—becomes with time a discordant ingredient of that scheme, an obstructive impediment on that movement. If humanity is to travel upward and fulfill its higher destiny, it can do so only by enlarging its area of interest and extending its field of consciousness. It must, in short, seek to realize the Overself on the one hand, to feel its oneness on the other. The ego’s misapprehension of its own nature and misuse of its own capacities, create one form of evil. There are other forms. O Lord, one tiny bity of water rests on the palm of my hand. I bring it to you and with it I bring the whole ocean. This tiny drop has the power to ease the burning thirst of humans; when spread on the Earth, to give life to the seed and the future harvest; when poured on the fire to quench the blaze. A tiny drop of water can cleanse the whole of my impurity when blessed by your forgiveness. However, O Lord, more than all this, tiny drop of water passed over my head is the symbol of my birth in You. Thou Worker of deliverance alone! Turn to them, hear the words that mount to Thee; God of salvation, justify Thine own. O God of salvation, save Thou us! List to the surging voices of Thy throng, open the Earth, let help spring forth, O Thou delighting not in evil; Saviour strong! O God of our salvation, save Thou us! Open for us the gates of Heaven, we crave: open for us Thy goodly treasure now; ah! strife prolong not endlessly, but save! O God of our salvation, save Thou us! #RandolphHarris 19 of 19

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The Long Lost Friends

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There is something in distortions that is very appealing to Americans. If that were not the case, we should long ago have recognized them for what they are. Interpersonal approaches to psychological problems assume that people’s social relationships are intimately tied to their well-being and mental health. When interpersonal relationships become distressed and dissatisfying, they become sources of stress with remarkable power to disrupt psychological well being. Sometimes this disruption is brought about by problems with the ability and/or motivation to engage effectively in interpersonal communication. At other times it occurs because of problematic interactions and relations with other people who are themselves distressed, or like to behave in ways that are interpersonally destructive. In either case, interpersonal problems are strongly connected to psychological problems, since interpersonal relationship quality is one of the most important aspects of human existence. Research findings and evidence for this interpersonal perspective are rapidly developing and expanding. Despite its newness and its relatively recent recognition, the interpersonal perspective on psychological problems can be traced back at least 125 years, and it shares assumptions with many other modern-day paradigms in psychopathology. Throughout recorded history, human beings have sought to develop explanations for psychopathology. Although they bear little resemblance to modern scientific theories, hypotheses and explanations for deviant behaviour and thinking can be traced back thousands of years. For example, as far back as 1000-2000 B.C., psychological problems were explained by some through demonology. #RandolphHarris 1 of 17

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According to this perspective, an autonomous evil being would inhabit a person’s body and cause odd and destructive behaviour that the person could not control. As preposterous as such a “theory” of mental illness may appear to most of us today, demonology preserved as a common explanation for psychopathology well into the 19th century. A woman was condemned to death for witchcraft in England as late as 1712, twenty years after the Salem trials. In that case, the last in England, the judge obtained a royal pardon, so there was no execution. However, there were executions in Scotland as late as 1722, and Sarah Bassett, and enslaved African, was burned at the stake in Bermuda in 1730. Hanging was, as we have seen, the usual punishment for witchcraft. However, burning or boiling to death were prescribed where petty treason was also involved—treason against someone other than the king to whom one owed obedience. The murder of one’s husband, or parent, or master was petty treason, and since Sarah Bassett had used her charms and her poisons against her master she died at the stake. She was the last to be executed in an English-speaking country, and in 1736 the English and Scottish laws prescribing death for witchcraft were repealed, to be replaced by laws against the fraudulent practice of the occult. On the Continent there were executions throughout the eighteenth century: in France as late as 1745; in Germany in 1775; in Spain in 1781; in Switzerland in 1782; in Poland in 1793. There was a rash of witch-burnings in South America during the nineteenth century, lynchings have continued into the present century. #RandolphHarris 2 of 17

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In 1929, for example, three Pennsylvania-Germans were convicted of murdering a “pow-wow doctor.” They were after his copy of The Long-Lost Friend, the grimoire still in use among the Pennsylvania-Germans, and believed he had used it to bewitch them. The Hausa, an African tribe whose witches keep magical stones in their stomachs, eat their victims’ souls slowly, causing the victim to waste away and die. Another African witch, Sukuyadyo or Obayito, bind victims magically and drain their blood or life force. Sukuyadyo can change their skins, hiding their real skin under a pot or mortar in their house and taking on the appearance of another. Obayito transform into a ball of light to drain the life force. The Salem trials were the last in which an entire community believed its existence threatened by malefic witchcraft. However, they enjoyed that dubious distinction by little more than a decade; it was in 1680 that the court of Louis XIV was shaken by a witchcraft scandal which makes for an instructive comparison with the trials at Salem. Some of the countries of the Sun King apparently thought little more of consulting a practitioner of the occult than of consulting their confessor. According to Visconti’s memoirs, the Duchesse de Foix had appealed to the Devil for bigger casaba melons and Madame de Vasse for more voluptuous gams. Nobody expected revelations more serious than this when in March of 1679 the Paris police arrested Catherine Deshayes, known as La Voisin, the leader of a fashionable ring of occultists who dealt in magic potions, some of them poisonous, as well as in spells and charms. #RandolphHarris 3 of 17

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The investigation was conducted by a special commission of twelve called the Chambre Ardente after the black-draped, candle-lit room in which the hearings were held, an some of its findings show little more than a depraved curiosity on the part of La Voisin’s noble clients: one courtier had merely wished to be introduced to the Devil. Others, however, had wanted considerably more. The wife of the king’s flutist was accused of having poisoned her first husband, and she was executed in May. By the end of the year far more important people were incriminated, including the Comtesse de Soissons, the niece of Cardinal Mazarin, who was also suspected of husband-poisoning. She and several others were allowed to flee the kingdom, although Louis instructed Nicholas de la Reynie, one of the commissioners, that the matter was to be pursed to the finish without regard for rank or gender. Within another year, however, Louis had reduced the commission to two persons (including La Reynie) working in the utmost secrecy, and had personally removed some of their documents from the files. The commission had obtained testimony incriminating no less a person than Madame de Montespan, the mistress of the king, who had been a client of La Voisin for thirteen years. She had been asked for and obtained spells to make the king forget his former mistress and his queen, and she had ordered love potions as well. These she had mixed with the king’s food over a number of years. Louis was a generally healthy person, and one of the more interesting aspects of this affair is whether his occasional indispositions during this period may not have been a result of the bats’ blood, powered dessicated mole, and similar ingredients his mistress was incorporating in his diet. (One ingredient of her potions, cantharides, is still in use as an aphrodisiac.) #RandolphHarris 4 of 17

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Up to this point most authorities are agreed: Madame de Montespan had been a client of La Voisin, and she had used both spells and potions to obtain and hold the king’s love. Beyond this point, however, there is much controversy, in part because of the sensational nature of the testimony and in part because it was obtained under torture. What the testimony says is the Louis’ affections had become increasingly hard to hold, and Madame de Montespan therefore had recourse to more and more drastic measures. A number of priests were of La Voisin’s ring, and in 1672 she called on the most depraved of these, the Abbe Guibourg, to perform amatory masses, which involved using Madame de Montespan’s body in her birthday suit as an altar on which to place the chalice. It also required the ritual sacrifice of an infant, part of whose blood was mixed with flour in the chalice to make an obscene sacramental wafer. At the conclusion of the mass the wafer and some of the infant’s blood were given to the Sun King’s mistress; as the strongest of love potions, they were to be mixed with his food, as before. Amatory masses were performed again in 1676. However, by the Montespan concluded that she had lost the king and ordered a mortuary than an amatory mass. When that piece of imitative magic did not succeed in killing Louis she planned to poison him, but La Voisin was arrested before the plot could be carried out. La Voisin had been burned at the stake in 1680 before anyone ad mentioned the name of the king’s mistress, but the surviving member of her ring ended their lives chained to the walls of French prisons. The last of them died in 1724, thirty-two years after the last witch was hanged in Massachusetts. Louis personally burned the testimony relating to his mistress, so what survives is only La Reynie’s summary of it. #RandolphHarris 5 of 17

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Torture, secrecy, imprisonment without trial—these were the methods of the Old Regime. During and after the Salem trials witchcraft was a matter of continual debate, and when as a result of that debate it became apparent that the innocent had suffered, both individuals and the state did what they could to make reparations. Western civilization stopped executing witches when the literate and balanced portion of its members stopped believing in their capacity to harm. And since the witch’s genuine power was a consequence of her victim’s belief, the practice of witchcraft has very nearly vanished along with the penalties for it. However, new figures have risen to take the spectral place in popular fears vacated by the witch; the spirit of the witch hunt is still with us. This explains in part the continued fascination of the Salem trials. They epitomize those crises of belief which are the ultimate test both of leadership and the body politic of a democratic society. While sometimes the cases of witchcraft were real, some people did unknowingly get swept up in the hype and there was shedding of innocent blood to a corrupt leadership motived by their own discreditable lust for power, and particularly to the clerical leadership. Often times, people in positions of authority would accuse a person they had a grievance with of being a witch so they could rip apart their family, confiscate their estate, and kill that person. Other times, young ladies unknowingly bought potions and love spells to use on their husbands or men they admired, and sometimes they worked, but other times these tonics resulted in death because some of them contained poisonous herbs. That fact was not often disclosed to the person seeking magical powers. #RandolphHarris 6 of 17

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When people look at the Winchester Mansion, often times they think of the occult. Sure it is a beautiful museum, but there it something magical about it. From time to time, clouds of tawny dust rise from the ground without wind or warning, flinging themselves tablecloth-wise among the tops of the parched trees, and then coming down again. Then a-whirling dust-devil will cutter across the plain for a couple of miles, break, and fall outward, though there was nothing to check its flight. One Summer, it was oppressively warm. The sun had long disappeared, but seemed to have left its vital spirit of heat behind. The air rested; the leaves of the palm trees that shrouded my windows hung like a plumb on their steady stalks. The noises of the city seemed to be wrapped in slumber, and the shrilling of the mosquitoes was the only sound that boke the stillness. As I lay with my feet elevated on the back of a chair, wrapped in that peculiar frame of mind in which thought assumes a species of lifeless motion, the strange fancy seized me of making a languid inventory of the principal articles of furniture in my estate. It was a task well suited to the mood in which I found myself. However, I could command a view of all my possessions without even turning my head. Solid silver railings and silver lamps, and trifles of that kind. It was a very large house Victorian house, and all the floors communicated by a huge circular staircase that wound up through the center of the mansion, while at every landing long, rambling corridors stretched off into mysterious nooks and corners. This palace of mine was very high, and its resources, in the way of crannies and windings, seemed to be interminable. Nothing seemed to stop anywhere. Cul-de-sacs were unknown on the premises. #RandolphHarris 7 of 17

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The corridors and passages, like mathematical lines, seemed capable of indefinite extension, and the object of the architect was to erect an edifice in which people might go ahead forever. The whole place was a beautiful show of a home, not so much because it was large, but because it had an Earthly warmth that seemed to pervade the structure. The staircases, corridors, halls, stained glass windows and lofty rooms gave it a real sense of style, history, and character. The walls were carefully dressed in finished in a very sophisticated style, which complimented the dramatic Victorian architecture of details of the structure. The architects very carefully incorporated beautiful features on the walls to highlight the long vistas of the labyrinth. There were ornately hand craved fireplaces, crushed formica in the wallpaper, which made it sparkle like gold and diamonds. Extravagant Lincursta wall covering, wainscoting, moulded masks peering down from the cornices, marble vases on the landing, brass newel post lamps on the staircases. The dual-fitted gas/electric chandeliers with eye-catching metal work, and Vaseline glass shades add colour to the room, along with the skylights that allow light to flow through the house. There was an eminent feeling of love and serenity and want of life—so rare in an American establishment—all over the house. It certainly was not Hood’s Haunted House put in order and newly painted. However, the servants were sometimes shadowy, and chary of their visits. Bells rang three times before the gloomy chambermaid could be induced to present herself; the waiter, a ghoul-like looking creature obeyed the summons only when one’s patience was exhausted or one’s want satisfied some other way. When he did come, one felt sorry that he had not stayed away altogether, so sullen and savage did he appear. #RandolphHarris 8 of 17

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He moved along the echoless floors with a slow, noiseless shamble, until his dusky figure advancing from the gloom, seemed like some reluctant afreet, compelled by superior power of his master to disclose himself. When the doors of all the chambers were closed, light illuminated the long corridor, and one could conjure up an enchanting feel that helped balance the oddities. The house suited me. Of meditative and sedentary habits, I enjoyed the extreme quiet. However, the staff sometimes had a somber spirit, were quiet, and ghost-like in their movements. One evening, I walk down the wide staircase in my pursuit of daises. The garden, as I entered it, did feel somewhat cooler than the parlour. Along the cypress-shrouded walks, it grew dark, and the tall growing flowers that bordered the path were so wrapped in gloom as to present the aspect of solid pyramidal masses, all the details and blossoms being buried in an embracing darkness, while the trees had lost all form, and seemed like masses of overhanging cloud. It was a place and time to excite the imagination; for in the impenetrable cavities of endless gloom there was room for the most riotous fancies to play at will since the gardener went to his bungalow and began cleaning a rifle to shoot a buck and naturally fumbled with the trigger, and shot himself through the head—accidentally. It is associated in my mind with the most sacred recollections—Summer evenings in the mansion, stained-glass windows, light going out, and reading a hymnbook. Now all that is left is the echoing desolation of his bungalow, and the first thing I saw standing in the verandah was his figure. #RandolphHarris 9 of 17

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That was not the first time I had met a similar apparition. I walked and walked, and the echoes of my footsteps on the ungravelled and mossy path suggested a double feeling. I felt alone and yet in company at the same time. The solitariness of the place made itself distinct enough in the stillness, broken alone by the hollow reverberations of my step, while those very reverberations seemed to imbue me with an undefined feeling that I was not alone. I was not, therefore, much startled when I was suddenly accosted from beneath the solid darkness of an immense cypress by a voice saying, “Good evening.” Somebody advanced. If the thing slides away from me all in one piece, like a ghost, I shall know it is only my eyes and stomach that are out of order. If it walks—my head is going. I fancied that I had caught a glimpse of a pale, weird countenance, immersed in a background of long, wild hair. I could not say certainly whether this was an actual impression or the mere effort of imagination to embody that which the sense had failed to distinguish. “You are out late,” said this unknow to me. “Not later than usual,” I replied, drily. “Hum! You are fond of the late wanderings, then?” “That is just as the fancy seized me.” “Do you live here?” “Yes.” “Queer house, isn’t it?” “I have only found it quiet.” “Hum! But you will find it queer, take my word for it.” This was earnestly uttered; and I felt at the same time a bony finger laid on my arm, that cut it sharply like a blunt knife. “I cannot take your word for any such assertion,” I replied; rudely shaking off the bony finger with an irrepressible motion of disgust. “No offense, no offense,” muttered by unseen companion rapidly, in a strange, subdued voice, that would have been shrill had it been louder; “your being angry does not alter the matter. You will find it a queer house. Everybody finds it a queer house.” #RandolphHarris 10 of 17

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“I find it quite beautiful. I developed the plan with some very special architects,” I answered very sharply, for the individual’s manner, combined with my utter uncertainty as to his appearance, oppressed me with an irksome longing to be rid of him. “Oh, you don’t? Well, I do. I know what they are,–well, well, well!” and as he pronounced the three last words his voice rose with each, until, with the last, it reached a shrill shriek that echoed horribly among the lonely walks. “Do you know what they eat?” he continued. “No, sir—nor care.” “Oh, but you will care. You must care. You shall care. I will tell you what they are. They are enchanters. They are ghouls. They are cannibals. Did you never remark their eyes, and how they gloated on you when you passed? Did you never remark the food that they served up at your table? Did you ever in the dead of the night hear muffled and unearthly footsteps gliding along the corridors, and stealthy hands turning the handle of your door? Does not dome magnetic influence fold itself continually round you when they pass, and send a thrill through spirit and body, and a cold shiver that no sunshine will chase away? Oh, you have! You have felt all these things! I know it!” The earnest rapidity, the subdued tones, the eagerness of accent, with which all this was uttered, impressed me most uncomfortably. It really seemed as if I could recall all those weird occurrences and influences of which he spoke; and I shuddered in spite of myself in the midst of the impenetrable darkness that surrounded me. #RandolphHarris 11 of 17

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“Hum!” said I, assuming, without knowing it, a confidential tone, “may I ask how you know these things?” “How I know them? Because I am their enemy; because they tremble at my whisper; because I hang upon their track with the perseverance of a bloodhound and the stealthiness of a tiger; because—because—I was of them once!” “Wretch!” I cried excitedly, for involuntarily his eager tones had wrought me up to a high pitch of spasmodic nervousness “then you mean to say that you—” as I uttered this word, obeying an uncontrollable impulse, I stretched forth my hand in the direction of the speaker and made a blind clutch. The tips of my fingers seemed to touch a surface as smooth as glass, that glided suddenly from under them. A sharply, angry hiss sounded through the gloom, followed by a whirring noise, as if some projectile passed rapidly by, and the next moment I felt instinctively that I was alone. A most disagreeable feeling instantly assailed me—a prophetic instinct that some terrible misfortune menaced me; and eager and overpowering anxiety to get back to my house without loss of time. I turned and ran blindly along the dark cypress alley, every dusky clump of flowers that rose blackly in the borders making my heart each moment cease to the sounds of unknown pursuers following fast upon my track. The boughs of lilac-bushes and syringas, that here and there stretched partly across the walk, seemed to have been furnished suddenly with hooked hands that sought to grasp me as I flew by, and each moment I expected to behold some awful and impassible barrier fall across my track and wall me up forever. #RandolphHarris 12 of 17

