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He is the Emperor of Life Who Determines How Each Person Will Die
Confused values are called into play by incipient rebellion. Scientists have shown that tobacco, marijuana, alcohol, drugs, and too much meat can harm us physically. However, the most important blessings of keeping the Word of Wisdom are spiritual, not physical. Our bodies are temples, and when we abuse our bodies by consuming harmful substances, the Spirit of the Lord is restrained in out lives. “Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any man defile the temple of God, him, shall destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are,” reports 1 Corinthians 3.16-17. The Spirit will not inhabit a polluted temple. Abusing your temple could land you in jail. Jail is a place where you cannot trust anyone. It is a jungle. You even have to be careful about listening to any piece of advice. Beware! Many of the people are sick! Neurotic, psychotic, psychopathic. It is hard to believe anyone. Only one out of twenty there has his marbles. Sex perverts, child molesters, snitches, robbers, murderers, psychopaths. It is hard to trust anyone. Someone who claims they are you follower could be an old murderer. They keep an eye on you. Everything you do. And no one gets bailed out of state prison. The government cannot let you would. A judge or politician would get in a lot of trouble for that. It is also dangerous to be seen talking to some people. The worst things you can think of are the easiest to conjure in prison and are not only possible, probable, but they are happening right now. There are also no secrets in prison. #RandolphHarris 1 of 20
When a loved one is incarcerated, the financial impact on the family can be significant. Loss of income and court and legal fees can lead to a loss of health care, housing, and savings. It is important to address these issues as soon as possible with a trusted adviser. As difficult as it may be, it is helpful to accept the reality that you have experienced changes with lasting effects. As you accept this reality, it will become easier to talk with others. Start by deciding what you will tell people. It may not be appropriate to share every detail. However, being honest about your feelings and your needs will allow others to help. You have the right to draw liberally upon the Saviour’s power to help your family and others you love. The Holy Ghost will be your personal tutor as you seek to understand what the Lord would have you to know and do. As you exercise faith in the Lord and His priesthood power, your ability to draw upon this spiritual treasure that the Lord has made available will increase. Man’s solidarity is founded upon rebellion, and rebellion, in its turn can only find its justification in this solidarity. We have, then, the right to say that any rebellion which claims the right to deny or destroy this solidarity loses simultaneously its right to be called rebellion and becomes in reality an acquiescence in murder. In the same way, this solidarity, except in so far as religion is concerned, comes to life only on the level of rebellion. And so, the real drama of revolutionary thought is announced. #RandolphHarris 2 of 20
In order to exist, many must rebel, but rebellion must respect the limit it discovers in itself—a limit where minds meet and, in meeting, begin to exist. Rebellious thought, therefore, cannot dispense with memory: it is a perpetual state of tension. In studying its actions and its results, we shall have to say, each time, whether it remains faithful to its first noble promise or if, through indolence or folly, it forgets its original purpose and plunges into a mire of tyranny or servitude. Meanwhile, that initial progress that the spirit of rebellion provokes in a mind is originally imbued with the absurdity and apparent sterility of the World. In absurdist experience, suffering is individual. However, from the moment when a movement or rebellion begins, suffering is seen as a collective experience. Therefore, the first progressive step for a mind overwhelmed by the strangeness of things is to realize that this feeling of strangeness is shared with all men and that human reality, in its entirety, suffers from the distance which separates it from the rest of the universe. The malady experienced by a single man becomes a mass plague. In our daily trials rebellion plays the same role as does the “cogito” in the realm of thought: it is the first piece of evidence. However, this evidence lures the individual from his solitude. It founds its first value on the whole human race. I rebel—therefore we exist. #RandolphHarris 3 of 20
Metaphysical rebellion is the movement by which man protests against his condition and against the whole of creation. It is metaphysical because it contests the ends of man and of creation. The slave protests against the condition in which he finds himself within his state of slavery; the metaphysical rebel protest against the condition in which he find himself as man. The rebel slave affirms that there is something in him that will not tolerate the manner in which his master treats him; the metaphysical rebel declares that he is frustrated by the universe. For both of them, it is not only a question of pure and simple negation. In both cases, in fact, we find a value judgment in the name of which the rebel refuses to approve the condition in which he find himself. The slave who opposes his master is not concerned with repudiating his master as human being. He repudiates him as a master. He denies that the has the right to deny him, a slave, on grounds of necessity. The master is discredited to the exact extent that he fails to respond to a demand which he ignored. If men cannot refer to a common value, recognized by all existing in each one, then man is incomprehensible to man. The rebel demands that this value should be clearly recognized in himself because he knows or suspects that, without this principle, crime and disorder would reign throughout the World. An act of rebellion on his part seems like a demand for clarity and unity. The most elementary form of rebellion, paradoxically, expresses an aspiration to order. #RandolphHarris 4 of 20
The metaphysical rebel attacks a shattered World in order to demand unity from it. He opposes the principle of justice which he finds in himself to the principle of injustice which he sees being applied in the World. Thus, if he can, all he wants, originally, is to resolve this contradiction and establish the unitarian reign of justice, or if his is driven to extremes, injustice. Meanwhile, he denounces the contradiction. Metaphysical rebellion is a claim, motivated by the concept of a complete unity, against the suffering of life and death and a protest against the human condition both for its incompleteness, thanks to death, and its wastefulness, thanks to evil. If a mass death sentence defines the human condition, then rebellion, in one sense, is its contemporary. At the same time that he rejects his mortality, the rebel refuses to recognize the power that compels him to live in this condition. The metaphysical rebel is therefore not definitely an atheist, as one might think of him, but he is inevitably a blasphemer. Quite simply, he blasphemes primarily in the name of order, denouncing God as the father of death and as the supreme outrage. By the time he is six, our typical human being has left kindergarten (in America at least), and is pushed into the more competitive World of first grade. There he will be on his own to deal with teachers and other boys and girls. Fortunately, by this time, he is no longer a babe, thrust helpless into a World he never made. #RandolphHarris 5 of 20
From the little suburb of his home, he venters into the great metropolis of the bustling school with whole sets of social responses ready to offer the various kinds of people around him. His mind is all wired up with his own ways of getting along, or at least of surviving, and his life plan has already been made. This was well known to priests and teachers of the Middle Ages, who said: “Give me a child until he is six, and you can have him thereafter.” A good kindergarten teachers can even predict what the outcome will be, and what kind of life the child will have: happy or unhappy, winning or losing. Thus the comedy or tragedy of each human life is that it is planned by an urchin or pre-school age, who has a very limited knowledge of the World and its ways, and whose heart is filled mainly with stuff put there by his parents. Yet this wonder child is precisely who determines in the long run what will happen to kings and peasants and whores and queens. He has no way to tell the facts from the delusions, and the most everyday events are distorted. He is told that if he had pleasures of the flesh before marriage, he will be punished. And that if he has pleasures of the flesh after marriage, he will not be punished. He believes that the Sun sets, and it takes him ten or forty years to discover that he is running away from the sun; and he confuses his belly with his stomach. He is much too young to be deciding much beyond what he wants for dinner, but he is the Emperor of Life who determines how each person will die. #RandolphHarris 6 of 20
The plan he makes for the eternal future is drawn to the family specification. Some of the key ones can often be uncovered very quickly, perhaps in the first interview, by asking: “What did your parents tell you when you were very little?” or “What did your parents tell you about life when you were little?” or “What did your parents say to you when they were angry?” Often the answer will not sound like a directive, but with a little Martian thinking it can be stated in the form.” To further highlight this illustration, many of the training slogans we mentioned in the past are actually parental commands. “Public Performance” is. In effect, a command to show off. The child soon learns that by observing his mother’s pleasure when he does and her disappointment when he fails to do so. Similarly, “Come and See How Cute” means “Put on a good show!” “Hurry Up” and “You Can Just Sit There Till You Do” are negative commands or injunctions: “Do not keep me waiting!” and “Do not talk back!” “Let Him Take His Time,” however, is a license of permission. He understands these differences first from his parents’ reactions, and later, when he has a vocabulary, from their actual words. The child is born free, but he soon learns different. During the first two years, he is programmed mainly by his mother. This program forms the original skeleton, or anlage, of his script, the “primal protocol,” at first concerned with swallowing or being swallowed, and then, when he gets teeth, with tearing or being torn. #RandolphHarris 7 of 20
It is being a hammer or being an anvil, as Goethe put it, the most primitive versions of being a winner or being a loser, as seen in Greek Myths and Primal Rituals, where children are devoured and the limbs of the poet lie scattered on the ground. Even in the nursery, it is often already apparent who is in control, the mother or the baby. This may be reversed sooner or later, but echoes of the original situation can still be heard in times of stress or temper. However, very few people can remember anything from this period, which in many ways is the most important, so it has to be reconstructed with the help of the parents, relatives, nursemaids, and pediatricians, conjectures made about dreams, and perhaps the family album. From two to six the ground is firmer, because nearly everyone remembers a few transactions, incidents, or impressions from that phase of script development, which parallels and is closely connected with the progress of the Oedipus complex. In fact, after weaning and toilet training, the directives which are most universal throughout the World and have the most lasting effects are those concerned with sexuality and aggression. The organism and the species survive by means of circuits which have been built in by natural selection. Since nursing, pleasures of the flesh, and fighting require the presence of another person, they are “social” activities. These urges give character or quality to the individual: acquisitiveness, maleness and femaleness and aggressiveness. #RandolphHarris 8 of 20
Also built in are circuits which tone down such urges. These give rise to the opposite tendencies: renunciation, reticence, and restraint. Those qualities enable people to live together at least part of the time in reasonable tranquility, a dull roar of competition rather than an unmitigated and unremitting bedlam of grabbing, copulation, and fighting. And in some ways which is not clear, excretion becomes mixed up in this system of socialization, and the circuits built in for its control give rise to qualities of orderliness. Parental programming determines how and when the urges are expressed, and how and when the restraints are imposed. It uses the circuits which are already built in, and sets them up in a certain way in order to get certain results or payoffs. As a result of this programing, new qualities emerge, which are compromises between urges and controls. From acquisitiveness and renunciation emerge patience; from maleness or femaleness and reticence emerge masculinity and femininity; from fighting and restraint emerge shrewdness, and from messiness and orderliness come tidiness. All these qualities are taught by the parents and programed during the plastic years between two and six. Physiologically, programing means facilitation, the establishment of a path of lessened resistance. Operationally, it means that a given stimulus will evoke, with a high degree of probability, an already established response. #RandolphHarris 9 of 20
Phenomenologically, parental programing means that a response is determined by parental directives, sound tracks previously recorded, whose voices can be heard by listening carefully to what goes on inside one’s own head. It is probably the lot of human beings that once they have learned speech, then perceptions of reality are always filtered through, and guided by, their concepts of reality. For example, if you learn to concept gun and then look at a gun, you probably see something entirely different from what a primitive savage might: guns have no place, nor even a word to describe them, in his or her culture. Words limit what a person will actually experience in a concrete situation. Once a concept has been learned, a person will look at a given object long enough to place it in its proper category or to assign an appropriate name to it. The person may then ignore much of what is actually there. We are all familiar with the bigoted person who, once he or she has determined that a person is a Jew or Hispanic, never looks further at the person. The bigot “knows” the properties of all members who fall into those classes. In reality, the bigot fails to observe the enormous amount of variation among members of any class. The ability to break down categories and discern uniqueness is as essential for healthy personality as the ability to classify. However, the ability to see what is there, to transcend labels and classes and apprehend the thing before one’s view, is a means of enriching one’s knowledge of the World and of deepening one’s contact with reality. #RandolpHarris 10 of 20
Fritz Perls would have his patients in Gestalt therapy go through exercises of simply looking at something or somebody, in order to discern the reality beyond the concept. To be able to sense the “raw World” involves the ability to abandon presently held concepts and categories. This ability is possessed by the productive scientists who deliberately ignores the orthodoxies, and looks ever afresh at the raw data that prompted the information of present-day concepts and categories. The artist probably possesses to a marked degree the ability to apprehend the unique, the individual object. The ability to set conventional categories and concepts aside and to look fully at the World with minimal preconceptions seems to be a trait that facilitates scientific discovery, art, human relations, and, more generally, an enrichment of the sensory experiences of living. The capacity to let oneself see or perceive what is there seems to entail the temporary cessation of an active, searching, or critical attitude. Need-directed perception is a highly focused searchlight darting here and there, seeking the objects that will satisfy needs, ignoring everything irrelevant to the need. Being-cognition, as Maslow has called it, refers to a more passive mode of perceiving. It involves letting oneself be reached, touched, or affected by what is there so that the perception is richer. The most efficient way to perceive the intrinsic nature of the World is to be more passive than active, determined as much as possible by the intrinsic organization of that which is perceived and as little as possible by the nature of the perceiver. #RandolphHarris 11 of 20
This kind of detached, Taoist, passive, non-interfering awareness of all the simultaneously existing aspects of the concrete, has much in common with some descriptions of the aesthetic experience and of the mystic experience. The stress is the same. Do we see the real, concrete World, or do we see our own systems of rubrics, motives, expectations and abstractions which we have projected onto the real World? Or, to put it very bluntly, do we see or are we blind? This mode of cognition, however, seems to be possible only at those times when we have adequately fulfilled the basic need. When we are anxious, deprived of pleasures of the flesh, or hungry, it is as if our organs of perceiving and of knowing have been “commandeered” to find the means of gratification. Our consciousness seems most free to play, to be most receptive to new impressions, when the urgency of needs is diminished. If we want to know hitherto unnoticed features of the Word that confronts us, the implication is clear, our chances of doing so are increased when our basic needs are satisfied. The direction of our cognition by needs has adaptive values, because it increases our chances of finding the things that will satisfy our needs and it permits us to avoid dangers in our environment. However, if persons are always perceiving the World under the direction of their needs, they will simply not perceive much that exists. The aesthetic, appreciative contemplation of reality, with no purpose other than the delight of looking at it, or experiencing it, lends a dimension of richness to an existence that is ordinarily characterized by the search for satisfaction. Competence at gratifying one’s needs frees one from time to time of the necessity to be forever struggling and permits one the luxury of aesthetic sensing. #RandolphHarris 12 of 20
Reflect on the super-wondrous glory of the human brain. The terrestrial human life cycle spins the developing individual through twelve stages. The suckling infant is certainly a very different caste from the serious ten-year-old school child. The rock ‘n’ roll teenager is certainly different caste from the toddering postmenopausal seniors. The human being is a robot, blindly operating within the reality bubble of structural caste and current temporal caste imprint. At each developmental stage the individual imprints the current hive reality for that developmental stage. Infants cannot be concerned with teenage sperm-egg fantasies. They must suck, suck, suck at the cultural cues that they have imprinted—the touch, smell taste, and sound of the mother. Domesticated new-parents at stage eleven suddenly, miraculously forget the barbarian teenage reality in which they have lived just a few months previous. Each human accepts the reality of the current temporal stage hive-imprint, and almost totally represses the memory of previous stages. Hum-ants are directed by involuntary instincts—committed to religious or political passivity, blindly obedient to hive morality—unable to operate as independent individuals. There is, however, a sizable, and enormously influential population of post-social, self-directed persons swarming on the Western Front. About 15 percent of those living in the highly developed civilization of the 21st Century operate at the post-political level of hedonic consumerism, self-consumerism and self-actualization. They are committed to self-responsible philosophies and do not look to theological or political bureaucrats. #RandolphHarris 13 of 20
The statistically average American is somewhere between a Neolithic caveman and a superstitious robot from the priest-run, caste-stratified pre-civilized Past. The average I.Q. is 100, meaning that the person can read and write primitively, but is generally incapable of any inventive thought. Given a chance, the average American would operate like Attila the Hun. Our study also found that Japan had the highest I.Q. with an I.Q. score of 106.48, followed closely by Taiwan at 106.47, and Singapore at 105.79. The United States of America ranked 31 with an average I.Q. score of 97. Singapore, Japan, and China, in that order, scored the highest in reading, math, and science tests. I.Q. ranges from 70 to 80 are considered borderline intellectual functioning and anything below 70 indicates intellectual disability. Classifications as defined in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), a reference book on mental health disorders published by the American Psychiatric Association (APA): I.Q. 71 to 84: Borderline intellectual functioning. I.Q. 50-55 to approximately 70: Mild mental retardation. I.Q. 35-40 to 50-55: Moderate retardation. I.Q. 20-25 to 35-40: Severe mental retardation. I.Q. below 20-25: Profound mental retardation. Some ways to improve your average I.Q. scores and move to a higher range include: learning new skills, such as learning music or a sport, regularly playing word and other puzzles and brain games, reading more and acquiring knowledge, learning a new language, training to improve verbal skills, maintaining good health with nutritious food, regular exercise, and adequate sleep. #RandolphHarris 14 of 20
The brilliant Men who wrote the American Constitution designed a system of checks and balances to keep the average Neolithic American from grabbing control. The Athenian experience, for example, failed because of Demo-poll—the Tyranny of the Mediocre. Many people say that the most annoying sound in the World is a baby crying. However, that is not true. Babies cry randomly and can be quieted down by feeding them, changing them, or holding them. Yet, those who are awakened by the annoying sound of a leaf blower Monday through Sunday know that it the most annoying sound in the World. It is a violent way to wake up and start the day. It is akin to hearing a chain saw every morning, for several hours, like clockwork day after day. I would think that using a loud leaf blower is not only healthy for the operators’ ears and lungs, wastes a lot of water because they blow around so much dust and get cars dirty, but it is also dangerous because people work hard and are tired and they could snap. In fact, in 2023, an Illinois man, William Martys, age 59, was using a leaf blower in his yard at his Antioch home on 12 April when he was approached by his next-door neighbour, Ettore Lacchei, age 79. The two argued and Mr. Lacchei shot Mr. Martys in the head. With clean energy being such a hot topic, for conservation and security measures, it seems the Environmental Protection Agency would mandate that leaf blowers meet noise decibels requirements. According to the Centers for Disease Control, leaf blowers expose users to noise levels of around 90 decibels. Noises beyond 70 decibels are registered as “disturbance.” Prolonged exposure to anything beyond the level of 85 decibels 85 decibels can result in hearing damage. Even from 50 feet away, the sound of a leaf blower can each 77 to 80 decibels—just under the hearing loss threshold. For residential environments, the limits are set at 55-65 decibels. #RandolphHarris 15 of 20
Leaf blowers emit more than 60 times the hydrocarbons of a car, as well as large amounts of carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, and volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Emissions from gas leaf blowers creates high levels of formaldehyde, benzene, fine particulate matter, and smog-forming chemicals. A 2011 study showed that a lead blower emits nearly 300 times the air pollutants as a pickup truck. You can file a complaint with local authorities. People often take prejudice or habit for truth and in that case feel no discomfort, but if they once realize that their truth is nonsense, the game is up. From then onwards it is only by the force that a man can be compelled to do what he considers absurd. A look of exasperation at my unworldly imaginings, my inability to see what is required of people today because it is “necessary” is unbelievable. However, it was the Chief of Police in San Francisco who said, when asked what could be done to decrease the number of suicides, “We gotta slow down.” Why should we arrange a “civilization” which is a torture to many and not very good for anybody? The World we live in does not have to be the way it is. Out of all the possibilities, we chose to make it this way. Those who never did liked it helped to make it by going along with it. What people do not go along with falls apart, so what is, people are going along with. Even a military government loses its power when people do not go along with it. In Hawaii after the Japanese attack of Pearl Harbor, we had martial law, and one of the first acts of the military was to make it unlawful to speak against the military. These same people also saw it as unpatriotic to drive Japanese cars. #RandolphHarris 16 of 20
You cannot punish everyone. Physically it is not possible and besides, then who is left to work with you? Leaders are non-existent without followers. The number of people who now do not like what we have made seems to include almost everyone. However, we are all split up in groups which do not like this and do not like that, who are fighting each other, not knowing that what we deeply want is something else. It seems to me that this is a common cause of juvenile delinquency and other forms of mental illness. Security of Earthly possessions is hard to find and harder to keep in the quick-changing World of today. So anxieties and worries get multiplied. Because of this, inner security, the close friend of inner peace, becomes proportionately more valuable. If it is to be attained, the first practical requirement is to train oneself in the art of keeping emotionally and mentally calm. This deliberate practice of calmness is a preparation for the deeper state of Mental Quiet, which comes by itself when meditation is sufficiently advanced. It is effort consciously and quickly made to keep a hold on passion and emotions so that the work of getting nearer the realization of ideals is not hindered. Whether, or how much, philosophy removes fear must depend on either his capacity to withdraw part of awareness from the body or on a higher level to remain unmoved in the non-dual identity. Most people are captive, in different degrees, to some kind of fear. It may be caused by their surroundings, by their religious upbringing, by those in authority over them, by their bodily condition, by suggestion received from others or self-made. It is prudent to keep away from temptation—at least until enough beneficial strength has been developed to risk the test. However, if development is not sought and obtained, then untempted and unproven virtue may be merely negative. #RandolphHarris 17 of 20
Instead of fighting in a political battle for the insight and convictions they have gained, many become totally absorbed in their dream of a cottage settlement. In the end, they find themselves sitting between the chairs. (A reference to a German saying, “Trying to sit on all of the chairs and ending up sitting between them” which actually means torn between conflicting interests, however here is more specifically means torn between two interests and ending up with nothing, or not sitting on a chair at all.) What makes this even worse is the leadership’s way of thinking; they believe their policies will help them avoid any armed conflict. They try to sit on all the chairs at the same time and the result is the proverbial fall between the chairs. If a New Man comes into being—a man who has emerged from the archaic ties of blood and soil, and who feels himself to be the son of man, a citizen of the World whose loyalty is to the human race and to life, rather than to any exclusive part of it; a man who loves his country because he loves mankind, and whose judgment is not warped by tribal loyalties, only then can the One World which is emerging can come into existence. Man’s growth is a process of continuous birth, of continuous awakening. We are usually half-asleep and only sufficiently awake to go about our business; but we are not awake enough to go about living, which is the only takes that matters for a living being. The great leaders of the human race are those who have awakened man from his half-slumber. The great enemies of humanity are those who put it to sleep, and it does not matter whether their sleeping potion is the worship of God or that of the Golden Calf. #RandolphHarris 18 of 20
The mission of the Sacramento Fire Department is to: Protect the lives and property of the people of Sacramento and its visitors from fires, natural disasters, accidents, hazardous material incidents, and other causes requiring a rapid and skilled response by land or water. “I did a lot of EMS in the Sacramento Fire Department when I was in college. I became a ski patrolman my freshman year, took advanced first aid. I became a fireman the next summer and began the EMT course in the fall. I originally wanted to become an EMT for ski patrol. I was an EMT by the spring of my sophomore year. I took my EMT 2 training in Sacramento as well as my paramedic training. I remember very well one of the first calls I ever got. It was the first snow of the season, and a couple of kids skipped school and went out riding on a snowmobile. They were crossing a road on this snowmobile, and they got clipped by a Honda Accord. Two kids, twelve and thirteen. We were called to the scene. The snowmobile was there, and one of the kids was lying close to it, but the other kid was fifty or sixty feet down the road. There was a trail of blood all the way down to him, and he was DOA (dead on arrival). The first kind had a pulse. So, we started doing CPR, and at the first chest compression the blood just gushed out. I had seen broken legs, but this was very gruesome. It was a heavy-duty accident. Finally, there was no pulse. We did the best we could. We kept trying to resuscitate him, but couldn’t revive him. #RandolphHarris 19 of 20
“I was in the hospital for quite a while, getting our equipment back. I was there when the parents came in, two sets of parents. They had assumed that the kids were in school, they didn’t know that the kids had skipped school to go play with a snowmobile. The response of the parents—I got goosebumps, and I felt tingling in the back of my head. They just collapsed. No one appreciates the word grief until they see how parents respond when they find out their child has died. I remember calling my mother that night just to convey the story to hear and to touch case with that part of myself.” The Sacramento Fire Department’s primary mission is to provide fire protection, emergency medical care, fire prevention, and other critical public safety services to both residents and visitors. You can save lives by donating to the Sacramento Fire Department. The Sacramento Fire Department works hard to save lives and property and often risk their own lives. Awaken compassionate thoughts and actions by helping others realize that, like our Saviour, they too have compassion for others. Please make donate to the Sacramento Fire Department to asset them in their fire prevent duty and other programs. To help keep America a God loving, Christian community, please raise your children to love America and to love God and Jesus Christ. In a afford to help America pull through the massive national deficit, please buy American made cars and other American made good and services. Also, please remember to respect law and order and treat your elders with the utmost dignity and kindness possible. And take your education seriously so that you will be successful in life and make your family proud. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic, for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. #RandolphHarris 20 of 20
The Winchester Mystery House
Even ghosts can’t resist a good game of Clue! 🎩🔍 Was it in the conservatory with a rope, or in the dining room with a candlestick?
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The Winchester Department of Paranormal Affairs
In an era of genocidal wars, terrorism, and heated debates over the meaning of patriotism, a romantic view of the American Revolution was desperately desired. However, those who lived through it have a much more complex story to tell, much more relevant to us as their heirs and descendants. As colonists, these Americans were sharply divined on the topic of independence. In many regions, the Revolution was a bitter civil war, which divided the very fabric of society. However, let us peer further inside the magic and rituals following the occult ceremonies. Although many examples may be cited of Saints who have been levitated in ecstasy, and although it is not impossible that this phenomenon may be imitated by evil powers—as, indeed, it undoubtedly is the cases of spiritistic mediums—yet nowhere do we find in hagiography that a large number of Saints were in one company raised from the Earth together or conveyed through the air to meet at some appointed spot. It is likely, then, that the demons would be allowed seemingly to excel by their power a most extraordinary and exceptional manifestation? It must be remembered, also, that save in very rare and singular instances, such as that of S. Joseph Cupertino, levitation is only for a height of a foot or some eighteen inches, and even this occurs seldom save at moments of great solemnity and psychic concentration. #RandolphHarris 1 of 7
It is proven that sorcerers can be bodily transported. Witches are actually and bodily conveyed from place to place to attend their Sabbats. Sometimes they are actually conveyed from one place to another by the Devil, whom carries them, and they are verily and indeed present at their midnight Sabbats. One night, while I was in The Winchester Mansion, I observed eighteen or more people moving down a dark corridor to the ritual room, and the door banged shut behind them. Two hooded guards stood attention; no one could enter, no one could leave. It was pitch black. Suddenly our ears were alerted by the sound of curious organ music which was preamble to a loud cacophony of instruments and sound effects shattered the consciousness. The organ played again, a Hymn to Satan. Priests and disciples in their jet-black robes drank their Elixir of Life from a silver chalice. They chanted, “In the name of Satan, the Ruler of the Earth, the King of the World, I command the forces of darkness to bestow their Infernal power upon me! Open wide the gates of Hell and come forth from the abyss to greet me as your child! Grant me the indulgence of which I speak! I have taken thy name as part of myself! I live as the beasts of the field, rejoicing in the fleshly life! I favour the just curse of the rotten! By all the Gods of the Pit, I command that these things of which I speak shall come to pass! Come forth and answer your names by manifesting my desires! Hail Satan!” Hail Satan! That is the cry of those in the Church dedicated to the Prince of Darkness. #RandolphHarris 2 of 7
The music and chanting stopped, and the room was lit by thirteen black candles giving sufficient glow to reveal a thirteen-foot-tall man who was pitch black, wearing a black robe. He was called the High Priest, and his eyes peering, scrolling down at us. Off to the side of him was another startling feature, a coffin standing upright and lined with black silk and it was just possible to catch sight of an owl, its eyes glinting, perched inside. I became woozy and passed out. That night while I was unconscious, I dreamed that the High Priest put a baby into a basin, cut its throat, poured blood into a chalice and consecrated it with the host, finished the host, then took out the child’s entrails…which were distilled and put in a glass phial which someone took away. The child’s body was burnt in a stove. When I came to, the occultists discounted this instance as either a freak happening, or exaggerated nonsense dreamt up. The evidence of horrific acts in the name of Satan were dismissed. However, some key players in this horror story confessed to, without the resort of torture, that this was a factual account. The police also dismissed the account. Although, this bran of black magic with satanic overtones intrigued the rich young men of European capitals in the early twentieth century, and what soon became known as The Winchester Mystery House was quickly established with Satan living dangerously, but hidden, as the prime objective. #RandolphHarris 3 of 7
Tours were given during the day. However, at night, the gentry and young socialite members of this club met in secretly in the most pious manner. The King Hell held court and presided over all manner of alarming acts of competitive bravado. Wealthy pleasure-seeking men of position preserved the authentic satanism which was committed in secret places in the mansion and where no secrets were revealed through pain of death itself. The World, it seemed, had been waiting for us. We were caught on the crest of a heady wave of mysticism. Seeking an extension of mystical experience, it was as if we were being transported back three thousand years into the days of the Zoroastrian figure, Angra Mainyu. Young people would just turn up…they were becoming aware that there were different ways of progressing spiritually. All this was behind the great new wave of occult interests. There were very rare books of ritual magic which was preformed in Egypt in hidden rooms in what is now known as The Winchester Mystery House. One of the leaders was a French nobleman with a family tradition of pagan self-sacrifice. People actually and awake and in full enjoyment of their normal senses attended these assemblies. Nor were they labouring under any delusion when they denied the Catholic Faith, worshipped and adored the Devil, who appeared to them in a human form. #RandolphHarris 4 of 7
One prominent family found out that their daughter had been attending these ceremonies, but no one believed it because it had been virtually impossible to find any witnesses or writings about these assemblies. That woman confessed to her mother and father that she nightly assisted at the Sabbat, and that neither bolts nor bars could prevent her from flying to the infernal revels. She was shut fast under lock and key in a chamber whence it was impossible for her to escape, and all the while carefully watched by officers through a peephole in the wall. They reported that immediately the door was closed and she threw herself on the bed where in a moment she was stretched out perfectly rigid in all her members. Though it was a handsome and well-built house, the officers became very uncomfortable. Select officers, grave and acute doctors entered the room. They were overcome with a depressed foreboding feeling that they had never had before. They shook her, gently at first, and then with considerable roughness. She remained immobile and insensible. She was pinched and pulled sharply, but did not respond. She lay stockish and still lame. After a while her senses returned to her. She sat up and related in exact detail the happenings at the Sabbat she attended at The Winchester Mystery House, the number of the company, the rites, what was spoken, all that was done. Although she was ghastly pale and weak, we had all seen her there. #RandolphHarris 5 of 7
There are some people, who although they are not Sorcerers, if they are anointed, are nonetheless carried off to the Sabbat. After the Sabbats, there were reports of wild animals appearing after their deaths, and even people’s dogs and cats manifested. The children in the neighbourhood were elated, and so no one believed anything demonic was going on in the mansion, but it was well-known that it was haunted. One case in particular stood out. Mrs. Baker’s dog was killed in a carriage accident. She was terribly upset. The Christmas season was at hand and memories of Jasper would sadden the holidays. On the day before Christmas, Mrs. Baker was in the kitchen when suddenly she heard a strange noise at the back door. It sounded like a dog scratching to be let in. At once she thought, “Oh, Jasper wants to get into the house,” then the chilling thought came to her that this could not very well be Jasper since he was dead. So, she went to the back door and peeked through the glass, but there was nothing outside that could have made the noise. She returned to her kitchen sink. The incident slipped her mind until a few days after the holiday. She heard the sound very clearly again and knew it was not her imagination playing tricks. Again, she looked out the door and saw nothing special. She told her husband, but he dismissed her account. #RandolphHarris 6 of 7
The next day, Mrs. Baker heard the ghostly scratching again. Quickly, she went to the door, opened it wide, and said, “Come on in, Jasper.” She felt terribly silly doing this, but after she had done it, the depression over the dog’s untimely death seemed somehow to have left her and she felt better about the whole matter. She returned to the kitchen and continued her work. A little later, she found herself in the living room. She was surprised when she found Jasper lying on the carpet in front of the fireplace. A littler later, her husband passed by it and also observed Jasper. However, by nightfall, he disappeared again. The scratching at the back door was never heard again. However, this visit allowed for Jasper and his family to have closure. One night after tours of The Winchester Mystery House were over, I noticed a small, shadowlike man jump down from the attic and run toward me. However, instead of coming at me, he turned and ran down the stairs. I thought it was my imagination, but the strange figure reappeared several times more, and eventually I came to the conclusion that he was real. This was years after I had the nightmare of the baby being sacrificed at the Sabbat. I came to the conclusion that he was still living in the house and growing in the spirit World. It was about that time that the organ in the Grand Ballroom started to play by itself. One night, while the organ played in plain view of everyone, there was also the sound of pages in a book being turned in the same area, although nobody had a book or turned any pages. Satan is the tester. The soul continues to permeate between the material World and the divine World. #RandolphHarris 7 of 7
The Winchester Mystery House
Step into the ultimate vintage Halloween experience at our limited-time Halloween museum! Discover a mesmerizing collection filled with nostalgic treasures and Halloween magic at every turn 🎃✨
A special thanks to @hollywoodhaunter / @pickertreats for bringing this enchanting display to life with their amazing personal collection!
Please come and enjoy a delicious meal in Sarah’s Café, stroll along the paths of the beautiful Victorian gardens, and wonder through the miles of hallways in the World’s most mysterious mansion. For further information about tours, including group tours, weddings, school events, birthday party packages, facility rentals, and special events please visit the website: https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
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Note Everything that the Primitives Say
Genetics is not about fate; it is about opportunity. It is the genius—genetic-volatility—of humanity that, although each of us is a genetic-robot, we pass through twelve stages as we mature. What a wondrous package, indeed is WoMan! Woman in Mandarin Chinese means “we.” Each of us represents one of the twelve intelligence-survival solutions and each of us, in maturing, passes through and relives all twelve solutions. Genetic consciousness allows us to discard the old outmoded hive-reality maps, to file away and retire, every previous theological and philosophic blueprint—except those which are based on continual evolution. This does not mean that you should reject empirical data or close-off information or ignore opinions. Be open to every stupidity, savagery, rigidity of the Newtonian natives. Listen to the Christian Fundamentalists when they shout that the Christian Holy Bible and Book of Mormon are word-for-word revelations and you gain insight into the parroting, Paleolithic, humanoid brain. Not everything that the primitives say, then check your own behaviour for parrot-brained rote repetition. Study and then file-away orthodox Darwinian blind-selection theories, while respecting the field reports of evolutionists and ethologists. Play with the notions of structural and temporal caste as they affect you. Admire this clever twelve tactic process that allows each of us to recapitulate evolution and to move ahead to create The Future. #RandolphHarris 1 of 23
Alpha reality—for now let us assume that your genetic template determines your structural caste which, in turn, determines your lifelong reality attitude. Attitude is used in the high-altitude, high-velocity aeronautical context—angle of approach. Your structural caste is your Alpha Reality. A nineteen-year-old woman once consulted me, seeking help with a problem that was bothering her. She believed her roommate was stealing her money, jewelry, and even stationary. She noticed various items missing from her dresser from time to time, and she concluded her roommate was guilty. However, she dared not confront the roommate with her suspicion. Instead, she felt distrust and resentment and struggled to conceal these feelings from her. Their relationship gradually deteriorated to one of formality, forced politeness, and false expressions of friendship. I asked the young woman why she did not bring the whole issues out into the open. She stated that if she did this, her roommate would hate her, and she could not stand this. I asked if there were any other possible way of interpreting the loss of her money and jewelry. She replied that she had not thought of any. Rather, she had concluded that if her things were missing, they must have been stolen by the person closet to her. When I suggested that her roommate might be saddened at the way their friendship had deteriorated and that she might welcome some frank talk to settle things, the young woman admitted that this might be possible, but she was afraid to talk about the problem. However, she agreed to broach the subject. #RandolphHarris 2 of 23
The next time I saw her, she was happy to report that she had discussed the whole affair. She learned that her roommate was puzzled by the way their relationship had changed. Moreover, she was glad to discuss the loss of the articles with her and she was able to clear herself of any blame. In fact, the roommate too had been missing some money, and investigation by the dormitory counselor brought forth the fact that other women had been robbed and that the guilty party was a cleaning woman, who was promptly discharged. The example illustrates how some initial, untested beliefs that one person forms about some aspect of the World—in this case, about another person—can lead to misunderstanding in interpersonal relationships and to considerable unhappiness. At first, the woman was afraid to carry out any efforts at reality testing to see if her assumption of the guilt of her roommate was warranted. This illustrates another aspect of reality testing; frequently, people may be reluctant to go after the information that is crucial to the formation of accurate beliefs. Yet, if a person gives in to the fear of getting at the truth, that person is almost sure to become increasingly out of touch with reality. The search for the “real” reality in contrast to the perceived reality is a difficult one even for the scientist. Here are some rules that may help you become fare more effective in reality testing: State the belief clearly. Ask, “What evidence is there to support this belief?” Ask, “Is there any other way of interpreting this evidence?” Try to determine how consistent the belief is with other beliefs that are known to be real. #RandolphHarris 3 of 23
Reasons for rebellion do seem to change, in fact, with periods and civilizations. It is obvious that a Hindu pariah, an Inca warrior, a primitive native of central African, and a member of one of the first Christian communities had not at all the same ideas about rebellion. We could even assert, with considerable assurance, that the idea of rebellion has no meaning in these particular cases. However, even if they differed about the reasons for it, a Greek slave, a serf, a condottiere of the Renaissance, a Parisian bourgeois during the Regency, a Russian intellectual at the beginning of the twentieth century, and a contemporary worker would undoubtedly agree that rebellion is legitimate. In other words, the problem of rebellion seems to assume a precise meaning only within the confines of Western thought. It is possible to be even more explicit by remarking, like Scheler, that the spirit of rebellion finds new means of expression in societies where inequalities are very great (the Hindu caste system) or, again, in those where there is absolute equality (certain primitive societies). The spirit of rebellion can exist only in a society where a theoretical equality conceals great factual inequalities. The problem of rebellion can exist only in a society where a theoretical equality conceals great factual inequalities. The problem of rebellion, therefore, has no meaning except within our own Western society. If the preceding remarks had not put us on our guard against this conclusion, one might be tempted to affirm that it is relative to the development of individualism. On the basis of the evidence, the only conclusion that can be drawn from Scheler’s remark is that, thank to the theory of political freedom, there is, in the very heart of our society, an increasing awareness in man of the idea of man and, thanks to the application of this theory of freedom, a corresponding dissatisfaction. #RandolphHarris 4 of 23
Actual freedom has not increased in proportion to man’s awareness of it. We can only deduce from this observation that rebellion is the act of an educated man who is aware of his own rights. However, there is nothing which justifies us in saying that it is only a question of individual rights. Before of the sense of solidarity we have already pointed out, it would rather seem that what is at stake is humanity’s gradually increasing self-awareness as it pursues its course. In fact, for the Inca and the pariah the problem never arises, because for them it has been solved by a tradition, even before they had had time to raise it—the answer being that tradition is sacred. If in a World where things are held sacred the problem of rebellion does not arise, it is because no real problems are to be found in such a World, all the answers having been given simultaneously. Metaphysic is replaced by myth. There are no more questions, only eternal answers and commentaries, which may be metaphysical. However, before man accepts the sacred World and in order that he should be able to accept it—or before he escapes from it and in order that he should be able to escape from it—there is always a period of soul-searching and rebellion. The rebel is a man who on the point of accepting or rejecting the sacred and determined on laying claim to a human situation in which all the answers are human—in other words, formulated in reasonable terms. #RandolphHarris 5 of 23
From this moment every question, every word, is an act of rebellion while in the sacred World every word is an act of grace. It would be possible to demonstrate in this manner that only two possible to Worlds can exist for the human mind: the sacred (or, to speak in Christian terms, the World of grace) and the World of rebellion. The disappearance of one is equivalent to the appearance of the other, despite the fact that this appearance can take place in disconcerting forms. There again we rediscover the All or Nothing. The present interest of the problem of rebellion only springs from the fact that nowadays whole societies have wanted to discard the sacred. We live in an unsacrosanct moment in history. Insurrection is certainly not the sum total of human experience. However, history today, with all its storm and strife, compels us to say that rebellion is one of the essential dimensions of man. It is our historic reality. Unless we choose to ignore reality, we must find our values in it. It is possible to find a rule of conduct outside the realm of religion and its absolute values? That is the question raised by rebellion. Dying on the prison mattress, this inmate’s mind peered at itself through the window of a luxurious beach house in Santa Monica. She was lying scantly clad in front of the fire. A famous singer sings from a vinyl record on a low womb-shaped table almost buried amongst the furs. The breath of the fire moistens the room. #RandolphHarris 6 of 23
“All I want is to feel good,” she says and falls back amongst the cushions. He is nervous. “I haven’t been intimate with a woman in a month, baby.” “Just keep me high, she murmurs. Guilt is an abstraction, pleasure is real.” She lay unmoving, evidently under the effect of some kind of narcotic. He raised her leg, walked to the window and pressed his face against the glass. She stood naked in front of the fire, weeping. It was three o’clock in the morning. A flashlight whispering yellow. Get up! You are on the lost for transfer. Roll up gear. Report below. Your cell’s unlocked. He left the rodent cage, ran right down the molecular runway, left down lattice stairs turn right. Forty-eight men in blue waiting in a dark tunnel of the maximum-security prison, rolling weed, coughing smoke, reciting their sorrows. Career cons. The impenitent nobility. Gallant slaves. As the World of an empress is decked with pennants, Hers was decorated with desire. Wherever she went She was invested with this could of male vitality. He walked the length of the Release Room of the State Prison, a naked captive, carrying shoes to the exit cage counter. “Gentlemen, I’m checking out. Could you have my bill ready?” he says. The guard frowns down at levity. “Yeah, you owe us ten long years.” Forty-eight men dressed in white jump suits, from a gray line waiting for the bus to long-term. All aboard for CMC East, CMC West, grim Soledad, San Quentin, Folsom, and Forestry Camps north. #RandolphHarris 7 of 23
Each man walks shivering in the morning fog to the loading platform. Searched, handcuffed. After a pat-down, the inmate we are focused on holds hands up for bracelets. The Lieutenant grumbles. “Skip the cuffs for him. He’s minimum security,” he told the guard. Speaking to our focus inmate, the Lieutenant then says, “You pass out matches and rolling smokes.” He walked down the bus aisle. “Fasten seat belts gentlemen and ladies. Select your weed. Inside dope. Acapulco Gold. Tehachapi Red. Quentin Green. Metal-clad hands reach up beseeching nicotine.” As the mobile prison rumbles along the polluted L.A. freeways, they look down at commuters droning to work. Around Ventura the bus bursts out the L.A. smog to wide blue Pacific seascapes, sparkling visions for prison eyes. Slender girl twisting long sunny hair on the Ventura streets. Their shackled slave wagon climbed the hill to a white-marbled courthouse. Picking up long-hair parole violators. In the rear-cage compartment the armed guard pushes brown-paper food snacks through a metal slot. Our focus inmate serves lunch and as a good trustee gets a double helping. However, he gave it to a young African America carrying a life sentence. Even people who are down on their luck are kind enough to show compassion. Compassion means to for love and mercy toward another person. It means to show sympathy and relieve the suffering of others. It means to show kindness and tenderness towards another. #RandolphHarris 8 of 23
Whoever prolongs resentment belongs to past years and chapters long left behind, himself adds to the injury he suffered. Such brooding brings on negative moods. Personal feelings must be studied and analysed, not to become more neurotically self-wrapped but to correct, discipline, and lift them to a higher level. The more emotional a person is, the more easily is he hurt. The way to lessen such hurts is to bring up reason to the same strength and to deepen calm. The more he practicses keeping calm in the confrontations of Worldly stress, the less difficult will it be to practise prayer. The practise not only makes it easier for intelligence to operate but also for thoughts to come under control. A panicky feeling disorganizes the whole of man, throws him into confusion. If one cultivates inner calm constantly, this is avoided. He cannot afford to imitate those who show a calm exterior while raging furiously within themselves. Not necessarily—nor only—for the sake of appearances or personal advantage does he remain calm, but also because the ideal of self-control is very close to his heart. However, although philosophy refuses to accept a wild emotionalism or an unbalanced one or an egotistic one, it would be a grave mistake to think that it refuses to accept emotion altogether in its own sphere. On the contrary, it asserts that without the most intense possible feeling, a genuine devotion to the Overself cannot be given. And without such devotion, the Overself in turn is unlikely to give its Grace. What philosophy does ask, however, is that emotion should be balanced, purified, and deepened. #RandolphHarris 9 of 23
Pessimism will corrode our better nature, optimism may disillusion itself in the end. The middle way is the better way—and also the truer way—for it gives both sides of the case. It is not only in practical life that emotional control will be needed but also in mystical life. The very intensity of his emotions—however noble and aspiring they be—will confuse the reception of the truth during prayer and mingle it with the meditator’s own preconceptions. We believe first and think out our belief afterwards. This is because emotion rather than reason is our driving force. Reason actuates us from a deeper level and is therefore slower to arouse and harder to keep going than feeling. The Stoics in old Europe tried to put the emotions under the absolute control of reason. Jesus Christ tried to do exactly the same. However, whereas the Stoics did this in order to meet the every day alternations of fate, health, and fortune with great courage, the self-actualized Christians did it in order to escape from those alternations. The Stoics were practical men who accepted the World but sought to conquer it through the power gained by conquering themselves. The self-actualized Christians rejected the World, and like the desert monks of early Christianity, wanted to be done with its struggles and afflictions. If he sulkily takes constructive, well-intentioned criticism as if it were a personal insult, if his emotional self falls discouraged into a slough of despond at the smallest discovery of his own faults and weaknesses, then he is likely not ready for this quest. Some self-preparation is first needed. #RandolphHarris 10 of 23
If not quickly subdue them, merely to recollect that he is on the quest should soften his angers. They should deliberately face whatever it is they fear. When they become frightened, they should not seek escape, but, in times of prayer and meditation, should turn full attention on its cause. Then, they should call upon latent resources and if the cause is made in the right way, the response will appear in their conscious will. Thus equipped, they will be capable of compelling fears to subside and, in time, of overcoming them. This inner quiescence, this emotional calm, this being at peace with oneself, this refusal to be upset or feel hurt, is one of those conditions which make possible the discovery of the true being. The truth crushes all the falseness and all the deceptiveness in sentimentality and emotionality, but leaves intact what is sound in them. The ego eagerly wants to nourish itself with these pitiful illusions, therefore. It is even helpful in certain cases to put the physical body under the strain of hard manual labour, or hard physical exercise for some weeks. This counterbalances the mental tension. To eradicate anger, he should cultivate it opposite—forgiveness. According to ethics of the hidden teaching, hatred and anger are twin branches on the same tree. How immense the distance from self-mastered Founder to self-indulgent follower! The often-used word “freedom” is conveniently misunderstood, its true meaning twisted to suit their sensual appetites. #RandolphHarris 11 of 23
Conduct is a deliberate, consciously purposeful, and willed activity whereas behaviour is general, casual, and not specifically directed. When in the development of the script, one of the most important things to do is find a plot with the proper ending, an answer to the question: “What happens to someone like me?” The child knows, because he is taught, whether he is going to be a winner or a loser, how he is supposed to feel about other people, and how other people are going to treat him, and that is what is meant by “someone like me.” Sooner or later, he hears a story about “someone like me,” and that tells him what he is headed for. It may e a fairy tale read to him by his mother, the story of Sleeping Beauty told to him by his grandmother, or a street-gang legend he hears on the corner. However, whatever he hears it, when he hears it, he knows it, and he says: “That is me!” That story will then be his script and he will spend the rest of his life trying to make it come to pass. Thus, on the basis of early experience with the breast or the bottle, in the bathroom or outhouse, in the bedroom and kitchen and living room, the child acquires his convictions, makes his decisions, and takes his position. Then from what he hears and reads, he chooses a prediction and a plan: how he will go about being a winner or a loser, on what grounds, and what the payoff will be; and that is the first clear version of his life script. #RandolphHarris 12 of 23
Subverbal interaction refers to communication that occurs without the use of words. I spent nearly six months of bi-weekly meetings which consisted of my standing next to a man on the ward. Whenever I asked him to come into the office with me, he became verbal, but only to tell me to go away and leave him alone. Yet, when I would come only to stand next to him where he stood on the ward, he would usually remain for the whole hour despite the fact that he knew I would leave if he walked away. During such an hour we would exchange many glances, motions, and a few sentences. Often—that is to say, every few silent minutes—I might say something of the tension I felt, and of my wish that our silences would be or feel all right, as well as of my wish to hear from him, and my knowledge of his discomfort and tension with me. After a while I did usually receive a sentence or two, often in the nature of summaries that seemed to stem from much ongoing inner turmoil, feeling, and thinking, such as: “Maybe I am crazy,” or, “someone must a have a use for a person,” or “If you are for me or against me, I do not know,” or “they just do not have a heart,” or, “I would wake them up.” Some hours passed without such expressions. Sometimes he would accept my responses to these statements, more often he would show me that I could more easily be talked to if I was quiet: he would say, “do not pressure me,” or, “it is awful hot today.” #RandolphHarris 13 of 23
At slight movements, or unsureness, or verbiage from me, he would react with sudden black looks or leap away three feet. So I learned to be quiet while he talked; perhaps a few minutes later I might tell him something of what I thought about it. When I stood next to this man in silence, it was not the case that nothing happened when we were silent. Clearly, he was very active inside himself, and to me it was also clear that I had a great deal to do with the process, and with the quality of this process, within him. It is this kind of interaction which I termed “subverbal.” The development from early to later interviews involves the establishment of subverbal interaction. In our research, the proportions of speech and silence do not change from second to thirtieth interviews. However, not only do the silence come to be subverbally important and therapeutic, but the verbalizations also become more significant, as the findings on the Kirtner and Experiencing Scales show. Subverbal interaction is thus not a giving up of verbal therapy, but rather a reaching for the deeper and wider feeling processes which occurs in every individual at every moment, and within which psychotherapy occurs. Words, no matter how relevant or irrelevant, are only messages from this deeper feeling process, only symbolizations of experiencing. #RandolphHarris 14 of 23
The Democratic Party will not fight for the future of America in a political battle because they believe the future is secured adequately through increasing the $38 trillion-dollar federal deficit, which increased by $2 trillion in 2024. This kind of debt spending is unheard of and will have unknown ramifications. Not only will your children be responsible for paying this money back, and the rest of your family for generations, America could go bankrupt. All of those handouts the Democratic party has given to the 20,000,000 illegal immigrants that have allowed to waltz into America is costing us all dearly. The Democratic Party’s plan is to just keep raising taxes. However, how our tax dollars are spent should be a matter left up to voters. Politicians should not be able to go wild and spend our hard earn money anyhow they please on programs that are not even necessary nor desirable. No one can “save” his fellow man by making the choice for him. All that one man can do for another is to show him the alternatives truthfully and lovingly, yet without sentimentality or illusion. Confrontation with the true alternatives may awaken all the hidden energies in a person, and enable him to choose life as against death. If he cannot choose life, no one else can breathe life into him. There are two ways of arriving at the choice of the good. The first is that of duty and obedience to moral commands. This way be can be effective, yet one must consider that in thousands of years only a minority have fulfilled even the requirements of the Ten Commandments. #RandolphHarris 15 of 23
Many more have committed crimes when they were presented to them as commands by those in authority. The other way is to develop a taste for and a sense of well-being in doing what is good or right. By taste for well-being, I do not mean pleasure in the Benthamian of Freudian sense. I refer to the sense of heightened aliveness in which I confirm my powers and my identity. I believe that education means to acquaint the young with the best heritage of the human race. However, of this heritage is expressed in words, it is effective only if these words become reality in the person of the teacher and in the practice and structure of society. Only the idea which has materialized in the flesh can influence man; the idea which remains a word only changes words. I believe in the perfectibility of man. This perfectibility means that man can reach his goal, but it does not mean that he must reach it. If the individual will not choose life and does not grow, he will by necessity become destructive, a living corpse. Evilness and self-loss are as real as are goodness and aliveness. If he chooses not to realize his primary potentialities, they are the secondary potentialities of man. Only exceptionally is man born as a saint or as a criminal. Most of us have dispositions for good and for evil, although the respective weight of these dispositions varies within individuals. #RandolphHarris 16 of 23
Hence, our fate is largely determined by those influences which mold and form the given dispositions. The family is the most important influence. However, the family itself is mainly an agent of society, the transmission belt for those values and norms which a society wants to impress on its members. Hence, the most important factor for the development of the individual is the structure and the values of the society into which he has been born. Society has both a furthering and an inhibiting function. Only in cooperation with others, and in the process of work, does man develop his powers, only in the historical process does he create himself. However, at the same time, most societies until now have served the aims of the few who wanted to use the many. Hence, they had to use their power to stultify and intimidate the many (and this, indirectly, themselves), to prevent them from developing all their powers; for this reason, society has always conflicted with humanity, with the universal norms valid for every man. Only when society’s aim will have become identical with the aims of humanity, will society cease to cripple man and to further evil. Every many represents humanity. We are different as to intelligence, health, talents. Yet we are all one. We are all stains and sinners, adults and children, and no one is anybody’s superior or judge. We have all been awakened with Jesus Christ, we have also be crucified with Christ, and we have all been burned at the stake and robbed with the witches of Salem, Massachusetts. #RandolphHarris 17 of 23