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At length I reached the wide entrance. With a single leap I sprang up the four or five steps that formed the stoop, and dashed along the hall, up the narrow zigzagging stairs, and again along the dim, funereal corridors until I paused, breathless and panting, at the “Door to Nowhere.” Once so far, I stopped for an instant and leaned heavily against one of the panels, panting lustily after my late run. I had, however, scarcely rested my whole weight against the door, when it suddenly gave way, and I staggered in head-foremost. To my utter astonishment, the room I had left in profound darkness was now a blaze of light. So intense was the illumination that, for a few seconds while the pupils of my eyes were contracting under the sudden change, I saw absolutely nothing save the dazzling glare. This fact in itself, coming on me with such utter suddenness, was sufficient to prolong my confusion, and it was not until after several minutes had elapsed that I perceived the rom was not only illuminated, but occupied. And such occupants! Amazement at the scene took such possession of me that I was incapable of either moving or uttering a word. All that I could do was to lean against the wall, and stare blankly at the strange picture. It have been a scene out of Samuel Jackson Pratt’s Sympathy, or Hannah Cowley’s The Fate of Sparta, or Edward Gibbon’s The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Round a large table in the center of the room, that I had left unfinished, were seated half a dozen persons. Three were men and three were women. I do not even know what possessed me to open this door. The table was heaped wit a prodigality of luxuries. #RandolphHarris 13 of 17

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There were luscious eastern fruits piled up in silver filigree vases, though whose meshes their glowing rings shone in the contrasts of a thousand hues. Small silver dishes that Benvenuto might had designed, filled with succulent and aromatic meats, were distributed upon a cloth of snowy damask. Bottles of every shape, slender ones from the Rhine, stouts fellows from Holland, sturdy ones from Spain, and quaint basket-woven flasks from Italy, absolutely littered the board. Drinking-glasses of every size and hue filled up the interstices, and the thirsty German flagon stood side by side with the aerial bubbles of Venetian glass that rest so lightly on their threadlike stems. An order of luxury and sensuality floated through the apartment. The lamps that burned in every direction seemed to diffuse a subtle incense on the air, and in a large vase that stood on the floor, I saw mass of magnolias, tuberoses, and jasmines grouped together, stifling each other with their honeyed and heavy fragrance. The inhabitants of my incomplete room seemed beings well suited to so sensual an atmosphere. The women were strangely beautiful, and all were attired in dresses of the most fantastic devices and brilliant hues. Their figures were round, supple, and elastic; their eyes dark and languished; their lips full, ripe, and of the richest bloom. The three men wore half-masks, so that all I could distinguish were heavy jaws, pointed beards, and brawny throats that rose like massive pillars out of their doublets. All six lay reclining on Roman couches about the table, drinking down the purple wines in large draughts, and tossing back their heads and laughing wildly. #RandolphHarris 14 of 17

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I stood, I suppose for some thirteen minutes, with my back against the wall staring vacantly at the bacchanal vision, before any of the revellers appeared to notice my presence. At length, without any expression to indicate whether I had been observed from the beginning or not, two of the women arose from their couches, and, approaching, took each a hand and led me to the table. I obeyed their motions mechanically. I sat on a couch between them as they indicated. I unresistingly permitted them to wind their arms about my neck. “You must drink,” said one, pouring out a large glass of red wine, “here is Clos Vougeot of a rare vintage; and here,” pushing a flask of amber-hued wine before me, “is Lachryma Christi.” “You must eat,” said the other, drawing the silver dishes toward her. “Here are cutlets stewed with olives, and here are slices of a filet stuffed with bruised sweet chestnuts”—and as she spoke, she without waiting for a reply, proceeded to help me. The sight of the food recalled to me the warning I had received in the garden. This sudden effort of memory restored to me my other faculties at the same instant. I sprang to my feet, thrusting the women from ne with each hand. “Demons!” I almost shouted, “I will have none of your accursed food. I know you. You are cannibals, you are ghouls, you are enchanters. Begone, I tell you! Leave my home in peace!” A shout of laughter from all six was the only effect that my passionate speech produced. The men rolled on their couches, and their half-masks quivered with the convulsions of their mirth. The woman shrieked, and tossed the slender wine-glasses wildly aloft, and turned to me and flung themselves on my bosom fairly sobbing with laughter. #RandolphHarris 15 of 17

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Agonized at the ever-darkening mysteries that seemed to thicken around me, and despairing of being able to dissipate them by the mere exercise of my own will, I cried eagerly. The woman touched a small golden ball that stood near her on the table, and it had scarce ceased to tinkle when a dwarf entered with a sliver tray on which were dice-boxed and dice. Then it seemed as if some unseen power caught me by the shoulders and thrust me toward the door. In vain I resisted. In vain I screamed and shouted for help. In vain I implored them for pity. All the reply I had was those mocking peals of merriment, while, under the invisible influence, I staggered to the door. As I reached the threshold the organ pealed out a wild, triumphal strain. The power that impelled me concentrated itself into one vigorous impulse that sent me blindly staggering out into the echoing corridor, and, as the door closed swiftly behind me, I caught a glimpse of the apartment I had left forever. A change passed like a shadow over it. The lamps died out, the siren women and masked men vanished, the flowers, the fruits, the bright silver and bizarre furniture faded swiftly, and I saw again, for the tenth of a second the incompleted room return. The next instant the door closed violently, and I was left standing in the corridor stunned and despairing. As soon as I had partially recovered my comprehension I rushed madly to the door, with the dim idea of beating it in. When I opened it, there was nothing but a two story drop to the garden. I looked from left to right, and there was no room. Just a door to nowhere. I rushed downstairs shouting madly. No one answered. I met the butler; I seized him by the collar, and demanded he show me to my room. #RandolphHarris 16 of 17

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The demon showed his white and awful teeth, which were filed into a saw-like shape, and, extricating himself from my grasp with a sudden jerk, fled down the passage with a gibbering laugh. Nothing but echo answered to my despairing shrieks. The lonely garden resounded with my cries as I strode madly through the dark walks, and the tall funeral cypresses seemed to bury me beneath their heavy shadows. I met no one—could find no one. I had to bear my sorrow and despair alone. Since that awful hour, every time I open that door, there is nothing on the other side, but a two story drop into the gardens. Shall I ever find it? I left that portion of the house incomplete in hopes that my room would return. Death is the separation of the soul from the body. The creation of a zombie is the rebinding of body and soul via necromancy. The animated body can move, speak, even think, but it still cannot outrun physical decay. Zombies do not last very long, and the more able they are to think, the more they suffer from the same derangement that eventually gets any spirit that has been prevented from moving on. It is a rule: if spirit cannot move on, the tug of the afterlife sooner or later drives them mad. (Mrs. Sarah L. Winchester’s response to the deaths of her child and husband left a bizarre and impressive architectural reflection of her psyche. The fascinating story of the Winchester Mystery House has its roots in the personal tragedies suffered by Mrs. Winchester and the legacy of the Winchester rifle, “The Gun That Won the West.” There were occurrences that defined explanation. Neighbours would hear a bell ring a midnight and 2am, which according to ghost lore are the times of the arrival and departure of spirits. Some said that Mrs. Winchester never slept in the same bedroom two nights in a row, in order to confuse any evil spirits that might be waiting for her.) #RandolphHarris 17 of 17

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Winchester Mystery House

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If you’ve got it, haunt it 😉

Tickets for our All Hallows’ Eve, Lost in The House tour are still available! Purchase them today and be prepared for a fright 👻

Buy tickets 👉 Link in bio. winchestermysteryhouse.com

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Has the Language of Accountability Yet Been Developed?

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The idea of freedom is born with every generation. Only one generation create the Constitution of the United States of American. Do not be swayed by the well-oiled, smoothly reasoned words of human wisdom. As the Great Paul wrote in First Corinthians, “Virtual words will not get you into the Kingdom of God; only virtuous acts will do that,” reports 1 Corinthians 4.20. Pay attention to what God says. Let its warm your hearts and illumine your mind. It will loosen your conscience and infuse—who knows?—a little consolation. “O taste and see that the LORD is good; how blessed is the human who takes refuge in Him!” reports Psalm 34.8. Many people are missing out on God’s best because they do not realize that the good things in life have already been paid for. They may be on their way to Heaven, but they do not realize what has been included in the price of their quest. God has made more available to people than they can imagine. Never say a word that will make you seem better educated than another. Instead, stive to mortify your verbal vices. Why? Because spiritual progress, though sometimes painful, does you more good than any amount of philosophical knowledge, which often enough can be quite pleasant, or so I have been told. When someone reads from a random pile of books, one often increases one’s learning; but just as often one strays from the One True Principle. At once one must return to the One True Book. Why? God is the One who has given adults what little knowledge they find in their petty encyclopedias; and God is the One who has given the children their pretty abecedaries. “In Whom, because of our faith in Him, we dare to have the boldness (courage and confidence) of free access (an unreserved approach to God with freedom and without fear). So I ask you not to lose heart [not to faint or become despondent through fear] at what I am suffering in your behalf. [Rather glory in it] for it is an honour to you,” reports Ephesians 3.12-13. #RandolphHarris 1 of 18

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Whoever hears God’s word will quickly become wise and make much progress in virtue. Woe to those who are out whiling away their time in flea markets and curiosity shoppes when they could be at home strenuously serving the Lord! God has everything we need—joy, forgiveness, restoration, peace, healing—anything we need to live at our full potential. It is all waiting for us by God’s grace. We must remember that we are the children of the Most High God, and He wants to enjoy what He has prepared for us. Just because something did no work out our way or someone disappointed us, that does not change who we are. “May He grant you out of the rich treasury of His glory to be strengthened and reinforced with mighty power in the inner man by the [Holy] Spirit [Himself indwelling your innermost being and personality]. May Christ through your faith [actually] dwell (settle down, abide, make His permanent home) in your hearts! May you be rooted deep in love and founded securely on love, that you may have the power and be strong to apprehend and grasp with all the saints [God’s devoted people, the experience of that love] what is he breadth and length and heigh and depth [of it]; [That you may really come] to know [practically, through experience for yourselves] the love of Christ, which far surpasses mere knowledge [without experience]; that you may be filled [through all your being] unto all the fullness of God [may have the richest measure of the divine Presence and become a body wholly filled and flooded with God Himself]!” reports Ephesians 3.16-19. #RandolphHarris 2 of 18

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Philosophy does not agree with the doctrine that humans can sink into oblivion permanently. If a humans’ fundamental nature, however hidden it be, is essentially immaterial and of the same stuff as divinity, where can one sink back to except to that self-same divinity? The mystery of evil is perhaps the profoundest of all but it cannot be understood through surface views. Evil is closely connected with suffering and the latter in its turn with Universal Laws, which again is itself an expression of the fundamental self. It is all an educative process from which nobody can escape—not even Satan himself were there such a personal devil, which philosophy does not admit, although there are evil spirits, evil beings, and evil humans. All will be saved because when seen from the timeless viewpoint they are already saved. The great mass of humanity are moving in the right direction, despite appearances to he contrary, and they shall enter the kingdom of Heaven one day. Do not doubt that; the guarantee is that they are in their hidden selves already divine. No human is beyond redemption for no human is utterly evil. The problem of evil must be considered in the light of various factors. One of these is standpoint; one human’s evil is another human’s good. Another is Universal Law; the individual has enough latitude to go to the dogs but has to suffer from the consequences of one’s acts. Then there is the question of rebirth. It seems impossible for human beings o be reborn as animals but Nature has made some provision for it. Then the ethical value of suffering must be considered. However, most important of all are the questions of the nature of God, His relation to the Universe and to humanity, and the purpose, if any, which is being worked out. #RandolphHarris 3 of 18

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When a human commits an act of violence and destruction against other humans, one is denounced and punished as a criminal. However, when Nature commits such an act and maims or kills a mass of people, God is not denounced. Instead, poet and priest search for some excuse, find some hidden good intention, for God’s reputation for goodness must be saved. If the forces of evolution or laws of nature, as the expression of the World-Mind, have evoked the World-Idea and with it the possibilities of evil, we must unflinchingly accept the logical conclusion. This is that the World-Mind certainly permits the presence of Evil, allows and does not hinger its actuality. Nevertheless, we should always couple with this admission the equal and attendant truth that there is a higher outcome from the working of evil, a nobler purpose in its actuality. Through the operations of the laws of recompense and the pressures of divine evolution it is transmuted into good. Evil has nowhere else to turn in the end expect to turn itself into good! To accept God as the source of this Universe but to reject God as the source of those things contained in the Universe which we dislike, is to deny God. Because we humans dislike evil and suffering, we separate them from God. However, when we do that, we separate ourselves from God. Father, I now realize that I have been existing on little faith, while You have many blessings You want to bestow on me the moment I learn how to have faith for extraordinary things, and the price has already been paid. Thank You, Father, for blessing me today. When these rare glimpses are granted, take from them as they leave all that you can get—all the strength, the wisdom, the support, and the goodwill that they can hold. One has had the glimpse. The after-period is important. For as one returns to one’s ordinary self and to the ordinary persons around one, the opportunity is offered to make an adjustment, adjustment, a fresh start by the light of what the experience revealed. #RandolphHarris 4 of 18

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The great experience is soon over; the released insight lasts but a few minutes or hours, but its memory last long. It is a delectable foretaste and warming anticipation of what one’s continued spiritual development may bring to humans. It lifts one far above oneself and out of one’s ordinary state of consciousness, yielding sharper understandings and creating deeper sympathies. One returns from one’s first initiation into the egoless life with a rich cargo. One carries the stability of peace. A strange feeling of safety takes possession of one at that time. One knows neither care for the uncertain future nor regret for the unpleasant past. One knows that henceforth the life of one’s being is in the hands of the higher self, and with this one is quite content. Once one has attained this inner realization, the student should cling persistently to it, for the World’s multifarious forces will come to hear of it and seek to drag one away. “Now to Him Who, by (in consequence of) the [action of His] power that is at work within us, is able to [carry out His purpose and] do superabundantly, far over and above all that we [dare] ask or think [infinitely beyond our highest prayers, desires, thoughts, hopes, or dreams]—to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations forever and ever. Amen (so be it),” reports Ephesians 3.20-12. To get up and move too soon after the glimpse has come to an end is to lose some of its Heavenly afterglow. To refrain from any movement, keeping sill and being patient, is to enjoy that glow till its last flickering moments as one may enjoy the last moments of sunset. One’s first need is to immerse oneself in the feeling, to preserve as much as one can of the glimpse. Print every detail of the Glimpse on your mind. It is a useful practice to write down every detail of the experience while it is still fresh in the mind. The record will still be there when the joy is gone. #RandolphHarris 5 of 18

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The fragrance of this peace lingers on long after the glimpse itself is over. “His intention was the perfecting and the full equipping of the saints (His consecrated people), [that they should do] the work of ministering toward building up Christ’s body (the church), [That it might develop] until we all attain oneness in the faith and in the comprehension of the [full and accurate] knowledge of the Son of God, that [we might arrive] at really mature manhood (the completeness of personality which is nothing less than the standard height of Christ’s own perfection), the measure of the stature of the fullness of the Christ and the completeness found in Him. So then, we may no longer be children, tossed [like ships] to and fro between chance gusts of teaching and wavering with every changing wind of doctrine, [the prey of] the cunning and cleverness of unscrupulous humans, [gamblers engaged] in every shifting form of trickery in inventing errors to mislead,” Ephesians 4.12-14. The holy feelings generated by the Glimpse ought to be protected against the World’s disintegrating power and shielded against your own tendency to dissipate them by hasty violent movements or needless irrelevant chatter. Immediately after the glimpse no word should be spoken or it may be lost the more quickly. After such a glimpse there is enchantment in the air. The annoying or disagreeable happenings of the day fail to remove it. When the inspiration derived from the glimpse is upon one, the unexpected and the unpredictable may happen for one’s benefit; but when it is gone, one is no more fortunate than one’s neighbour. The glimpse goes and the habitual daily self returns. The single and simple largeness of the one is lost in the innumerable trivialities of the other. As the glimpse fades away, one takes the ego back into consciousness again. #RandolphHarris 6 of 18