Man can visualize the experience of the whole universal man only by realizing his individuality and never by trying to reduce himself to an abstract, common denominator. Man’s task in life is precisely the paradoxical one of realizing his individuality and at the same time transcending it and arriving at the experience of universality. Only the fully developed individual self can drop the ego. The Sacramento Department of Fire Services provides the fire service, regulated industries, and individuals with training, education, prevention, investigation, and emergency responses service. This work includes training firefighters, hazardous material response, fire investigation, public education in fire and life safety, and incident support. “The fire was in a two-and-a-half-story frame dwelling. My company was on the second alarm, so when we got there the fire was well involved. I reported to the chief and went through the normal procedures. The whole upper floor, a converted attic, was on fire, and part of the second floor. We took a two-and-a-half-inch hand line down the left side of the building to the rear kitchen—myself, my pipe man, and my leadoff man. The pipe man is the nozzle man. We take the line in dry to the place where we’re going to use it—it’s easier to maneuver without the water in the line. We get to the back kitchen, and I pick up my radio to call the pump operator to get water in the line. As it happens when there are so many additional alarms, it gets so busy that the pump operator is swamped with calls, and radio communications is the biggest problem. #RandolphHarris 18 of 23
“First I sent out my lead man, then I went out, and I told the pump operator to put water in the line. I waited a minute to make sure that he did, because sometimes they are so busy they don’t always comprehend what’s going on. As soon as the two-and-a-half got charged up, I straightened out a couple of kinks and started back along the side of the building. I felt a couple of embers or wood brands dropping, and I just kind of pulled my shoulders up and dropped my head and just kept moving. Then, bam. Instantly the whole world stopped. It seemed the entire building dropped, and it came right down on me. It was unreal. The whole left side of the building and the roof came down on me. It just kicked out. I had never heard of this happening before, but since than I have read articles about the collapse of frame buildings and how fast they just kick out. I straightened up, and I could feel all of my weight pushing back as hard as I could, and there was just no way that I could stop it. Thank the Lord, right where I stood was a tree and a fence that ran down the side of the property. I must have swung around so I was right at the tree, and when the wood and the roof came down it hit the tree and acted like a lean-to. And instead of squashing me flat, it just pushed me down into the tree and wedged me down there. I was facedown into the roots of the tree, which was about eight or ten inches in diameter. #RandolphHarris 19 of 23
“The weight of the falling building just snapped it over, and I was wedged against it. But my arm was up, like half over the fence. I don’t know if I had tried to leap over the fence or what, but the arm was pinned separately from the rest of my body. The other guys thought I was dead, for sure. I had to be. It was just unreal, the amount of debris that was piled on top of me. The radio on my hip was caught in an open position. Afterwards the chief said it was the one thing that showed I was still alive. All they could hear was a string of good, rotten words, one after another. I was in severe pain. Terrible pain. I thought, ‘This is it, this is the end of my world.’ My ribs, my side, my arm, everything was hurting but my head. My head wasn’t hurting, or if it was I couldn’t feel it. ‘God, I hope they get me out of here,’ I thought. I was trapped, no way I could move an inch. I’m a good-sized fellow, and I’m wedged against the tree into the ground. There is all this roof and wood pile on me. Luckily, there was no fire right in that area. The fire was still maybe four or five feet behind me. I began to think about a secondary collapse. The way it was piled on me and the tree, I thought, ‘If this son of a gun drops, I mean, that’s it.’ There was no way I could hold any more weight: if it let loose a second time, I would have been gone. For a few minutes I talked to God. ‘Well, sure, I’m going to die,’ I told him. I didn’t know how badly I had been injured. I just knew I had been hurt so bad it was beyond hurting. #RandolphHarris 20 of 23
“Suddenly a mob of people were there, and some of the fellows were coming g up on top of the stuff that’s on top me. I could feel more pressure. I thought, ‘Jesus Christ, get off of the collapse.’ Everything gets chaotic. I mean I’m pinned under there, and I can picture in my mind everybody running around and everybody trying to help. That’s the first thing when one of yours is down. Everybody wants to get in. I’ve been on a number of rescues of civilians, but when it’s one of yours it’s just a little bit different. There’s a little more adrenaline flowing. Everybody was just disregarding everything else, trying to get in as quickly as possible. I heard somebody say, ‘Truck Company, get a saw.’ And the company answered, ‘Our saw’s down in the shop.’ I thought, ‘Oh, crud, here I am trapped, and their saw is down in the shop.’ A couple of things went through my mind down there. The first thing I thought was, ‘Oh, God, let me just get back with my family. Just one more shot. Just give me another shot at it.’ Finally the Rescue Company sets up the airbags, which were new in the department at the time. They were to stabilize the rest of the building so it wouldn’t come down. Now I was concentrating on their methods to get me out. They got a couple of saws going, and they started cutting the fence down to get into me. I said to the lead rescuer, “A1, A1, hold up a minute. My arm’s pinned separately.’ #RandolphHarris 21 of 23
“I just pictured them cutting this fence and grabbing me and pulling me out, and my arm was going to stay there. All I could think of was, ‘God Almighty, if they pull me out and leave my arm there, I would rather just stay.’ It took them about thirty minutes to get everything under control, to get me out. That’s how long I was trapped, and I stayed conscious the whole time. I never really screamed. I tried to stay as clam as I could, hoping that would help them in extricating me a little quicker than otherwise. The lieutenant said afterward that I said a couple of things that didn’t make sense to him. Maybe I was going out of my head a little but, I don’t know, but that was his terminology. I thought I handled it pretty well. One of the funny things I thought afterwards was, ‘Damn, this is my last night in.’ It was the end of a four-night trick. Then we get two days off in a row. They had to drag me out. They raised and secured the wood that was lying over me enough so that they could slide me out. Only then could they stabilize me on a backboard. It was a big job because I’m six-two and weigh 240. The guys said afterwards, ‘God, X, don’t get trapped again. You’ll kill us getting you out again.’ The doctors at the hospital say my size is one of the things that helped save my life. I mean, I’m a big man, and I’m big-boned, and as this stuff came down on me I tightened up to keep in from crushing me. So they got me out to the ambulance. The two paramedics were excellent. #RandolphHarris 22 of 23
“I was in shock trauma twenty-one days and off the job for eleven months. Then I came back on regular duty, and I’ve been working ever since. At times, I hurt. Particularly when I’m wearing a mask at a fire. For two days after, my shoulders hurt, my back hurts, my side hurts from wearing the tank and just the general punishment you go through. But I’m not ready to go out yet.” The Sacramento Fire Department works hard to save lives and property and often risk their own lives. Awaken compassionate thoughts and actions by helping others realize that, like our Saviour, they too have compassion for others. Please make donate to the Sacramento Fire Department to asset them in their fire prevent duty and other programs. To help keep America a God loving, Christian community, please raise your children to love America and to love God and Jesus Christ. In a afford to help America pull through the massive national deficit, please buy American made cars and other American made good and services. Also, please remember to respect law and order and treat your elders with the utmost dignity and kindness possible. And take your education seriously so that you will be successful in life and make your family proud. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic, for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. #RandolphHarris 23 of 23
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Ancient Diabolic Enemies are Not Extinct
In this half-eclipsed World, I wondered through the house. Its emptiness an oppressive ballad, as my foot steps echoed in the hallways. I felt a curious sense of betrayal; the kind felt when a story takes an unanticipated turn. I went down several flights of stairs into rooms the likes of which I had never seen before. My home was a World that was both very real and completely invented. Carpenters from all over Europe—German, Dutch, Portuguese, Belgians, even a few Englishmen—and painters, again from every place of excellence worked night and day, to create my fortress. I played God in the World. I put creatures into it that I had conjured up from my own personal menagerie: mythical creatures and goddesses that architects would render with meticulous care. And then I would take the soul of the deceased and put them to work, so that it would be a home for them. Here I would live under a permanent eclipse, in a constant state of terror, barely daring to sleep for fear one of my terrible beasts would take me. My influence invaded the minds of the people who worked for me. Every haunting, every forbidden supernatural thing, every architectural oddity they had ever dreamed of they were given the freedom to create. #RandolphHarris 1 of 7
Outside, the night was clear, cloudless, the moon proud and crisp in its uncontested rule; Llanada Villa’s walls seemed to be absorbing the atmosphere’s coldness rather than fending it off, for everything, even the furniture, felt frigid to the touch. Certainly, I could not understand why my entire staff had gone missing during an eclipse on January 1st, 1889. The body of one of them was found stripped of its skin. The rest of the party were never found. Most of my family did not know what Llanada Villa was. Certainly, the carpenters created my home, and they had powers that go far beyond anything we understand. There were two hundred and sixty-eight rooms. I derived such pleasure from them, but was oblivious to the human cost. I just wanted the spirits to be astonished; and then, to look at me—who had given them this gift—with new eyes. I wanted them to be so grateful, so happy that they would forget all the evil of this World. My home changed me. It changed everyone who went into it. It changed our flesh. It changed our spirits. I was born in 1839, but I did not look it. That is because Llanada Villa. It has energies. I believe there is magic within these walls. #RandolphHarris 2 of 7
The architects used their infernal skills to lock the spirits and their souls into the labyrinth: that is strong magic. The reverends knew it and kept their distance. Of course, it affects everyone a little differently. Some people simply cannot take it. They come in for a minute, and they would run out of here ghostly white. Some people left because they thought the Devil was in here. However, most people felt their essence enhanced they came in here. They felt a little young, a little stronger, a little more beautiful. However, I thought it best not to receive guests because everyone paid a different price. Some people went insane because of what they saw in here. A few committed suicide. However, the vast majority of them went on living, feeling a little better about themselves. For a while, at least, and then it would wear off, and they would need to come back. They were completely enslaved, as if they were under a spell. It addicted the spirit by producing visions so vivid that they became more real than reality. There was a perpetual twilight in their eyes. They did not need to keep their sorrows to themselves any more, they could pour them right into Llanada Villa, which was wide open and ready; and they did; till it seemed to me it could not bear it anymore. Lord the misery of it. #RandolphHarris 3 of 7
At night, Llanada Villa began to groan, its walls started to cry. The Cherub in the walls would frown and weep. Although the sun would rise in the morning, it would be pitch dark inside. When we woke, we had to stop and think a minute before we came fully to ourselves and realized our situation, for we thought we had been dreaming. In fact, it was hard to get rid of the idea that it was all a dream. However, we had to get rid of it, and we did. Then a ghastly cold shock went through us. Along in the afternoon, we saw a soft blur of light a little way off, northeast in the mansion. However, by and by, Llanada Villa’s spirits sagged again. Then the cause came out. It was delicate and sensitive of knowledge, knowledge both of good and evil. Llanada Villa felt the wound. Sighing through all its works gave signs of woe, that all was lost. However fair to the eye, inviting to the taste, far from deceit or guile, this legion of souls yarned to be protected. There are very many people who, without the least danger of being accused of wit, do not believe in ghost, and yet are afraid; it is, in fact, the attitude of the World toward the supernatural. Yet, there are now many people whose hair has not been stirred and whose hearts have not beat an unusual tattoo at the sound of a something inexplicable in the watch of the night within these walls. #RandolphHarris 4 of 7
There is now a something that is unknown. Something not readily associated with things of the Earth. People declare there are no such things as spirits, and disbelievingly tremble at the very sight of my home. While the apparitions have not exactly been scientifically “placed” and accounted for, and while no alleged spirit has been made to stand trial and thoroughly explain itself, to the satisfaction of cold inquirers, few will have the hardihood to declare, in discussing the return of disembodies spirits and Llanada Villa, that there is “nothing in it.” Floor boards creak beneath their feet as they go from room to room. In one room a spider scuttled across the hand of one of the “skeptics” as he reached in and pushed the light switch. He flinched, his flesh crawling at the tickling sensation. He watched the spider disappeared into the back of his hand. He felt a cramping sensation and then his finger tips were bloody. The light was dim, as it was throughout Llanada Villa, and Mr. Hansen wondered why he had not come upon this particular room before. The furniture was covered in dust sheets and, above the mantel opposite was a portrait of my Father-in-Law and Mother-in-Law, both of them in formal evening dress. He had the eerie feeling of being under their inspection. #RandolphHarris 5 of 7
A belief in ghosts has always been as widely distributed among all the peoples of the Earth as the Religious Idea itself. Even in the remotest islands of distant seas, and among the most unlettered natives, religion has been ever found, and as invariably the belief in ghosts. One night, as I gazed from the windows, up at the curious weather vane that twirls upon the cupola of the quaint Observational Tower, I saw a ghostly face that peers back at me. Before I knew what I was doing, I found myself standing by the fireplace looking at the clock. Then I turned toward the door, resting my hands on the mantelpiece. At this moment I clearly heard steps. A door was opened and through it came a man. He was tall and wore a silk hat and a black cape. As he passed through me, I went into the adjoining room and saw a woman walking, she was wearing a white nightgown with full sleeves. Her bloody hands crossed on her breasts. I kept looking at her in shock before she faded away. The following day as my housemaid was up in the attic clearing some flooring, to her horror, she discovered tow human skeletons underneath. Hastily closing the door to the attic behind her, she took the two skeletons and quietly buried them. At the time she decided not to call my attention to it, as it might draw unfavourable publicity to herself and the house. #RandolphHarris 6 of 7
My garden has always been beautifully landscaped, but during the spring it became overgrown with precious flowers and the shrubbery grew whichever way it chose. The paths, which has been so carefully outlined, were hardly recognizable now. While I was carefully pruning the roses, I managed to bring a new life back to the beautiful garden. I had just straightened out one of the tea roses, when I looked up and realized that I had a visitor. There, on the path no more than three yards away stood a rather smallish lady. She was neatly dressed. She immediately apologized for the intrusion. “I didn’t mean to scare you,” she said. “You did not,” I assured her. The visitor then began to levitate like a bird and moved from flower to flower, inspecting here, caressing a plant there. My eyes were on the lady with interest. I noticed how ethereal she looked and how thin and tired she was. And yet, her eyes had an unusual, bright sparkle in them that belied her frail appearance. A vague, creeping terror engulfed me. I was, for a time, almost stunned. The woman then told me some half-forgotten tales of enormous underground hits of great stones under my home, where passaged led down and down, and where horrible things had happened. She claimed that once some warriors, fleeing in battle, went down into one and never came back, and that frightful winds began to blow from the place soon after they went down. She then sunk back into the Earth. Now I know that the ancient sense of human life beset on all sides by Heavenly watchers and diabolic enemies is not extinct. #RandolphHarris 7 of 7
Winchester Mystery House
Opening weekend at Unhinged: Hotel was a blast – will you be joining us this spooky season? There are only 16 nights left to experience all the scares, so get your tickets now before they are gone!
Please come and enjoy a delicious meal in Sarah’s Café, stroll along the paths of the beautiful Victorian gardens, and wonder through the miles of hallways in the World’s most mysterious mansion. For further information about tours, including group tours, weddings, school events, birthday party packages, facility rentals, and special events please visit the website: https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
Please visit the online giftshop, and purchase a gift for friends and relatives as well as a special memento of The Winchester Mystery House. A variety of souvenirs and gifts are available to purchase. https://shopwinchestermysteryhouse.com/
There is Too Much Love Without an Object
The venerable language of zodiac types is useful to start a dialogue about casting. The twelve signs of the Zodiac are useful labels for basic structural human castes. Philosophers—good ones—are human ethologists. For five thousand years, the shrewdest human ethologists have worked on this twelve-fold typecasting—based on extensive and empirical observation. If we ignore the “astro” part we are left with the “logic” of twelve survival tactics—Pisces, Aries, etcetera. In the future more sophisticated classifications of human types based on neurological differences will replace the crude zodiac classification. There will be some among you, those scientific and intellectual bent, who are offended by use of this “sloppy occult astrological superstitious” technology. Before you fuse out, reread the crude, generalized list of the twelve personality types. Admittedly, astrology is a primitive attempt at introducing the notion of temporal caste, seriality and developmental order. The survival characteristic assigned to each type describes an evolutionary technology and a developmental stage. Pisces is baby and amoeboid. Aquarius is the most elderly, orderly, mature. Sense how this list tries to recapitulate the evolution of the twelve basic neurotechnological functions—both in the species and individuals. When we can replace it by a better personality typology based on the sequential evolution of intelligence, in species and individuals, we can reject this list. For now, however, it is a useful system. #RandolphHarris 1 of 23
Intellectuals, scholars, academics, salaried scientists and all other categories of verbal bureaucrats unanimously denounce astrology. Such condemnation immediately alerts Evolutionary Agents that an important genetic nerve is being touched. These paper-pedants and their civil-service followers make such solemn, judicial pronouncements: “I do not believe in astrology.” This statement means: “I do not understand seasonal ethology and I automatically reject everything my brain is not wired to receive.” Look, therefore, for the valid reasons why hive philosophers fear astrology and you will find, hidden in the tangle of zodiac ravings, three important items of neurogenetic wisdom. Wisdom of the zodiac: Regular cycles influence neural development. Each of us is born a robot, templated and controlled by rhythms with which we can decipher and harmonize. Each of us is born into a caste, or into a complex of castes. Suspend belief and assume, for the moment, that Zodiac types define structural castes. Each of the twelve terrestrial intelligence-functions plays an important role in the human social molecule. No human gene pool can exist unless it has people and institutions playing out these twelve neurotechnological parts. Each of the twelve terrestrial intelligence-functions plays an important role in the human social molecule. #RandolphHarris 2 of 23
It would be possible for us to define the positive aspect of the values implicit in every act of rebellion by comparing them with a completely negative concept like that of resentment as defined by Scheler. Rebellion is, in fact, much more than pursuit of a claim, in the strongest sense of the word. Resentment is very well defined by Scheler as an autointoxication—the evil secretion, in a sealed vessel, of prolonged impotence. Rebellion, on the contrary, breaks the seal and allows the whole being to come into play. It liberates stagnant waters and turns them into a raging torrent. Scheler himself emphasizes the passive aspect of resentment and remarks on the prominent place it occupies in the psychology of women who are dedicated to desire and possession. The fountainhead of rebellion, on the contrary, is the principle of superabundant activity and energy. Scheler is also right in saying that resentment is always highly coloured by envy. However, one envies what one does not have, while the rebel’s aim is to defend what he is. He does not merely claim some good that he does not possess or of which he was deprived. His aim is to claim recognition for something which he has and which has already been recognized by him, in almost every case, as more important than anything of which he could be envious. Rebellion is not realistic. #RandolphHarris 3 of 23
According to Scheler, resentment always turns into either unscrupulous ambition or bitterness, depending on whether it is implanted in a strong person or a weak one. However, in both cases it is a question of wanting to be something other than what one is. Resentment is always resentment against oneself. The rebel, on the contrary, from his very first step, refuses to allow anyone to touch what he is. He is fighting for the integrity of one part of his being. He does not try, primarily, to conquer, but simply to impose. Finally, it would seem that resentment takes delight, in advance, in the pain that it would like the object of its envy to feel. Nietzsche and Scheler are right in seeing an excellent example of this in the passage where Tertullian informs his readers that one of the greatest sources of happiness among the blessed will be the spectacle of the Roman emperors consumed in the fires of hell. This kind of happiness is also experienced by the decent people who go to watch executions. The rebel, on the contrary, limits himself, as a matter of principle, to refusing to be humiliated without asking that others should be. He will even accept pain provided his integrity is respected. It is therefore hard to understand why Scheler completely identifies the spirit of rebellion with resentment. #RandolphHarris 4 of 23
His criticism of the resentment to be found in humanitarianism (which he treats as the non-Christian form of love for mankind) could perhaps be applied to certain indeterminate forms of humanitarian idealism, or to the techniques of terror. However, it rings false in relation to man’s rebellion against his condition—the movement that enlists the individual in the defense of a dignity common to all men. Scheler wants to demonstrate that humanitarian feelings are always accompanied by a hatred of the World. Humanity is loved in general in order to avoid having to love anybody in particular. This is correct, in some cases, and it is easier to understand Scheler when we realize that for him humanitarianism is represented by Bentham and Rousseau. However, man’s love for man can be born of other things than a mathematical calculation of the resultant rewards or a theoretical confidence in human nature. In face of the utilitarians, and of Emile’s preceptor, there is, for example, the kind of logic, embodies by Dostoievsky in Ivan Karamazov, which progresses from an act of rebellion to metaphysical insurrection. Scheler is aware of this and sums up the concept in the following manner: “There is not enough love in the World to squander it on anything but human beings.” Even if this proposition were true, the appalling despair that it implies would merit anything but contempt. #RandolphHarris 5 of 23
In fact, it misunderstands the tortured character of Karamazov’s rebellion. Ivan’s drama, on the contrary, arises from the fact that there is too much love without an object. This love finding no outlet and God being denied, it is then decided to lavish it on human beings as a generous act of complicity. Nevertheless, in the act of rebellion as we have envisaged it up to now, an abstract ideal is not chosen through lack of feeling and in pursuit of a sterile demand. We insist that the part of man which cannot be reduced to mere ideas should be taken into consideration—the passionate side of his nature that serves no other purpose than to be part of the act of living. Does this imply that no rebellion is motivated by resentment? No, and we know it only too well in this age of malice. However, we must consider the idea of rebellion in its widest sense on pain of betraying it; and in its widest sense rebellion goes far beyond resentment. When Heathcliff, in Wuthering Heights, says that he puts his love above God and would willingly go to hell in order to be reunited with the woman he loves, he is prompted not only by youth and humiliation but by the consuming experience of a whole lifetime. The same emotion causes Eckart, in a surprising fit of heresy, to say that he prefers hell with Jesus to Heave without Him. This is the very essence of love. Contrary to Scheler, it would therefore be impossible to overemphasize the passionate affirmation that underlies the act of rebellion and distinguishes it from resentment. #RandolphHarris 6 of 23
Rebellion, though apparently negative, since it creates nothing, is profoundly positive in that it reveals the part of man which must always be defended. People can go too far with rebellion, however, and end up in prison. Sometimes the prison dope supply becomes irregular and during periods of neurological famine, waves of nervousness overcome inmates. As they are waiting for the verdict of the California Supreme Court, waiting for the call to the sergeant’s office to receive the telegram. They wait for the Counselor’s interview and learn all about he or she as they can. Back in the day, “San Quentin Sally,” was famous for hard custody-oriented maximum-security recommendations. She was cynical and suspicious of being conned. She respected convicts who told the truth. However, the details of her domestic problems, her martial history, her previous employment, her emotional characteristics, and her neurotic symptomatology were no secret to some. Also, sometimes prison guards that are hard on prisoners have issues. You see, one prison guard in particular had a teenaged daughter. He knew she smoked pot and low-rides with a kid who dealt dope. In his mind, he could see the nipples of his daughter Hilary trembling under the hypnotic passes of dope pushers, her thin white legs contorted in yoga positions, offering her flower for the demon drug. His daughter Hilary, with fingers of limp hair bedraggled with cannabis smoke and the expression of total rapture on her innocent face. #RandolphHarris 7 of 23
Man, he could see her pusher in his mod suit with satin cuffs propped up among the pillows on a fur coated bed resting ermine boots on the antique coffee table, running the palm of his evil hands across the hard sharp nipples of Hilary’s breasts. He saw her kneeling unzipping his pants. And you wonder why he hates inmates? He is not the only one. They say inmates do not deserve equal treatment. Can you dig that? Equal treatment. After breakfast, a sturdy executive elite con named Conrad, the sergeant’s clerk, comes over to the inmate’s table. “Were you expecting some sort of Court action?” “Yes, it should be here today.” “Well, I just heard on the radio that they shot you down. The California Appeals Court denied your appeal, you and Scott Peterson. I’m sorry about it.” “It is up to Justice Walker now,” he said. The inmate spent the day inside of gloom. His legal life now depended upon Justin R. Walker, naturalist, rebel, friend of youth, solace of the persecuted, outspoken libertarian, hope of the friendless, the husband of a woman, father of a child, protector of wild flowers and clear streams. And he is young. It all depends on his wife. During the next few days, the inmate reclined in the monastic peace of single cell reading newspaper stories about pending impeachment of President Biden and assassination attempts against former president Trump. His case was to come before Walker at a crucial time in his life. Freeing the inmate on bail would bring down on his head more angry outcries. It is a soap opera. #RandolphHarris 8 of 23
The lawyers assured the inmate that he would be freed by Justice Walker in 5 days. However, he was still working on the escape plan while the trustees gathered around to share the fruits of prison grapevine. The administration is meeting this week to decide where he is going to be transferred. He thinks that he will be out on bail soon so it does not matter really, but was curious about the possibilities? The espionage system reported that Custody was easier on him then Treatment. The psychologist wanted to send him to Quentin to make an example of him. As of Monday morning, he had been in prison for nine weeks. Friday night was the worst time. He visited the next-door neighbour to hit his coffeepot. He tore off three numbers—Saturday, Sunday, Monday. During the morning, they make arrangements for writing each other when he leaves. Late in the afternoon a clerk leaned in the door. “Well, you are going.” He was waving a mimeographed sheet. “Shipping out to CMC West.” The trustees came crowding round. “CMC West is a country club, man, the best prison in the World. They have a golf course. No lockup. It’s three bunk counts a day. There’s a bowling alley. They are all long-term cons just living quietly. There are no young cons there burning sheets. Picnic visits on the yard. Visitors can buy lunch at the visiting room. Fried chicken. You eat like a kind. #RandolphHarris 9 of 23
“Some cons love it there so much they hate to leave. When they get paroled, they violate so they can get sent back. You have private radios there. No smog. Near the ocean. You can plant your own garden. Contact visits! Conspiracy of breath. Touch. Change. New scene. I’m thinking about that fence near Highway 1.” The inmate spent the rest of the day collecting his personal gear to ship out. Two ball-point pens, some rubber shower shoes given to him by an old murderer, two packages of rolling tobacco. They travel light. “No gun towers or walls there?” “Just low fence. Minimum security.” Perhaps subverbal interaction is so important with schizophrenics because so much of their experience seems incommunicable to them, seems cut off from other people in its very nature. Often, the content—that what is said—is only a small bit of verbal content, but to the experiencing. In this way one attempts to restore the connection, the interpersonal interaction process within which the normally functioning individual lives and feels. This is not to say that one mysteriously responds to experience without having some verbalization to go on. Rather, one views verbalization differently. Instead of concerning oneself with its content one asks: What larger inward process is this bit of verbalization coming from? One’s answer to this question will be something felt, a conceptually vague but concrete felt meaning which the client feels and thinks, and which the therapist can only imagine. However, the therapist need not know it, guess it, or correctly imagine it. He can point his response at it, no matter how unknow it is to him. #RandolphHarris 10 of 23
For example, my client says that he wants to know where, in the hospital, they keep that electronic machine which compels people to return to the hospital. He can prove there is such a machine, he says, because how else can you explain the fact that patients with ground privileges return to the hospital of their own accord? Now, I could, of course, argue with him that no such machine exists, that I would know if it did, that he does not trust me to tell him the truth on that subject, that he is having an unrealistic hallucination, or, closer to his feelings, that he does not like the hospital and cannot understand anyone’s coming to it voluntarily. However, what is his experiencing as he talks of this machine? What is the “pre-conceptual” or “felt” meaning from which this bit of bizarre verbalization comes? I do not know, of course. However, I want to respond to it somehow. So, I say back to him: “You have felt in yourself the effects of this machine you are talking about?” “Of course, I sure have,” he says and goes on to say that the machine makes him feel “not himself.” This phrase I recognize as somehow communicating to me something of the inward experiencing at which I pointed my words. I am using this example to illustrate what I mean by pointing one’s words at the experiencing, the wider inward process about which one does not know very much—except that it is there—and that verbalization arise from it (or in regard to it). #RandolphHarris 11 of 23
Actually, I had not quite correctly imagined what he experienced. For my part, I thought he felt compelled inwardly but his next words expressed a slightly unexpected but still understandable aspect of his experiencing. And this is what usually happens. Usually, when one points one’s words at the experiencing rather than the verbal content, one finds that one’s imagination was not accurate, but the very fact of responding to this ever-present experiencing establishes the possibility of communicating concerning the deeper meanings from which the verbalizations arise. This man went on to tell me that his “not feeling like himself” was the result of the fact that his parents moved into the country when he was a schoolboy, and that therefore he had to ride a bus to school through the snow many miles. Again, one might have argued that this alone could not have caused him to feel “not himself.” However, one senses that this bit of memory comes form a whole pageant of memories, and, since it involved “not being himself,” I imagine endless weird, snowy bus rides I sense his feeling cut off from everyone he knew, way out there, snowbound, in the country, those many years all of which he now feels, I suppose. I say something about these bus rides and feeling cut off and we establish a new vehicle of communication. He too now uses the phrase “feeling cut off.” #RandolphHarris 12 of 23
Perhaps I was right—but more importantly, I spoke to that mass of felt meanings and thoughts, that feeling process, which was just then occurring in him as he spoke, not to what he spoke as a bit of verbal communication. And, in this way, although often very stumblingly, one can gradually communicate more meaningfully, despite bizarre or externalized and trivial verbalization. Before this man told me about the electronic compelling machine, we spent six hours together with only trivia and silences. It was necessary for me to respond to him when, as yet, he would share nearly nothing with me. What I was trying to do with him, he wanted to know, and when would I be through? When would he not have to come any more? When could he go home? He had nothing to say. Silence, more silence. Once I interrupted one of these silences in which he had been sitting very quietly, apparently thinking, and said very gently: “You seem to be thinking some important thoughts or feelings. I do not know, of course, but that is what I imagine. I do not want to interrupt but I sure would like it if you felt like sharing those thoughts with me.” He said, very loudly: “What? Who, me? What, thinking what?” It was quite clear that he was startled. Also, he seemed to consider my statement inappropriate, false, and stupid. Yet, if one of us does not make it so, it is necessary to bear such moments, for how else can our interaction come to be warm and close and personal? #RandolphHarris 13 of 23
After a while such expressions of mine, such imaginings, or implications that we both experience important feelings, are no longer met by surprised rejection but often by a silence that is close to assent; and then, later, by an explicit sense on the part of the client that our silent times are subverbally important, deep, and eventful. One client named it when she said: “I’m having quiet therapy for a while.” If we perceive the World accurately and from valid beliefs about it, our changes of behaving effectively are increased. However, we know that unfulfilled needs and strong emotions can so shape our experience that we misinterpret facts, arrive at erroneous conclusions, and, indeed, frequently fail to see and hear what is there. How does a person go about increasing the efficiency of perception and thinking? How does a person carry out reality testing? Indeed, when unreality is often more pleasant in the short run, why would a person seek the truth? Reality testing means applying the rules of logic and scientific inquiry to everyday life. When we engage in reality testing, we are systematically doubting our own initial perceptions and beliefs until we have scrutinized them more carefully and checked them against further evidence. We do this when we have learned that truth, ultimately, is the best servant of our needs and is value in itself. #RandolphHarris 14 of 23
Some have to learn that rashness is not courage, and only the painful results of their actions may succeed in teaching them this lesson. The personal emotions entangle us in the events of life, whereas the impersonal intuitions enable us to see them from above. Even if the intuitive leading or reasoned reflection opposes his wishes, the imperativeness of following truth and preserving integrity will force him to desert his wishes. Emotion is valuable as a driving power, but doubtful as a means for discovering truth. If unbridled by reason and ungoverned by will, it may even drive a man to foolishness and disaster. The neurotic introduces emotional factors into purely business matter, creates hysterical scenes, and cannot take a single word of constructive criticism or admonitory counsel. Look through the miserable emotions of the ego and go beyond them to the smiling serenity of the Overself. It is not the emotions which are to be kept out but the disturbances which they may give rise. Do not respond to negative or base emotion with the like. The greater the animosity shown you, for instance, the greater is the inward calm with which it should be met. There is vital difference between being merely callous in the presence of other people’s suffering and being philosophically calm. A settled composed disposition will be one of the fruits perseverance in rejecting negative moods and undesirable thoughts as soon as they arise. Self-control is your greatest friend through all the incidents and accidents of life. #RandolphHarris 15 of 23
Former President Trump’s policies not only interrupted or even started to end the process of making the American economy and workers dependent on other nations. America was once again forming alliances and establishing herself as a sovereign nation, and American was less dependent on other nations economically. It was becoming a stronger country and democratic leaders were facing problems of maintaining their positions in the government. What the democrats feared most was any effort that would make American independent of foreign countries. Such an effort could eventually be disastrous to those in power who want to make the country dependent on international elements. National sentiment was building and the people’s patriotic spirit was nationalized to a fevered pitch, as American was being put first. Man is the product of natural evolution; he is part of nature and yet transcends it, being endowed with reason and self-awareness. Man’s essence is ascertainable. However, this essence is not a substance which characterizes man at all times throughout history. The essence of man consists in the above-mentioned contradiction inherent in his existence, and this contradiction forces him to react in order to find a solution. Man cannot remain neutral and passive toward this existential dichotomy. By the very fact of his being human, he is asked a question by life: how to overcome the split between himself and the World outside of him in order to arrive at the experience of unity and oneness with his fellow man and with nature. Man has to answer this question every moment of his life. Not only—or even primarily—with thoughts and words, but by his mode of being and acting. #RandolphHarris 16 of 23
There are a number of limited and ascertainable answers to this question of existence (the history of religion and philosophy is a catalogue of these answers); yet there are basically only two categories of answers. In one, man attempts to find again harmony with nature by repression to a prehuman form of existence, eliminating his specifically human qualities of reason and love. In other, his goal is the full development of his human powers until he reaches a new harmony with his fellow man and with nature. The first answer is bound with failure. It leads to death, destruction, suffering, and never to the full growth of man, never to harmony and strength. The second answer requires the elimination of green and ego-centricity, it demands discipline, will, and respect for those who can show the way. Yet, although this answer which is the more difficult one, it is the only answer which is not doomed to failure. In fact, even before the final goal is reached, the activity and effort expended in approaching it has a unifying and integrating effect which intensifies man’s vital energies. Man’s basic alternative is the choice between life and death. Every act implies this choice. Man is free to make it, but this freedom is a limited one. There are many favourable and unfavourable conditions which incline him—his psychological constitution, the condition of the specific society into which he was born, his family, teachers, and the friends he meets and chooses. #RandolphHarris 17 of 23
It is man’s task to enlarge the margin of freedom to strengthen the conditions which are conducive to life as against those which are conducive to death. Life and death, as spoken of here, are not the biological states, but states of being, of relating to the World. Life means constant change, constant birth. Death means cessation of growth, ossification, repetition. The unhappy fate of may is that they do not make the choices. They are neither alive nor dead. Life becomes a burden, an aimless enterprise, and busyness is the means to protect one from the torture of being in the land of shadows. Neither life nor history has an ultimate meaning which in turn imparts meaning to the life of the individual or justifies his suffering. Considering the contradictions and weaknesses which beset man’s existence it is only too natural that he seeks for an “absolute” which gives him the illusion of certainty and relieves him from conflict, doubt and responsibility. Yet, no god, neither in theological, philosophical or historical garments saves, or condemns man. Only man can find a goal for life and the means for the realization of this goal. He cannot find saving ultimate or absolute answer but he can strive for a degree of intensity, depth and clarity of experience which gives him the strength to live without illusions, and to be free. #RandolphHarris 18 of 23
The mission of the Sacramento Fire Department is to improve the lives of the people they serve every day. The Sacramento Fire Department is committed to protecting the lives and property of those who live in, work in, and visit Sacramento. Their department operates on a 24/7 basis, so you can rest assured that they are always ready to respond in case of an emergency. “I had been at the hardware store with my wife and daughter, and we were going home, driving through a residential neighborhood. The first thing I noticed was the smell of the smoke. Black smoke was hanging over the street. I saw this lady in the front yard of a one-story frame house, screaming. As I pulled up, I could see the fire pushing out of one window at the front of the house and smoke seeping out of the two side windows. I got out of my car and ran over to the lady. My wife and daughter followed me but didn’t say anything. The lady said her husband was in the house and his name was Jim. I could hear the flames cracking. It was a pretty good fire in the living room and through the window next to the door, not pushing yet. Just bending, like the flames were swaying. I never stopped. I went to the front door, and when I opened it, I immediately had to go on my stomach because of the smoke, I was wearing just Levi pants and a flannel shirt, because it was January. As I crawled through the front door, the heat was not too bad, but I could see the red glow to my right and up over my head. As I went forward through the room, there was some kind of electrical short or something, and the electric wires behind me started jumping and popping. That kind of concerned me. #RandolphHarris 19 of 23
“I had my mouth right down on the floor, and it was beginning to be hard to breathe. I started coughing. I was getting in deeper and deeper, and there was a faint light to the left of me, and I took that as a way out. I found out later that it was a room and the light was coming in that way. So I was pushing in, and I was right at the point—this is something that has stayed in the back of my mind—I was right at the point where I had to make a decision: ‘Do I go deeper to the right and see if I can find this man, or do I go to the left and bail out?’ I was coughing, and it was really bad, but I went right anyway. Then I heard the man moan and say, ‘Help me.’ I don’t really know what I was doing, it was like being desperate, but I started crawling toward him, and I kept crawling, and I heard him continue moaning. If I hadn’t heard him calling and moaning, I probably wouldn’t have found him, the smoke was too dense. Nothing was visible. I’d get to a chair and tell it was a chair only by feel, that type of thing. When I go to him, he was lying on the floor. If he had been in a bed or something higher, he might have been dead, I don’t know. He had a little bit of air to breathe down there. He said he couldn’t walk, he couldn’t get up. He was coughing. I knew I couldn’t drag him back the way I came, because of the electrical short and the wires popping. You could still hear them popping. The glow was still over my head, and to the right of me the fire was up the wall and working its way across the ceiling. So I started dragging him straight to the eft to get him away from that glow. #RandolphHarris 20 of 23
“One thing I did have, I had a vent. The fire had blown out the front window, and it was venting naturally. That helped me. If I hadn’t had the vent, things probably would have been different. The fire was bending out that window by the front door and was keeping it kind of confined. It was rolling, though. All the other windows were closed, it being wintertime. There was no smoke venting out, but at least the fire was bending towards that open window. So I kept dragging him as far away from the fire as I could, because the smoke was really getting to me. Luckily, then I came across a wall, and then I felt a window. I couldn’t see, but I could feel the outline of the window, and a little bit of light was coming through. I got hold of a stand or a little table. I took a pretty good breath down on the floor and raised up to knock the window out. I threw the thing at the window, but it was light and I didn’t have much force behind it, because all I could think about was getting back down on the floor to get some air. The window didn’t break, the thing just kind of bounced off. God, that was a disappointment. I was choking and things were bad, but I remembered there was a telephone on that stand. So I grabbed the phone and the receiver, all in one hand, and broke the window that way. By then, I could hear the fire engine coming down the street, and I could hear people. I guess the people heard the breaking glass, and they started coming around to where I was at a side window. They started taking out some of the glass which added oxygen. #RandolphHarris 21 of 23
“The fire began to break out again, now towards me. I knew I had to get my head outside that window. I got down then, got a couple of good breaths, pulled on this guy with whatever energy the smoke didn’t take from me, and laid him across the window. He was tall but not really heavy, about a hundred sixty pounds, in his mid-fifties. By then, one of the firemen was there, and was I glad to see him. We handed him to a fire fighter outside the window. Then I tumbled myself out. When I came across the window, the glass went through my shoes and into my feet. Both arms were cut and blessing. Except for the smoke inhalation, that was it. My wife said she was very concerned for me, that it seemed like I was in there forever. I don’t know exactly how long I was in there, but I don’t think it was very long. They say it only takes a few minutes to kill you. My daughter was too young to be worried, but my son was very disappointed that he wasn’t there to see it. He had decided to stay home and do his homework. The newspapers played it up pretty big. I ended up with seven awards, I went to a lot of banquets. The public thinks a lot of firemen, they really do. I got more recognition from the public than I did from my own fire department. Sure, I got a pat on the back from the guys I work with, but one of the upper-echelon people just said, ‘Well, what’s the big deal?’ I didn’t say anything, but I guess the only thing that matters is that I know it was a little bit hairy. Not too long after that we went to a fire on Christmas night to a little house over where the middle-class people live. We got there and it was a fire in the bedroom. Christmas night, nobody home. The people had gone visiting, just in the neighborhood, and had left on an electric blanket. It has ignited the room. #RandolphHarris 22 of 23
“So, we do our normal procedures. I’m in there searching again, and I find this little dog underneath the bed in one bedroom. The dog had been overcome by smoke. I grabbed the dog and took him out under my arm, put the resuscitator on him and got him breathing. In the meantime the people returned. The dog belonged to a little boy who had gotten him earlier that morning for Christmas. I gave the dog to him, and he was just thrilled. His face just lit up, he was so excited about getting his dog back. I turned around then and walked off. There was never anything said. That was pretty moving to me, just to save that little dog. It really had to do with the dog’s relationship to the little boy and with Christmas.” You people, it is said that we take animal rights so seriously because they cannot call out for help. The Sacramento Fire Department also prioritizes community outreach and education. They offer several programs and opportunities; you can find out more on their website. You can help save lives by donating to the Sacramento Fire Department. “Chairty suffereth long, and is kind, and envieth not, and is not puffed up, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil, and rejoiceth not in iniquity but rejoiceth in the truth, beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things,” reports Moroni 7.45. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which in stand, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. We do declare it our purpose to keep intact the original name and initial spirit and purpose of this great country. #RandolphHarris 23 of 23
Experience Over Everything
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The Alchemical Magic Spread Swiftly
Our knowledge of human neurogenetics is so primitive that we have only recently realized that structural and temporal castes exist. Sociobiologist and ethologists define their professions as the study of behavioural genetics. However, neurogenetics is a more accurate description because what is inherited is not behaviour but neural templates that determine use of the anatomical-technology. Local hive behaviour cues—languages, customs, artifacts, and the like are not genetically inherited—they are cultural imprints. Only the caste-circuits are inherited not the behaviours, which are acquired in a cultural context. Until ethologists understand the difference between neurogenetic castes and local-social-imprints, their brilliant observations cannot be mapped. This insight is changing our conceptions of human nature and society. It is probable that we are neurologically programmed so that understanding of castes becomes part of species contelligence—consciousness + intelligence—only at the time that space migration occurs. Plan-It Colonies in High Orbit provide the new ecological vacuum in which human castes differences can blossom without the friction and crowded competition that has coloured Earthly racial-class-sexual-caste differences. #RandolphHarris 1 of 25
You must realize that we are a genetic-caste-robot to understand your own personal development. John Lilly articulates this beautifully in Programming the Human BioComputer. We are templated by DNA to play a certain role. We are outfitted with a 24-gear brain that is very different from 92 percent of other human brains. Values, according to good authorities, “most often represent a transition from facts to rights, from what is desired to what is desirable (usually through the intermediary of what is generally considered desirable).” The transition from facts to rights is manifest, as we have seen, in rebellion. So is the transition from “this must be” to “this is how I should like things to be,” and even more so, perhaps, the idea of the sublimation of the individual in a henceforth universal good. The sudden appearance of the concept of “All or Nothing” demonstrates that rebellion, contrary to current opinion, and though it springs from everything that is most strictly individualistic in man, questions the very idea of the individual. If the individual, in fact, accepts death and happens to die as a consequence of his act of rebellion, he demonstrates by doing so that he is willing to sacrifice himself for the sake of a common good which he considers more important than his own destiny. If he prefers the risk of death to the negation of the rights that he defends, it is because he considers these rights more important than himself. #RandolphHarris 2 of 25
Therefore, he is acting in the name of certain values which are still indeterminate but which he feels are common to himself and to all men. We see that the affirmation implicit in every act of rebellion is extended to something that transcends the individual in so far as it withdraws him from his supposed solitude and provides him with a reason to act. However, it is already worth noting that this concept of values as pre-existent to any kind of action contradicts the purely historical philosophies, in which values are acquired (if they are ever acquired) after the action has been completed. Analysis of rebellion leads at least to the suspicion that, contrary to the postulates of contemporary thought, a human nature does exist, as the Greeks believed. If there is nothing permanent in oneself worth preserving, why rebel? It is for the sake of everyone in the World that the slave asserts himself when he comes to the conclusion that a command has infringed on something in him which does not belong to him alone, but which is common ground where all men—even the man who insults and oppresses him—have a natural community. (The community of victims is the same as that which units victim and executioner. However, the executioner does not know this.) Two observations will support this argument. First, we can see that an act of rebellion is not, essentially, an egoistic act. Of course, it can have egoistic motived. #RandolphHarris 3 of 25
However, one can rebel equally well against lies as against oppression. Moreover, the rebel—once he has accepted the motives and at the moment of his greatest impetus—preserves nothing in that he risks everything. He demands respect for himself, of course, but only in so far as he identifies himself with a natural community. Then we note that rebellion does not arise only, and necessarily, among the oppressed, but that it can also be caused by the mere spectacle of oppression of which someone else is the victim. In such cases there is a feeling of identification with another individual. And it must be pointed out that this is not a question of psychological identification—a mere subterfuge by which the individual imagines that it is he himself who has been offended. On the contrary, it can often happen that we cannot bear to see offenses done to others which we ourselves have accepted without rebelling. The suicides of the Russian terrorists in Siberia as a protest against their comrades’ being whipped is a case in point. Nor is it a question of a feeling of community of interests. Injustices done to men who we consider enemies can, actually, be profoundly repugnant to us. There is only identification of one’s destiny with that of others and a choice of sides. Therefore the individual is not, in himself alone, the embodiment of the values he wishes to defend. It needs all humanity, at least, to comprise them. #RandolphHarris 4 of 25
When he rebels, a man identifies himself with other men and so surpasses himself, and from this point of view of human solidarity is metaphysical. However, for the moment we are only talking of the kind of solidarity that is born in chains. Many rebels do end up in chains. At the Friday night movie in prison, some sit suicidally depressed in the front row eating trustee popcorn. And there is dope. The lunch pail express, sideline of bribed guards who keep the flow of illegal contraband moving in and out. Prisons are a quest for the serpent who swallows his own tail. It is just a matter of connecting neural wires. Many people spend every free moment on the prison yard either at handball, yoga, or lifting metal weights to the point of pain-strain. Prisoners often talk about their case, their arrest, their trial, and the next destination. Everyone has a hope habit of one kind or another. You can even get to know the permanent work crew trustees. For the most part, they are older white-collar criminals with potbellies. Some trustees have big red calendars on the wall. Each day a number is removed. The big red arrow always points to tomorrow. However, there is no number for the current day. In confidence men’s terminology, when you wake up in the morning, that day is as good as over. Half of the prisoners, the young half, are dopers, guiltless spirits, Black and White, totally detached from the system, certain of their alchemical beliefs. #RandolphHarris 5 of 25
The alchemical magic spreads swiftly. After ten years, there are millions who choose the superstitious perspective, seeking to stay high. The prison guards are retired enlisted men. They act like motel clerks opening the dining room, locking and unlocking doors for the prisoners. They walk the tiers at night while inmates’ sleep; fatigued men with flashlights slipping mail under their cell doors. Their work centers around keys. The lawyers say that any day the California Supreme Court will grant some of these men bail. However, advisers often shrug skeptically. Often, guards get down on these men. They order them to the barbershop, search their cells, find dust, then orders them back to the barbershop for a closer trim, writes them up for petty misdemeanors. As prisoners swing high and happy down the cavernous hall of the main line, guards will often make them remove personal effects. Some of these men get an attitude and stand in the prison corridor looking at the guard, as the guard looks back at them dull with tired hatred before muttering, “Watch yourself.” Well, that is the basic confrontation of politics. The guard and the prisoner. Two men looking into each other’s eyes defiantly across the abyss of slavery. Everyone in the World is on the side of the guard or on the side of the prisoner. Police, lawyers, judges, prison guards. #RandolphHarris 6 of 25
Criminals are the opposing militia. The forces are exactly even. Law-and-order people control the press and the media of communication and education but they fool no one. At any moment, at least half of the World population is in open conscious opposition to the government. Most police accept that it is a war on crime. So do most prisoners. It is obvious, that in most cases, rebellion pays bad dividends. It can inevitably result in a sense of emptiness that often leads to alcoholism, drug addiction, bizarre religious practices, flagrant immortality, broken homes, incurable diseases, and despair. Sadly, many experience the high cost of putting what they call “my way” above “God’s way.” To live as if there is no God is foolish, for it leads to pain, despair, and eternal death. However, to live in the “fear of God” is wise, for it leads to satisfaction, rejoicing, and everlasting life. You must decide, so choose wisely! “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction,” reports Proverbs 1.7. When the client gives me nothing intimate, or self-expressive—it is then that I must draw on my own momentary reservoir to find within me my response to him—a clear, intimate expression of me in this moment with him. However, when the client is in the process of expressing himself to me, then I find within me chiefly my sense of his expression and I try to tell him with unmuddied simplicity what I understand him to feel and think. #RandolphHarris 7 of 25
It is just as important that I sense and state his experience as his (as purely as possible from his own frame of reference), as it is to make clear that my experiential self-expression are mine, when that is the case. Very often, when the client is in the course of expressing himself, a response that simply states what the therapist understands the client to think or feel is a powerfully effective response. Often it is the only possible helpful response. If anyone does–with schizophrenics and with many others, it is the therapist who will initiate the relationship, will begin open and expressive interaction, and will first express warmth, care, interest, and a person-to-person quality. If the therapist must sit passively, or argue intrusively, I do not think he is likely to form a relationship with an individual who does not already wish for therapy or for a relationship. The therapist’s moment-to-moment expressiveness largely determines the quality of the interaction, at least at first, and especially with unmotivated individuals. Even if the client is consistently silent or expresses only trivia, the therapist’s self-expression can make the interaction eventful, personal, and even expressive. The therapist’s expressions—the events occurring in himself—will concern the interaction and will deepen it, when they are spoken. Both persons tend to experience an eventful, open and personal interaction even while only one of them is verbalizing his felt side of the interaction. #RandolphHarris 8 of 25
In order to verify predictions, it is necessary to define success, that is, winners and losers. A winner is someone who succeeds in what he says he is going to do. A loser is someone who fails to accomplish what he sets out to do. A man who says: “I am going to Reno and gamble,” is only committed to getting there and betting, regardless of whether he wins or loses. If he says: “I am going to Reno and this time I am going to win,” then he comes out a winner is he wins and a loser if he does not, depending upon how much money he has in his pockets when he gets back on the pavement. A woman who gets a divorce is not a loser unless she has said “I will never get a divorce.” If she has declared: “Some day I am going to quit my job and I will never work again,” then her alimony will signify that she is a winner, because she has accomplished what she set out to do. Since she had made no statement as to how she would do it, no one can fault her with being a loser. Each language provides words that sensitize a person to those aspects of the World that are most important for survival in that place. Thus, we have only one word for snow, whereas Inuit people have many, corresponding with different qualities of snow, which indicate whether hunting or igloo building is possible. We do not see the World; rather, we “read” the meanings of what we see, just as we read the words in a book. These meanings are provided for us as we grow up by the person who teaches us to speak our “mother tongue.” #RandolphHarris 9 of 25
It is our mothers who give the first meanings to our World, who gives the World the “voices” with which it tells us of dangers and gratifications. In developing countries like Indonesia or India, each child learns three languages, each of which highlights some aspects of the World more than others, and which gives different meanings and emotional qualities to the perceived World. Thus, a child will learn the language of the village from his or her mother; in India or Indonesia, it will be one of the several hundred local languages, which differ so much that people fifty miles apart cannot understand one another’s mother tongues. At school an Indonesian child will learn Malay, and an Indian child will learn Hindi—both languages are the national tongue, which facilitates communication throughout the country. Finally, both Indonesian and Indians may learn English, which makes communication beyond national boundaries possible. In each case, the language that is spoken affects perception. In order really to perceive what is there in the World, a person will have to suspend language and really look and listen, to discern the reality beyond language. For many, to sustain an inner calm is not easy. Many a time, in test situations, he will fail. However, even when the negative, explosive, or depressive emotion asserts itself strongly, he is not to show it in behaviour no express it in speech. For this is a step toward that control of self, that impersonality, which is what the quest means. If mind influences body, body also influences mind. From the physical control he may proceed to the mental. #RandolphHarris 10 of 25
When calmness has been well practiced for a sufficient period, it will occasionally of itself lead the practiser into sudden brief and ecstatic experiences of a mystical character. He should calmly recognize that suffering has its allotted function to perform in the divine plan, that other people have their lessons to learn through it when they will learn in no other way, and that the spectacle of its operation should, in such cases, be met with intelligent understanding rather than with neurotic sentimentality. He should face the fact that many people will not learn from reason, intuition, or teaching and that no one can really liberate them from their sufferings except themselves. Every other kind of liberation is a false one. Others may effect it today only to see the same condition return tomorrow. He should not, in certain situations calling for hard decision, for instance, show unjustifiable weakness under the belief that he is showing forbearance, nor submit to antisocial egotism under the thought that he is practising love, nor abandon his highest duties for the sake of making a false and superficial peace with interfering ignorance, nor passively accept a flagrant wrong because God’s will must always be borne. The lower emotions and the moods they produce are his first enemies. Every antagonism and envy, every wrathful temper and animal lust, every self-injuring desire and socially harmful greed bars his way. And it will not move out of the way without a long fight. #RandolphHarris 11 of 25
This spiritual quest takes the aspirant through many moods. He will alternate at times between blank despair and exalted joy. Though naturally affected by these moods, he ought nevertheless to try to keep a certain balance even in their very midst, to cultivate a kind of higher indifference towards them, and patience towards their results. This can be achieved more easily by obtaining a firm conviction of the transient character of such moods. Both emotion and reason have their proper place in practical life, but in the philosophic life where the Quest is for truth alone and not for satisfaction, there is no place for emotion other than a secondary one. Its power over man is so great however that it will continually come into conflict with this ruling, it will struggle desperately to resist reason and to silence its voice, it will contradict the dictate of calm considered judgment and seek by sheer force to dominate the mind. Again and again the uprush of emotion will disturb the would-be philosopher and destroy his equanimity, thus rendering impossible a correct appreciation of the truth he seeks. The melancholy feeling that he is missing something joyous in life, that a happiness which so many others have captured is running away from him with the years, so one of the emotional snares likely to beset the aspirant’s path. #RandolphHarris 12 of 25
If he yields to its self-pitying suggestiveness, it will weaken his resolve and disturb his peace. From that it is only a step or two to descend into a painted and delusive animality. Those who waste themselves in emotional excesses weaken themselves spiritually, for the power of feeling is an essential part of the higher nature. With the pressures brought down upon them by his total philosophic effort, the grosser desires will gradually be flattened out anyway. If he deliberately and directly assists them to enter that condition, it will not be to his detriment. If we are to command our deeds, we must command our thoughts, but much more, we must command the emotional impulses behind those thoughts and those deeds. When he is tempted to be angry with some irritating person, he is faced with two choices: either to identify himself with this lower emotion or with his higher aspirations. If, following bad habit, he succumbs to the first, he weakens himself still further. If, following good resolve, he overcomes the temptation, he strengthens himself for the future. Strong emotional attachment to another person may only tighten the ego’s hold, may narrow, limit, warp, or prevent the seeing of the truth. This happens all-too-often in family relationships and in the affections of the young. It can even happen in guru-disciple relationships. #RandolphHarris 13 of 25
When it comes to relationships, it is the responsibility of the national leaders to forge that sword through their foreign policy. The purpose of this foreign policy must be the securing of weapons and finding allies. The state is only a result of human forces, only a work of our thoughts, but man is the force of the source itself and the creator of the thought. As the deputy of all humanity whose heart beats, for all mankind, our passion must be the World and future generations. At a time when everybody is bust erecting new Fatherlands, the Fatherland of the man who thinks without prejudice and can rise above his time is nowhere and everywhere. However, nationalism killed humanism. The nation and its sovereignty have become the new idols to which the individual has succumbed. With all the new technology, the revolution of the colonial peoples, communication by air, the radio, etcetera, have shrunk the globe to the proportions of one continent or, rather, one state as they existed one hundred- and seventy-years ago. The One World which is in the process of being born is, however, not one World because of the friendly and brotherly relations that exist among its various parts, but rather because of the fact that missiles can carry death and destruction to almost any part of the World in a matter of hours. The one World is one, so far, inasmuch as it is one potential battlefield, rather than a new system of World citizenship. #RandolphHarris 14 of 25
We live in one World, yet in his feelings and thoughts contemporary man still lives in the nation state. His loyalties are still primarily to sovereign states and not to the human race. This anachronism can only lead to disaster. It is a situation similar to that of the religious wars before religious tolerance and coexistence became an accepted principle of European life. If the One World is not to destroy itself, it needs a new kind of man—a man who transcends the narrow limits of his nation and who experiences every human being as a neighbour, rather than as a barbarian; a man who feels at home in the World. Why is this step so difficult? Man’s life begins in the womb. Even after birth he is still part of mother, just as primitive man was part of nature. He becomes increasingly aware of himself as separate from others, yet he is deeply drawn to the security and safety of his past. He is afraid of emerging fully as an individual. Mother, the tribe, the family—they all are “familiar.” The stranger, the one who is not familiar through the bonds of blood, customs, food, language, is suspected of being dangerous. This attitude toward the “stranger” is inseparable from the attitude toward oneself. As long as any fellow being is experienced as fundamentally different from myself, as long as he remains a stranger, I remain a stranger to myself, too. When I experience myself fully, then I recognize that I am the same as any other human being, that I am the child, the sinner, the saint, the one who hopes and the one who despairs, the one who can feel joy and the one who can feel sadness. #RandolphHarris 15 of 25
I discover that only the thought concepts, the customs, the surface are different, and that the human substance is the same. I discover that I am everybody, and that I discover myself discovering my fellow man, and vice versa. In this experience, I discover what humanity is, I discover the One Man. Until now the One Man may have been a luxury, since the One World had not yet emerged. If the One World is to live, now the One Man must emerge. Historically speaking, this may be a step comparable with the great revolution which was constituted by the step from the worship of many gods to the One God—or the One No-God. This step was characterized by the idea that man must cease to serve idols, be they nature of the work of his own hands. Man has never yet achieved this aim. He changed the name of his idols and continued serving them. Yet he changed. He made some progress in understanding himself, and tremendous progress in understanding nature. He developed his reason and approached the frontiers of becoming fully human. Yet in this process he developed such destructive powers, that he may destroy civilization before the last step is taken toward constructing a new humanity. #RandolphHarris 16 of 25