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However, the glimpse may not stand alone in its full purity: one may put one’s own ideas into it as an accompaniment without knowing that one has done so. The time will come when the Teacher of teachers, the Christ of christs, the Lord of Angels, will appear; God’s Paul promised that to the Colossians (3.4). Yes, God will, come to audit all the lectures, examine all the students. That is to say, “Jerusalem will be searched by lamp light,” as the Prophet Zephaniah has said (1.12) and “all the errors will spring out of the darkness,” as Paul in First Corinthians has said (4.5). That should quiet the querulous once and for all! Case in point: two humble Devouts. The University takes ten years to educate the first. As for the second, God can raise one’s mind to where one can grapple equally well with the rationalizations and ratiocinations expected of any university graduate—and God can do it in a trice! God’s pedagogy? Well, God is the Logos, and so He does no need a lot of logorrhea to make His points. Philosophers and Theologians like to entertain other opinions; God does not. Academic pride, intellectual arrogance, public disputation whose only aim is to have the upper hand, not that the Truth may appear—all these are nice, but they are certainly not God’s style. His thesis is simply put: Despite this life. Shrink from the present. Seek the next life. Look forward to that happy time. Flee honours. Endure scandals. Hope is in God. Desire nothing but God. Love God ardently above all things. About the last, loving God ardently. If you do this, you will learn what the University has promised but failed to deliver; that is to say, the secrecies and prophecies of the Divine. That is to say, you make more spiritual progress when you leave the public disputation before it is over than when you linger to make yet another distinctio rationis ratiocnatae minor. #RandolphHarris 7 of 18

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Sometimes God lectures in halls; sometimes God tutors in rooms. Occasionally God makes a personal impression by a miracle or a verbal expression by a metaphour. Once in a while God even takes the drape off a mystery. A book has once voice, but its many and varied readers do not necessarily come away from it with the same message. In the University Within, however, God’s is the only voice, and One is the only message. God is Lecturer, Examiner Invigilator. God interprets all thoughts, prompts all actions. All of which is another way of saying, and perhaps another way of rendering a passage in Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians (12.11), He marks each examination with alpha, beta, or gamma, enhanced or diminished by pluses or minuses. Wow to the Alphas! Woe to the Gammas! A relationship that is never taken into account, although it always ought to be reckoned the chief concern is that of utility each person derives from the social confederation which provides powerful protection for the immense possession of the rich and hardly allows a poor wretch to enjoy the cottage one built with one’s own hands. Are not the advantages of society for the powerful and the rich? Are not all the lucrative posts filled by them alone? Are not all the privileges and exemptions reserved for them alone? And is not the public authority entirely in their favour? When a human of high standing steals from one’s creditors or commits other acts of knavery, is one not always certain of impunity? Are not the assaults, the acts of violence one commits, even the murders and assassination one is guilty of, are not these things hushed up and after six months not given a thought? If this is same human were robbed, the entire police force is immediately put in motion, and woe to the innocent persons one suspects. #RandolphHarris 8 of 18

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Does one have to pass through a dangerous area? One has escourts in rural areas. Is the axle of one’s chaise about to break? Everyone flies to one’s assistance. Is there a noisy disturbance outside one’s door? One says one word and everyone is silent. Does a crowd aggravate one? One makes a gesture and everyone steps aside from one. And better that fifty honest pedestrians going about their business should be crushed than that some lazy scoundrel’s coach should be delayed. All this respect costs one not a penny; it is the right of a rich human, not the price of riches. How different a picture is to be painted of the poor man! The more humanity owes one, the more society refuses one. All doors are closed to one, even when one has a right to open them. And if sometimes one obtains justice, it is with greater difficulty than the rich human would have obtaining a pardon. If there is an unpleasant job to do or troops to be raised, one is given preference. Besides one’s own burden, one always bears the one from which one’s more wealthy neighbour has the influence to get oneself exempted. At the least accident that happens to one, everyone avoids one. If one’s humble cart tips over, far from being helped by anyone, I count one lucky if one avoids the insults of the smart-aleck servants of some young duke who is passing by. In short, any free assistance escapes one when one needs it, precisely because one has nothing which to pay for it. However, if one has the misfortune of having and honest soul, a beautiful daughter, and a powerful neighbour, I take one for a lost human. Another no less important point to make is that the losses of poor humans are much more difficult to recoup than those of the rich, and that the difficulty of acquiring always grows in proportion to need. Nothing comes from nothing: it is just as true in business as it is in physics. #RandolphHarris 9 of 18

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Money breeds money, and the first pistole is sometimes harder to earn than the second million. However, there is still more. Everything the poor human pays for is forever lost to one, and remains in or returns to the hands of the rich. And since the proceeds of the taxes sooner or later pass only to those humans who take part in the government or who are closely connected with it, they have, even in paying their hare, a clear interest in increasing taxes. The social part of the two estates: You need me, for I am rich and you are poor. Let us come to an agreement between ourselves. I will permit you to have the honour of serving me, provided you give me what little you have for the trouble I will be taking to command you. If all these things are carefully combined, we will find that in order to levy taxes in an equitable and truly proportionate way, the imposition should not be made merely in proportion to the goods belonging to the contributors, but in a proportion consisting in the differences of their conditions and of the superfluity of their goods. This terribly important and difficult operation is accomplished everyday by multitudes of honest clerks who know their arithmetic; but a Plato or a Montesquieu would not have dared to undertake such a task without trembling and imploring Heaven for enlightenment and integrity. Another disadvantage of the personal tax is that it makes itself felt too much and s levied with too much severity. This does not prevent its being subject to many instances of nonpayment, since it is much easier to hide one’s head than one’s possessions from the tax rolls and prosecution. #RandolphHarris 10 of 18

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Of all other kinds of tax assessments, the land tax or real tax has always passed for the most advantageous in countries where more thought is given to both the quantity of the proceeds and the certainty of recovering the funds, than to causing the least annoyance to the people. Some people have even dared to say that the peasant must be burdened in order to rouse one from one’s idleness, and that one would do nothing if one did not have to pay anything. However, among all the peoples of the World experience contradicts this ridiculous maxim. It is in Holland and England, where the farmer pays very little, and above all in China, where one pays nothing, that the land is best cultivated. On the other hand, wherever the worker finds oneself taxed in proportion to the product of one’s fields, one lets them lie fallow or else reaps just as much from them as one needs in order to live. For to one who loses the fruit of one’s labours gaining means of doing nothing. Imposing a fine on work is a rather unusual method of abolishing idleness. Taxes on land or on grain, especially when they are excessive, result in two disadvantages that are so terrible that they cannot in the long run avoid depopulating and ruining every country where they are established. The first comes from the lack of circulation of currency, for commerce and industry draw all the money from the rural areas into the capitols; and because the tax destroys the proportion that might still obtain between the needs of farmers and the price of one’s grain, money constantly leaves and never returns. The richer the city, the more miserable the rural areas. The proceeds from the tax pass from the hands of the prince of the financier into those of artists and merchants. #RandolphHarris 11 of 18

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And for the farmer, who never receives anything more than the smallest part of the proceedings, is eventually exhausted by always paying the same amount and always receiving less. How can a human live if one had veins and no arteries, or if the arteries carried blood only to within four inches of one’s heart? Chardin says that in Persia the king’s duties on commodities are also paid in commodities. This custom, which, Herodotus tells us, was practiced previously in the same country until the time of Darius, could prevent the evil of which I have been speaking. However, unless the intendents, directors, commissioners and where else, I am hard pressed to believe that the smallest part of all these products reaches the king, that grain does not in the granaries, and that fire does not consume the greater part of the warehouses. The second disadvantage comes form an apparent advantage, which lets the problems become aggravated before they are noticed: namely that grain remains cheap, and the farmer is the only one to bear the burden of the tax, which one has been unable to recoup in one’s selling price. It must be noted that one should not reason about a real tax the way one would about duties on all merchandise which in turn raise the price on all these goods and which are paid not so much by the sellers as by the buyers. For these duties on all merchandise which in urn raise the price on all these goods and which are paid not so much by the sellers as by the buyers. For these duties, however heavy they may be, are still voluntary and are paid by the seller only in proportion to one’s sales, one applies the law to private individuals. However, the farmer, who is required to pay, whether one sells or not, at a fixed rate for the land one cultivates, is not in a position to wait until one gets the price one wants for one’s produce. And even if one were not to sell it to support oneself, one would be forced to sell it to be able to pay the tax, so that sometimes it is the enormity of the assessment that keeps the produce at a low price. #RandolphHarris 12 of 18

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The multipurpose corporation that has emerged demands, among other things, smarter executives. It implies a management capable of specifying multiple goals, weighting them, interrelating them, and finding synergetic policies that accomplish more than a single goal at a time. It requires policies that optimize not for one, but for several variables simultaneously. Nothing could be further from the single-minded styles of the traditional Second Wave manager. Moreover, once the need for multiple goals is accepted we are compelled to invent new measures of performance. Instead of the single “bottom line” on which most executives have been taught to fixate, the Third Wave corporation requires attention to multiple bottom lines—social, environmental, informational, political, and ethical bottom lines—all of them interconnected. Faced with this new complexity, many of today’s managers are taken aback. They lack the intellectual tools necessary for Third Wave management. We know how to measure the profitability of a corporation, but how do we measure or evaluate the achievement of non-economic goals? Managers are being asked to account for corporate behaviour in areas where no real standards of accountability have been established—where even the language of accountability has yet to be developed. This explains today’s efforts to develop a new language of accountability. Indeed, accounting itself is on the edge of revolution and is about to explode out of is narrowly economic terms of reference. The American Accounting Association, for example, has issued reports of a “Committee on Non-Financial Measures of Effectiveness” and of a “Committee on Measures of Effectiveness for Social Programs.” So much work is being done along these lines that each of these reports lists nearly 250 papers, monographs, and documents in its bibliography. #RandolphHarris 13 of 18

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Many companies are working with consulting firms to develop methods for specifying what might be called the “trans-economic” goals of the corporation. The objective is to integrate these goals into corporate planning and to find ways of measuring the company’s trans-economic performance. In Washington, it has been suggested that the government itself should prepare a “Social Performance Index,” which would be a mechanism companies could use to assess their performance and its social consequences. Many large and medium-sized companies in Europe have been experimenting with [the social report] concept. In the Federal Republic of Germany, for example, about 20 of the larges firms now publish social reports regularly. In addition, more than a hundred others draw up social reports for internal management purposes. Some of these reports are no more than puff—accounts of the corporation’s “good works,” carefully overlooking controversial problems like pollution. However, others are remarkably open, objective, and tough. Thus a social report issued by the giant Swiss food firm, Migros-Genossenschafts-Bund self-critically confess that it pays women less than men, that many of its jobs are “extremely boring,” and that its nitrous dioxide emissions have risen over a four-years period. Says the company’s managing director, Pierre Arnold, “It takes courage for an enterprise to point out the differences between its goals and its actual results.” Companies like STEAG and the Saarbergwerke AG have pioneered the effort to relate company expenditures to specific social benefits. Less formally, companies like Bertelsmann AG, the publisher; Rank Xerox GmbH, the copier firm; and Hoechst AG, the chemical manufacturer, have radically broadened the kind of social data they make available to the public. #RandolphHarris 14 of 18

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A much more advanced system is employed by companies in Sweden and Switzerland and by Deutsche Shell AG in Germany. The latter, instead of publishing an annual report, now issues what it calls an Annual and Social Report in which both economic and trans-economic data are interrelated. The method used by Shell, termed “goal accounting and reporting” by Dierkes and Coppock, stipulates concrete economic, environmental, and social goals for the corporation, spells out the actions taken to achieve them, and reports the expenditures allocated to them. Shell also lists five overall corporate goals—only one of which is to achieve a “reasonable return on investment”—and specifically “carry the same weight” in corporate decision-making. The goal accounting methods force companies to make their trans-economic objectives explicit, to specify time periods for their attainment, and to open this up to public review. On a broader theoretical level, Trevor Gambling, professor of accounting at the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom, in a book called Societal Accounting has called for a radical reformulation of accounting that begins to integrate the work of economists and accountants with that of the social scientists who have developed social indictors and methods of social accounting. In Holland the Dean of the Graduate School of Management in Delft, Cornelius Brevoord, had designed a set of multidimensional criteria for monitoring corporate behaviour. This is made necessary, he suggests, by deep value changes in the society, among them the change from “an economic production orientation” in society to “a total well-being orientation.” Similarly, he notes a shift from “functional specialization to an interdisciplinary approach.” Both these changes strengthen the need for a more rounded concept of the corporation. #RandolphHarris 15 of 18

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Brevoord lists 32 different criteria by which a corporation must measure its effectiveness. These range over its relationships with consumers, shareholders, and unions to those with ecology organizations and its own management. However, he points out, even these 32 are only “a few” of the parameters along which the emerging corporation of the future will test itself. With the Second Wave economic infrastructure in a shambles, with change accelerating as de-massification spreads, with the biosphere sending danger signals, with the level of organization in society rising, and the informational, political, and ethical conditions of production changing, the Second Wave corporations is obsolete. What is happening, therefore, is a thoroughgoing reconceptualization of the meaning of production and of the institution that, until now, has been charged with organizing it. The result is a complex shift to a new-style corporation of tomorrow. In the words of William Halal, professor of management at American University, “Just as the feudal manor was replaced by the business corporation when agrarian societies were transformed into industrial societies, so too should the older model of the firm be replaced by a new form of economic institution.” This new institution will combine economic and trans-economic objectives. It will have multiple bottom lines. The transformation of the corporation is part of the larger transformation of the socio-sphere as a whole, and this in turn parallels the dramatic changes in the techno-sphere and info-sphere. Taken together, they add up to a massive historical shift. However, we are not merely altering these giant structures. We are also changing the way ordinary people, in their daily lives, behave. For when we change the deep structure of civilization, we simultaneously rewrite all the codes by which we live. #RandolphHarris 16 of 18

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Important changes have developed in the nerve-structure and brain-formations of the human species. Body purification and strengthening are prerequisites and preparations for spiritual awakening and development. They allow the soul to awaken. The artist, the thinker, or the mystic must not neglect the muscular vigour and health of body that can be obtained through prayer and exercise. This would include deep breathing, stretching exercises, and a diet of light and easily digested foods which will not dull inspiration. Philosophical training puts must value on the quality of mental calmness, emotional composure, and on its reflected state in the body—physical stillness. The more a person’s mind is self-composed, the more will one’s whole personality be self-possessed. The passions of hatred, greed, lust, and anger cannot then bling one to the truth about one’s human situation or about the World’s nature.  “In their spiritual apathy they have become callous and past feeling and reckless and have abandoned themselves [a prey] to unbridled sensuality, eager and greedy to indulge in every form of impurity [that their depraved desires may suggest and demand],” reports Ephesians 4. 19. Be grateful for all the things you do not need to know about life on this Earth. Consider yourself, though you are still alive and kicking, not part of the World. As far as you are concerned, as Galatians would put it (6.14), you are already hanging on the cross. Yes, you have to pass through many noisy patches as though you were deaf, and yes, you should open your ears to the things that bring you spiritual peace. Sometimes it is better not to meet the gaze of a troubled soul. One wants to talk, yes, but does one want to listen? #RandolphHarris 17 of 18

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If you do stop to talk and the phlegm begins to fly, you are not the less pleasing to God. That is to say, if you are worsted in a hostile exchange and could have come to blows but did not, then at least your worsted’s still intact, and so is your virtue. O Lord, how long it has taken us to travel such a short distance! Look how a temporal loss sets the eyes to weeping! Even for a modest profit, we have to labour and lumber. As for a spiritual loss, it is scarcely noticed, let alone repented or retrieved. Beseeching the breath of the divine one, His life-giving breath, Hs breath of old age, His breath of waters, His breath of seeds, His breath of riches, His breath of fecundity, His breath of power, Hs breath of all good fortune, asking for His breath, and into my warm soul drawing in His grace, I add to Your grace that happily you may always live. O pity America’s host, I pray to Thee; forgive them, pardon their iniquity. O God of our salvation, save Thou us! As slaves, with eyes beseeching, seek their Lord, we came before Thee stricken, and implored: O God of our salvation, save Thou us! Triumphant Lord of lords, to Thee we pray; strife like a whirlwind scattered us, and we Thy sons lay crushed beneath the tyrant’s sway. O God of our salvation, save Thou us! Behold! with supplication how we throng—O Lord of grace and mercy,–unto Thee; Thy wondrous deeds, our never-ceasing song. O God of our salvation, save Thou us! “Flowing with milk and honey”: this Thy land spare Thou from drought. O stay her tears of woe; bind up her torrents with Thy healing hand. O God of our salvation, save Thou us! Plant us, we pray, upon a fruitful sod; send as old defenders from the foe, Thou just and righteous One! Thou faithful God! O God of our salvation, save Thou us! Recall Thy covenant with the Earth of yore, Thy sign, that while the Earth doth yet abide, Thine anger break and rend it never more. O God of our salvation, save Thou us! #RandolphHarris 18 of 18

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CRESLEIGH HAVENWOOD

Lincoln, CA | from the mid $600s

Now Selling!

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Now selling! Cresleigh Havenwood features four distinct floor plans ranging from 2,293 – 3,489 square feet and offering up to five bedrooms.  Each plan has been thoughtfully designed and includes great features such as single story homes, guest suites, optional offices, garage workshops, and more!

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While the kids hang out in the loft, you can retreat to your large primary suite and bath for a little rest and recharging. And when the weekend rolls around, the 3-bay garage is the perfect space to store all your outdoor toys.

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Get the most out of your new home with Cresleigh’s All Ready smart home featuring all the connectivity needed to keep your house running. Best of all, each Cresleigh home comes with owned solar included! 

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Located off of Virginiatown Road and McCourtney Road, residents of the 83 homesites of Cresleigh Havenwood will benefit from a brand new neighborhood in the charming City of Lincoln. Palo Verde Park, is  just down the street and there’s plenty of recreation to take part in all around town.  https://cresleigh.com/havenwood/https://cresleigh.com/havenwood/

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The Awareness of Human Destructiveness Bursts!

Many humans, at one time, were primarily isolated, but enter relationships with members of the human family in order to satisfy their striving for please. Many of the relationships were sought after and conceived in a way that resemble relations in the marketplace. Each was only concerned with the satisfaction of one’s needs, but it is precisely for the sake of this satisfaction that one had entered into relations with others who offer what one needs, and need what one offers. Each living cell is supposed to be endowed with the two basic qualities of living matter, Eros (love) and the striving for death. We are struck by the significance of the possibility that the aggressiveness may not be able to find satisfaction in the external World because it comes up against real obstacles. If this happens, it will perhaps retreat and increase the amount of self-destructiveness holding sway in the interior. Impeded aggressiveness seems to involve a grave injury. It really seems as though it is necessary for us to destroy some other thing or person in order not to destroy ourselves, in order to guard against the impulsion to self-destruction. A sad disclosure indeed for the moralist! However, the most powerful impeding factor of all and one totally beyond any possibility of control is the death instinct. In theory of death instinct, the awareness of human destructiveness bursts forth in full strength, and destructiveness becomes the one pole of existence which, fighting with the other pole, Eros, forms they very essence of life. Destructiveness becomes a primary phenomenon of life. It is true that evil forces do exist but not true that they exist on the highest level. Insight into the ultimate sees the not. Evil is certainly present, plain to sight and unpleasant to experience, but it is not altogether, nor only what it seems. It is really an appearance, and reconcilable with the benign source of good. #RandolphHarris 1 of 20

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Eros, present in every cell of living substance, has as its aim the unification and integration of smaller units into the unity of humankind. This is love that does not involve pleasures of the flesh, also known as the “love instinct”; love is identified with life and growth, and—fighting with the death instinct—it determines human existence. Humans are no longer conceived of as primarily isolated and egotistical, as l’homme machine, but as being primarily related to others, impelled by the life instincts which make one need union with others. Life, love, and growth are one and the same, more deeply rooted and fundamental then pleasures of the flesh and other pleasures. The change is vision shows clearly in this new evaluation of the Christian biblical commandment, “Though shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.” Anything that encouraged the growth of emotional ties between humans must operate against war. These ties may be of two kinds. In the first place they may be relations resembling those toward a loved object, though without having an aim for pleasures of the flesh. There is no need for psychoanalysis to be ashamed to speak of love in this connection, for religion itself uses the same words: “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.” This, however, is more easily said than done. The second kind of emotional tie is by means of identification. Whatever leads humans to share important interests produces this community of feeling, these identifications. And the structure of human society is to a large extent based on them. Why is history such a record of wars, oppressions, exploitations, invasions, and persecutions? Why have all the saviours, avatars, prophet, and saints succeeded only with individual humans here and there, not with the mass of humankind? #RandolphHarris 2 of 20

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Is the religious dream of universal goodness nothing more than a dream? It is not a help but a self-deception to ignore the double polarity of existence, the yin-and-yang in the Universe, the shadow-self in humans. Only outside of religion, in the philosophic realm of the ultimate being, the Unique, the Real, where the entire World itself is cast out, can we talk of friction-free consciousness, and only in the deepest meditation can we share it. Although the experience is a temporary one, the peace in it so passes the understanding that “the Kingdom of Heaven” is its fit name. Here indeed is the Good raised to its highest degree. Here is a demonstration that human evil is but privation of good. What may be true on the ultimate level—the non-existence of evil, the reality of the Good, the True, the Beautiful—becomes false on the level of duality. Here the twofold powers, the opposites, do not exist, do hold the World in their sway. To deny relative evil here is to confuse different planes of being. The human who would deliberately harm one’s fellows for one’s own ends is a sinner. Evil arises only when an entity goes astray into the delusions of separateness and materialism, and thence into conflict with other entities. There is no ultimate and eternal principle of evil, but there are forces of evil, unseen entities who have gone so far astray and are so powerful in themselves that they work against goodness, truth, and justice. However, by their very nature such entities are doomed to eventual destruction, and even their work of opposition is utilized for good in the end and becomes the resistance against which evolution tests its own achievements, the grindstone against which is sharpens humans’ intelligence, the mirror in which its shows one one’s flaws. #RandolphHarris 3 of 20

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The lower nature in incurably hostile to the higher one. It prefers its fleeting joys with their attendant miseries, its ugly sins wit their painful consequences, because this spells life to it. Everything and everyone has a negative side. One could fill up a lifetime looking for and finding it. One could go on grumbling, criticizing, ranting, and hating. However, there is also the beneficial side of it. The philosophical attitudes seeks deeper, keeps calmer, for it finds equilibrium on another plane. The descent from faith in Holy Spirit to faith in unholy spirits happens to those who are either too weak to remain at such a high altitude or too incapable of rising from a sensate view of existence. Evil can take every form, even that of the guru, the quest, and the leaner. Some yeas ago someone asked me, “What about absolute evil?” The answer is this: with Confucius we say that sin is due to ignorance, and with Pythagoras that evil is due to the absence of good. Ignorance leads to selfishness and extreme ignorance leads to extreme selfishness, which in turn leads to extreme evil. Now, all these are relative conditions and pass away in time as the person leans one’s lessons though the series of experience and corrects one’s mistake during reincarnations. There cannot be an absolute evil because there is only one Absolute Power, one God, one Supreme Being; and it is this which inspires the highest goodness know to humans when one discovers its presence, through the Overself, in one’s heart. In that sense only I said there was an absolute good. The pairs of opposites exist only in the finite, relative, and limited World. #RandolphHarris 4 of 20

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There is no opposite to the Supreme Power in the timeless and infinite World, no Satan with whom God is in everlasting conflict. However, on its own level, Mind knows neither good nor bad. There is only IS-ness. It seems that there is evil in the World, but why? What bad humans have done is to let their evil grow like a noxious weed too large and their good too little, whereas good humans have cultivated a high proportion of goodness. There is no absolute evil. It is truer to talk of absolute god for that is there first. Why? Because God is there first. Humans came later and broke the divine laws little by little. They created their own evil consequences. Or for different reasons they harm others and have later to suffer for it. Humans were once looked at as machines driven by chemical processes: feelings, affects and emotions were explained as being caused by specific and identifiable physiological processes. Most of hormonology and of the neurophysiological findings of the last decades were unknown to these humans, yet with daring and ingenuity they insisted on the correctness of their approach. Needs and interests for which no somatic sources could be found were ignored, and the understanding of those processes which were not neglected followed the principles of mechanistic thinking. The model of human behaviour could be repeated today in a properly programmed computer. One develops a certain amount of tension which at a certain threshold has to be relieved and reduced, while this realization is checked by another part, the ego, which observes reality and inhibits relief when it conflicts with the needs for survival. This Freudian robot would be similar to Isaac Asimov’s science-fiction robot, but the programming would be different. Its first law would be not to hurt human beings, but to avoid self-damage or self-destruction. #RandolphHarris 5 of 20

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However, the new theory does not follow this mechanistic “physiologizing” model. It is centered on a biological orientation in which fundamental forces of life (and its opposite: death) become the primal forces of motivating humans. The nature of the cell—that is, of all living substance—becomes the theoretical basis for a theory of motivation, not a physiological process that goes on in certain organs of the body. The new theory was perhaps closer to a vitalistic philosophy than to the concept of the German mechanistic materialists. What motivated Dr. Freud to postulate the death instinct? One factor was probably the impact of the First World War. He, like many other humans of his time and age, had shred the optimistic vision so characteristic of the European middle class, and saw oneself suddenly confronted with a fury of hate and destruction hardly believable before August 1, 1914. From there, Dr. Freud became a man preoccupied with death. He thought of dying every day, after he was forty; he had attacks of Todesangst (“fear of death”), and sometimes he would add to his “goodbye”: “You might never see me again.” One might surmise that Dr. Freud’s disposition would have impressed him as a confirmation of his fear of death, and thus contributed to the formulation of death instinct. This preoccupation with death grew in intensity and led him to a concept in which the conflict between life and death was at the center of human experience, rather than the conflict between the two life-affirmative drives, pleasures of the flesh and ego drives. To assume that humans need to die because death is the hidden goal of one’s life might be considered a kind of comfort destined to alleviate one’s fear of death. And it is true, when people’s lives are in danger and they lack security that they learn not to fear death. #RandolphHarris 6 of 20

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It seems likely that many hearts in American society have waxed cold since September 11, 2001, when there was an attack on American soil that claimed the lives of over 3,500 people. Many people were too young to realize how devastating it was at the moment, but I believe the tragedy affected everyone much like Dr. Freud was confronted with the fury of hate and destruction from August 1, 1914. Acts on war in your homeland make people realize that life is not promised and it can have a psychological impact. “What is faith? It is the confident assurance that what we hope for is going to happen. It is the evidence of things we cannot yet see,” reports Hebrews 11.1. Begin today to believe that what you have hoped for is going to happen, that good things are on their way. Notice, faith has to do with the unseen World. You may not be able to perceive anything beneficial happening in your life with your natural eyes today. In fact, everything may be falling apart—your finances, your health, your business, your relationships with your family and friend. All kind of problems may be on the horizon. However, do not be discoursed, turn your focus to the supernatural World, look to God and Jesus Christ for solutions and know that your harmony and peace will be restored. The World tells you that you need to live out loud and seeing is believing. However, God says seek ye the Kingdom of Heave first, and all these things will be added to you. Look through your Heavenly eyes of faith, and once you confirm something by faith, it will manifest in the physical World. What do you do when you see others being honored or elevated? You could feel bad about their feeling good. Or you could consider these as occasions for your feeling good about feeling bad. Why? #RandolphHarris 7 of 20

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If only you knew it, the contempt of humans on Earth should not cause you to shed a single tear. What should you do? Direct your heart toward God in Heaven. In the past, many men did not view woman as equals with men, but some did. Overall, there was a patriarchal bias. However, the very essence of the Platonic myth is that male and female were once one and were then divided into halves, which implies, of course, that the two halves are equals, that they form a polarity endowed with the tendency to unite. Eros (love) aims at complicating life and preserving it, and hence is also conservative, because with the emergence of life an instinct is born which is to preserve it. However, we must ask, if it is the nature of the instinct to re-establish the earliest state of existence, inorganic matter, how can it at the same time tend to re-establish a later form of existence, namely life? Well, according to Plato’s report in the Symposium concerning the original unity of man who was then divided into halves by Zeus, after this division, each desiring his other half, they came together and threw their arms about one another eager to grow into one. The living substance at the same time of its coming to life was torn apart into small particles, which have ever since endeavoured to reunite through martial union and procreation. These instincts, in which the chemical affinity of inanimate matter persisted, gradually succeeded, as they developed through the kingdom of the protists, in overcoming the difficulties put in the way of that endeavour by an environment charged with dangerous stimuli—stimuli which compelled them to form a protective cortical layer. These splintered fragments of living substance in this way attained a multicellular condition and finally transferred the instinct for reuniting, in the most highly concentrated form, to the combination of two souls. #RandolphHarris 8 of 20

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So it is no wonder so many people feel so fractured and incomplete. Their living substance was torn apart. Do you see things getting better in your life? Or are you just drifting along, accepting whatever comes your way? “I know I was not going to get that Cresleigh Havenwood House Residence 4. Noting good ever happens to me.” “This is just my lot in life. I knew I would never get that BMW 750Li with Xdrive.” “I knew I would never be blessed.” In the face of God’s blinding glory, many of us have to be blinkered. Perhaps that is why, without our peripheral vision, we are so easily hoodwinked by Vanity. If I assess myself correctly, never has an injury been done to me by another creature, and hence I have no right, at least not yet, to make a ruckus against God, my Righteous if Riotous Lord. Why? Because I have sinned against God frequently and gravely. Deservedly, therefore, should every creature pick up one’s pike against me. So it is only reasonable to conclude that confusion and contempt are my just due. Yours, however, is praise, honour, and glory. And in the light of these considerations, unless I prepare myself—by being looked down upon by every giraffe, outsped by every gazelle, overlooked by every gryphon—I can be neither pacified and stabilized interiorly, spiritually illuminated, nor fully one with God. Do not limit God with your small thinking. Have extraordinary vision for your life and live with faith and expectancy. You will be surprised that you will become what you believe. Some of the reasons are blessings are delayed in the fulfillment of the promise for year after year, is simply the fact that we cannot see it through our eyes of faith. #RandolphHarris 9 of 20

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Is God trying to do something out of the ordinary in your life? Be sure to get into agreement with God. Do not tell God the reasons why things cannot happen. All the time God is trying to plant new seed of success inside of us. He is showing us that if we do not conceive in our hearts through faith, it will never come to pass. “The things which are impossible with humans are possible with God,” reports Luke 18.27. Let that word plant faith inside of your heart. You do not have to figure out how God is going to solve your problems, but turn the situation over to God. God can do what human beings cannot or will not do. God is supernatural. If you can put your trust and confidence in the Lord, God will surely bring it to pass. If you can see the invisible, God will do the impossible. In God, the love of a friend should stand. God is Ever-living, Everlasting Truth, your friend will not shed a tear if you live of die. It is because of God that love of a friend should stand. It is because of God that one should be loved, that is to say, everyone who is seemed good to you and who is very dear in this life. Without God the love of friendship will not have the strength to last. Nor is the love of friendship true and clear unless God is an integral part of it; that is as His Augustine described it in his Confessions (4.4). Which is another way of saying, you ought to be dead to two-person friendships, especially when the other person is another creature. However, when the other person is God, then something odd happens. The closer you approach God, the farther you recede from every friendly solace. Also the higher you ascend to God, the deeper you descend into yourself and the viler you appear to yourself. I want to get a grander vision for my life, Father, and then live it out with faith and expectancy, knowing that I will become what I believe. Today, I will focus on You, who You are and what You can do in and through me. #RandolphHarris 10 of 20

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Whoever attributes good to oneself only makes it more difficult for oneself to receive the grace of God. Why? Because, as the spiritual wisdom echoing Proverbs (3.34), Psalms (55.22), and First Peter (5.5) has it, the grace of the Holy Spirit always seeks the humble heart. To annihilate yourself, to empty yourself of all created love—that is what you ought to do. And what I ought to do is fill that very same space with a very great grace. When you warm to the wonderfulness of the created World, the Creator’s respect for you begins to cool. Because of the Creator, if for no other reason, learn how to conquer yourself in all things. Do that, and you will have the strength to reach out to Divine Knowledge. However slight it may be, unruly love and irregular respect delay, even detour, your spiritual progress. The anal libido has a deep affinity to the death instinct. Now, controlling and possessing are certainly tendencies opposite of loving, furthering, liberating, which form a syndrome among themselves. However, “possession” and “control” do not contain the very essence of destructiveness, the wish to destroy, and hostility toward life. No doubt, the anal character has a deep interest in and affinity to feces as part of their general affinity to all that is not alive. Feces are the product finally eliminated by the body, being of no further use to it. The anal character is attracted by feces as one is attracted by everything that is useless for life, such as dirt, death, decay. We can say that the tendency to control and possess is only one aspect of the anal character, but milder and less malignant than hatred of life. Eros (love), therefore is looked upon as the biologically normal aim of development, while the death instinct is seen to be based on a failure of normal development and in this sense a pathological, though deeply rooted striving. #RandolphHarris 11 of 20

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If one wants to entertain a biological speculation one might relate anality to the fact that orientation by smell is characteristic of all four-legged mammals, and that the erect posture implies the change from orientation by smell to orientation by sight. The change in function of the old olfactory brain would correspond to the same transformation of orientation. In view of this, one might consider that the anal character constitutes a regressive phase of biological development for which there might even be a constitutional-genetic basis. The anality of the individual could be considered as representing an evolutionary repetition of a biological human functioning. The theoretician arrives at the conclusion that humans have only the alternative between destroying oneself (slowly, by illness) or destroying others; or—putting it in other words—between causing suffering either to oneself or to others. The humanist rebels against the idea of this tragic alternative that would make war a rational solution of this aspect of human existence. An alternate is repression of the instinctual demands, which are the development of culture and civilization. Some people say the Europeans created such a successful society because they learned the art of self-control. The repressed instinctual drive was “sublimated” into valuable cultural channels, but still at the expense of full human happiness. On the other hand, repression led not only to increasing civilization but also to the development of neurosis among the many in whom the repressive process did not work successfully. Lack of civilization combined with full happiness or civilization combined with neurosis and diminished happiness seemed to be the alternative. #RandolphHarris 12 of 20