Indeed, we have a rich heritage which waits for its realization. However, in contrast to the men of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries who had an unfailing belief in the continuity of progress, we visualize the possibility that, instead of progress, we may create barbarism or our total destruction. The alternative of socialism or barbarism has become frighteningly real today, when the forces working toward barbarism seem to be stronger than those working against it. However, it is not the “socialism” or managerial totalitarianism which will save the World from barbarism. It is the renaissance of humanism, the emergence of the new West which employs its new technical powers for the sake of man, rather than using man for the sake of things; it is a new society in which the norms for man’s unfolding govern the economy, rather than the social and political process being governed by blind and anarchic economic interests. Until the joyful time comes when negative moods or thoughts have ceased to cross the threshold of his consciousness, man must struggle with them by a combination of different methods. First, his will must follow them at once after their entry and remove them forcibly. Second, his imagination and reason must attack them in the prayer period set aside each day for that purpose. Whether or not it is possible to attain a perfection of calmness that is secure against all assaults, it is surely possible to attain sufficient calmness to keep off many or most of the emotional disturbances and mental turmoil which derive from the petty incidents of everyday life. #RandolphHarris 17 of 25
The Sacramento Fire Department protects the lives and property of Sacramento residents and visitors by serving as fires responders to fire, public safety, medical emergencies, and other emergency related situations. “It was a five-alarm fire, a four-story building that had at one time been a manufacturing plant but now had a bar and a restaurant on the first floor and a menagerie of rooms upstairs. It was a gay bar, and the guy who owned the place was gay. The top three floors were his playground. The night of the fire he picked up this kid over at the park, took the kid out, wined and dined him. The kid wanted money, but the guy didn’t want to pay anything. So the kid beat him up and left him there in the building, left him for dead. He then set the fire to cover his behind. I was acting battalion chief at the time, and I covered the fire on the second alarm. The first-alarm company got there and found the guy. He was all bloody. They laid him on the sidewalk at the side of the bar, and he kept saying that the boy was still in there. The police sent the dogs in. They found the kid and chewed him up a bit, but the firemen got him out. The call that came in said they had a small fire on the second floor. Well, the first-alarm chief saw the smoke pumping out beams. No fire, but a lot of smoke coming out of the eaves on the fourth floor. He knew he had more than just a small fire, so he called for the second alarm. I was the second chief in and was assigned to the rear of the building. We were back there, and we had master streams in operation. About then the fire was blowing out all of the windows in the back and front and coming through the roof in one corner. #RandolphHarris 18 of 25
“About an hour later the majority of the fire was out, so we shut the big lines down to get inside and do some interior firefighting. I had the company stretched hand lines and inch-and-a-half up the aerial ladders and into the windows. I was at the top of the ladder, and there was a guy from X Engine, (who we will call Z), who was having trouble with his air mask. He was below me on the ladder. The department had just switched over to a new self-contained air mask, and we were having problems with this one fitting where the face piece connected to the regulator. Z did’nt have it just right. It kept popping loose on him. ‘Well, look,’ I said, ‘get your mask straightened out. I’m going to go inside, and when you get done bring your line up and I’ll meet you in there. I’ll see what we’ve got to do.’ So he went back down. I was on the fourth floor, and I looked into the window with my hand light to see the floor. It was black, all black. I straddled in, leg over windowsill, and had my feet on the floor. Real good sound floor, nice and solid. The darkness was pitch black, as black as it might be inside a collapsed mine shaft. I took two septs, and I started falling. I just started falling. Looking back on it when the doctor asked what happened and going back and looking at it after the fire, I figure out what had happened. But here I was, falling in this complete darkness. Halfway down, about thirty feet, I hit something, straddling it. #RandolphHarris 19 of 25
“Thirty feet and I stopped short between my legs. That is where I fractured my pelvis in for placed. I momentarily stayed in that position, but the momentum of my fall kept me going off there and down another thirty feet. I was now down five stories, and in the basement. I landed on my back in about three feet of water. I landed hard, and I broke my back in two placed. The doctor said that the mask on my back was what saved me. Without it I would have been killed. I had fallen down an elevator shaft. The building was originally a factory where they made automobile tires. The shaft was for one of those huge freight elevators that you could drive a care into, and take it up to different floors and have the tires changed on it. That window I had climbed into opened into the shaftway. The law says that windows opening into shafts must be barred, and I think it was originally barred, but the guy, when he bought the building, did all this renovation work up there, either on the sly or whatever. What I was stepping on was a floor that was probably three feet wide with a steel beam around it, and the car would come up and stop at that floor, that’s why it was still there. The elevator was caught in the fire and was burned out, like the whole bottom of the car was burned out. The only thing left of the car was the metal frame. It was the beam at the top of the elevator that I straddled and flipped off of at the second floor and fell through the elevator to the bottom, that second thirty feet. #RandolphHarris 20 of 25
“So I was lying in three feet of water. I couldn’t stand up, my legs wouldn’t move, nothing. I said to myself, calmly, ‘Well, I’ll just lie here.’ I’m lying there, then I realize I’m being pulled down. My coat is being saturated, and the weight of the coat started pulling me down, and down, and down. Suddenly, my nose is under water. I was trying to float, but I couldn’t because the coat was pulling me down and the boots were full of water and I couldn’t stand. I was beginning to drown. My regular job was captain of the rescue unit, and I knew about scuba and had a lot of water experience. I said, ‘Keep your cool, keep your cool. Don’t panic. Get your coat off.’ I was in no pain. I couldn’t feel a thing. I was just worried about drowning. I went completely under water then, knowing it was my only chance, unsnapped my coat, got one arm out and got the other arm out. The coat dropped away, the heavy mask canister with it. I thought that would save me. Then I started reaching out, and I touched this wall. It was an unfinished wall, just plain bricks. I put my fingertips in the mortar joints and started pulling my head up. I realized I was in a corner, and I’m like, ‘There’s got to be a way out of here.’ So I started going around like this, pulling with my fingertips. I hit another corner, made another turn, and there was a ladder there, a ladder in the wall. ‘Great,’ I said, ‘stay here and wait.’ The water was still cascading in from the streams, getting deeper and deeper. ‘Great’ I’m saying, ‘if the water rises, I’ll rise with it up the ladder.’ #RandolphHarris 21 of 25
The next thing was. The smoke started banking down. I said ‘Oh God. I’m going to suffocate.’ I started coughing, and I got down closer to the water. I was okay, I had this much room at first, and then the smoke was banking down farther and farther. I was down to the water again, my nose just touching it. Then I could hear the debris falling. The first thing I thought was that Z had done the same thing I did. I went back and started feeling around to see if he’s there. I heard people hollering up there. I heard Z holler in the window that the floor was going and that something was wrong. I still didn’t know where I was. I lost my portable radio on the way down. They found that hanging between the second and third floor where a piece of metal was sticking out. I fell and I just missed the metal, but it grabbed the radio and pulled it off my coat. It was hanging there. I lost my helmet, and they later found a piece of it, the plastic eye protection part melted. It had fallen into the fire on the second floor, which was still burning up there. Like I said, I hear all this debris falling, and I thought it was Z, and I went out to look to see if it was. I tool a little step and realized that I just couldn’t do it, I couldn’t stand. So I started calling to see if it was him. Nobody answered. Then I heard somebody holler, ‘There he is.’ This guy we will call A came down the ladder, and he started to touch me, and I said, ‘Don’t touch me, something is broken.’ He hollered, ‘Thrown a rope down here.’ I said, ‘Don’t tie any rope around me, something is broken and I can’t move my legs. I can’t feel anything.’ #RandolphHarris 22 of 25
“So they got the Stokes basket down there, and they floated me on that, then lifted me up and out. They put me in the medic unit, and I went right to the shock trauma center. I still don’t remember a lot of it. I don’t remember blacking out. There are times when I lie at home and I wake up and think, ‘Oh, that’s right, that happened.’ The first fall, I didn’t think that I was going to fall that far, it was only one floor. It’s not going to be even twenty feet. It’s not going to be that bad. It’s not going to be thirty feet. I’m not expecting that I’m going down a shaft, you know, right to the bottom. And when I hit, it felt like I was falling longer than I should have, but it’s pitch black and I can’t see anything, so I’m not expecting it or anything. It’s just falling into the darkness, and then when I hit, it was like, ‘Christ, oh God.’ The beam went right up into my groin. When I started falling, I was worrying about being impaled, about falling into some debris and having a two-by-four go through me. When I hit with my legs apart, the pain was intense through my groin. I was black and blue from my knees to my chest, a dark purple. My privates were swollen the size of grapefruits, because the actual impact was right there. I thought, Hey, this isn’t too bad, it’s over, I’m still alive. And then I realized that I was falling again. I still can’t see anything. I haven’t seen anything yet, no walls. I haven’t felt anything other than hitting the piece, and then I’m going again. I didn’t know I was in an elevator shaft. I had no perception of depth or how far I had fallen. I could have fallen five feet and hit something and then five more feet and been on the third floor. I had thought it was over, and I was falling again, and I realized, ‘No. It isn’t over yet.’ #RandolphHarris 23 of 25
“Another thirty feet. That’s when I did the complete somersault from straight up and down when I first fell, and the beam catapulted me over, and I was falling back first, and that’s when I impacted the water. And then it was like, ‘Oh damn, where am I now? What’s going on?’ In my scuba training I knew that when you first go down you’re apprehensive and you start breathing faster and you get yourself worked up, and you have to calm yourself down. That’s what I was doing. I was like, ‘Okay, keep your cool, you know you’re not dead, and you can get out of this.’ And then I started sinking, and I was like, ‘Oh God, you’re going to drown. You’ve got to get your coat off.’ The water was still coming in. I figure there were ten ladder pipes in service and maybe fire two-and-a-half-inch hand lines, that’s fifteen hoses shooting water in. Coming right down, you could hear it. It was like a waterfall. It’s like, okay, I have the coat off and I’m not going to drown because I have the ladder. Then I thought, ‘God, it’s filling up.’ But I felt good holding on to the ladder. If water keeps coming, I’d just float up with it, and I felt secure. Then the smoke started banking back down, and I started getting scared again. It was like you can’t breathe, coughing. Like, let’s get to the window. But, hell, I can’t move. I can’t go to a window. And I had no mask. So I got lower and lower, with my mouth and nose just above the water. It’s breathable there. It’s still pretty thick smoke, but it’s not something that I’m not used to. Then like I said, I heard the debris falling. #RandolphHarris 24 of 25
“I didn’t know whether anybody knew that I’d fallen. I didn’t know whether Z had come up the ladder or not. I had told him to some back up, but he could have gone down and had his assignment changed by another officer and just, you know, forgot about me. My relief wasn’t due until seven, and this was about four-thirty in the morning. I’m thinking, this is it, this is the way I’m going to die. Then finally I heard somebody holler, ‘There he is.’ Like I said, there was no pain at that time. They got me in a medic unit, and that is when I started feeling pain. After a long recovery time, I was still not back to work. I was on administrative leave. My detail was an office job until I could get myself back to where I could go back to firefighting. I’ll get there.” The Sacramento Fire Department works continually to upgrade fire apparatuses and technology, to educate the public in fire prevention, life safety and disaster preparedness, along with enforcing public safety codes, while ensuring a safe and secure environment to all citizens and visitors through professionalism, leadership, teamwork and partnership with all levels of Government. You can help save lives by donating to the Sacramento Fire Department. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. #RandolphHarris 25 of 25
The Winchester Mystery House
One winter night while closing up The Winchester Mystery House, a caretaker had worked up a sweat. As he was walking down a flight of stairs, the wind grabbed him, lashing at he face, and immediately the sweat on his cheeks frosted over. His hands shook uncontrollably, the lights in the mansion began to flutter. Somewhere, almost muffled by the whine of the wind, he heard a distant clanking—a dull sound echoing across the mansion. He hesitated, tried to recognize the source, but failed. His legs ached with every step. His eyes and ear stung from the frigid blasts of wind he felt inside the house. He longed to rest, but finishing his job pushed him onward. As he reached the last step, he was greeted by what sounded like a bell tolling, warning the countryside of some unseen danger. He rested for a moment. Creeping among the twisting hallways of the mansion, he noticed for the first time that it looked rather peculiar.
He moved slower now, still confident, but careful. After a few moments, he stood motionless, watching the walls shake and curtains sway, chair scraping the floor and rattling against each other. A hazy vision of dancing skeletons and demons appeared. It’s called the house built by spirits, the demons announced, glistening worms squirming from their rotten, toothless mouths. Come join us, they invited, waving long, bony fingers. Come. And he wanted to go. They sounded so inviting. Suddenly, tears streamed down his face. The mansion came to life around him, breathing for the dead. The wind gained strength. The caretaker collapsed hard to the floor. For just one moment, an ivory sliver of moonbeam slipped through the darkness, quickly disappeared. The winter sunrise was still two hours away.
Please come and enjoy a delicious meal in Sarah’s Café, stroll along the paths of the beautiful Victorian gardens, and wonder through the miles of hallways in the World’s most mysterious mansion. For further information about tours, including group tours, weddings, school events, birthday party packages, facility rentals, and special events please visit the website: https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
Please visit the online giftshop, and purchase a gift for friends and relatives as well as a special memento of The Winchester Mystery House. A variety of souvenirs and gifts are available to purchase. https://shopwinchestermysteryhouse.com/
Gladiators’ School
When we see the effect one person can have, it is perhaps no wonder that the Lord reminded us, “Remember the worth of souls.” Evolutionary agents chart the path to the future. They prefabricate future visions, build new hives, custom make plan-its, encourage migration, and teach scientific mastery of the nervous system as an instrument to decode atomic, molecular and subnuclear processes so as to attain immortality, cloning, and extraterrestrial existence. Evolutionary agents study history because understanding out roots is important. We cannot navigate into the future with any confidence unless we understand the rhythms and coherence of past voyages. A philosopher demonstrates understanding of the past by the accuracy of predictions about the future. After we trace our roots backward—back East—it is necessary to move westward into The Future. The time has come to catch the coming waves rolling into the future. They are going to be big ones. The evolution of intelligence involves three great change processes employed by deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). The DNA change processes: Mutation—A species getting smarter. Metamorphosis—Individuals getting smarter. Migration—Individuals moving to a new space to better live out new capacities. #RandolphHarris 1 of 21
Every time you improve, every time you change, every time a challenge increases your intelligence, you have to migrate to find a new space to live out your new capacity, to custom-make your new vision. Mobility is the classic stimulus for Intelligence Increase. Learn to be comfortable with the idea of change. Understanding how our intelligence has evolved reveals who we are. The strategy of evolution is to raise the intelligence of species. Do not let others scare you about change. We each pass through at least twelve volatile and dramatic changes during our lifetimes. Each of us possesses within our nervous systems twelve primitive brains that emerge in sequence as we develop—evolve if you will—from infancy to adult maturity. Cryptography decoding of the DNA helix suggest that each of us has twelve post-terrestrial brains scheduled to activate in sequence as we move into a prefabricate the post-hive future! Terrestrial theologians recognize the supernatural and otherworldly powers of great Evolutionary Agents like Jesus Christ that separate them in time and potency from the hive reality. “Supernatural” is jargon to describe anything beyond hive-platitude. Often Evolutionary Agents must endure long periods of quiescence and obscurity. These can be times of grave peril, obstruction or hive-disgrace. #RandolphHarris 2 of 21
Evolutionary Agents, also known as Out-Castes, have been selected on the basis of their capacity to face and survive experiences that would be judged unendurable by terrestrials. Agents’ childhoods abound in anecdotes of precocious sagacity, strength, and independence from hive-mortals. The scandalous escapades of Jesus Christ, the prowess of Hercules, the boyish wisdom of Einstein, the early verbal cleverness of the Galileo, and the patience of Robert Goddard are a few examples. Human beings, pre-selected from each gene pool, are having their neural circuits activated—usually without their awareness—to fabricate future realities as well as future gene pools. These individuals are genetically tempted to live much of the time in the future. They are, to a large extent, alienated from current hive realities. Unaware of their genetic assignment, many Agents feel agonizingly out of step. Some are shunned and even locked up by the gene pools they serve. Those who are lucky enough to recognize their post-human genetic caste attain a level of great prescience and humorous insight. They understand that they are time travelers, literally walking around in past civilizations—a most entertaining and effective role to play. While they have little power to change the ripples of history or the waves of evolution, they surf them with increasing skill. #RandolphHarris 3 of 21
As out-castes they are cast out, thrown forward, pushed up, above and beyond, contemporary hive realities. Such Evolutionary Agents are best described as Out-Castes. They are cast out, thrown forward, pushed up, above and beyond, contemporary give realities. As evolution accelerates increasing numbers of Evolutionary Agents are emerging. In the 1960s every gene pool cast out its Futique Agents. We are now learning to identify these out-castes and how to benefit from their contribution to the species. The word “Agent” has been in well-deserved ill-repute, especially in political, diplomatic and showbiz circles. It suggests an unscrupulous bureaucratic scoundrel devoid of creativity, aesthetics, principles or talent who, by virtue of shameless cunning, places himself in central positions of power and control. The raison d’etre of the agent is, of course, the deal. The deal involves the alchemy of link-up, package and connection. The agent’s tools are persuasion, negotiation, bluff, manipulation, and salesmanship. The Agent Caste has existed throughout human history, dating back to the Neolithic period when artifacts, abstract-concepts, symbols, intertribal barter systems, and paperwork began to replace direct face-to-face interactions within tribe exchanges. As left-hemisphere technological society emerged, each gene pool produced Agents to represent the assets and interests of the sperm-egg collective in dealing with other gene-colonies. #RandolphHarris 4 of 21
In Feudal times, agents represented the Crown of the Lord in dealing with serfs, peasants, tenants, traders and the agents of other Lords. The sordid odor attributed to agents probably dates back to their role as ruthless tax-collectors, dishonest traders, not to forget the many incidents in which agents betrayed their masters to seize power. The Caste of Agents took on more importance and a more attractive appearance during the emergence of democratic societies when agents became political representatives of the various classes, castes, guilds, brotherhoods, and gene pools which sought to share power in a democratic tradition. The history of civilization is the history of agentry, which is to be expected since agents cunningly arrange for the publication of the history books. Wars are won and lost by generals, but when the smoke clears and the bodies are dragged off the battlefield, the real bottom-line stuff happens—the peace treaties, the Councils of Nice, Trent, Versailles, Vienna, Geneva—all managed by agents. When the autobiographies are written and generals from both sides peddle their memoirs, it is the gents who make the deals. The high-points in the annals of agentry have always come at moments of species mutation. Who has not marveled at the astuteness of Algy Plankton, the renowned Paleozoic agent who put together the first oxygen commercial which led to shoreline migration? #RandolphHarris 5 of 21
In every act of rebellion, the rebel simultaneously experiences a feeling of revulsion at the infringement of his rights and a complete and spontaneous loyalty to certain aspects of himself. Thus, he implicitly brings into play a standard of values so far from being gratuitous that he is prepared to support it no matter what the risks. Up to this point he has at least remained silent and has abandoned himself to the form of despair in which a condition is accepted even though it is considered unjust. To remain silent is to give the impression that one has no opinions, that one wants nothing, and in certain cases it really amounts to wanting nothing. Despair, like the absurd, has opinions and desires about everything in general and nothing in particular. Silence expresses this attitude very well. However, from the moment that the rebel finds his voice—even though he says nothing but “no”—he begins to desire and to judge. The rebel, in the etymological sense, does a complete turnabout. He acted under the lash of his master’s whip. Suddenly he turns and faces him. He opposes what is preferable to what is not. Not every value entails rebellion, but every act of rebellion tacitly invokes a value. Or is it really a question of values? Awareness, no matter how confused it may be, develops from every act of rebellion: the sudden dazzling perception that there is something in man with which he can identify himself, even if only for a moment. #RandolphHarris 6 of 21
Rebellion can sometimes lead to trouble and incarceration. New prisoners generally remain in the Reception Center for an average of six weeks. After psychological testing, observation, and case worker interviews a decision is made as to the long-term prison. Usually, the counselors are the deciding voice. Sometimes, the government likes to throw the book at drug cases. The prison administration can deal with armed robbers, murderers, and normal criminals but not the defiant, guiltless, long-haired dopers. The guards say armed robbers and murderers have guts. Drug users are cowardly escapists. Each inmate had a file called “The Jacket.” Every unusual action by the prisoner is entered in The Jacket. However, the case worker’s recommendation is the key. I found out about the network of the California prison system, listening to sad vacation discussion about the selection of prisons continually reviewing the escape possibilities. Tehachapi Prison is in the mountains. Fresh air, no smog, new buildings. Too remote for visitors. They send young cons there. There are guns in the towers. It is escape-proof. The California Institute for Men, abbreviated CIM, offers colour TV, a golf course, a swimming pool. No Wall. They will never send you there with a ten-year federal hold. CIM is treatment oriented. They call you mister. #RandolphHarris 7 of 21
San Quentin is the Monte Carlo glamour, pleasures of the flesh, dope prison of the system. Near San Francisco. Plenty of action. Gambling, educational courses, and special visitors from San Francisco. They might 7send you to Quentin, making an example out of you. There is no escape from Quentin. Then there is Folsom Prison. The best joint is Folsom; any experienced confidence man will tell you that. No kids there. You do you time quietly. Then there is Soledad. Dread pit of solitude for the toughest gunsel muscle benders. They call it the “Gladiators’ School.” When you check in there, they issue you a sword and a garbage can lid. A continual fight to prove how tough you are. Homosexual rape of soft kids. Soledad. The name itself sends a chill through every spine. CMC East—California Men’s Colony, San Luis Obispo is the science-fiction prison. Four separate quads, TV monitors. Big brother eyes watch every move. It is called medium security, but do not believe it. Huey Newton was there. Gun towers with sharpshooters guards can kill at a mile range. No one escapes. CMC West—California Men’s, Colony, San Luis Obispo is the old man’s home. They send professional long-term prisoners there. It is a country club for elite confidence men. The best prison in the World. It is an easy escape. No wall. The highway runs nearby. They send only nonviolent prisoners there. #RandolphHarris 8 of 21
They will never send you to CMC West with two dimes hanging round your neck. There is a rule that with a federal hold, they cannot send you to minimum security. The State of California owes the Feds ten years of your life. The Vacaville main line is a mental hospital for violent maniacs. They might send you there to use your psychological training. It is maximum security. No one escapes from there. Then there are the Forestry Camps. That is ideal. You work up in the healthy mountains. There is plenty of dope, no fences, you work along the highway. It is simple to run away. Confidence men jump Forestry Camp all the time but they get caught. They always run back home. They get a Dear John letter from their wives or suspect their wives fooling around, they flip, take off, and hitchhike home. They walk in the door and bang the State Police are waiting. If you escape, the first thing they do is stake out your home. There is no chance they will send you to a Forestry Camp, not with all the time you brough here. They will take no chances with you. The Vacaville Prison is a bawdy sexual paradise for some. The beautiful queens of Vacaville dig the cells with mirrors. Before the salves rebel, they accept all the demands made upon them. Very often, they take orders, without reacting against them, which are far more conducive to insurrection than the one at which he balks. He accepted them patiently, though he may have protested inwardly, but in that he remained silent, he was more concerned with his own immediate interests than as yet aware of his own rights. #RandolphHarris 9 of 21
However, with loss of patience—with impatience—a reaction begins which can extend to everything that he previously accepted, and which is almost always retroactive. They very moment a slave refuses to obey the humiliating orders of his master, he simultaneously rejects the condition of slavery. The act of rebellion carries him far beyond the point he had reached by simply refusing. He exceeds the bounds that he fixed for his antagonist, and now demands to be treated as an equal. What was at first the man’s obstinate resistance now becomes the whole man, who is identified with and summed up in this resistance. The part of himself that he wanted to be respected he proceeds to place above everything else and proclaims it preferable to everything, even to life itself. It becomes for him the supreme good. Having up to now been willing to compromise, the slave suddenly adopts (“because this is how it must be…”) an attitude of All or Nothing. With rebellion, awareness is born. However, we can see that the knowledge gained is, at the same time, of an “all” that is still rather obscure and of a “nothing” that proclaims the possibility of sacrificing the rebel to this “All.” The rebel himself wants to be “all”—to identify himself completely with this good which he has suddenly become aware and by which he wants to be personally recognized and acknowledged—or “nothing”; in other words, to be completely destroyed by the force that dominates him. As a last resort, he is willing to accept the final defeat, which is death, rather than be deprived of the personal sacrament that he would call, for example, freedom. Better to die on one’s feet than to live on one’s knees. #RandolphHarris 10 of 21
Writing as shorthand + for O.K. and – for not-O.K., the convictions read: I + or I – ; You + or You –. The possible assortments of these give the four basic positions from which games and scripts are played, and which program the person so that he has something to say after he says Hello. I + You +. This is the “healthy” position (or in treatment, the “get well” one), the best one for decent living, the position of genuine heroes and princes, and heroines and princesses. People in the other position have more or less frog in them, a losing streak put there by their parents, which will drag them down again and again unless they overcome it; if they are not rescued by a miracle of psychiatric or self-healing, in extreme cases, they will waste themselves. I + You + is what the hippies were trying to tell the policeman when they gave him a flower. However, the I + is genuine or merely a pious hope, and whether the policeman will accept the + or will prefer to be – on this particular scene, is always in doubt. I + You + is something the person either grows into in early life, or must learn by hard labour thereafter; it cannot be attained merely be an act of will. I + You –. I am a prince; you are a frog. This is the “get rid of” position. These are the people who play “Blemish” as a pastime, a game, or a deadly procedure. They are the ones who sneer at their spouses, send their children to juvenile hall, and times war, and sit in groups finding fault with their real or fire their friends and retainers. They start crusades and some-imagined inferiors or enemies. #RandolphHarris 11 of 21
This is the “arrogant” position, at worst a killer’s, and at best a meddler’s for people who make it their business to help the “not-O.K. others” with things they do not want to be helped with. However, for the most part it is a position of mediocrities, and clinically it is paranoid. I – You +. This is psychologically the “depressive” position, politically and socially a self-abasement transmitted to the children. Occupationally, it leads people to live by choice on favours large and small and enjoy it with a vengeance, that being the poor satisfaction of making the other pay as much as possible for his O.K. stamp. These are melancholic suicides, losers who call themselves gamblers, people who get rid of themselves instead of others by isolating themselves in obscure rooming houses or canyons or by getting a ticket to prison or the psychiatric ward. It is the position of the “If Onlys” and “I Should Haves.” I – You –. This is the “futility” position of the Why Notters: Why not kill yourself, Why not go crazy. Clinically, it is schizoid or schizophrenic. These positions are universal among all mankind, because all mankind nurses at his mother’s breast or bottle and gets the message there, and later has it reinforced when he learns his manners, whether in the jungle, the slum, the condominium, or the ancestral halls. #RandolphHarris 12 of 21
Even in the small unlettered communities which anthropologists study for their “cultures,” where everyone is raised according to the same long-established rules, there are enough individual differences between mothers (and fathers) to yield the standard harvest. For winners, there are chiefs and medicine men, captains and capitalist who own a thousand head of cattle or are worth a hundred thousand yams. The losers can be found in the mental hospital at Papeete or Port Moresby or Dakar, or perhaps in Her Majesty’s Gaol at Suva. For each position already carries with it is own kind of script and its own kinds of endings. Even in this country, where there are ten thousand “cultures,” there are only a few endings, none different, really, from any other country’s. Because each person is the product of a million different moments, a thousand states of mind, a hundred adventures, and usually two different parents, a thorough investigation of his position will reveal many complexities and apparent contradictions. Nevertheless, there can usually be detected one basic position, sincere or insincere, inflexible or insecure, on which his life is staked, and from which he plays out his games and script. This is necessary so that he can feel that he has both feet on solid ground, and he will be as loath to give it up as he would the foundation of his house. #RandolphHarris 13 of 21
To take one simple example, a woman who thinks it very important that she is poor while others are rich (I — They +) will not give this up merely because she acquires a lot of money. That does not make her rich in her own estimation; it merely makes her a poor person who happens to have some assets. Her classmate who thinks it is important to be rich, in contrast to the underprivileged poor (I + They -) will not abandon her position if she loses her money; this does not make her a poor person, but merely a rich person who is temporarily embarrassed financially. This tenacity, as we shall see later, accounts for the life led by Cinderella after she married her prince, and it also accounts for the fact that men in the first position (I + You +) make good leaders, for even in the utmost adversity they maintain their universal respect for themselves and those in their charge. Thus, the four basic positions, I + You + (success); I + You – (arrogant); I — You + (depressive); and I – You – (futility), can rarely be changed by external circumstances alone. Stable changes must come from within, either spontaneously or under some sort of “therapeutic” influence: professional treatment, or love, which is nature’s psychotherapy. However, there are those whose convictions lack convictions, so that they have options and alternations between one position and another; from I + You + to I — You —, or from I + You — to I — You +, for example. These are, as far as position is concerned, insecure or unstable personalities. #RandolphHarris 14 of 21
Secure or stable ones are those whose positions, good or deplorable, cannot be shaken. In order for the idea of positions to be of any practical use, it must not be defeated by the changes and instabilities of the insecure. The transactional approach—finding out what was actually said and done at a certain moment—takes care of that. If A behaves at noon as though he were in the first position (I + You +), then we say that “A is in the first position.” If he behaves at 6.00pm as though he were in the third position (I – You +), then we say “In the noon setup A is in the first position under 6pm circumstances he is in the third.” From this we can conclude that A is insecure in the first position, and that if he has symptoms, they occur under special conditions. If he behaves under all circumstances as through he were in the first position, then we say that “A is stable in the first position,” from which we predict that A is a winner, that if he has been in treatment, he is now cured, and that he is game free, or at least that he is not under compulsion to play games, but has social control—the option of deciding for himself at each moment whether or not he wants to play. If B behaves under all circumstances as though he were in the fourth position, we say that “B is stable in the fourth position” from which we predict that B is a loser, that it will be difficult to cure him, and that he will be unable to stop himself from playing those games which prove that life is futile. All this is done by careful analysis of actual transactions engaged by A and B. #RandolphHarris 15 of 21