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The contradiction between the death instinct and Eros confronts humans with a real and truly tragic alternative, a real alternative because one can decide to attack and wage war, to be aggressive, and to express one’s hostility because one prefers to do this rather than to be sick. That this alternative is a tragic one hardly needs to be proven. Something very remarkable, which we should never have guessed and which is nevertheless quite obvious. What happens to the aggressor when one renders one’s desire for aggression innocuous? One’s aggressiveness is introjected, internalized; it is, in point of fact, sent back to where it came from—that is, it is directed toward one’s own ego. There it is take over by a portion of the ego as super-ego, and which now, in the form of “conscience,” is ready to put into action against the ego the same harsh aggressiveness that the ego would have liked to satisfy upon other, extraneous individuals. The tension between the harsh super-ego and the ego that is subjected to it, is called by us the sense of guilt; it expresses itself as a need for punishment. Civilization, therefore, obtains mastery over the individual’s dangerous desire for aggression by weakening and disarming it and by setting up an agency within one to watch over it, like a garrison in a conquered city. The transformation of destructiveness into a self-punishing conscience does not seem to be as much as an advantage as it may seem to imply. According to this theory of conscience, it would have to be as cruel as the death instinct, since it is charged with its energies, and no reason is given why the death instinct should be “wakened” and “disarmed.” #RandolphHarris 13 of 20

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Rather, it would see that the following analogy expresses the real consequences of this thought more logically: a city that has been ruled by a cruel enemy defeats one with the help of a dictator who then sets up a system that is just as cruel as that of the defeated enemy; and this, what is gained? The instinct of destruction, moderated and tamed, and, as it were, inhibited in its aim, must, when it is directed toward objects, provide the ego with the satisfaction of its vital needs and with control over nature. This is a good example of sublimation; the aim of the instinct is not weakened, but it is directed toward other socially valuable aims, in this case the “control over nature.” This sounds, indeed, like a perfect solution. Humans are freed from the tragic choice of destroying either others or themselves, because the energy of the destructive instinct is used for the control over nature. However, we must ask, can this really be so? Can it be true that destructiveness becomes transformed into constructiveness? What can “control over nature” mean? Taming and breeding animals, gathering and cultivating planets, weaving cloth, building Cresleigh Homes, manufacturing pottery and many more activities including the construction of Ultimate Driving Machines, railroads, airplanes, skyscraper: al these are acts of constructing, building, unifying, synthesizing, and, indeed, if one wanted to attribute them to one of the two basic instincts, they might be considered as being motivated by Eros rather then the death instinct. With the possible exception of killing animals for their consumption and killing humans in war, both of which could be considered as rooted in destructiveness, material production is not destructive but constructive. #RandolphHarris 14 of 20

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As a result of a little speculation, we have come to suppose that this instinct is at work in every living creature and is striving to bring it to ruin and to reduce life to its original condition of inanimate matter. Thus is quite seriously deserved to be called a death instinct, while procreation is the instinct represented by the effort to live. The death instinct turns into the destructive instinct when, with the help of social organs, it is directed outwards, on to objects. The organism preserves its own life, so to day, by destroying an extraneous one. Some portion of the death instinct, however, remain operative within the organism, and we have sought to trace quite a number of normal and pathological phenomena to this internalization of the destructive instinct. We have even been guilty of the heresy of attributing the origin of conscience to the diversion inwards of aggressiveness. If this process is carried too far, you will notice that it is by no means a trivial matter; it is possibly unhealthy. On the other hand if these forces are turned to destruction of the external World, the organism will be relieved and the effect must be beneficial. This would serve as a biological justification for all the ugly and dangerous impulses against which we are struggling. It must be admitted that they stand nearer to Nature than does our resistance to them for which an explanation also needs to be found. When the good is absent, the evil is present. The cynic who denies the existence of the good, the dreamer who denies the existence of the evil—each ignores the other half of life as evidence in history and in the World around one. When we go to the roots—that is what “radically” literally means—and discover that a great deal of our conscious thinking only veils our real thoughts and feelings and hides the truth; most of our conscious thought is a sham, a mere rationalization of thoughts and desires which we prefer not to be aware of. #RandolphHarris 15 of 20

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This is revolutionary because it leads people to open their eyes to the reality of the structure of the society they live in and hence to the wish to change it in accordance with the interests and desires of the vast majority. Much of the liberal middle class was suspected of being neurotic because their liberation of pleasures of the flesh is largely part of the ever-increasing consumerism. If people are taught to spend and spend, rather than, as in the nineteenth century, to save and save, if they were transformed into “consumers,” one had not only to permit but encourage consumption of pleasures of the flesh. It is after all the most simple and the cheapest of all consumption.  Conservatives used to have a strict code of chastity and liberty of pleasures of the flesh lead to an anticonservative revolutionary attitude. If anything, historical development has shown that liberation of pleasures of the flesh has served the development of consumerism and weakened political radicalism. What more people really want is not to become more human, more free, more independent—that would mean more critical and revolutionary-minded—but they want to suffer no more than the average member of their class. They hardly see a really happy person, only a few people who have succeeded in being relatively satisfied with their lot, especially if they are successful and admired by others. Naturally, quite a few people, having a sympathetic listener to talk to, feel better, aside from the fact that as years go by experience in living makes the average person improve one’s lot, except those who are too sick to learn from experience. The contemporary capitalist society is considered to be the highest, most developed form of social structure. It is because all other social structures are more primitive or utopian, and not really successful. #RandolphHarris 16 of 20

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An ever-growing number of people have become aware that capitalist society is just one of innumerable social structures and is neither more nor less “real” than the societies of Central African tribes. The invention of artillery and fortifications has in our times forces the sovereigns of Europe to reestablish the use of regular standing troops to guard their fortresses. Yet however, legitimate the motives, there is reason to fear that the effect will be no less fatal. It will be no less necessary to depopulate the rural areas in order to raise armies and garrisons. To maintain them it will be no less necessary to oppress the peoples. And these dangerous establishments have in recent times been growing so rapidly in all of our part of the World, that no one can foresee anything but the imminent depopulation of Europe, and sooner, or later, the ruin of the people who inhabit it. Be that as it may, it should be noted that such institutions necessarily subvert the public domain, leaving only the wearisome resources of subsidies and taxes, which remain for me to discuss. It would be remembered here that the foundation of the social compact is property, together with its first condition that each person should be maintained in the peaceful enjoyment of what belongs to one. It is true that by the same treaty each person at least tacitly obliges oneself to be assessed for public needs. However, since this commitment cannot hard the fundamental law and presumes that contributors acknowledge the evidence of need, it is clear that to be legitimate, this assessment should be voluntary. It is not based on a private will, as if it were necessary to have the consent of each citizen, who should pay only as much as one pleases. This would be directly contrary to the spirit of the confederation. #RandolphHarris 17 of 20

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Rather, it should be through the general will, by majority vote, and on the basis of proportional rates that leave no room for an arbitrary imposition of taxes. This truth (that taxes can be legitimately established only by the general consent of the people or its representatives) had generally been recognized by all the philosophers and jurists who have any reputation in matters of political right. While some of them have established maxims that appear contrary, it is easy to see the private motives that moved them to do so. They stipulate so many conditions and restrictions that it all boils down to exactly the same thing. For whether the people can reuse it or whether the sovereign should not demand it, is a matter of indifference as far as right is concerned. And if it is only a question of force, it is utterly pointless to inquire what is or is not legitimate. The contributions levied on the people are of two kinds: real taxes (levied on things) and personal taxes (paid by the head). Both are called taxes or subsidies. When the people sets the amount it pays, it is called a subsidy; when it grants the entire proceeds of an assessment, it is a tax. In The Spirit of the Laws we find that a head tax is more in keeping with servitude, while a real tax is more suited to liberty. This would be incontestable, were everyone’s head share equal. For nothing would be more disproportionate than such a tax. It is especially in an exacting observance of proportions that the spirit of liberty consists. However, if a head tax is exactly proportioned to the means of private individuals and is thus at once both and personal, it is the most equitable and, as a result, the one best suited to free humans. At first these proportions appear quite easy to observe, because, being relative to each person’s position, the indications are always public. #RandolphHarris 18 of 20

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However, besides the fact that greed, influence-peddling, and fraud know how to leave no evidence behind, it is rare that an account is taken of all the elements that should enter into these calculations. First, one ought to consider the relationship of quantities according to which, all things being equal, someone who has ten times more goods than someone else should pay ten times more. Second, one ought to consider the relationship of use, that is, the distinction between what is necessary and what is superfluous. Someone who has only the bare necessities of life should not pay anything at all. Taxing someone who has superfluities can, in time of need, be extended to everything over and above the necessities of life. To this one will declare that, given one’s rank, what would be superfluous for a human of inferior standing is necessary for one. However, that is a lie. For humans of superior standing have two legs, just like a cowherd, and, like the cowherd, has only one stomach. Moreover, this alleged necessity of life is so little necessary to one’s standing that, if one knew how to renounce these things for some worthy cause, one could only be respected more. The people would prostrate themselves before a minister who would go on foot to the council because one had sold one’s Ultimate Driving Machines when the state had a pressing need. Finally, the law does not demand magnificence of anyone, and propriety is never reason against right. A cultivated human of taste and feeling can find much that is beautiful in nature and art; and if one is also a moral idealist, one will find much that is good and virtuous in human life and experience. However, it would be incomplete to stop there and ignore the fact that there is also around us much that is base, dark, and even evil. #RandolphHarris 19 of 20

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The two sides put together form a complete observation. However, it is only the mystics and philosopher who can see—because it requires a deeper penetration than the intellect and the sense can give—that the dark side deals with the World of appearances, a World which is fleeting and ephemeral, whereas the good side and the beautiful side is merely a hint of that other World closer to Reality. Evil is a very real problem in this World of time and space. Evil forces exist and must be fought with all our strength. Nevetheless the Power out of which all things and all entities come is a beneficent one. Love is its radiation. There is no evil and no pain in it. They begin only on the lower level of separation and differentiation. Wild air, World-mothering air, nestling me everywhere, that each eyelash or hair girdles; goes home betwixt the fleeciest, frilest-flixed snowflake; that is fairly mixed with riddles, and is rife in every least thing is life; this needful, never spent, and nursing element; my more than meat and drink, my meal at every wink; their air, which, by life’s law, my lung must draw and draw now but to breathe its praise. Please give rain. We are the pure who camped by water. For Jacob’s sake who set the rods in water, O speed us! He strained and rolled the stone from off the water. Please give rain! Blest heirs to Torah’s quickening water, O save us! To win for them and for their offspring water. Please give rain! Today as then we cry for water. For Moses’ sake who found his people water, O speed us! He smote the rock and lo! out gushed the water. O save us, mighty God! Please give us rain! Our sires sang round the well of water. O save us! Because of Moses at Meribah’s water, O speed us! At Thy command he gave the thirsting water. O save us, mighty God! please give rain! Thy holy servants poured Thee water. O save us! For Thy chief minstrel’s sake who longed for water, O speed us! Yet turned and made libation with the water, O save us, mighty God! Please give rain! Four plants we wave that love the water, O save us! For American’s sake, the home of living water, O speed us! The parched Earth open to the Heavens’ water, O save us, mighty God! #RandolphHarris 20 of 20

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The Muted Voice Had a Richness to it that Made a Greatly Enhanced Grace!

Accidental symbols have no intrinsic relationship to that which it symbolizes. Let us assume that someone has had a saddening experience in a certain city; when one hears the name of that city, one will easily connect the name with a mood of sadness, just as one would connect it with a mood of joy had one’s experience been a happy one. Quite obviously here in nothing in the nature of the city that is either sad or joyful. It is the individual experience connected with the city that makes it a symbol of a mood. The same reaction could occur in connection with a house, a street, a dress, certain scenery or anything once connected with a specific mood. The picture in the dream represents this mood, the city “stands for” the mood once experienced in it. Here the connection between the symbol and the experienced symbolized is entirely accidental. As a result, we need associations of the dreamer in order to understand what the accidental symbol means. Had one not told us about the experience one had in the city of which one dreamed or about the connection between the person one dreams of one’s experiences with this person, we could not possibly understand what these symbols mean. The universal symbol, on the contrary, is one in which there is an intrinsic relationship between the symbol and that which it represents. Take, for instance, the symbol of fire. We are fascinated by certain qualities of fire in a fireplace. First of all, by its aliveness. It changes continuously, it moves all the time, and yet there is constancy in it. It remains the same without being the same. The fire gives the impression of power, of grace and lightness. Fire is as if it were dancing and had an inexhaustible source of energy.  #RandolphHarris 1 of 21

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When we use fire as a symbol, we describe the inner experience characterized by the same elements which we notice in the sensory experience of fire: the mod of energy, lightness, movement, grace, gaiety—sometimes one, sometimes another of these elements being predominate in the feeling. However, fire can also be destructive and devastatingly powerful; if we dream of a burning house, fire symbolizes destructiveness not beauty. Similar in some ways and different in others is the symbol of water—of the ocean or of a stream. Here, too, we find the blending of constant movement and ye of permanence. We also feel the quality of aliveness, continuity and energy. However, there is a difference; where fire is adventurous, quick, exciting, water is quiet, slow, and steady in a river or lake. The ocean, however, can also be as destructive and unpredictable as fire. The universal symbol is the only one in which the relationship between the symbol and that which is symbolizes is not coincidental but intrinsic. It is rooted in the experience of the affinity between an emotion or thought, on the other hand, and a sensory experience, on the other. It can be called universal because it is shared by all humans, in contrast not only to the accidental symbol, which is by its very nature entirely personal, but also to the conventional symbol (as for instance a traffic signal), which is restricted to a group of people sharing the same convention. The universal symbol is rooted in the properties of our bodies, our senses, and our minds, which are common to all humans, and therefore not restricted to individuals or to specific groups. Indeed, the language of the universal symbol is the one common tongue developed by the human race. #RandolphHarris 2 of 21

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There are many dreams in which the censorship consists of nothing but the poetic and symbolic language in which the content is expressed, but this is a “censorship” only for people with little poetic imagination. For those with a natural sense of poetry, the symbolic nature of a dream language can hardly be explained as censorship. In the following I quote a dream which can be understood even without any association and where there are no elements of censorship. On the other hand, we can see that associations brought up by the dreamer enrich our understanding of the dream: A lawyer, twenty-eight years of age, wakes up and remembers the following dream which he later reports to the analyst: “I saw myself riding on a white charger, reviewing a large number of soldiers. They all cheered me wildly.” The first question the analyst asks his patient is rather general: “What comes to mind?” “Nothing,” the man answers. “The dream is silly. You know that I dislike war and armies, that I certainly would not want to be a general.” And in addition, “I also would not like to be the center of attention and to be stared at, cheering or no cheering by thousands of soldiers. You know from what I told you about my professional problems how difficult it is for me to plead a case in court with everybody looking at me.” The analyst answers: “Yes, but it does not do away with the fact that this is your dream, the plot you have written and in which you assigned yourself a role. In spite of all obvious inconsistencies, the dream must have some meaning and must make some sense. Let us begin with your associations to the dream contents. Focus on the dream picture, yourself and the white charger and the troops cheering—and tell me what come to mind when you see this picture.” #RandolphHarris 3 of 21

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“This memory is certainly interesting. Tell me more about your liking for that picture and your interest in Napoleon.” “I can tell you a lot about it, but I find it embarrassing. Yes, when I was fourteen or fifteen, I was rather shy. I was not very good in athletics and kind of afraid of tough kids. Oh, yes, now I remember an incident from that period which I had completely forgotten. I liked one of the tough kids very much and wanted to become his friend. We had hardly talked with each other, but I hoped that he would like me, too, if we would get better acquainted. One day—and it took a lot of courage—I approached him and asked him whether he would not like to come to my house; that I had a microscope and could show him a lot of interesting things. He looked at me for a moment, then he suddenly started to laugh and laugh and laugh. “You sissy, why don’t you invite some of your sisters’ little friends?” I turned away, choking with tears. At that time I read voraciously about Napoleon; I collected pictures of him and indulged in daydreams of becoming like him, a famous general, admired by the whole World. Was he no small of stature, too? Was he no also a shy youngster like myself? Why could I not become like him? I spent many hours daydreaming; hardly ever concretely about the means to this end but always about the achievement. I was Napoleon, admired, envied, and ye magnanimous and ready to forgive my detractors. When I went to college I, I had got over my hero worship and my Napoleon daydreams; in fact I have not thought of this period for many years, and certainly have never spoken to anyone about it. In kind of embarrasses me even now to talk to you about it.” #RandolphHarris 4 of 21

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“’You’ forgot about it, but the other you, that which determines many of your actions and feelings, well hidden from your daytime awareness, is still longing to be famous, admired, to have power. That other you spoke up in your dream last night; but let us see why just last night. Tell me what happened yesterday that was of importance to you.” “Nothing at all; it was a day like any other. I went to the office, worked to gather legal material for a brief, went home and had dinner, went to a movie and went to bed. That’s all.” “That does not seem to explain why you rode on a white charger in the night. Tell me more about what went on at the office.” “Oh, I just remember…but this cannot have anything to do with my boss—the senior partner of the firm—for whom I collected the legal material, he discovered a mistake I had made. He looked at me critically and remarked, ‘I am really surprised—I thought you would do better than that.’ For the moment I was quite shocked—and the thought flashed through my mind that he would not take me into the firm as a partner later on as I had hoped he would. However, I told myself that this was nonsense, that anyone could make a mistake, that he had just been irritable and that the episode had no bearing on my future. I forgot about the incident during the afternoon.” “How was your mood then? Were you nervous or kind of depressed?” “No, not at all. On the contrary, I was just tired and sleepy. I found it difficult to work and was very glad when the time came to leave the office.” “The last thing of importance during that day, then, was your seeing the movie. Will you tell me what it was?” “Yes, it was the film Juarez, which I enjoyed very much. In fact, I cried quite a bit.” “First at the description of Juarez’s poverty and suffering and then when he had been victorious; I hardly remember a movie which moved me so much.” #RandolphHarris 5 of 21

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“Then you went to bed, fell asleep, and saw yourself on the white charger, cheered by the troops. We understand a little better now why you had this dream, do we not? As a boy you felt shy, awkward, rejected. We know from our previous work that this had a general deal to do with your father, who was so proud of his success but so incapable of being close to you and of feeling—to say nothing of showing—affection and of giving encouragement. The incident you mentioned today, the rejection by the tough kid, was only the last straw, as it were. Your self-esteem had been badly damaged already, and this episode added one more element to make you certain that you could never be your father’s equal, never amount to anything, that you would always be rejected by people you admired. What could you do? You escaped into fantasy where you achieved the very things you felt incapable of achieving in real life. There, in the World of fantasy where nobody could enter and where nobody could disprove you, you were Napoleon, the great hero, admired by millions and—what is perhaps the most important thing—by yourself. As long as you could retain these fantasies you were protected from the acute pains that your feeling of inferiority caused you while you were in contact with the reality outside yourself. Then you went to college. You were less dependent on your father, felt some satisfaction in your studies, felt that you could make a new and better beginning. Moreover, you felt ashamed of your ‘childish’ daydreams, so you put them away; you felt you were on the way to being a real man. However, as we have seen, this new confidence was somewhat deceptive. #RandolphHarris 6 of 21

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“You were terribly frightened before every examination; if there was a young man around, you felt that no girl could really be interested in you; you were always afraid of your boss’s criticism. This brings us to the day of the dream. The thing you tried so hard to avoid had happened—your boss had criticized you; you began to feel again the old feeling of inadequacy, but you pushed it away; you felt tired instead of feeling anxious and sad. Then you saw a movie which touched upon your old daydreams, the hero who became the admired saviour of a nation after he had been he despised powerless youngster. You pictured yourself, as you had done in your adolescence, as the hero, admired, cheered. Do not you see that you have not really given up the old retreat into fantasies of glory; that you have not burned the bridges that lead you back to that land of fantasy, but start to go back there whenever reality is disappointing and threatening? Do not you see this fact, however, helps to create the very danger you are so afraid of, that of being childish, not an adult, not being taken seriously by grown-up men—and by yourself?” A modern mystic, the late William Wirt Winchester, was told from within, “Because I love you, I have given you demons since the beginning of your life, so that you would feel how dependent you are on Me.” The Overself knows what you are, what you are, what you seek, and what you need. “Ask not for healing, or longevity, or prosperity; ask only to be free!” exclaimed Vivekananda. The Overself does not have the power to heal the diseases of the body by its Grace, but whether that Grace will be thus exercised or not is unpredictable. It will do what is best for the individual in the ultimate sense, not what the ego desires. For the Divine Wisdom is back of everything every time. #RandolphHarris 7 of 21

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Spiritual healing does not necessarily follow automatically upon the giving of complete faith. Nor does it necessarily follow upon the voluntary cleansing of the emotional nature. There are other factors involved in it. The place of suffering and sickness in the World-Idea is one of them. For those aspirants who will be satisfied with nothing short of achieving the Highest, the need of transcending the ego takes precedence over everything else, even over the body’s healing. It is impossible either to guarantee or to predict what would happen in any individual case. If one tries to get the Truth simply as a means to achieve the healing, the difficult is that the Truth eludes one. One has therefore to seek Truth and leave one’s fate to it, which will always work out for the best, materially or otherwise. Continued ill health is a great trial. The very fact that an individual has been forced to endure a life of endless suffering will surely lead one to realize that Worldly life yields littler—if any—real satisfaction or happiness, and that it is necessary to seek it in something Higher, in the Quest of the true Spiritual Life, or in God. Somewhere, sometime, this need of one’s will call forth an answer. People are attracted toward these cults either because they are in desperate need of physical healing or because they are in need of spiritual healing, or because they see in these doctrines an opportunity to satisfy both spiritual aspiration and material needs by a single faith and effort. They are trying to make the best of both Worlds. To be able to attain the Kingdom of Heaven and to gain prosperity or curse disease along with it is certainly a most attractive benefit. However, unfortunately it is also a little too good to be true. #RandolphHarris 8 of 21

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We would all like to have it, but can we have it. What did Jesus Himself say about this point? He said, “Seek ye first the Kingdom of Heaven and all these things shall be added unto you.” The word of greatest importance in this sentence is the word “first.” If you wish to employ the help of a higher power and feeling, then you must first give your thought, your first devotion, your first reverence, your first love to that higher power and not to any lesser thing, such as material gain or even physical cure, as the price of your worship. New Thought and Christian Science should correct their errors, for some of the things which they label as “negative” may not be so at all. It is divine love which sanctions losses, sickness, poverty, and adversities. They are not to be regarded as enemies to be shunned but rather as tutors to be heeded. Through such blows the ego may be crushed and thus allow truer thoughts to fill the emptied space. If their end and effect is to close the mind’s door to light, even pleasure and prosperity may deal a human wore blows than the so-called negatives can deal one. All inner healing depends ultimately upon the operations of grace for its effectiveness. For grace is guided by wisdom and it is not always wise for a human to be healed quickly or even at all. In the case of certain characters, good health may be but a gate to dubious activities leading to worse ills that would befall them. There are times when the Overself’s grace may manifest even in the ugly form of illness! #RandolphHarris 9 of 21

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If its entry into the everyday consciousness is blocked or twisted by materialistic scepticism, animalistic obsessions, inherited complexes, or excessive extroversion, it may forcibly make its way through them. The body may then be stricken down with sickness until such time as the blockage or distortion is removed. Ramana Maharshi one told us the story of a man whom he had seen when he himself was a young man. This man was crippled, could not use his legs, and had to crawl. An old man suddenly appeared before him and commanded, “Get up and walk!” The cripple was so excited that he automatically rose up and found himself able to walk properly. When he looked round to see this strange benefactor, the man had vanished. The healing was permanent. The point here is first, not whether the vision was subjective or objective, but that the healer did not even have a familiar identity, was not recognized as a Christian saint or Hindu god, and second, that the sufferer was stimulated into having enough faith o obey the command to believe he was healed already; it was not a matter of time. A woman came for an interview who had exhausted all patience with her husband and announced that she was about to leave him. He was an alcoholic of the worst kind. I asked her to be patient with him, not to leave him, but to give him a further chance. Then I went into silence for her. An hour or two after her return homer, her husband made his first and last attempt at suicide. It failed and he was stopped before he could do any serious harm to his body. Then he fell into a deep sleep for a very long time. He awoke feeling better in every way but still despondent. A few weeks later the desire to drink left him completely and never returned. He was cured. “A miracle has happened,” was his wife’s comment in a letter. #RandolphHarris 10 of 21

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Dorothy Kerin was almost instantaneously restored to health and freed from diabetes and tuberculosis. Moreover, her wasted flesh filled out and a gastric ulcer vanished within an hour. At the same time she saw a vision of Jesus Christ, Mary, and the Angels. St Michael the Archangel, illustrious leader of the Heavenly army, defends us in the battle against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the World of darkness and the spirit of wickedness in high places. He comes to the rescue of humankind, whom God has mad in His own image and likeness, and purchased from Satan’s tyranny at so great a price. Holy Church venerates you as her patron and guardian. The Lord has entrusted St. Michael to the task of leading the souls of the redeemed to Heavenly Blessedness. He entreats the Lord of peace to cast Satan down under our feet, so as to keep him from further holding humans’ captive and doing harm to the Church. St. Michael carries our prayers up to God’s throne, that the mercy of the Lord does quickly come and lay hold of the beast, the serpent of old, Satan, and his demons, casting him in chains into the abyss, so that he can no longer seduce the nations. It is perfectly true that the divinity within humans will shelter, feed, and clothe one materially, as it will also do spiritually, provided one looks for it, submit oneself to its guidance, and obeys its promptings. However, it is also true that the selfsame divinity may strip prosperity and possessions from a human’s shoulders and lead one into the cold waters of destitution, and this because it has begun to make its presence felt in one’s life. It may do this or it may not, depending on individual circumstances and the human’s degree of attachment to material possessions, but whatever it does will be wise and needful. #RandolphHarris 11 of 21

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The healing power issues from an infinite source. There is no kind of disease which it may not cure; but it can do so only within the conditions imposed by the nature of the human body itself. When it seems that you and your physicians have exhausted all methods, read the Christian Bible, and allow a great mental stillness and inner indrawing to come over you. Then realize that the ego has to confess its total failure and cast itself on the mercy of the higher power in humiliation and prayer. Come to the understanding that one or one’s physicians are competent to cure whatever aliment you are facing, the correct way is to disbelieve that and to look to the Overself alone for healing. Continue with your medical treatment, but realize that it is God who will heal you through your various treatments. See that the stillness is its grace, that this quietness is its power. If only one will relax and let it enter, it will best cure you. So surrender to it and soon it will be healed. “We are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do,” reports Ephesians 2.10. Some mysterious advice. Lose yourself, and what you will find? God. Stop dead in your tracks! Do not make another move! Another choice is not necessary. No need to consult your own self-interest. Do these, and you will regain all the self-worthy you thought you had lost forever! You may not always control your temper as you know you should. You may disobey God’s Word, or slip and say things you wish you had not said. Please seek forgiveness from God and from anyone you may have offended, but do not go around beating yourself up, living in condemnation. As long as you are pressing forward, you can hold your head up high, knowing that you are a work of progress, and God is in the process of changing you. #RandolphHarris 12 of 21

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Fall on your face when you are following God, but do not flounce right up. Down is better than up, and a new shipment of grace will arrive on your doorstep tomorrow. How often does God want one to give up, surrender oneself? As often as one moves without His permission. Please do not misunderstand. God does not condone wrongdoing, and we should not either. However, do not become so focused on your faults that you cannot enjoy who God made you to be. You have got to be happy with who you are right now and accept yourself, faults and all. Your sense of value is not based on your achievements, how well you preform, how somebody else treats you, or how popular or successful you are. Your sense of value extends from the fact that you are a child of the Most High God. As His unique creation, you have something to offer this World that nobody else has, that nobody else can be. At first blush, there is more cause for alarm in the findings of the religion-prejudice studies. American church members have tended to be more radically prejudiced than nonmembers, and those professing traditional Christian beliefs have expressed more racial prejudice than those with less traditional beliefs. Perhaps it should not shock us, for throughout history religion has provided convenient excuses—indeed, powerful justifications—for all sorts of cruelty. For the dehumanization of slavery and apartheid. For the subordination of women. The beautiful medieval town of St. Andrew, where these words are being written, was the ecclesiastical center of early Protestantism in Scotland. In the year 1643 alone—the midpoint of a 150-year reign of terror in St. Andrews and its environs—forty terrified women were judged by church elders to be witches and consigned to torture and death. #RandolphHarris 13 of 21

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These women and the St. Andrews martyrs who preceded them at the time of the Reformation remind us that behind religious fanaticism evil sometimes lurks. Jesus therefore reserved some of his strongest condemnation for the self-righteous religious folk of this say. From His time to ours, “not everyone who says, ‘Lord, Lord,” speaks for God. As Pascal lamented, “Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.” It is vital that you accept yourself and learn to be happy with who God made you to be. If you want to truly enjoy your life, you must be at peace with yourself. Many people constantly feel badly about themselves. They are overly critical of themselves, living with all sorts of self-imposed guilt and condemnation. No wonder they are not happy; they have a war going on inside. And if you cannot get along with yourself, you will never get along with other people. These are people who can start a fight in an empty house. The place to start is by being happy with who God made you to be. God wants small thing, big things, it makes no difference. What God is saying is our chiefest possession is self-love, and on the Heavenly Market it has no value. Hence, in every situation God wants us to be found stripped of our self-love. Otherwise, how can we be His, and He be ours? Disrobe your ego and leave your ego on the floor. The quicker you do this, the better the hold you will have on the situation. And the fewer your conditions and the sincerer your attitude, the more you will please God and the more you will gain for yourself. You may not be perfect—nobody is! Sure, you have some flaws—we all do! Every person has a weakness. Even the great men and woman of the Bible make mistakes. They all had shortcomings, but that did not stop God from loving them, blessing them, and using them to accomplish great deeds. #RandolphHarris 14 of 21

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In spite of your imperfection, to be truly free, you must have a healthy respect for yourself. Religion’s links with prejudice seem paradoxical. Religion makes prejudice and it unmakes prejudice. The unmaking of prejudice is suggested first by studies of church members; in nearly every one of more than two dozen studies, faithful church members and attenders exhibited less prejudice than irregular attenders. Second, those for whom religion is an end in itself (who agree, for example, with the statement “My religious beliefs are what really lie behind my whole approach of life”) typically express less racial prejudice than those for whim religion is more a means to other ends (who agree, for example, that “A primary reason for my interest in religion is that my church is a congenial social activity”). Third, ministers and priests—who presumably are more religiously committed and motivated than most people—have also generally been more supportive of civil rights efforts than have their own laypeople. So it seems that among the churched, the devout exhibit less prejudice and deeper feelings of human brotherhood and sisterhood than the nominally religious, who are somewhat more likely to rationalize prejudice with the assistance of religion. We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another. What, then, might be our response to bigots and love the bigotry? Hate the sin and love the sinner. Hate the bigotry and love the bigot. Be intolerant of intolerance, despise lovelessness, detest injustice, and remember: “The fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.” #RandolphHarris 15 of 21

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Throughout or lives, God is continually forging us. They key to future success is to not be discouraged about your past or present while you are in the process of being “completed.” The Christian Bible indicates that one goes from glory to glory as we are being transformed into God’s image. Whether you realize it or not, right now God is moving you onward toward greater things. The path of righteousness gets brighter and brighter. Some make the Unconditional Surrender in public, but in their hearts they have retained certain private conditions; that is to say, they do not put their trust wholly in God. You can usually tell who they are because they take every precaution not to be caught with an empty buttery. Others offer themselves up whole and entire right from the starter. After some time, however, bullied and sullied by temptation, they return to their old ways. Baby steps, not manly strides, that is about the only spiritual progress they make after that. They live life that has little to do with freedom of heart or grace of friendship. Which is just another ways of saying, they have not really surrendered themselves fully and sacrificed themselves daily to God. Without continued acts like these, a friendship has no roots, let alone any fruits. As you go through your day, when you are tempted to get discouraged, remind yourself that according to God’s Word, your future is getting brighter; you are on your way to a new level of glory. You think you have a long way to go, but you need to look back at how far you have already come. You may not be everything you want to be, but thank God that you are not what you used to be. #RandolphHarris 16 of 21

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It is one of my favourite sayings, and I know I have bored you to tears with it many times. Indulge me just once more. Lose yourself, surrender yourself, and you will enjoy great internal peace. It is amazing, o God, that although You know me better than anyone, You continue to love me, faults and all. I know I cannot earn Your love, Father, so let me learn to enjoy it, to embrace it, and reflect it to others. I will give up all my stuff for God. We must stand tall and strong for God, and we will get His attention. We will be free in heart and darkness will no longer frighten us. It is important that we despoil ourselves of everything we possess, and stand here in baptismal beauty, with no possessions and no prepossessions. And follow Jesus. From this day on, make an agreement to live eternally for God. Then will slip away all the airy elephants, all the evil roughhouse, all the needless needlings. Then also will unbridled fear quiet down and unruly love come home to roost. “All who keep His commandments [who obey His orders and follow His plan, live and continue to live, to stay and] abide in Him, and He in them. [They let Christ be a home to them and they are the home of Christ.] And by this we know and understand and have the proof that He [really] lives and makes His home in us: by the [Holy] Spirit Whom He has given us,” reports 1 John 3.24. Some people seem obsessed with putting other down; they talk negatively about someone you love, or something you are passionate about. You cannot always ignore negative input, but do not let other people, systems, or circumstances influence your estimation of value. “One who commits sin [who practices evildoing] is of the devil [takes one’s character from the evil one] for the devil has sinned (violated the divine law) from the beginning. The reason the Son of God was made manifest (visible) was to undo (destroy, loosen, and dissolve) the words the devil [has done],” reports 1 John 3.8. #RandolphHarris 17 of 21

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Unfortunately, you may have gone through some traumatic, painful experiences in which somebody mistreated you, used you, or rejected you. Maybe your husband or wife walked out on you and you and you went through a bitter divorce. Maybe a good friend or a parent, or your entire family turned on you for no reason, and you now feel alone and worthless. Perhaps your childhood experiences have left you living with feelings of guilt and shame. It is possible that you even convinced yourself that the negative things that happened in your past are all your fault, that you deserve nothing but doom and gloom, drama chaos, pain and suffering, guilt and condemnation. However, nothing could be father from the truth. “Everyone who commits (practices) sin is guilty of lawlessness; for [that is what] sin is, lawlessness (the breaking, violation of God’s law by transgression or neglect—being unrestrained and unregulated by His commands and His will),” reports 1 John 3.4. You cannot allow your self-esteem and your sense of value to be determined by how other people treat you. The Holy Bible tell us that God accept us even if the World rejects us. There is a glimmer of hope reflected in your eyes. The Lord will adopt you as His very own child. God will never reject you. He always accepts you. Do not allow the rejection of other people to cause you to reject yourself. Maybe you live with someone who is verbally abusive. Let that loose rap go in one ear and out the other. Constantly remind yourself that you are made in the image of Almighty God. Remind yourself that He has crowed you with glory and honour, that you are God’s own master piece. Do not let other people play games with your mind, deceiving you into thinking that your value has depreciated. #RandolphHarris 18 of 21