Once the predictions are made, they are easily tested by more observation. If later behaviour does not confirm them, then either the analysis was faulty or the theory of position is wrong and will have to be changed. If it does confirm the predictions, then the theory is strengthened. The evidence so far supports it. Reality is what we take to be real. This, in turn, is powerfully influenced by what significant other people have told us is true, real, and important in the World. We are continuously told by newspapers, comics, friends, and family members, movies and television programs about the way things are. Sometimes this influence is subtle; someone merely describes some aspect of the World to us, and we find that this description impels us to see that World as we were told it is. One teacher played a classroom game; she asked the children to pretend that blonde, blue-eyed children were evil. In time, the black-haired children came to loathe the blondes, who in turn felt inferior. Other people, then, can so influence one’s ways of perceiving, and of attaching meaning and value, that one loses one’s own autonomous perspective. If other people are strong, with high status, they may invalidate one’s own perspective on reality; the weaker person accepts the perspective of the stronger. #RandolphHarris 16 of 21
For example, when high school seniors in the minority are confronted by perceptions or judgments from a majority identified as college students, the high schoolers conform to the perceptions of the higher status college student. A person may need to disengage from other people and go into solitude, in order to separate other people’s perspectives on reality from one that is more truly individual. An excessive humility or a morbid self-depreciation may present a man from seeking outside help. This too is a manifestation of the ego, which cunningly uses such emotion to keep him away from a contract which threatens its rule. This quality of a continuous calmness—so highly prized by self-actualized Christians—is hard to come by but exceedingly precious when gained. He who possesses it, who is unfailingly one and the same not only toward others but also toward himself, becomes a rock of upholding strength in their crises, an oasis of hidden comfort in his own. This beautiful serenity makes many other qualities possible in his own development while leaving a benedictory afterglow of encouragement with all those who are still struggling with their own refractory emotions and passions. Emotion is an unreliable adviser but refined, purified, and liberated from egotism, it becomes transformed into intuition. As all worries and fears are aroused in the ego, they are lulled when, by meditation, the ego-thought is lulled and the mediator feels peace. However, when the ego is rooted out by the entire philosophic effort, they are then rooted out, too. #RandolphHarris 17 of 21
The Sacramento Fire Department educates and prepares Sacramento County residents and visitors for all emergencies, through public education, community outreach, and training. “It was a hot summer night. I had to work the day tour the following morning, and the phone rang just as I was getting into bed. A friend called me and told me to turn on the radio. Two firefighters had been killed in a fire, and the names weren’t released pending notifications. I called my own firehouse, where the grapevine had carried the news. I found out who they were. I drove down to the bar, then. It was early morning, an hour or so past midnight. I was thinking of X’s children. He had eight of them, and was known as a great father. Y, one of the partners, was there. He was crying, and put his arms around me, connecting, I guess, to the brotherhood of the job. We decided to drive up to the firehouse. There were guys off duty there, he knew, and they would appreciate the company. It was a classy thing, I thought. We went up to the top floor of Rescue A. Z was there, and a bunch of firefighters who had driven in as soon as they heard the news. Z told us they had been on the roof of a five-story tenement. A young firefighter who had been working on the top floor, the fifth, had been separated from his boss, a lieutenant who happened to be B, my friend and one of the most decorated men in the department. A back room was lit up completely, and C was caught. He was at a windowsill, yelling, and Rescue A heard him. The fire was lapping up the side of the building, licking over the rooftop. D tied his own small, forty-foot, personal rope to a pipe, attached it to his safety harness, and went over the rooftop. #RandolphHarris 18 of 21
“He knew there was not much he could do, because the personal role could not take the weight of two men. The manuals said it was to be used for escape purposes only, and in extreme emergencies. But D just wanted to be with C. X stepped right up, and he went over the roof, six stories above the solid concrete of the backyard below. Z was looking down over the roof parapet. They lowered him down to where D and C were now framed by the fire. ‘I have him,” X said to D. C held fast around X’s neck, and they both became one, a kind of pendulum escaping the fire. Then something happened, no one knew what. It was an imperfect rope. It just snapped, and X and C fell. It was hard for D to tell the story, we all knew, but we also knew that it was all in the family. It was the straight stuff, because there’s no point in holding back from the family. After having some Lipton’s ice tea, the men were relaxed a little. There was not much for any of us to do. Rescue A would have to prepare for the funeral, and all those official investigations and reports. But now the men just wanted to regain their breath. Z and I worked for a long time with a man named F, who had been promoted out of Engine G, and who was a good friend of X. Z suggested I call him, rather than have him hear the news in the morning from a radio, the Internet, or TV reporter. I went to the phone to dial his number, and it then struck me. What if he’s not home? What would his wife H think about a phone call at three in the morning? What momentary pain would that cause? I wanted to hang up as the phone was answered. I heard her voice, and the first thing I said was “This has nothing to do with F.” It turns out he was working that night as a covering officer, and had listened to the alarms as they came over the department radio. #RandolphHarris 19 of 21
“Then I thought, who was going to ring the bell of X’s house this sad night? And, what extraordinary pain would the ringing of that bell bring to so many people?” The Sacramento Fire Department provide fire protection, rescue, and medical services to the community. They also ensure the safety and well-being of residents through their dedicated efforts. You can help save lives by donating to the Sacramento Fire Department. The Spirit of America is often found in a deep sense of patriotism, where people show enduring loyalty to their country and their fellow citizens. This love for one’s country goes beyond just celebrating national holidays; it is seen in how people treat each other and work for the community every day. Please raise your children to love America. When patriotic feelings are genuine and inclusive, they can transcend individual interests and foster a collective identity. It is also important to teach your children to love God and Jesus Christ. American almost universally view God as a loving parent. The desire to emulate God’s love moderates religious disagreements among the great majority of Americans. Also, buying a car is a huge expense, so it makes sense to support America and buy a car made in this county. Luckily, there are plenty of American cars worth buying, whether you are looking for something reliable for your small family, a truck to haul your trailer, or a sports car. Furthermore, as patriotic Americans, everyone must make a commitment to respect laws, legal authorities, legal signage and signals, and courts. Imagine if everyone in your community decided that they did not want to be bothered by traffic laws and signals, for example. The streets in your community would quickly become a chaotic and less safe place. #RandolphHarris 20 of 21
The young should honour their elders as “superiors in age and gifts. Contrary to the way of the World, we put a premium on age, not youth. We value the wisdom that comes from life experience. Seniors should strive to be worthy of such honour, walking in faith, love, and wisdom. And youth should remember to take their education seriously. It will help them achieve financial stability. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic, for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Children need to know that having faith in the Saviour and following Him will help them receive peace in this troubled World. We are grateful for the opportunities we have. Children need to experience the Light of Christ so they can choose light and resist the darkness. There are two kinds of inner peace. The first is somewhat like that which the ancient Stoics cultivated: the result of controlling emotions and disciplining thoughts, the result of will and effort applied to the mastery of self. It brings with it, at best, a contentment with what one has, as least, a resignation to one’s lot. The second is much deeper, for it comes out of God. It is the blessed result of Divine Grace liberating one from the craving for existence. To attain this inner equilibrium, the emotions need to be brought under control. It is not enough to repress them by will alone: they need also to be understood psychologically in a far deeper sense than the academic one. It is not enough to analyse their obvious surface causes and workings: their relationship to the real self at the centre of being must become quite clear. The “I” who experiences them must be sought. #RandolphHarris 21 of 21
The Winchester Mystery House
On occasion, caretakers are left alone in The Winchester Mystery House to close the mansion up. During the summer, it does not bother some of them because as they are closing the windows, they can hear sounds from the street and do not feel alone. However, when the chills of autumn set in, and the windows have to be closed to keep it out, one of the caretakers because gradually aware that he was not really alone on those lonely nights. One particular night, early in his employment at the house, he was alone and heard rapid, firm footsteps starting at the front door, inside the house, and coming through the parlor and the dining room, and finally approaching the room he was in down the hall. He leapt out into the hall, wondering with sheer terror what the intruder would do. However, no one came. More to calm himself than because he really believed it, the caretaker convinced himself that he must have been mistaken about those footsteps. It was probably someone in the street. With reassuring thoughts, he continued to lock up the mansion. The next day, he did not tell anyone about the nocturnal event. After all, he did not want them to think they hired a strange man! However, the footsteps returned, night after night, always at the same time and always stopping abruptly at the morning room. Rather than facing his employers with the allegation that he was working in a haunted house, he bravely decided to face the intruder and find out what this was all about.
One night he deliberately waited for the new familiar brisk footfalls. The clock struck nine, then nine-thirty. In the quiet of the night, he could hear his heart pounding in his chest. Then the footsteps came close, closer and closer, until they got to the entryway of the morning room. At this moment, he snapped on the light, and tore the door wide open. There was nobody there, and no retreating footsteps could be heard. He tried it again and again, but the invisible intruder never showed himself once the door was opened. The winter was bitterly cold, and they were in the habit of having two caretakers close up the house at night. One night the additional caretaker left the basement and said, “Why were you walking around in the freezing basement and didn’t answer when I called out to you?” Of course he had not been down in the basement, and told her as much. Then they discovered that she, too, had heard footsteps, but had thought it was him walking restlessly about the basement. She heard the footsteps whenever she was in the basement, and they would suddenly cease, but no one would be around. Since everything was always securely locked, and countless attempts to trap the ghost had failed, the caretakers shrugged and learned to live with this peculiar boarder. Gradually the steps became part of the atmosphere of the Victorian house, and the terror began to fade into the darkness of night.
Please come and enjoy a delicious meal in Sarah’s Café, stroll along the paths of the beautiful Victorian gardens, and wonder through the miles of hallways in the World’s most mysterious mansion. For further information about tours, including group tours, weddings, school events, birthday party packages, facility rentals, and special events please visit the website: https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
Please visit the online giftshop, and purchase a gift for friends and relatives as well as a special memento of The Winchester Mystery House. A variety of souvenirs and gifts are available to purchase. https://shopwinchestermysteryhouse.com/
Innocence Called on to Justify itself
There are crimes of passion and crimes of logic. The boundary between then is not clearly defined. If the suffering of children serves to complete the sum of suffering necessary for the acquisition of truth, I affirm from now onward that truth is not worth such a price. Inflation is inflicting financial pain on millions of American households, with almost half reporting that higher prices are causing some form of hardship. In fact, 70 percent of families with annual incomes of less than $40,000 said they are experiencing hardship. By comparison, 30 percent of families earning more than $100,000 a year reported that they are also facing hardship. We are living in the era of premeditation and the perfect crime. Our southern border is wide open, and our criminals are no longer helpless children who could pled love as their excuse. On the contrary, they are politicians, illegal immigrants, and other adults who have a perfect alibi: philosophy, which can be used for any purpose—even for transforming murderers into judges. As soon as a man, through lack of character, takes refuge in doctrine, as soon as crime reasons about itself, it multiplies like reason itself and assumes all the aspects of the syllogism. Once crime was as solitary as a cry of protest; not it is as universal as science. Yesterday it was put on trial; today it determines the law. #RandolphHarris 1 of 21
We need to face the reality of the present, which is logical crime, and examine meticulously the arguments by which it is justified; we must understand the times in which we live. One might think that a period which, in a space of twenty-five years, uproots, enslaves, or skills millions of human beings should be condemned out of hand. However, its culpability must still be understood. In more ingenuous times, when they tyrant razed cities for his own greater glory, when the slave chained to the conqueror’s chariot was dragged through the rejoicing streets, when enemies were thrown to the wild beasts in front of the assembled people, the mind did not reel before such unabashed crimes, and judgment remained unclouded. However, slave camps under the America flag of freedom, massacres justified by philanthropy or by taste for the superhuman, in one sense cripple judgement. On the day when crimes dons the apparel of innocence—through a curious transposition peculiar to our times—it is innocence that is called upon to justify itself. We must accept and examine this strange challenge. We can act only in terms of our own time, among the people who surround us. Every action today leads to murder, direct or indirect. People believe that they have a right to kill because basic laws are no longer enforced. #RandolphHarris 2 of 21
I cannot understand how a party that claims to respect law and order encourages and even pays people to immigrate illegally, and has gotten loose on allowing several laws to be enforced. It is akin to allowing a child to be bullied, harassed, and terrorized. When people see that they can get away with breaking the law, the bad behaviour will become contagious. In the age of negation, it was of some avail to examine one’s position concerning suicide. In the age of ideologies, we must examine our position in relation to murder. If murder has rational foundations, then our period and we ourselves are rationally consequent. If it has no rational foundations, then we are insane and there is no alternative but to find some justification or to avert our faces. It is incumbent upon us, at all events, to give a definite answer to the question implicit in the blood and strife of the first quarter of the century. For we are being put to the rack. Ideology today is concerned only with the denial of other human beings, who alone bear the responsibility of deceit. Each day at dawn, assassins in judges’ robes slip into some cell: murder is the problem today. Allowing crime to run rampant in the streets of America is absurd. Removing God from society is narcissistic. If we believe in nothing, if nothing has any meaning, and if we can affirm no values whatsoever, then everything is possible and nothing has any importance. #RandolphHarris 3 of 21
Since nothing is either true or false, good or bad, our guiding principle will be to demonstrate that we are the most efficient—in other words, the strongest. Then the World will no longer be divided into the just and the unjust, but into masters and slaves. Thus, whichever way we turn, in our abyss of negation and nihilism, crime has its privileged position. Of course, self-destruction means nothing to madmen, who have bomb shelters, and are preparing for their own death and apotheosis. All that matters is not to destroy oneself alone and to drag a whole World with one. In a way, the man who kills himself in solitude still preserves certain values since he, apparently, claims no rights over the lives of others. Modern man wants to destroy everything or take everything with him. If man knows he is destroying the plant, ending human and animal life, clearly the mandate for electric cars and acknowledging climate change is about politics, power forcing, and profit. He does not want the World to end without harvesting every dollar insight and making people struggle. Sadist get off on the pain of others. Man believes that life can only be lived by striving toward that delectable end. This has become a system of misguided intelligence that prefers, to the suffering imposed by a limited situation, the dark victory in which Heaven and Earth are annihilated. #RandolphHarris 4 of 21
However, absurdist reasoning cannot defend the continued existence of its spokesman and send others to fight in wars that have nothing to do with America, while simultaneously accepting the sacrifice of others’ lives on American soil. The very first thing that cannot be denied in America, is the right for our citizens to live. Thus, the same idea which allows the loss of innocent lives on American soil is caused by politicians taking an untenable position on the United States Constitution. Many American leaders and citizens are living a contradiction because they want to destroy without creating their own selves. And what is astonishing is that many people do not have values with which will enable them to see that crime is illegitimate. Once the Constitution is broken, nothing will remain which can help us to answer the questions of our time, and this will leave us in a blind alley. American will believe in nothing and think that everything is absurd. They will be offended by everything that is different from what they are as an individual. No one will respect the rights of others, and this will lead to mass rebellion. People are being taught to physically fight, destroy, and murder things that are offensive to them. People are being deprived of all knowledge, incited to murder or consent to murder. Rebellion is born of the spectacle of irrationality. #RandolphHarris 5 of 21
However, we must demand order in the midst of this chaos, and unity in the very heart of the ephemeral. The American Constitution protests, it demands, it insists that the lawlessness and outrage be brought to an end because what has been going on in this country lately has been built upon shifting sand when our nation was founded on God’s rock. Rebellion absolutely must find it reasons with itself, since it cannot find them elsewhere. It must consent to examine itself in order to learn how to act. Man is the only creature who refuses to be what he is. The problem is to know whether this refusal can only lead to the destruction of himself and of others, whether all rebellion must end in the justification of universal murder, or whether, on the contrary, without laying claim to an innocence that is impossible, it can discover the principle of reasonable culpability. Through the Atonement of Jesus Christ, each of us can become clean and the burden of our rebellion will be lifted. Breaking a covenant with the Lord is never justified. However, sometimes our poor choices leave us with long-term consequences. One of the vital steps to complete repentance is to bear the short- and long-term consequences of our past sins. The joyful news for anyone who desires to be rid of the consequences of past poor choices is that the Lord sees weaknesses differently than He does rebellion. #RandolphHarris 6 of 21
Whereas the Lord warns that unrepented rebellion will bring punishment, when the Lord speaks of weaknesses, it is always with mercy. However, sometimes rebellion can be good. Like when we stop tolerating injustice. What is a rebel? A man who says no, but whose refusal does not imply a renunciation. He is also a man who says yes, from the moment he makes his first gesture of rebellion. A slave who has taken order all his life suddenly decides that he cannot obey some new command. What does he mean by saying “no?” He means, for example, that “this has been going on too long,” “up to this point yes, beyond it no,” “you are going to far,” or, again, “there is a limit beyond which you shall not go.” In other words, his no affirms the existence of a borderline. The same concept is to be found in the rebel’s feeling that the other person “is exaggerating,” that he is exerting his authority beyond a limit where he begins to infringe on the rights of others. Thus, the movement of rebellion is founded simultaneously on the categorical rejection of an intrusion that is considered intolerable and on the confused conviction of an absolute right which, in the rebel’s mind, is more precisely the impression that he “has the right to…” Rebellion cannot exist without the feeling that, somewhere and somehow, one is right. #RandolphHarris 7 of 21
It is in this way that the rebel slave says yes and no simultaneously. He affirms that there are limits and also that he suspects—and wishes to preserve—the existence of certain things on this side of the borderline. He demonstrates, with obstinacy, that there is something in him which “is worthwhile…” and which must be taken into consideration. In a certain way, he confronts an order of things which oppresses him with the insistence on a kind of right not to be oppressed beyond the limit that he can tolerate. Sociologically it is easy to see that the evolution of the human race has led from small units like the clan and the tribe through city-states, national states, to World states and World cultures, like the Hellenistic, Roman, Islamic, and modern Western civilization. Yet the difference, as far as human experience is concerned, is not as fundamental as it may seem. The member of the primitive tribe differentiates sharply between the member of his group and the outsider. There are moral laws governing the members of the group, and without such laws no group could exist. However, these laws do not apply to the “stranger.” When groups grown in size, more people cease to be “strangers” and become “neighbours.” Yet in spite of the quantitative change, qualitatively the distinction between the neighbour and the stranger remains. A stranger is not human, he is a barbarian, he is even not fully understandable. #RandolphHarris 8 of 21
Long before the human race was on the verge of becoming One World, socially and economically, its most advanced thinkers had visualized a new human experience, that of One Man. Man is thought of as man—men having the same structure, the same problems, and the same answers, without regard to culture and race. The Old Testament visualized man as being one, bearing the likeness of the One God; the prophets visualized the day when the nations “shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks;” [when] “nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore,” reports Isaiah 2. They visualized the day when there will be no more “favourite” nations. “In that day shall there be a highway out of Egypt to Assyria, and the Assyrian shall come into Egypt and the Egyptian into Assyria…In that day shall Israel be the third with Egypt and with Assyria, even a blessing in the midst of the land: whom the Lord of hosts shall bless saying, Blessed by Egypt my people, and Assyria the work of my hands, and Israel mine inheritance,” reports Isaiah 19. Christianity created the concept that the Son of Man became the Son of God—and God Himself. Not this or that man, but Man. The Roman Church was a Catholic church precisely because it was a supranational, universal church. #RandolphHarris 9 of 21
Classic Greek and Roman thinking arrived independently from Judaeo-Christian thought at the concept of One Man and of natural law rooted in the rights of One man, rather than in the necessities of a nation or state. Antigone sacrifices her life in defense of universal human (natural) law against state law. Zenon had the vision of a universal commonwealth. The Renaissance and Enlightenment enriched the Greek and Judaeo-Christian traditions and developed them further, in humanistic rather than in theological terms. Whatever is behind the decision when people can give up, it can be justified by taking a position based on the now deeply ingrained convictions, a position which involves a view of the whole World and all the people in it, who are either friends or enemies: “I’ll kill myself because it’s a lousy World where I’m not good and neither is anyone else, my friends are not much better than my enemies.” In position language this read “I’m not-O.K. You’re not-O.K., They’re not-O.K. Who would not kill himself under such conditions?” This is a futility suicide. Alternatively, “I’ll kill myself because I’m not-O.K. and everybody else is O.K.”—the melancholic suicide. (Suicide here can mean anything from jumping off a bridge or car-crashing, to overeating or alcoholism.) #RandolphHarris 10 of 21
“But,” says someone, “I know we’re O.K., but those other fellows aren’t so hot.” “Very well, then, I’m O.K., you’re O.K., and they are not-O.K., so let us get the job done now and we will attend to them later.” In child language, this translates as “We are going to play house, but you cannot play with us,” which in its most extreme form and with more sophisticated equipment can be parlayed in later years into an extermination camp. The simplest positions are two-handed, You and I, and come from the convictions which have been fed to the child with his mother’s milk. Perception is perhaps one of the most important processes in psychology and is essential in understanding human behaviour. According to Combs and Snygg, all behaviour is related to perception. A student attends a university because she perceives it as being helpful to her career or because a parent perceives it as being help to her offspring’s development. A thief robs a bank because he perceives it as the source of money, according to Willie Sutton, one of the most famous of bank robbers. A child cries when seeing a clown because he sees it as a monster rather than as a funny creature. The most important influence upon perception and misperception is the perceiver’s own needs. #RandolphHarris 11 of 21
If you are driving through a strange city, at about noontime, should you see painted on a store window the name of the owner, Sandwharf, you are likely to perceive it as Sandwich. If you are embarrassed by words that are ladened with pleasures of the flesh, and are asked to read a list quickly, you are likely to misread breast as beast. In a passionate political or personal argument, one’s need is so great to win that we may avoid perceiving the other person’s position at all. The presumption, of course, is that since we are all human, others would perceive things the same way we would. A health personality is by no means exempt from this law. These persons too many momentarily see only themselves as “right” in their perceptions of complex political situations, for example, but they are able to look back upon themselves, their arguments, and their behaviour and recognize when their needs are causing them to misperceive reality—or at least to miss other possible realities. This capacity for reflection back upon self is a uniquely human characteristic and is exceedingly valuable in keeping a certain openness to new ideas, new friends, and new joys. If someone perceives all new sports or new challenges as producing probably failure, that person will avoid tackling new, exciting experiences. The perception principle is useful also in understanding the behaviour of others, particularly of those whose cultural backgrounds may be different. #RandolphHarris 12 of 21
The Russians see our election system as inefficient because for one, 234,570 extra votes were cast by noncitizens in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania, enough to deliver a win for President-elect Joe Biden. And also, the Russians election system as inefficient because it enables popular rather than competent person to be elected to office on the basis of the amount they spend for advertisements. We see their system of nominating only one candidate as a farce. Some of the most cherished beliefs may rest upon doubtful perceptions of reality. The need to be right is so strong that we will defend our perceptions most vigorously and violently when we are least sure of them. A child who perceives a kitten as something warm, soft, and playful will run to play with it on a visit to a friend’s house. Another child who sees a kitten as something that will bite and scratch you will run in terror from the animal. Any effort on the part of an adult to force contact with the kitten can only increase the terror unless the child’s perception is gradually helped to change. A young (or old) man who has great need to prove his uncertain manliness will perceive every date as a challenge to conquest rather than to relationship and may be expected to display himself, posture, and go to all lengths to seduce or conquer rather than to relate. #RandolphHarris 13 of 21
This viewpoint is often termed a phenomenological or perceptual point of view. It suggests that we would better understand our associates and children through knowing how they and we perceive reality. Our needs and emotions not only make us believe things that are untrue; they also blind us to truth. If a perception gives rise to devastating depression or hopelessness, there is a tendency for people simply to ignore the disquieting truth. Anyone who has suffered the death of a loved one will know how difficult it is to realize that the deceased will not be seen anymore. People tend to forget, or more accurately, to repress the memory of painful or humiliating events. Many needs can be gratified only through relationships with other people. This means that strong emotions are mobilized in our interpersonal relationships. Reliable information about another person is difficult to obtain, because much of that person’s behaviour goes on at times when we cannot see it. Furthermore, the person’s consciousness of the World is not accessible to our direct vision. If he or she confides in us, only then can we learn the subjective side of another person. However, the person may not be willing to entrust us with personal information. Often, we are obliged to form our concept of another person on the basis of overt behaviour alone. We infer, as accurately as possible, what an individual’s perception might have been, so that we can predict his or her behaviour in similar situations. #RandolphHarris 14 of 21
“A few moments of therapist self-attention”: To respond truly within me I must, of course, pay some attention to what is going on within me. As I am interacting with the client, a good deal of what transpires within me has to do with him—consists of my imaginings of him, my observations of his reactions, my reactions to him, etcetera. However, within me these occur as mine, as me. They are not deductions about him. They are what is happening to me now, my lived moments with him. To formulate and express these, I require a few steps of self-attention, a few moments in which I attend to what I feel. Then I usually find a great deal what I am willing to share. It would be wrong to say that I express everything that is going on in me, since a thousand things are going on in me at any moment and they cannot even be separately formulated, much less expressed. Also, I do not blurt out impulsively the first things which happens to some to mind. I live a few moments inwardly and by this means I find myself some response to the client, or to what has been happening between us, or to our silence. Even when little is being said, I find that I have desires, fears, disappointments, and wishes for more meaningful communication. I can voice these. With a few moments of self-attention, I can find my genuine response to the moment. If, while the client talks, I feel bored, I do not blurt out “You bore me.” I find with a few seconds of attention to my own experiencing, that my boredom really consists of my missing something from him, something interesting and personal. #RandolphHarris 15 of 21
I find that I strongly wish for this personal expression of his. I find I have much welcoming for this personal expression ready, and that it is going to waste. I find that I can imagine the kind of personal communication which I sense is missing in his verbal stream. I can express these senses of lack, wish, and imagination, and I can express them as mine. Much of my own feeling process when I am with someone does usually consist of these rather specific momentary events, reactions, wishes, and senses relevant to the other person. For example, let us say I have just said something and gotten no response. I think that it may have been very much the wrong thing to say. I need not simply feel bad about having done the wrong thing. I can say I feel bad about it and why, as well as the fact that this happens to be what I am feeling, but, that I am not at all sure about what he is now feeling. The few seconds of self-attention nearly always bring two developments in the feeling I have: (1) it becomes more truly something of me, rather than about him; (2) it become much more possible to share it. Thus, even though it is my genuine momentary reaction to the client in the interactive moment, it is also genuinely mine and does not impose itself on what he experiences. I can say—when it is true—that I am not at all sure what he feels at the moment. Thus, the two specifications I stated require each other: “non-imposition” requires “a few moments of self-attention” so that I may find what I truly feel and state it non-imposingly, as mine. #RandolphHarris 16 of 21
One may become so sensitive as a consequence of medication that other people’s thoughts, feelings, or passions may reflect themselves into his own nature temporarily when he is physically near them or mentally dealing with them. In such cases, he will probably mistake the result for his own, thus expressing what is really alien to his mind or acting outside of his individual pattern of life. This is particularly true when a strong emotion like anger is directed against him. He may then feel instinctively angry with the other person. Unwittingly, he may become disloyal to the Ideal merely through being ignorant of what is happening psychically, and unguarded against it. The longer he lives the more he discovers that real peace depends on the strength with which he rules his own heart, and real security depends on the truth with which he rules his own mind. When he leaves his emotions in disorder they bring agony—as the accompaniment or the follower of the happiness they claimed at first to be able to give. When he lets his thoughts serve the blindness of his ego, they deceive, mislead, or trouble him. The aspirant must not act, live, or think under the sway of merely sentimental, emotional, and self-centered feeling alone but should strive for mature truthful feeling. This is intuition. When dealing with a complex personal situation, he should detach himself and follow such intuition instead of emotion. Then it will be solved rightly. #RandolphHarris 17 of 21