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You may feel that your dreams have been shattered by the choice you are your guardians have made. May you feel trapped in the devil’s trap, but there is hope! God wants to appreciate your sense of value. God wants to be a new record on the player, a new song in your heart; He wants to full you with love, faith, success, and light. God wants you to know that you are loved more than you can imagine, and He can turn your broken truths and shattered dreams into something beautiful. Hold your head up high, knowing that God is in control and He has a great plan and purpose for your life. “Beloved, do not put faith in every spirit, but prove (test) the spirits to discover whether they proceed from God; for many false prophets have gone forth into the World. By his you may know (perceive and recognize) the Spirit of God: every spirit which acknowledges and confesses [the fact] that Jesus Christ (the Messiah) [actually] has become man and has come in the flesh is of God [has God for its source],” reports 1 John 4.1-2. Your life may not have turned out exactly as you had hoped, but the Bible says that God’s ways are better and higher than our own ways. No matter what you go through in life, no matter how many disappointments you suffer, you will always be the diamond of God’s eyes. He will never give up on you. “Little children, you are of God [you belong to Him] and have [already] defeated and overcome them [the agents of the antichrist], because He who live in your is greater (mightier) than one who is in the World,” reports 1 John 4.4. I thank You, Father, that You see not just where I am today, but the potential for where I can be tomorrow. Even if other people reject me, I know that I am accepted in Heavenly places. I know that I am wholeheartedly accepted by You! #RandolphHarris 19 of 21

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Hail Mother, who are the Earth, hallowed by thy soil, rocks and flora that nourish and support all life. Blessed be thy wind that gives us breath and thy waters that quench, bathe and refresh all living things. Holy Earth—as one—we praise your majesty, grace and wonder. We cast out every unclean spirit, every satanic power, every onslaught of the infernal adversary, every legion, every diabolical group and sect, in the name and by the power of our Lord Jesus Christ. We command you, begone and fly far from the Church of God, from the souls made by God in His image and redeemed by the precious blood of the divine Lamb. No longer dare, cunning serpent, to deceive the human race, to persecute God’s Church, to strike God’s elect and to sift them as wheat. For Most High God commands you, He to whom you once proudly presumed yourself equal; He who will all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of truth. God the Father commands you. God the Son commands you. God the Holy Spirit commands you. Christ, the eternal Word of God made flesh, commands you, who humbled Himself, becoming obedient even unto death, to save our race from the perdition wrought by your envy; who founded His Church upon a firm rock, declaring that the gates of hell should never prevail against her, and that He would remain with her all days, even to the end of the World. The sacred mystery of the cross commands you, along with the power of all mysteries of Christian faith. The exalted Virgin Mary, Mother of God, commands you, who in her lowliness crushed your proud head from the first moment of her Immaculate Conception. The faith of the holy apostles Peter and Pau and the other apostles commands you. The blood of martyrs and the devout prayers of all holy men and women command you. #RandolphHarris 20 of 21

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Therefore, accursed dragon and every diabolical legion, we adjure you by the living God, by the true God, by the holy God, by God, who so loved the World that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him might not perish but have everlasting life; to cease deluding human creatures and filling them with the poison of everlasting damnation; to desist from having the Church and hampering her freedom. Begone, Satan, father and master of lies, enemy of man’s welfare. Give place to Christ, in whom you found none of your works. Give way to the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church, which Christ Himself purchased with His blood. Bow down before God’s mighty hand, tremble and flee as we call on the holy and awesome name of Jesus, before whom the denizens of hell cower, to whom the Heavenly Virtues and Powers of Dominations are subject, who the Cherubim and Seraphim praise with unending cries as they sing: Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Sabaoth. For his sake who did play and dance and sing, who taught the Law with sound of pipe and string, who, thirsting sore, poured out to Thee the water—save those who trust salvation Thou wilt bring, save them, our Father. For his sake whom a whirlwind once did bear to Heaven, whose seal turned back Thy wrath, whose prayer drew fire from Heaven, which licked up dust and water—save her, O God, whose eyes are fountains fair, save her, our Father. For him who served his Lord in deed and thought, on whom twofold the spirit fell; who sought a minstrel ere the ditches filled with water—save them that sand: “Lord, who such deeds hath wrought?” Save them, our Father. For his sake, swift to do the word from Thee, who bid Thy sheep repent, and set them free from the blasphemer, staying founts of water—Save America, beautiful and fair to see, Save her, our Father. #RandolphHarris 21 of 21

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CRESLEIGH HAVENWOOD

Lincoln, CA | from the mid $600s

Now Selling!

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Now selling! Cresleigh Havenwood features four distinct floor plans ranging from 2,293 – 3,489 square feet and offering up to five bedrooms.  Each plan has been thoughtfully designed and includes great features such as single story homes, guest suites, optional offices, garage workshops, and more!

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Get the most out of your new home with Cresleigh’s All Ready smart home featuring all the connectivity needed to keep your house running. Best of all, each Cresleigh home comes with owned solar included! 

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Located off of Virginiatown Road and McCourtney Road, residents of the 83 homesites of Cresleigh Havenwood will benefit from a brand new neighborhood in the charming City of Lincoln. Palo Verde Park, is  just down the street and there’s plenty of recreation to take part in all around town. 

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Residence Two a spacious single story home with over 2,600 square feet of home thoughtfully designed to maximize every available foot of space. Three bedrooms, three bathrooms, and a three car garage all come included in this home. The layout if an entertainer’s dream with large kitchen and working island, dining room connected through the butler’s pantry, and a large great room overlooking the ample rear yard. https://cresleigh.com/havenwood/

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I Have Been Haunted by Anxiety–Who Will Trust Us with the True Wealth?

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It is important to learn to control your Earthly body because you may think you are saved, and on Judgment Day find yourself roasting in Hades with the Morning Star. Society and culture play a significant role in individual human development. The main task of humans in life is to give birth to oneself, to become what one potentially is. The most important product of one’s effort is one’s own personality. Many dreams tend to hide their rue meaning and express it in forms which are not dissimilar to a political writer in a dictatorship, who expresses one’s thought between the lines or speaks about an event in classical Greece while really referring to contemporary event. This, the dream is never an open communication but is to be compared to a coded writing which has o be deciphered in order to be understandable. The coding has to be done in such a way that even the dreamer feels safe when one expresses ideas in one’s dream which do not fit into the thought patterns of the society in which one lives. The censorship has more of a social character then assumed, but at the moment this is of no importance. What matters is that the dream must be decoded. However, this insight in its simple and strict and uncompromising formulation often leads to erroneous results. Not every dream needs to be decoded and the degree of coding differs very much from dream to dream. Whether and to what extent coding is necessary depends on the sanctions which society puts against those who think unthinkable thoughts in their sleep and it also depends on such individual factors as how submissive and frightened a person is, and hence to what degree one feels in need of coding a thought which can be dangerous. #RandolphHarris 1 of 21

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When I say dangerous, I do not refer particularly to external sanctions of society against those who have dangerous thoughts. Indeed that happens too, and is not invalidated by the objection that after all our sleep thoughts—that is, our dreams—are secret and nobody knows about them. If it is important to avoid dangerous thoughts, one must not even think them in one’s dreams because they must remain deeply repressed. By dangerous thoughts, I mean thoughts which a person would be punished or might suffer in one’s daily life for having, if they were known. There are such thoughts, as we all know, and people have a good sense of what they had better not say and hence had better not think if they do not want to suffer disadvantages. However, I am speaking here mainly of thoughts which are dangerous not because they say something specific which would be sanctioned, but because they move out of the frame of reference of common sense. They are thoughts which are not shared by anybody else or by more than a very small group and hence they put a person in the position of feeling isolated, alone, out of contact. It is this very experience which contains the nucleus of insanity which occurs when a person has cut off completely any connection with others. However, we must go a little further than this. It is not an accident that simple-minded people, however spiritual, should blend the ideas of God and Heaven and the blue sky. It is a fact, not a fiction, that light and life-giving heat do come down from the sky to the Earth. The analogy of the sky’s role to begetting and of the Earth’s role to bearing is sound as far as it goes. #RandolphHarris 2 of 21

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The huge dome of the sky is of all things sensuously perceived the most like infinity. And when God made space and Worlds that move in space, and clothed our World with air, and gave us such eyes and such imaginations as those we have, He knew what the sky would mean to us. And since nothing in His work is accidental, if He knew, He intended it. We cannot be certain that this was not indeed one of the chief purposes for which Nature was created; still less that it was not one of the chief reasons why the withdrawal was allowed to affect human senses as a movement upwards. (A disappearance into the Earth would beget a wholly different religion.) The ancients in letting the spiritual symbolism of the sky flow straight into their minds without stopping to discover by analysis that it was a symbol, were not entirely mistaken. In one way were perhaps less mistaken than we. For we have falling into an opposite difficulty. Let us confess that probably every Christian now alive finds a difficulty in reconciling the two things one has been told about “Heaven”—that it is, on the one hand, a life in Christ, a vision of God in this life, the body seems almost irrelevance. And if we try to conceive our eternal life as one in a body (any kind of body) we tend to find that some vague dream of Platonic paradises and gardens of the Hesperides has substituted itself for that mystical approach which we feel (and I think rightly) to be more important. However, if that discrepancy were final then it would follow—which is absurd—that God was originally mistaken when He introduced our spirits into the Natural order at all. We must conclude that the discrepancy itself is precisely one of the disorders which the New Creation comes to heal. #RandolphHarris 3 of 21

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The fact that the body, and locality and locomotion time, now feel irrelevant to the highest reaches of the spiritual life is (like the fact that we can think of our bodies as “coarse”) a symptom. Spirit and Nature have quarrelled us; that is our disease. Nothing we can yet do enables us to imagine its complete healing. Some glimpses and faint hints we have: in the Sacraments, in the use made of sensuous imagery by the great poets, in the best instances of love, in our experiences of the Earth’s beauty. However, the full healing is utterly beyond our present conceptions. Mystics have got as far in contemplation of God as the point at which the sense are banished: the further point, at which they will be put back again, has (to the best of my knowledge) been reached by no one. The destiny of redeemed human is not less but more unimaginable than mysticism would lead us to suppose—because it is full of semi-imaginables which we cannot a present admit without destroying the essential character. One point must be touched on because, though I kept silence, it would none the less be present in most readers’ minds. The letter and spirit of scripture, and of all Christianity, forbid us to suppose that life in the New Creation will be an existence of pleasures of the flesh; and this reduces our imagination to the withering alternative either bodies which are hardly recognizable as human bodies at all or else of a perpetual fast. As regards the fast, I think our present outlook might be like that of a person being told that pleasures of the flesh were the highest bodily pleasure should immediately ask whether you get paid at the same time. On receiving the answer “No,” he might regard absence of money as the chief characteristic of pleasures of the flesh. #RandolphHarris 4 of 21

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In vain would you tell him that the reason why lovers in their carnal raptures do not bother about money is that they have something better to think of. The young man knows money: he does not know the absolute thing that excludes it. We are in the same position. We know the life of pleasures of the flesh; we do not know, except in glimpses, the other things which, in Heaven, will leave no room for it. Hence where fulness awaits us we anticipate fasting. In denying that life of pleasures of the flesh, as we now understand it, makes any part of the final beatitude, it is not of course necessary to suppose that the distinction of genders will disappear. What is no longer needed for biological purposes may be expected to survive for splendour. Passionate intimacy is the instrument both of chastity, virginity, and conjugal virtue; neither men nor women will be asked to throw away weapons they have used victoriously. It is the beaten and the fugitives who throw away their swords. The conquerors sheathe theirs and retain them. As it stands here on Earth, the Law of Chastity states we are to have pleasures of the flesh only with our spouse to whom we are legally married. No one, male or female, is to have pleasures of the flesh before marriage. After marriage, pleasures of the flesh are permitted only with our spouse. “Thou shalt not commit adultery; and one that committeth adultery, and repenteth not, shall be cast out,” reports Doctrine and Covenants 42.24. I am well aware that this last paragraph may seem to many readers unfortunate and to some comic. However, that very comedy, as I must repeatedly insist, is the symptom of our estrangement, as spirits, from Nature and our estrangement, as terrestrial beings, from Spirit. #RandolphHarris 5 of 21

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The whole conception of the New Creation involves the belief that this estrangement will be healed. A curious consequence will follow. The archaic type of thought which could not clearly distinguish spiritual “Heaven” from the sky, is from our point of view a confused type of thought. However, it also resembles and anticipates a type of thought which will one day be true. That archaic sort of thinking will become simply the correct sort when Nature and Spirit are fully harmonized—when Spirit rides Nature so perfectly that the two together make rather a Centaur than a mounted knight. I do not mean necessarily that the blending of Heaven and sky, in particular, will turn out to be specially true, but that that kind of blending will accurately mirror the reality which will then exist. There will be no room to get the finest razor-blade of thought in between the Spirit and Nature. Every state of affairs in the New Nature will be the perfect expression of a spiritual state and every spiritual state the perfect informing of, and blood upon, a state of affairs; one with it as the perfume with a flower or the “spirit” of great poetry with its form. There is thus in the history of human thought, as elsewhere, a pattern of death and rebirth. The old, richly imaginative thought which still survives in Plato has to submit to the deathlike, but indispensable, process of logical analysis: nature and spirit, matter and mind, fact and myth, the literal and the metaphorical, have to be more and more sharply separated, till at las purely mathematical Universe and a purely subjective mind confront one another across an unbridgeable chasm. However, this descent also, if thought itself is to survive, there must be re-ascent and the Christian conception provides for it. #RandolphHarris 6 of 21

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Those who attain the glorious resurrection will see the dry bones clothed again with flesh, the fact and the myth remarried, the literal and the metaphorical rushing together. With this awakening one begins to relate one’s own purpose in life to the universal purpose. Like the falling of a bandage from the eyes of a blindfolded man, there will come plainly into one’s understanding the recognition of one’s past misdeeds, foolhardiness, and failings—all of them the consequence of one’s ignorant clinging to the ego. This is the vision which may come to one before one begins to purify oneself. A vivid, intense, and self-critical revelation of how “sinful” one has been may preceded, accompany, or follow the glimpse. It may shake one to one’s core. However, it cannot be said that one feels one has betrayed one’s best and higher being any more than it can be said a child has betrayed the adult it has not yet grown into. One understands this at the same time and so forgives oneself. That glorious glimpse wherein the All becomes bathed in the light of meaning, when the reality behind comes through and leaves one enriched: it is as if a web of illusion spun around the mind falls away. From that time one will look out on the World with clearer eyes. In the mystical happening of the Glimpse, the human gets the intuition that this is what one belongs to; here one can find rest. In the sunlit tranquility of such moments, one recognizes one’s true stature. In short, one possesses a kind of double entity, harbouring at times within one’s breast a life and consciousness that seem higher than what was originally and still is normally one’s own. #RandolphHarris 7 of 21

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In this moment of illumination one is able to look into the image of one’s own self, to see what is best and highest in it and accept that as one’s goal and ideal henceforth. One will know only that one stands in the presence of authority and love, truth and power, wisdom and beauty. The experience tells one vividly, luminously, and memorably that there is an existence beyond the physical one and a consciousness beyond the personal one. Another reason why glimpses are given to humans is to show one—as in a magic mirror—that there is such a thing as the Overself. These brief enlightenments give us clues to both the true way and the true goal. They point within. As the picture of the True comes forth, it obliterates the picture of the False which held one so long. The glimpse gives one an untrammelled consciousness of this freer and higher self. Disjointed fragments of comprehension may be picked up now and then, when the World-scene is lightened up by some grace. The passing from hope to certainty comes with the glimpse. As the glimpse lengthens, it draws the human to look into oneself. It is showing one what one is deep down—a vivid and personal demonstration! From that time life is susceptible of a higher interpretation, and its situations of a psychological meaning. The mind is irradiated with the light of a new understanding. The heart is lifted up into the joy of a new experience. What one now knows, one knows outside all doubting, immovably and unshakeably. One is now sure that there is a higher power behind this World. When this felicitous glimpse comes to a human it beings one certitude. One knows now that God IS and where He is. The glimpse not only throws a fresh impersonal light on all the episodes of one’s personal history that went before, but also on those which are happening now. #RandolphHarris 8 of 21