He will not be karmically free of an unpleasant relationship until he has mentally freed himself from all negative thoughts and negative acts concerning it. Then the outer karmic forces will free him, or else he may be shown inwardly how to free himself outwardly. Of what use, in such serious matters as survival, to live in so many illusions? Sentimentalists and emotionalists who desert reason at the bidding of well-intentioned, high ideals or religion to preach unrealistic attitudes do not know the difference between religio-mystic ethics and philosophic ethics. Only the latter is practical in the highest sense as well as the Worldly one. Foolish teachers, professors, and those whose lives are spent in academic circles are suborned by these emotions more easily than are other people, just because their distance from the World of practical decisions and realistic affairs have made them one-sided. All this emotional energy which neurotics waste in self-pity, hysterics in crises, and unwary ordinary persons in trivialities and negatives, is to be conserved, controlled, and constructively redirected. If it be observed that young people and women at times display emotional instability, let is also be stated that to them is given by Nature tasks which can be fulfilled only in great love, and which call up in them commensurate emotional capacity. Where much is given, much is required, and they in particular need to learn control and wise use of the emotional drive so generously placed in their keeping. #RandolphHarris 18 of 21
The Sacramento Fire Department stands as a dedicated and vigilant guardian of public safety, committed to safeguarding lives, property, and the environment. With unwavering expertise and a steadfast devotion to service, the Sacramento Fire Department is at the forefront of the fire prevention, emergency response, and community education. Through their dedicate firefighters, advanced equipment, and proactive initiatives, the Sacramento Fire Department stands ready to respond to emergencies, mitigate risks, and foster a resilient and prepared community. “The best thing to me in a firehouse is the fellowship. We have good rapport, and it’s a learning type of situation for me at this point. Sometimes I just sit around and listen to guys with years of experience. That’s enlightening because I’ve learned so much just from listening. Then to follow them on the job and see how they actually attack each situation, that has been even more beneficial to me. Hard workers and a good group of guys, everyone pulls his own weight. There’s no coldness, no harshness. The worst thing is hearing about firemen hurt or killed in the line of duty. Night watches never bother me, because I’m a night owl anyway. Some people don’t like those last hours, two-thirty to five. I work straight through the night. Cleaning is tough. A lot of times we have to do windows and mop floors. When I go home, it’s hard to look my wife straight in the face and say, ‘Hey, I don’t do windows.’ I don’t have a leg to stand on, because if I do windows in the firehouse, it means I have to do them at home. But at least we’re working in a clean environment. #RandolphHarris 19 of 21
“If the police have people hired to clean the station, it makes sense to me, because they really don’t have police who sleep in. But this is like a home to us, this is where we sleep. So it’s really like taking care of your own house. I don’t think people realize the amount of work and the strenuous activity that firefighters do. They see the engines or trucks go by, and they think they’re going to a fire, and that’s the end of it. It doesn’t occur to them the work that is involved in pulling a line and going into these fires and rescuing people, breaking windows just to let smoke out. They aren’t aware of the hazards in the job. When they hear about a firefighter being hurt or killed, they think that it’s a dangerous job—but on a general level. They really don’t know the specifics and how really dangerous it is. They don’t know about the pumping, and putting the engine in pump, and getting the pressure on. All they think is that you just hooked the hose up to a fire hydrant, you pull it toward the fire, and that’s the end of it. They’ll see firefighters at the station maybe sitting on a bench or after they raise the flag. They rise by and say, ‘Oh, what a life.’ Or, “Oh, that’s where my money to Uncle Sam goes.’ Most of my experience in the job, thus far, has been in occupied dwellings, no big high rises yet. I get off the engine, and I’m dragging an inch-and-three-quarter, and my adrenaline gets going. I’m on the tip, and this is my baby, this is my job, I know I’m going to do it. I think this is something that all firefighters feel. If they’re on the tip, they know they’re going to control this fire one way or the other. Either they’re going to put it out or they’re going to confine it. It gives you a lot of satisfaction. It really makes you feel it’s you against the fire. #RandolphHarris 20 of 21
“You come into battle with this fire, no matter how bad it is. A lot of times it’s scary, because you look at a wall of flames and you think, ‘Wow, here I am armed with this little hose. I don’t know if this is going to be the trick.’ But you know it always works out and you’re always able to get the best of it. There’s always someone right there with you. You’re never alone. If you get too much smoke, everyone knows, and it’s okay. Someone will step in and take over, and help you out in some way or other. It’s not a question of, ‘Okay, here’ the tip, and you’re on your own, and go do it.’ Being on the tip is an aggressive type of job. You get in there, and you have to confront the fire, and you know you have a lot of help with you. You just do the job. I got a Heroism Citation, and one of my fellow firefighters was really glad for me. And he congratulated me.” The Sacramento Fire Department is committed to ensuring the safety and well-being of the community through continuous training and public education. You can save lives and property by donating to the Sacramento Fire Department. To keep our communities safe, remember to raise your children to love America and be patriotic. It is very important also to love God and Jesus Christ. To ensure the economic security of America, please buy American cars and other goods and services made in America. Respect law and order, get your education, and treat your elders with dignity, empathy, and compassion. “I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic, for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. #RandolphHarris 21 of 21
The Winchester Mystery House
In October, when the sun was orange-red and large as a hanging jack-o’-lantern, the leaves danced in circles at their feet in the curt wind and the chill of winter death was beginning to settle in on porches as The Winchester Mystery House, two caretakes came to work with caps on their heads, and the energetic joy of the young bloomed in their cheeks and in their bright angel eyes. Sidewalks disappeared under their feet. Nicholas leaped at the near-nude branch of a tree, missing it with an ooof. Viola leaped behind him and touched it. The wind whistled in the dark day’s passing. Nicholas and Viola shied away from the perfect, straight front walk, crept instead across the forbidden lawn. Breathing lightly, they drew up to the side of the house. The house was pastel green and seemed still wet to the touch it looked so freshly painted. So fresh that Nicholas found himself reaching to touch it. Violation slapped at his hand and motioned for him to be quiet. Nicholas smiled. Around the back they crept, stopping underneath the one window. Shivers went through them both. Inside, dimly lit, were colours of Christmas morning. Red and green, gold and bronze, silver, blue.
There was no communication between Nicholas and Viola. Their souls were united and yet started to separate. Nicholas opened the door. The two exchanged glances, as the wind whipped up. An early moon had risen, and shone a pale crescent at their backs. The red sun was sinking. They sky had deepened a notch on the blue colour scale, toward eventual black. The air bit cold. Somewhere inside of the mansion a dog barked once, twice. Viola held on to Nicholas’s arm. They both found themselves in a hurricane eye in the center of the room. It was very dim here, since the fading outside light was cut off by a row of bloodred cues of diminishing size. Light became a little dimmer. There was a sound, and Nicholas and Viola were startled. The sound came again. It was almost a scabbling sound–like tiny fiddler crabs loose in a wooden boat and ticking all over its inside surface. An ancient and wheezing sound–old age with claws, moving with slow careful grace and constant, inevitable movement towards its destination. Viola and Nicholas were trapped. The sound was all around them–slow, inexorable–and, though they were on their feet, there was nowhere to turn. Nicholas could not locate the pathway back to the door; indeed, that pathway had seemed to disappear. There was the sound of a door opening.
Somewhere behind them, or in front of them, or to their left or right. A large door was being opened. There was a heavy, wheezy breathing. A rattling, dry cough. Another wheezing breath, and then a whispered grunt and the closing of a heavy door. A shuffling sound, the clock light button, a shuffling sound once more. The room was suffused with a dull amber glow, like that in a dusty antique shop. A dry cough and the shuffling continued. Abruptly, from nowhere, a creature. It beat the fist of one hand into the palm of the other. Then it sprang up, and in an instant was sprinting through a door which appeared. Though the moonlight was now bright, Nicholas list sight of the beast almost immediately. With a heavy heart, he pulled himself to his feet and began a long trudge down the hallway. And he was not sure about what happened to Viola. All of the sudden, he felt a ghost following him as he went through his chores of emptying trash cans and taking empty glasses into the kitchen. He tried bravely to ignore it, although he was frightened and he knew that the ghost knew it, which made it all the more difficult to carry on. All of the sudden a frying pan standing on the stove lifted off by itself, hung suspended in midair for a moment, and then was flung back on the stove with full force. Nichoals flew into hysterics, and it took a long time for him to calm down. It seems ghosts like to stay in a place that are familiar with.
Please come and enjoy a delicious meal in Sarah’s Café, stroll along the paths of the beautiful Victorian gardens, and wonder through the miles of hallways in the World’s most mysterious mansion. For further information about tours, including group tours, weddings, school events, birthday party packages, facility rentals, and special events please visit the website: https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
Please visit the online giftshop, and purchase a gift for friends and relatives as well as a special memento of The Winchester Mystery House. A variety of souvenirs and gifts are available to purchase. https://shopwinchestermysteryhouse.com/
Evil Behind Smiling Eyes
Obviously, one must hold oneself responsible for the evil impulses. Therefore, beware of the evil behind the smiling eyes. As we increase our understanding and love for the Saviour, His light will illuminate everything around us. We will then see evil for what it is. Working as a special agent for the FBI, my friend investigated organized crime groups transporting illegal drugs into the United States of America. On one occasion, he and another agent approached an apartment where they believed a known drug dealer was distributing cocaine. My friend describes what happened: “We knocked on the door of the drug dealer. The suspect opened the door, and upon seeking us, tried to block our view. However, it was too late’ we could see the cocaine on his table. A man and a woman who were at the table immediately began removing the cocaine. We had to prevent them from destroying the evidence, so I quickly pushed the drug suspect who was blocking the door to the side. As I pushed him, my eyes met his. Strangely, he did not appear angry or afraid. He was smiling at me. His eyes and disarming smile gave me the impression that he was harmless, so I quickly left him and started to move toward the table. The suspect was now behind me. At that instant, I had the distinct, powerful impression come into my mind: ‘Beware of the evil behind the smiling eyes.’ #RandolphHarris 1 of 17
“I immediately turned back toward the suspect. His hand was in his large front pocket. Instinctively I grabbed his hand and pulled it from his pocket. Only then did I see, clutched in his hand, the semiautomatic pistol ready to fire. A flurry of activity followed, and I disarmed the man.” Later, in another case, the drug dealer was convicted of murder and boasted that he would have also killed my friend had he not turned around at that very moment. He was a weak sniveling punk. A born snitch. He caused my friend trouble before. He had this place near Palm Springs. Used it for a hideout. It was loaded with guns and heroin. One weekend, there was this underaged girl that the heat was looking for and they went to the door. They were looking for this girl, and he said get a warrant. My friend in the FBI said he would. So, the other dudes covered the side doors, and one of them got a shotgun and two pistols and waited at the end of the hallway. His old lady answered the door, but when the FBI came, the sixteen-year-old girl went to the door and gave herself up. So, the offenders piled the guns in the car, and drove to another location. On this planet, evil has been allowed a position of influence to give us the chance to choose between good and evil. #RandolphHarris 2 of 17
The scripture says: “God gave unto man that he should act for himself. [And] man could not act for himself [unless] he was enticed by one or the other. The choice between good and evil is at the very heart of our experience on Earth. If we are rich or poor, if we were athletic or not, if we had friend or were often forgotten, in the final review of our lives, it will not matter. The suspect with the guns in the car was apprehended. The morning after sentencing, the orders came through transferring him to the State Prison. Emigration from short-time County Jail to long-term penitentiary. In the basement holding tank, stripped of county wrappings, he dressed for the final time in mod flannels. He was stored in a special isolated holding tank until the County Jail bus drove through the smoggy freeways to the Prison Reception Center at Chino, California. The welcoming committee was grim and blunt. “Strip naked. Throw your personal belongings in the box. Bend over for body inspection. Run your hands through your hair, both your ears. Open your mouth. Wag your tongue. Lift your testicles. Turn around spread your buttocks. Left foot. Right foot. Shower,” the authorities told him. He dressed in the new prison uniform. #RandolphHarris 3 of 17
A tall African American in blue danced over. He gave him ten hand-rolled cigarettes. The rumor wind was blowing around him. They were going to put him in the hole. The Captain wanted to see him. They were going to ship him to the Medical Center at Vacaville. And he would be getting bailed out the next day. The sergeant checked inmate for long hair and ordered him to the barber. He got a last mirror glimpse at forest hair and moustache. He asked the barber to leave as much as he could, but the barber grunted and clipped. “Don’t complain, man. You look twenty years younger,” he said. Our offender then took sheets and blankets and followed the sergeant to solitary confinement. It was a bad-boy lock up for him. He walked by the cages of the dangerous wild men. They shouted in pleasure to see him. An African American man shouted: “Hey man, we gotta talk to you. We cannot see each other. Just cries from cage to cage.” A nasty Brooklyn voice denounced the offender. “Oh, he’s that bad man! Hang him.” Another African American defended him. Shorty’s Brooklyn voice turned friendly. “Hey Doc, look at these pictures.” A hand from the next cell appeared holding colour snapshots. Sadeyed blue wife and clear-eyed kids. “Hey Doc, here’s a record of my trial. Read it.” “Hey Doc, you want some cigarettes.” “Hey Doc, you need some stamps and envelops.” “Hey Doc, you wanna a Playboy magazine?” #RandolphHarris 4 of 17
Dinner was passed through a slot in the bars of the narrow white counter bod. Then the evening sports. African American used mirrors to catch the setting sun, playing sunshine tag, racing reflected birds of light against the wall. Laughing and shouting. At the hour of romance, from his solitary cell a young man sadly coos a soft message and an African American voice rumbles back: “You Karl I going to get you expletive. What I’m gonna do to you girl! Hoooeee. I got me twenty inches for you. You my expletive.” “Oh no big boy, I’m my own man,” he repiles. “Great God almighty, I gotta het me some sweet white meat. I sick to death of my own right hand. Wheee—here I come Karl. Ohhhhh what I’m gonna to do to you siter. I gonna split your pink expletive girl. Stuff my tool up your belly, split yo kidneys girl. Gut you baby so you gonna never be able to walk again. Oh, Mr. Guard let that man out. Oh let him loose. I need that man.” Our offender now has a momentary reflex, fear of being trapped in a cell holocaust was calmed by the cement steel of maximum security. Next morning the offender is called to the Captain’s office; sitting watching trustees run the prison, typing, phoning, filing, serious responsible people working proudly. “We’ve finally got you, huh. You are going to be with us a long time. Ha ha. You’re smaller than on TV. I guess we cut you down to size, huh,” said the Captain. #RandolphHarris 5 of 17
Prison is a very dangerous place. Be sure to think before committing an illegal act. You may think you are high and mighty, until the cell doors close on you. We can work, study, laugh and have fun, dance, sing, and enjoy many different experiences. These are a wonderful part of life, but they are not central to why we are here. The opportunity to choose good over evil is precisely why we are here. Not one of us would say, “I want to choose evil.” We all want to choose the right. However, the choice of good over evil is not always easy, because evil frequently lurks behind smiling eyes. Listen to these warnings: “Take heed…that ye do not judge that which is evil to be of God.” “Ye must watch and pray always lest ye enter into temptation; for evil desireth to have you.” The message is: Beware of the evil behind the smiling eyes! I have known a few young men who began with every intention to stay firm in their loyalty to the Saviour but who slipped from the path because they did not see the evil behind eyes that appeared quite harmless. They saw the fun, the pleasure, the acceptance, but they did not see the other consequences. How, then, can we discern the evil being something that does not appear evil? First, talk to your parents. We fathers know we are far from perfect, but we love you, and along with your mothers, have deep interest in your choosing the right. #RandolphHarris 6 of 17
Very importantly, let the Holy Ghost be your guide. The Lord has promised us that as we live righteously, the still, small voice will come into our mind and into our heart. You have felt this influence. You know this voice. The gift of the Holy Ghost is a spiritual gift. It is sensitive and will not be associated with unworthiness. You cannot offend or ignore it one day and expect it to strengthen you the next day. However, as you heed its promptings and remain righteous, it will grow stronger within you. The Holy Ghost warned my friend of physical danger; they Holy Ghost will also warn you of spiritual danger. Finally, gain your own testimony of the Saviour. Pray passionately. When no one is watching, read the Christian Holy Bible and the Book of Mormon. Take time alone to think about who Jesus Christ really is and how His life and sacrifice are important to you. If we bother to look back at America’s foreign policy after the 2020 election, we are shocked by the constant failures of our government. The August 2024 jobs report reveals a sharp contrast in employment trends between American born and foreign-born workers. Native-born Americans lost over 1.3 million jobs over the last year, while foreign-born workers gained more than 1.2 million jobs. #RandolphHarris 7 of 17
New York City hands illegal immigrants $4,000 and gift cards to move out of shelters. And the Department of Justice reports an illegal immigrant used a stolen identity to vote. A man who sees the constant and incomprehensible decline of his government can only drop his head in despair, or feel the beginning of an internal desire for a flaming rebellion against such a regime. However, as we increase our understanding and love for the Saviour, His light will illuminate everything around us. We then will see evil for what it is. Children need the peace that comes from knowing they have a loving Heavenly Father, who sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to bring light and hope into the World. It is up to us as adults to direct children to that peace and light. From the flight against the authority of Church, State, and family which characterize the last centuries, we have come back full circle to a new obedience; but this obedience is not one to autocratic persons, but to the organization. The “organization man” is not aware that he obeys; he believes that eh only conforms with what is rational and practical. Indeed, disobedience has become almost extinct in the society or organization men, regardless of their ideology. Yet one must remember that the capacity for disobedience is as great a virtue as the capacity for obedience. #RandolphHarris 8 of 17
One must remember that, according to the Hebrew and Greek myths, human history began with an act of disobedience. Adam and Eve, living in the Garden of Eden were still part of nature, as the fetus is in the womb of the mother. Only when they dared to disobey an order were their eyes opened; they recognized each other as strangers and the World outside as strange and hostile. Their act of disobedience broke the primary bond with nature and made them individuals. Disobedience was the first act of freedom, the beginning of human history. Prometheus, stealing the fire of the gods, is another disobedient dissenter. “I would rather be chained to this rock than be the obedient servant of the gods,” he said. His act of stealing the fire is his gift to men, thus laying the very basis for civilization. He, like Adam and Eve, was punished for his disobedience; yet he, like them, has made human evolution possible. Man has continued to evolve by acts of disobedience not just in the sense that his spiritual development was possible only because there have been men who dared to say “no” to the powers that be in the name of their conscience or of their faith. His intellectual development was also dependent on the capacity for being disobedient, disobedient to the authorities who tried to muzzle new thoughts, and to the authority of long-established opinions which declared change to be nonsense. #RandolphHarris 9 of 17
If the capacity for disobedience constituted the beginning of human history, obedience might cause the end of human history. I am not speaking symbolically or poetically. There is the possibility that the human race will destroy itself and all life on Earth within the next tend to fifteen years. There is no rationality or sense in it. However, the fact is that while we are living technically in the atomic age, the majority of men live emotionally still in the stone age, including most of those who are in power. If mankind commits death by suicide, it will be because people will obey those who command them to push the deadly buttons, because they will obey the archaic passions of fear, hate, and greed; because they will obey obsolete cliches of state sovereignty and national honour. By the time he gets to “I Guess I’D Better Drive You, Dear” or “Getcher Expletive Outa Bed,” or even, “I’ll Beatcher Goddam Brains Out If You Don’t,” the child already has certain convictions about himself and the people around him, especially his parents. These convictions are likely to stay with him the rest of his life, and may be summarized as follows: I’m O.K. or; I’m not-O.K; You’re O.K. or; You’re not-O.K. On the basis of these he makes his life decisions. “It’s a World, some day I’ll make it a better one”—through science, service, poetry, or music. #RandolphHarris 10 of 17
“It’s a bad World, someday I’ll kill myself”—or kill someone else, go crazy, or withdraw. Perhaps it is a mediocre World, where you do what you have to do and have fun in between; or a tough World, where you make good by putting on a white collar and shuffling other people’s papers’ or a hard World, where you sweep or bend or deal, or wiggle or fight for a living; or a dreary World, where you sit in a bar hoping; or a futile World, where you give up. I believe that we are in great danger of being converted into complete organization men, and that means, eventually, into political totalitarianism, unless we regain the capacity to be disobedient and to learn how to doubt. In working with unusually defensive, withdrawn or fearful individuals we find it even more important than ever not to impose ourselves on them. How is non-imposition consistent with a therapist who expresses more of himself more openly and actively, and who initiates relationships by expressing himself? Tentatively, if he will express himself—his own imaginings, his own feelings, desires, the events which transpire in him—and if he does this clearly and explicitly as statements about himself, or about events transpiring within him at the moment, I think the answer is: the therapist can be more active and at the same time present less imposition and threat. In this way he shares himself more openly, yet he does not impose on the client’s experience. He speaks for himself with events in the client. #RandolphHarris 11 of 17
The content of our field of perception is necessarily selective; it cannot include all inner and outer reality that exists at a given moment. Only part of the ongoing flow of feelings, thoughts, and external events is defected by our sense organs and represented in our field of awareness. Our sense organs resemble TV or radio receivers, in that they are differentially sensitive to stimuli of different intensities and qualities. However, even within the receptive range of our senses, we still notice only a fraction of all the sensory information reaching our brain. Some of the important determiners of figure, that is, of our focus of attention, are unfulfilled needs. Our feelings and our needs direct our perception, thinking, remembering, and fantasy, so that the figure will be that perception, thought or memory most relevant to our needs of the moment. Our cognitive processes are thus servants of our needs. When we are hungry, we think and dream about food, we search for it, and we tend to ignore everything in the World that is indelible or that will not help us to get food. If we are deprived of pleasures of the flesh, we tend to have fantasies with erotic themes, we find it difficult to think about other things, and we look at the World from the standpoint of the gratification of pleasures of the flesh and frustration it is likely to afford. #RandolphHarris 12 of 17
If we are anxious because of some threat to our security; we are too busy seeking the source of danger so that we might escape from it. There have been many experiments conducted to demonstrate how needs determine our attention and the content of our consciousness, and so we need not dwell further upon this point. More germane to our discussion is the manner in which emotions and unfulfilled needs operate to distort our perceptions and beliefs. We hear much from the moralists about the need of encouraging young men and young women to express themselves and of not letting society impose its will upon them, as we hear much from the psychoanalysts about the need of liberating them from secret inhibitions and of satisfying their repressed emotions. Both these movements are excellent. They are antidotes to the tyrannic soul-crushing, hypocrisy-breeding, and self-deceiving conventions of the old society. However, a good overdone may become an evil a virtue stretched too far may become a vice, and a method which ignores all the facts of the diamond of psychological truth except a single one may become unbalanced. The new morality may free people to the point where liberty is merely license and expression a dangerous disregard for the knowledge yielded by experience and age. The new psychoanalysis may free them to the point where mental liberation is mere lack of self-control and emotional satisfaction is dangerously anti-social. #RandolphHarris 13 of 17
This is not to say that we would belittle the value of either. Both standard points may be philosophically used, which means they may be used in a balanced manner as a part of a wider one. The whole man is the natural man. Whoever sets up a cleavage between the intellectual and emotional functions, and would ignore the latter in order to enthrone the former, is unnatural and cannot attain that truth which is the voice of nature. This is not to say that emotional or reason should run riot; it is proper and necessary to give reason the reins, but this done, any sharper division will lead to unbalance, distortion, and error. Yes, the emotions of a person who is called hard and dry may need to be released, but this applies only to the positive ones. The negative ones are not worth releasing and should be got rid of. Anger and hatred are dangerous emotions to carry about with you. Whether or not they lead to actions harmful to the person they are directed against, they are certainly harmful to you. Conquer them quickly, get these psychological poisons out of your system. There is another kind of negative trait which, although unaggressive, is only less unpleasant by a matter of degrees than the aggressive ones. It is the black and bitter mood of sullen coldness, of the self-centered, self-tormenting, self-pitying sense of being wronged by the other person, the introverted, withdrawn, sulky, resentment at being hurt, a resentment so deep as to find no fitter expression than gloomy, frozen, and tense silence. #RandolphHarris 14 of 17
He places all the blame for the situation on the other and consequently adopts a grieved unconciliatory attitude towards the other. He wounds by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being boorish. The atmosphere around him is full of sustained and hostile emotional tension. It is, of course, an adolescent trait and cannot endure when spiritual maturity is really attained. What the unawakened man feels as fear, the awakened one transmutes into needful caution and careful forethought. It is a feat of emotional surgery to relinquish attachments and to renounce possessiveness. Emotions unchecked by reason may become our betrayers. Beware of them when exceptionally strong and unduly excessive. The fears which are natural or necessary should not be confused with the fears which are neurotic or excessive. If the aspirant is to remake himself effectively, he must begin by attacking the lower emotions. They must be killed and eliminated from his life scene. So long as they dominate it, so long will experience yield poisonous fruits instead of healthy-giving ones. Every fresh situation will only give fresh life to his ego because those emotions will involve themselves in that situation and cause him to misread it. The first enemies, the hidden sources of his own difficulties, are within himself. To take the attitude in a depressing situation that the only action is to sit down and be depressed by it is unphilosophical. He should never give himself up to despair, although he may give himself up in hard situations to gravest reflection and deepest resignation. #RandolphHarris 15 of 17
The Sacramento Fire Department provides Sacramento City with the best possible all-risk emergency service in the protection of lives and property. They are and will continue to be identified by their dedication and pride in outstanding customer service, public health, safety, prevention and education. “For the last three years in fire prevention week, another firefighter and I go to all the different schools—anywhere from preschool up to twelfth grade—and teach fire prevention. The students enjoy it. It’s amazing how many students actually remember you. I’ve had kids come up to me in church, and say, ‘I remember you. Stop, drop, and roll!’ And I say, ‘Yeah, you’re right.’ Then I say, ‘What do you do if you have smoke in your room?’ And they’ll tell me, ‘I stay low, and I crawl.’ To me, that’s worth every ounce of time I’ve spent with these kids. If I can just save one of these kids, ever, that’s all I can ask. I couldn’t want any more. One Christmas Eve, we came home from my family’s party, and we tucked our children in. Just like in the storybook, they were all nestled in bed. And my wife and I were being Santa’s helpers, setting out all of Santa’s gifts with their name tags on them, when I got a call that we had a house fire. I remember giving her a kiss and saying, ‘I’ll be back as soon as I can.’ And I left her sitting among all these toys that weren’t put together yet, and all this stuff scattered around, and I went on the house fire. #RandolphHarris 16 of 17
“Thankfully, there was nobody in the house, they were out visiting, but their house was destroyed, a total loss. I came back home, and it was like magic: everything had been done. And there my wife was sitting, with a cup of coffee for me, and she made my Christmas really special. In fact, it was Christmas morning by the time I got back. But she didn’t complain. It didn’t upset her. There have been a lot of occasions when I’ve had to leave her. She has been really good, very supportive, and she’s proud of me, she really is.” The lives and well-being of the citizens of Sacramento, visitors, and department members is their highest priority. The Sacramento Fire Department is fiscally responsible in all they do. You can help save lives by donating to the Sacramento Fire Department. To keep our community peace, please raise your children to love America, love God, and love Jesus Christ. It is also important to be patriotic and buy American cars and other American made goods and services. In order to maintain the tranquility of our city, we must always remember to respect law and order, and treat our elders with the utmost dignity, reverence, and honour. Good neighbours play a vital role in creating a strong and resilient community. They come together in times of need, facing challenges as a united from. Good neighbours build a foundation of unity and creative a beneficial impact on the neighbourhood as a whole. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. #RandolphHarris 17 of 17
The Winchester Mystery House
“One Halloween night, after work, I was playing with another tour guide the front of The Winchester Mystery House. It was Autumn, and the grass was stiff; I remember it was cold that day. We were tumbling on the grass, throwing each other over our shoulders, laughing. I remember the other tour guide twirling me around. We were both getting dizzy and were laughing uncontrollably. We had wandered somewhat from the center of the lawn and started to pick the roses; the petals were stiff and dry. I could see the sun on their dry red, pink, and yellow petals. The other tour guide was laughing. I was running around chasing him, and he picked me up, a bit too fast, tumbling me over his shoulder. I remember the roses coming at my eyes like colorful orbs in slow motion, and then into them. I started screaming, hearing myself scream, and I was flailing my arms and hands, trying to pull the orbs from my eyes, sitting on the ground and screaming uncontrollably, shrieking, my entire body shaking, and then feeling hands on me. His hands were on my face, and the sticky mass of tears and blood, and then I could feel him tugging at the roses, orbs, pulling them free one at a time, gently, and there was a sound as he did it, a sucking sound. The last thing I remember seeing was my coworker’s face after he pulled the last orb free. I could see his face through blood, though I could not see very clearly. There was a look of horror on his face, and then my eyes began to unfocused, as if the world were being pulled away, taking the light with it, and I was alone and screaming. I was so alone. I was sent away to have my eyes cared for. They told me later, much later, that I had been traumatized. I was ill for a very long time, and would not eat or speak; I lived inside. I went through a lot of therapy, and there were a lot of different doctors and hospitals. I was never sent home. I remember screaming, lot of crying, and then, after a long, long time, a kind of peace came over me. I became calm. I told them I was alright, that I wanted to go home. But they wouldn’t listen to me. They wouldn’t send me home. I started to cry. I wanted to see my friend from work again, I want to see him, to tell him I was all right, that he didn’t have to have that look on his face anymore, that it wasn’t his fault. But they wouldn’t send me him. I became so hysterical again, and the therapy began again. For a whole year I didn’t speak. For another year I screamed. And then I became calm again. The other tour guide was sent to an institution. No one knows what actually happened that day. Whatever the case may be, there is no denying that The Winchester Mystery House is a truly mysterious place… and its ghosts just keep getting creepier!”
Please come and enjoy a delicious meal in Sarah’s Café, stroll along the paths of the beautiful Victorian gardens, and wonder through the miles of hallways in the World’s most mysterious mansion. For further information about tours, including group tours, weddings, school events, birthday party packages, facility rentals, and special events please visit the website: https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
Please visit the online giftshop, and purchase a gift for friends and relatives as well as a special memento of The Winchester Mystery House. A variety of souvenirs and gifts are available to purchase. https://shopwinchestermysteryhouse.com/
Golden Moments of Love and Content
The loss of hope and the increasing brutalization are, unfortunately, not the only evils that have befallen Western civilization since 1914. Through honouring our covenants, we enable God to pour out the multitude of promised blessings associated with those covenants. However, is not excessive melancholy just as undesirable, and as much of a stumbling lack in the path of spiritual progress as, for instance, excessive drinking—or any other fault? What is being gained by these self-demeaning tactics? Is anyone benefiting from them? The time has come to ask himself these questions. Certainly, he is not alone in having made mistakes—everybody makes them! If everybody continued to punish themselves over and over again, needlessly remaining on the level of their own errors, consider what would happen? What then is to be done? Only when he is willing to change his attitude towards it, will his gloomy situation improve. He must make a deliberate attempt to cultivate happiness! Just as he raises the window shade in the morning to allow sunshine to pour into the room, so he must open himself to the higher power and let hope invade his heart! Jesus Christ taught through stories and symbols—a mustard seed to teach the worthy of souls, a prodigal son to teach the character of God. His parables were symbols through which He could teach deeper lessons to those who had “ears to hear.” However, those not seeking the deeper meaning would not understand. #RandolphHarris 1 of 18
As long as he continues to cling to despondency and to misunderstand, he is shutting out God and preventing His message from reaching him. Every say is a new day, with new possibilities of a fresh, determined, and more courageous approach to all daily difficulties. Let him forget the past, and start planning for a happier tomorrow! No one else can do this for him, but he can draw faith from the knowledge that his efforts will count towards his joyful resurrection. When God the Father offered His Only Begotten Son as a sacrifice for us, Jesus Christ Himself became the highest symbol of our Father in Heaven’s undying love for each of us. Jesus Christ became the Lamb of God. We have the privilege and blessing of being invited into a covenant relationship with God, in which our own lives can become a symbol of that covenant. Covenants create the kind of relationship that allows God to mold and change us over time and life us to become more closer to the Saviour, drawing us closer and closer to Him and our Father and eventually preparing us to enter Their presence. It is an heroic and stoic goal to set before a man, that he shall not be dependent upon others for his happiness and that he shall be emotionally self-sufficient. However, it is a goal reachable by and, in the present kind of faulty human society, useful to, only the few. #RandolphHarris 2 of 18
Each person on Earth is a beloved son or daughter of God. When we choose to be part of a covenant, it enhances and deepens our relationship with Him. As we make covenants with God, our relationship with Him can become much closer than it was before our covenant, and it enables Him to bless us with an extra measure of His mercy and love, a covenantal love referred to as hesed in the Hebrew language. The covenant path is all about our relationship with God—our hesed relationship with Him. Our Father wants a deeper relationship with His sons and daughters, but it is our choice. As we draw nearer to Him through a covenant relationship, it allows Him to Draw nearer to us and more fully bless us. If man reaches finality of decision and recognizes that enlightened self-discipline is to be achieved and not resisted, he takes the first step to true happiness. So long as we believe that some other person is essential to our happiness, so long shall we fail to attain that happiness. Happiness is not the monopoly of the successful One of the happiest men I ever knew was an aged tramp who wandered from poorhouse to poorhouse across the country. His eyes were blazing with a strange light. Happiness? It is so important and so necessary? Are not strength, understanding, and peace of mind more indispensable to a human life? #RandolphHarris 3 of 18
When inner conflict goes out, inner harmony comes in. There can be no happiness without such harmony. Only they who have brought all the different sides of their being into equilibrium, as well as they who have lived filly between opposite poles of human experience, can appreciate the quest for serenity over the quest for happiness. Goethe in Europe was one man who appreciated this superiority. It is as erroneous to expect perfect happiness through another person as it is to expect perfect salvation. Each must find the one or the other for himself in himself. No one else can bear such a great and grave responsibility, or ought to bear it. No human relationship can adequately or properly be substituted for what everyone must in the end do for himself. He who asks for happiness asks for something he cannot and shall not get while his body breathes. The wise man does not ask more from life than it can yield him. If it cannot give happiness, it can give peace. “Are you happy?” is a question people often ask him. However, he has not sought happiness. He has sought to find out why he is here and to fulfill that purpose. The aim of getting as much person happiness as one can out of ever situation is no longer the dominant one. Other and loftier aims now coexist with it in some cases or even displace it in others. #RandolphHarris 4 of 18
During no one’s lifetime are all desires fully realized. To look for a happiness that is complete is to look in vain. It is more philosophic to look for peace of mind. Happiness may leave a man in a single moment or come to him in the same way. However, if he identifies it solely with the ego and nothing more, only then can this happen. If a man has inner peace, he does not have emotional disturbances or mental agitations. Who then, really enjoys living—the disciplined philosopher who has the peace, or the undisciplined sufferer from the agitations? The emotions are uppermost in primitive man. With time and evolution, reason begins to mix with them and eventually to rule the lower ones. With further time and further evolution, intuition appears as the fruit of the finer ones. This is the place of emotional life in man. Few persons can separate—in their consciousness—emotion from thoughts. The capability of doing so is essential both to self-knowledge and to self-conquest. Therefore, it is important to every Self-actualized Christian. We must keep the emotional issues separate from the intellectual ones. However, this is not to say that the intellect is to live an emotion-proof existence. Such separation always needs to be kept up only so long as the lack of it is likely to impair the quest of truth. #RandolphHarris 5 of 18
This danger arises only during the earlier stages of man’s seeking. When he has attained a balanced personality, cultivated a serene disposition, and master the egotistic urges within himself, then emotion and reason join forces with intuition in producing the quality of intelligence. Henceforth, he feels what he thinks and thinks what he feels, his emotions are rightly directed and his thoughts are truthfully formed. They work together harmoniously, satisfactorily, and unitedly. He who seeks to arrive at the truth about a matter must banish his personal inclinations and egoistic desires about it during the time that he contemplates it. He must make his emotions submit to the facts which displease them and he must compel his reasoning to accept the conclusions which surprise them. Otherwise, his emotions may betray him and his reasonings delude him, so that white will appear black and illusion will appear as reality. There is a special quality which we will do well to develop during this particular period in which we live, and that is calmness. For whenever we turn our gaze, we perceive great upheavals of thought and emotion, great stirring of violent passion and bitter hatred, mass excitement and mob restlessness. In such a disturbed atmosphere we are liable to be swept off our feet against our better judgment and may thus injure the true interests of ourselves or of our country. #RandolphHarris 6 of 18
We should remember that to keep a cool head is the way to act wisely and successfully, whereas to yield to hot impulsiveness is to act rashly and often wrongly. We should also remember how unfortunate younger folk of Germany were cunningly swept into the Nazi current of blind impulses and become the bomb-fodder for the insatiable ambitions of Mr. Hitler. Let this be a lesson on the need and value of calm judgment and levelheadedness. We may also draw a further lesion from Germany, that is, the importance of practicing food will to all. Had it realized this virtue, the continent of Europe could never have arrived at the present unhappy condition of its people. The more we try to be kindly and helpful to others, no matter what class or creed they belong to, the more others are kindly and helpful to us. Therefore, even from the purely selfish point of view it, pays good dividends to practice goodwill. Moreover, it will help us as much as anything else to get on in life, for it will bring friends, gratitude, and even opportunities. Once engaged on this Quest, it becomes necessary to attend closely to the emotional and mental movements within himself, rejecting the lower ones and consenting to the higher. He must study carefully the differences between them, so that he may be able to recognize them. #RandolphHarris 7 of 18
Not through fearing their bad effects, but through willing consent to the truth that his real being is above them and that it is better to live in reality than in illusion he must come to the discipline of passion and emotion. God sets the conditions and obligations of the covenants we make. When we choose to enter into that relationship, we witness to Him, through the symbolic actions of each covenant, that we are willing to abide by the conditions He has set. Through honouring our covenants, we enable God to pour out the multitude of promised blessings associated with those covenants, including increased power to change and become more like our Saviour. Jesus Christ is at the center of all covenants we make, and covenant blessings are made possible because of His atoning sacrifice. Ultimately, we can look to the example of the Saviour, who prayed so very often. However, it has always been intriguing to me that Jesus Christ felt the need to pray at all. Was he not perfect? Well, I have come to realize that He too with us, wanted to “seek [the Father’s] face, believe His Word, and trust His grace. Time after time, He retreated from society to be alone before piercing Heaven with His prayers. At other times, He prayed in the company of a few companions. Then He would seek Heaven on behalf of multitudes who would cover a hillside. #RandolphHarris 8 of 18
The first script programming takes place during the nursing period, in the form of short protocols which can later be worked into complicated dramas. Usually, these are two-handed scenes between the baby and his mother, with littler interferences from onlookers, if any, and with such breast-fed titles as “Public Performance,” “It is Not Time Yet,” “Whenever You Are Ready,” “Whenever I Am Ready,” “Hurry Up,” “He Who Bites Gets Brushed Off,” “While Mother Smokes,” “Pardon Me, The Phone Rang,” “What is He Fussing About?” “There is Never Enough,” “First One Then The Other,” “He Looks Pale,” “Let Him Take His Time,” “Is He Not Amazing,” “Golden Moments of Love and Content,” and “Lullaby.” Slightly more complicated are the corresponding bathroom scenes in the same families: “Come and See How Cute,” “It is Time Now,” “Are You Ready,” “You Can Just Sit There Till You Do,” “Hurry Up,” “Naughty Naughty,” “While Mother Smokes,” “While Mother is on the Telephone,” “Enema Tube,” “If You Don’t I’ll Give You Castor Oil,” “Here is Your Laxative,” “You Will Get Sick If You Do Not,” “Let Him Do It His Own Way,” “That is a Good Boy,” “That is a G-o-o-d Boy,” and “I Will sing While You Are Doing It.” Three-handed protocols are more frequent at this stage, including: “I Told You He Was Not Ready,” “Do Not Let Him Get Away With That,” “I Will Make Him Do It,” “You Try,” “You Are Disturbing Him,” “Why Do You Not…Yes, But,” and “He is Sure Coming Through This Time.” The Phantom in the Bedroom, may begin to appear: “Dr. Spock Says,” “Tessie Had Her Trained By the Time,” and “Sister Mary Was Only.” In later life these will become “Freud Says,” “Nancy Always Has One,” and “Helen Has It Every Night.” #RandolphHarris 9 of 18
It is already fairly predictable who the winners and the losers will be. “Is He Not Amazing?” reinforced two years later with “That is a God Boy” will usually do better than “What is He Fussing About?” reinforced one year later by “Enema Tube”; similarly, “Lullaby,” first at nursing and later in the bathroom, will probably prevail over “While Mother Smokes.” Already the feeling of O.K.ness or not-O.K.ness, which separates the now and future princes from the now and future frogs, is being implanted, and several types of frogs and princes (or for the ladies, goose girls and princesses) are being set up. “Is He Not Amazing?,” the Forever Prince with the success script, is often but not always the first-born. The Conditional Prince, “Come and See How Cute,” or “Hurry Up,” for example, can remain a prince as long as he stays cute or hurries up. The Conditional Frogs, “He Who Bites,” “Naughty Naughty,” or “He Looks Pale Needs a Laxative,” can stop being frogs by not biting or not looking pale; the Doomed Frogs, on the other hand, will hardly ever make it with anybody. Touching are the frogs who try not to care “While Mother Smokes” or “Has a Highball.” Only a disaster can turn the Forever Princes into frogs; only a miracle can transform the Doomed Frogs into princes. There are three conditions necessary and sufficient for psychotherapy. They are: empathy, unconditional regard, and congruence or genuineness. “Congruence,” implies that the therapist attempts to drop any personal or professional artificiality, any maneuvers or postures, and the he be himself. #RandolphHarris 10 of 18
In our work with schizophrenics this condition has become more and more important. Gone are formulas—even that most characteristic of client-centered modes of responding, which was called “reflection of feeling.” As the term “empathy” implies, we strive as always to understand and sense the client’s feelings from his own inward frame of reference, but now we have a wider scope of different behaviours with which therapists respond to clients. In fact, I believe that it was in part the undesirable tendency toward formulas and stereotyped ways of responding which led to the formulation of the condition of “congruence” as essential. To “be himself” has also meant that the therapist has become more expressive. The therapist much more often expressed his own feelings, his experiencing of the moment. The client expresses himself, then naturally the therapist’s present experiencing consists largely of an empathic sense of the client’s meaning. However, when the client offers no self-expression, the therapist’s momentary experiencing is not empty. At every moment, there occur a great many feelings and events in the therapist. Most of these concern the client and the present moment. The therapist need not wait passively till the client expresses something intimate or therapeutically relevant. #RandolphHarris 11 of 18
Instead, he can draw on hos own momentary experiencing and find there an ever-present reservoir from which he can draw, and with which he can initiate, deepen, and carry-on therapeutic interaction even with an unmotivated, silent, or externalized person. Also, “congruence” for the therapist means that he need not always appear in a good light, always understanding, wise, or strong. I find that, on occasion, I can be quite visibly stupid, have done the wrong thing, made a fool of myself. I can let these sides of me be visible when they have occurred in the interaction. The therapist’s being himself and expressing himself openly frees us of many encumbrances and artificialities, and makes it possible for the schizophrenic (or any client) to come in touch with another human being as directly as possible. However, it would seem that many of the erstwhile guidelines for therapeutic behaviour have disappeared. Only the basic attitudes are specified, not how one manifests or expresses them. If one knows how to function effectively, one has a sound basis for the development of a healthy personality. The ability to perceive reality as it “really is” is, therefore, fundamental to effective functioning. It is considered one of two preconditions to the development of the beautiful and noble person. Our need systems heavily affect our ability to perceive reality—we often perceive what we want to see rather than what is really there. #RandolphHarris 12 of 18
Our behaviour is always undertaken with reference to the Worlds as we believe it to be. Unless we somehow learn from individuals how the World appears to them, what they are paying attention to, how they interpret the things they see and hear, and what their expectations are regarding the World about them–we can hardly make sense out of anybody’s behaviour. If we see someone run in terror from an automobile engine as it starts up, because the automobile is simply something to get us from place to place, we will be puzzled. However, if the person is a primitive who has never seen an automobile, that person may perceive it as a punishing instrument of the gods that is about to engulf someone. If we know how the person perceives the situation, we can understand the situation better and offer help. Unless the person takes steps to verify them, a person’s perceptions and beliefs will be inaccurate or distorted. Reality contact is not a given; it is an achievement! Efficient contact with reality must be worked for, because there are powerful forces at work at all times, tending to distort perception, thinking, and recall. One thing people do not perceive, however, is that a cause of the deterioration of the Western civilization is connected precisely with its greatest achievements. #RandolphHarris 13 of 18
Since technology has advanced so rapidly, Western people have a standard of living which would have seemed unthinkable one hundred and fifty years ago, or even forty years ago, for that matter. However, the satisfaction of real and legitimate needs has changed into the creation and satisfaction of a powerful drive, namely “Commodity hunger.” Just as depressed individuals often are seized by a compelling desire to buy things or in other cases to eat, modern man has a greedy hunger for possessing and using new things, a hunger which he rationalizes as an expression of his wish for a better life. If they are not directly enriching to life, he claims that the things he buys help him to save time. Yet he does not know what to do with the time he saves, and spends one part of his income to kill the time he is so proud of having saved. We see this phenomenon most clearly in the richest country of the World, in the United States of America. However, it is quite clear that the trend in all other countries is the same. The goal everywhere has become maximal production and maximal consumption. The criterion or progress is seen in the figures for consumption. This holds true for the capitalist countries as well as for the communist countries. In fact, the rivalry between the two systems seems to center around the question of which can produce a higher level of consumption, rather than a better life. #RandolphHarris 14 of 18
As a result, man in the industrialized countries transforms himself more and more into a greedy, passive consumer. Things are not provided to serve the perfection of man, but man has become the servant of things, as a producer and as a consumer. Things have gotten so bad that people are willing to let their hands be pulled being their back and have the cuff slipped on. As they ride to the county jail in a squad car, over the goods and services they stole out of greed, they think about how efficient the process is. As radio messages crackle back and forth between the cruiser and headquarters, they stand under the hard glare in front of a reception panel. The door of a hold cell clicks open and slips shut behind them. There is a concrete floor with no benches. The guards gather around in New Testament style and look curiously, laughing at the new martyr. “For you, we throw away the key. If we have it our way, you’ll never get out. Their cellmate, dozing, head on knees, is roused to interest. “How come they tell you that, man. What you done? “God knows,” he replies. Then came those weary, lonesome jailhouse blues, thinking about how he will not be in his wife’s arms tonight due to consumer greed. The industrial system has had very unfortunate effects in still another direction. #RandolphHarris 15 of 18
The method of production has dramatically changed since the beginning of last century. Production, as well as distribution, is organized in big corporations which employ hundreds of thousands of workers, clerks, engineers, salesmen, etcetera. They are managed by a hierarchically organized bureaucracy, and each person turns into a small—or large—cog in this machine. He lives under the illusion of being an individual—while he has turned into a thing. As a result, we observe an increasing lack of adventurousness, individualism, willingness to make decisions and take risks. The goal is security, to be part of the big powerful machine, to be protected by it, and to feel strong in the symbolic connection with it. All studies and observation of the younger generation show the same picture: the trend to look for safe jobs, not to be concerned so much with high income but rather with satisfactory retirement provisions; the tendency to marry young and to shift quickly from the haven of the parental family to the haven of matrimony; cliché thinking, conformity and obedience to the anonymous authority of public opinion and of the accepted patterns of feelings. I supposed it is a better life than being confined to N tank, protective custody for bad actors, noncooperators, snitches, low-riding arm robbers, messianic acid head, baby robbers and assorted sex thieves, while someone softly calls threats down the tier at fearful titillated inmates trembling in the corner of the cell in the cold prison mist. #RandolphHarris 16 of 18
The Sacramento Fire Department provides timely, accurate, and relevant information to the residents of Sacramento regarding fire safety, emergency preparedness, and department activities. They aim to ensure the safety and well-being of the community by enforcing fire codes, conducting inspections, and saving lives and property of the citizens of Sacramento. “I’m only at Engine X a month, and at that time I’m an eager beaver because I want to do the best I can and want to be right at the front. I mean, I’d rather be the pipe man, not the backup man, but they rotate all the jobs, so it’s a big letdown when I’m not the pipe man, because that’s obviously the best job. We went to a fire in a run-down hotel. The fire was in one apartment on the sixth floor, and we got word that one of the occupants might still be in the apartment. There were no standpipes or sprinklers, so we stretched a line up the aerial ladder and into an adjacent window. And we picked the right window. There’s a tremendous amount of smoke in there, and everybody’s got their masks on, because you couldn’t move in there without them. Everybody’s moving around trying to make a search as well as stretching the line further in. And I bump into that occupant. I put my arms around the guy and drag him out into the hallway. He survived.” #RandolphHarris 17 of 18
The Sacramento Fire Department is committed to providing the highest level of service to the community by ensuring safety and preparedness. You can help save lives by donating to the Sacramento Fire Department. We are blessed with a great and noble heritage that offers a pathway to truth that veers dramatically from the so-called ways of the World. We need to remind ourselves about the value of heritage, so we do not underestimate its worth. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. We all have life events that, when we recall them years later, acquire new and important meaning. Please raise your children to love America and to love God and Jesus Christ. It is essential to buy American made cars and other goods and services produced in America. As always, in order to ensure tranquility on our community, respect law and order and treat your elders with dignity and respect. Make a point to be a good neighbour as to keep harmony in the community. We are imperfect people trying to follow the perfect example of Jesus Christ. We love each other, help each other, and try to follow Jesus’s teachings the very best we can. In any community of Saints, we all work to serve each other in the best way we know how. Our work has a higher purpose because it is work to bless others and to build the kingdom of God. #RandolphHarris 18 of 18
The Winchester Mystery House
There are countless stories about The Winchester Mystery House’s ghosts, some more believable than others. Some say that the ghost of Mrs. Winchester still haunts the mansion’s grounds. And even more people claim to have experienced paranormal activity, such as sightings or heard strange noises at The Winchester Mystery House.
There are said to be all sorts of weirdness going on at The Winchester Mystery House – from apparitions of people who have died in violent accidents to cold spots that appear only when no one is around. Some even claim to have heard voices and seen shadows moving about during their visits.
Whatever the case may be, there is no denying that The Winchester Mystery House is a truly mysterious place… and its ghosts just keep getting creepier!
Please come and enjoy a delicious meal in Sarah’s Café, stroll along the paths of the beautiful Victorian gardens, and wonder through the miles of hallways in the World’s most mysterious mansion. For further information about tours, including group tours, weddings, school events, birthday party packages, facility rentals, and special events please visit the website: https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
Please visit the online giftshop, and purchase a gift for friends and relatives as well as a special memento of The Winchester Mystery House. A variety of souvenirs and gifts are available to purchase. https://shopwinchestermysteryhouse.com/
Randolph Harris II International Institute 