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One who penetrates to this inner citadel discovers what Saint Augustine called “the eternal truth of the soul.” The glimpse confirms existing religious faith and so strengthens it. At such times one feels the World mystery, for now that one knows so much esoteric truth one knows so little of THATT which is behind it all. The rapture of finding truth comes because it is truth. The revelation wells up slowly, quietly, deeply; it is unflatering and continues so long as one does not interrupt or interfere with it by one’s own thoughts. It is really one’s own innermost guide and guru, one’s higher self. It is in such moments of enlightenment that one comes to see that all these evils may be there, but they will do. “Seeing the point” which solves the problem of existence, suddenly getting the glimpse of what all this means, and nothing how it was here all the time staring one in the face, may cause a human to break out abruptly into laughter at oneself. One knows from this experience that one is incipient with a love that the World does not ordinarily know, with a goodness that it seldom sees in action, and with an understanding that lights up dark places in the course of life. Each glimpse is a precious gift to be treasured. However, we must also remember that it not only comes, but it also goes. This remembrance should make us treat its aftermath very carefully, very delicately, and very watchfully. The remark so often made that “Heaven is a state of mind” bears witness to the wintry and deathlike phase of this process in which we are now living. The implication is that if Heaven is a state of mind—or, more correctly, of the spirit—then it must be only a state of the spirit, or at least that anything else, if added to that state of spirit, would be irrelevant. #RandolphHarris 9 of 21

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That is what every great religion except Christianity would say. However, Christian teaching by saying that God made the World and called it good teaches that Nature or environment cannot be simply irrelevant to spiritual beatitude in general, however far in one particular Nature, during the days of her bondage, they may have drawn apart. By teaching the resurrection of the body it teaches that Heaven is not merely a state of the spirit butt a state of the body as well: and therefore a state of Nature as a whole. Christ, it is true, told His hearers that the Kingdom of Heaven was “within” or “among” them. However, His hearers were not merely in “a state of mind.” The planet He had created was beneath their feet, His sun above their heads; blood and lungs and guts were working in the bodies He had invented, photons and sound waves of Hs devising were blessing them with the sigh of His human face and the sound of His voice. We are never merely in a state of mind. The prayer and the meditation made in howling wind or quiet sunshine, in morning alacrity or evening resignation, in youth or age, good health or ill, may be equally, but are differently, blessed. Already in this present life we have all seen how God can take up all these seeming irrelevancies into the spiritual fact and cause them to bear no small part in marking the blessing of that moment to be the particular blessing it was—as fire can burn coal and wood equally but a wood fire is different from a coal one. From this factor of environment Christianity does not teach us to desire a total release. We desire, like St. Paul, not to be un-clothed but to be re-clothed: to find not the formless Everywhere-and-Nowhere but the promised land, that Nature which will be always and perfectly—as present Nature is partially and intermittently—the instrument for that music which will then rise between Christ and us. #RandolphHarris 10 of 21

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And what, you ask, does it matter? Do not such ideas only excite us and distract us from the more immediate and more certain things, the love of God and our neighbours, the bearing of the daily cross? If you find that they so distract you, think of then no more. I most fully allow that it is of more importance for you or me to-day to refrain from one sneer or to extend one charitable thought to an enemy than to know all that Angels and Archangels know about the mysteries of the New Creation. I write of these things because they are the most important but because this essay is about miracles. I suspect that our conception of Heaven as merely a state of mind is not unconnected with the fac that the specifically Christian virtue of Hope has in our time grown so languid. Where our father, peering into the future, saw gleams of gold, we see only the mist, white, featureless, cold and never moving. The though at the back of all this negative spirituality is really one forbidden to Christians. They, of all humans, must no conceive spiritual joy and worth as things that need to be rescued or tenderly protected from time and place and matter and he senses. Their God is the God of corn and oil and premium cranberry juice. He is the glad Creator. He has become Himself incarnate. The sacraments have been instituted. Certain spiritual gifts are offered us only on condition that we perform certain bodily acts. After that we cannot really be in doubt of His intention. To shrink back from all that can be called Nature into negative spirituality is as if we ran away from Ultimate Driving Machines instead of learning to ride in the gentleman’s express. #RandolphHarris 11 of 21

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There is in our present pilgrim condition plenty of room (more room than most of us like) for abstinence and renunciation and mortifying our natural desires. However, behind all asceticism the thought should be, “If we cannot be trusted even with the wealth that perishes, who will trust us with the true wealth the true wealth?” If I cannot control my Earthly body, who will trust me with a spiritual body? These small and perishable bodies we now have were given to us as pines are given to schoolboys. We must learn to manage: not that we may some day be free of horses altogether but that some day we may ride without worry, confident and rejoicing, those greater mounts, those winged, shining and World-shaking horses which perhaps even now expect us with impatience, pawning and snorting in the King’s stables. Not hat the gallop would be of any value unless it were a gallop with the King; but how else—since He has retained His own charger—should we accompany Him? [The Lord Said,] “My gracious favour is all you need. My power works best in your weakness.” So now I am glad to boast about my weakness, so that the power of Christ may work through me, reports 2 Corinthians 12.9. My dear Devout, as you already know, there is no security in this life. As long as you live, you will have to bear spiritual arms. Why? Every day you traffic among enemies, and every day you are impugned from the right as well as from the left; that is as Paul described the Christian condition in his Second Letter to the Corinthians (6.7). Indeed, they are coming at you from all sides. If, therefore, you do not protect yourself with the Psalmist’s shield of patience (91.4), you will not be long without a wound. #RandolphHarris 12 of 21

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Are you allowing your weaknesses and insecurities to keep you from being your best? Are you making excuses as to why you cannot take a new leadership position at work, or get involved in some program in your church, serve in your community, or help a friend in need? Rather than giving too much attention to your insecurities and weaknesses, decide today to focus on your God. Moreover, if you do not place your heart firmly in God, with the pure intention of suffering everything for God’s sake, you will not be able to sustain that ardor of yours, not will you be able to reach the palm of success at the end. God loves you and wants to help you achieve extraordinary success. You may have some doubt to your competence, but God will help you to overcome that. “These times I called upon the Lord and besought [Him] about this and begged that it might depart from me; but He said to me, My grace (My favour and loving-kindness and mercy) is enough for you [sufficient against any danger and enables you to bear the trouble manfully]; for My strength and power are made perfect (fulfilled and completed) and show themselves most effective in [your] weakness. Therefore, I will all the more gladly glory in my weakness and infirmities, that the strength and power of Christ (the Messiah) may rest (yes, may pitch a tent over and dwell) upon me! So for the sake of Christ, I am well pleased and take pleasure in infirmities, insults, hardships, persecutions, perplexities, and distresses; for when I am weak [in human strength], than I am [truly] strong (able, powerful in divine strength),” reports 2 Corinthians 12.9-10. God does not want your status to be based on someone else’s values. #RandolphHarris 13 of 21

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When you base you worth on nonbiblical concepts that are contrary to God’s opinion of you, it hurts His feelings. Yet many people do just that. Consequently, they feel insignificant and unworthy to receive God’s attention, much less His blessings. Their poor self-image keeps them from exercising their God-given gifs and authority, and it robs them of experiencing the abundant life their Heavenly Father wants them to have. Most often, the lack of joy and meaning in their lives is a direct result of how those individuals see themselves. What to do now? Verily, you have to act vilely, that is to say, heat up your resistance against all who oppose you. For the Torrid there will be manna at the end, or so the Book of Revelations promises (2.17); but for the Torpid there will be only misery in the aftermath. Beware of associating with or adopting the attitudes of people who, through their negative outlook and lack of self-esteem, will rob you of the greatness that God has for you. People may seem more powerful than you, like giants. However, our God is formidable, and much bigger. Granted the people are strong and can start a fight in an empty house, our God is stronger. Because of Him, we are well able. Let us go in at once and possess the land. Rest and repose you will have, but do you want it in this life or the next? Choose one. But which one. Which is better to choose, great rest or great patience? Choose the latter. Seek True peace, not on Earth, but in Heaven; not in Humankind or in other creatures, but in God alone. For the love of God you ought to freely undergo everything; that is to say, labours and dolors, temptations and vexations, anxieties and necessities, infirmities and injuries, apprehensions and reprehensions, humiliations and confusions. #RandolphHarris 14 of 21

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All these are stepping-stones to virtue. They test the raw recruit for Christ; they are materials of the Heavenly Crown. How do you see yourself? Do you see yourself as successful? Healthy? Upbeat? Happy? Do you see yourself as being used by God? Do you see yourself as “well able” to do what God wants you to do, strong in the Lord and the power of His might? Or have you allowed yourself to become defeated? God sees you as “well able” people, not disabled, not crazy, not broken, not evil, not ugly. Not because we are so powerful, but because our God is so powerful! When you face adversity and hardship in life, you can rise up with boldness and confidence, knowing that because of God, you are well able to overcome them. Learn to see yourself as God sees you—as a winner, an overcomer, as “well able.” God wants you to accomplish great things in life, and He has put incredible potential, gifts, and talents within you to enable you to do so. Start stepping out in faith and acting on the desire that He has placed in your heart. I acknowledge my weakness, Father, knowing that as I trust You to work in and through me, You make me strong. You make me adequate despite my insecurities; You provide the power to accomplish all that You ask me to do. Reward time. For a good if short life, God will return Eternal Life. For finite confusion on this Earth, God will give Infinite Confirmation. Do you think you will always have spiritual consolations? God’s Saints did not have them all the time. Most of the time what they had were depressions, temptations, and desolations. However, they withstood them patiently, knowing that, as Paul had told the Romans (8.18), “The passions of this time are not to be compared to the attainments of future glory.” #RandolphHarris 15 of 21

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Do you want to have right away what many have scarcely obtained after many tears and great labours? “Wait for the Lord like everyone else,” advised God’s Psalmist (27.14), “then act like a man!” And take comfort. Do not be different. Do not give it up. Let your body and soul constantly radiate the patience of God. I will be with your every step of the way, as My Psalmist has promised (19.15), and in the end God will reward you handsomely. “And they will tell it to the inhabitants of this land. They have heard that You, Lord, are in the midst of this people [of America], that You, Lord, are seen face to face, and that Your cloud stands over them, and that You go before them in a pillar of fire by night,” reports Numbers 14.14. Even more mystifying and upsetting for them is the crack-up of the industrial mass society in which they were trained to operate. Second Wave managers were taught that mass production, that a mass market wants standardized goods, that mass distribution is essential, that “masses” of uniform workers are basically all alike and can be motivated by uniform incentives. The effective manager learned that synchronization, centralization, maximization, and concentration are necessary to achieve one’s goals. And in a Second Wave environment these assumptions were basically correct. Today, as the Third Wave strikes, the corporate manager finds all one’s old assumptions were basically correct. Today, as the Third Wave is up and running, the corporate manager finds all one’s old assumptions challenged. The mass society itself, for which the corporation was designed, is de-massifying. No merely information, production, and family life, but the marketplace and the labour market as well are breaking into smaller, more varied pieces. #RandolphHarris 16 of 21

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The mass market has split into ever-multiplying, ever-changing sets of min-markets that demand a continually expanding rage of options, models, types, sizes, colour, and customizations. So physical stores need to be larger, and to accommodate the demands of consumers and the vast range of products expected, they are moving to new suburban communities where they can still find land that is available for development to build these superstores to accommodate all the products consumers expect in the marketplace. Stores that find they cannot meet consumer demand, notice a reduction in revenue because consumer turn to the holy grail, the Internet. BMW used to basically have three cars, the 3 Series, 5 Series, and 7 Series, now they have well over 30 different models in production. The vice president of BMW said, “we will be going into greater specialization with more different departments.” The fast-increasing variety of goods and services in the high technology nations is often explained away as an attempt by the corporation to manipulate the consumer, to invent false needs, and to inflate profits by charging a lot for trivial options. No doubt, there is truth to these charges. Yet something deeper is at work. For the growing differentiation of goods or services also reflects the growing diversity of actual requirements, desires, values, and lifestyles in a de-massified Third Wave/Fourth Wave society. This rising level of social diversity is fed by further divisions in the labour market, as reflected in the proliferation of new occupations, especially white-collar and service fields. Newspaper want ads calmour of “Vydec Secretary” or “Mini-Cooper computer Programmer,” while at a conference on the service professions I watched a psychologist list 68 new occupations from consumer advocate, corporate attorney, and Yoga instructor to psycho-chemotherapist and federal private investigators. #RandolphHarris 17 of 21

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As our jobs become less interchangeable, people do too. Refusing to be treated as interchangeable, they arrive at the workplace with an acute consciousness of their ethnic, religious, professional, sexual, subcultural, and individual differences. Groups that throughout the Second Wave era fought to be “integrated” or “assimilated” into mass society now refuse to melt their differences. They emphasize instead their unique characteristics. And Second Wave corporations, still organized for operation in a mass society, are still uncertain how to cope with this rising tide of diversity among their employees and customers. Though sharply evident in the United States of America, social de-massification is progressing rapidly elsewhere as well. In Britain, which once regarded itself as highly homogenous, marginalized groups, from Pakistanis, West Indians, Cypriots, and Ugandan Asians to Turks and Spaniards now intermingle with a native population itself becoming more heterogeneous. Meanwhile, a tidal influx of Japanese, American, German, Dutch, Arabic, and African visitors leave  in their wake American hamburger stands, apple pie, baseball, Japanese tempura restaurants and signs in store windows that read “Se Habla Espanol.” Around the World, underrepresented ethnic groups reassert their identities and demand long-denied rights to jobs, income, and advancement in the corporation. Australian Aborigines, New Zealand Maoris, Canadian Eskimos, American Africans, Chicanos, and even Asians once regarded as politically passive are on the move and many are turning into Republicans because they believe in private property and lower corporate taxes, as many are business owners. #RandolphHarris 18 of 21

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From Maine to the Far West, Native Americans assert “Native Power,” demand the restoration of tribal lands, and dicker with the OPEC countries for economic and political support. Even in Japan, long the most homogenous of the industrial nations, the signs of demassification are mounting. An uneducated convict overnight emerges as spokes person for a small group of Ainu people. The underrepresented Koran groups grows restless, and sociologist Masaaki Takane of Sophia University says, “I have been haunted by anxiety….Japanese society today is quickly losing its unity and disintegrating.” In Denmark scattered streets fights break out between Danes and immigrant workers and between leather-jacket motorcyclists and long-hair youth. In Belgium the Walloons, the Flemish, and the Bruxelloises reactivate ancient, indeed preindustrial, rivalries. In Canada Quebec threatens to secede, corporations padlock their headquarters in Montreal, and English-speaking executives throughout the country take crash courses in French. The forces that made mass society have suddenly been thrown into reverse. Nationalism in the high-technology context becomes regionalism instead. The pressures of the melting pot are replaced by the new ethnicity. The media, instead of creating a mass culture, de-massify it. In turn all these developments parallel the emerging diversity of energy forms and the advance beyond mass production. All these interrelated changes create a totally new framework within which the production organization of society, whether called corporations or socialist enterprises, will function. Executives who continue to think in terms of the mass society are shocked and confused by a World they no longer recognize. #RandolphHarris 19 of 21

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If it were part of a larger program of living that included the spiritual, the Occidental worship of bodily arts, cultures, sports, exercises, and regimes would be excellent. However, it is not. The Occidental mostly stops and ends with glorification of the body. There is a most important difference between the work done in ordinary physical culture and the work done in this system. Those who jump about on a gymnasium floor or lift weights or engage in outdoor sports do so usually for the body’s sake. However, students who follow philosophic teachings practice their exercises for the Quest’s sake. This fully respects the body and cares scrupulously for it. It would be a delusion to believe that the practice of these physical disciplines alone can bring enlightenment. It is not obtainable by stretching the body, or holding the breath, although these may quite indirectly help to prepare the way for obtaining it. The ego must be transcended. It is necessary to make a daily ritual of these cleansing habits and physical exercises as it is of religious or mystical ones. They should be combined, the physical exercises as it is of religious or mystical ones. They should be combined; the physical being practiced before the spiritual as a preparation for it and for the day’s activity. Tai Chi is a system of slow, gentle, graceful movements combined with meditation. It can be used either for self-defense, health, or aesthetics. Breath control is a vial element of this practice. Weight and pressure are made to sink down to what is called in Zen the Hara Center (near the solar plexus). This system belongs to Chinese Taoism. #RandolphHarris 20 of 21

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Long ago the dervishes in the Near East used a system of training which gave extraordinary control over the muscular system, swift reflexes, and striking mental concentration. For example, they would direct the movements of one limb while at the same time they directed another limb in a different way. Too much exercise may be as harmful in the end as too little, while improper exercise may be more injurious than either. Those who show their impatience by constantly tapping with their fingers or who betray their nervousness by fidgeting with their feet would benefit by a course in hatha yoga, but all such exercises are prohibited to anyone suffering from high blood pressure. Do not stifle me with the strange scent of low growing mountain lilies—do no confuse me with the salubrious odor of honeysuckle! I cannot separate in my mind sweetness from sweetness—mimosa from wild white violets; magnolia from Cape Jasmine! I am from the north tide country, I can understand only the scent of seaweed; salt marsh and scrub pine riding on the breath of an amorous frog! O do not confuse me with sweetness upon sweetness; let me escapes safely from this gentle madness—let me go back to the salt of sanity in the scent of the sea. For that glad prophetess who danced before the camp, to them whose heart was sad and sore, from whom there rose and sank a well of water—save them that dwelt in goodly tents of yore, save them our Father. For him who in the tent was fain to stay, on whom the spirit shone, who went his way O’er Jordan, and Thou didst divide the water—save her, the beautiful and pure as day, save her, our Father. For his sake who besought a sign, who cried “Where by Thy wonders?” and at morning-tide wringed dew from out the fleece, a bowl of water—save her who was in America a bride, save her, our Father. #RandolphHarris 21 of 21

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