Home » NGC598 (Page 20)
Category Archives: NGC598
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
When building a custom home, your experience is just as vital as the final product you live in. Whether you’re building a custom home in Utah or another state, we can help.
Our team at Millhaven goes beyond the build with our full-service approach to each project. https://millhavenhomes.com/custom-homes/
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/
In the Face of Threats, Can You Maintain Your Openness to New Ideas?
Let us feel that we are trying to become goof men of warm hearts, not good statues of cold marble. A grateful heart comes through expressing gratitude to our Heavenly Father for His blessings and to those around us for all that they bring into our lives. Through divine intervention those who are lepers are spared from a cruel, lingering death and given a new lease on life. It is not necessary that he remain married in order to pay repentance, nor on the other hand is he free to follow personal desires in the matter. It is a mistake to think that such a debt must continue to be paid until the end of one’s life. Yet, if one’s inner life and path are not to be obstructed, it must be paid off. Only the voice of his own deeper conscience may decide this point. An individual may keep the ideal of a true mate but understand that one cannot be absolutely certain to meet him or her on this Earth. The spiritual path is a call to renunciation of personal attachments, inwardly at least, and to a renunciation of the terrestrial nature also. If inner peace is to be obtained, both have to be overcome. However, once overcome, the World can be enjoyed without danger because his happiness no longer depends on it. If he lets the natural desire for a mate be included in but transcended by the higher desire for spiritual realization, he stands a chance to get both. However, if he feels that the first is wholly indispensable, he may miss the chance to get either. #RandolphHarris 1 of 18
The truth is that the Soul will not give itself to you unless you love It more than anything or anyone else. He may have great capacity for love in his nature which, properly directed by wisdom, may lead him to great spiritual heights and human satisfactions. However, directed by impulse, unchecked by reason, it can bring him into situations productive of much misery to himself and to others. He must therefore make it a part of his spiritual discipline to secure this balance. Until he has secured it, he should not commit himself to any decision without consulting with a spiritually mature person. Much harm has been done by the pseudo-romantic nonsense and false suggestions put out by cinema, magazines, social media, and novels. When one of the two belongs in every way—spiritual, intellectual, and social—to a class higher than the other, marriage is a risky affair. If they cannot meet on these levels, where can they? The bad in both is brought out and made worse; the good is diminished. If it were an essential part of religion, this was one of the original reasons why the caste system got established in some form or among the Old World, celebrities, and business elite. Marriage multiples burdens, entanglements, anxieties, difficulties, and Worldly preoccupations. #RandolphHarris 2 of 18
The single man has a better chance to wed his life to a single undistracted aim. Nevertheless, philosophy does not condemn marriage but leaves it to individual choice. Indeed, when two persons are temperamentally harmonious and spiritually suitable, it definitely approves of marriage. If he could find a companion who has the character and capacity to help, and not to hinder, his own inner pilgrimage, then it might be useful for him to marry; but is she were to tall short of this ideal, then greater inner misery would descend upon him. If she has to some, she will come into his life of her own accord, and there is a certain fate about such matters. In any case, it will be advisable to wait to make sure that the inner harmony does really exist. Some questions asked about marriage problems ought not to be answered by anyone other than the individual’s own higher self. Let him hear the voice of the Overself, which concerns itself neither with conventional contemporary attitudes, outdated Old World teachings, nor merely personal reactions. Let him listen mentally in profoundest prayer to hear this voice. My brothers and sisters, do we remember to give thanks for the blessings we receive? Sincerely giving thanks not only helps us recognize our blessings, but it also unlocks the doors of Heaven and helps us feel God’s love. #RandolphHarris 3 of 18
When you walk with gratitude, you do not walk with arrogance and conceit and egotism, you walk with a spirit of thanksgiving that is becoming to you and will bless your lives. It would be a profound error to believe that because the philosophic life is so deeply concerned with self-improvement and the philosophic mind so attached to serious studies, therefore the philosophic student must be a gloomy, dreary, and miserable individual. However, the contrary is the fact. His faith uplifts and upholds him, his knowledge brings joy and peace to him. Nor should the renunciatory preachments of therapists, friends, and parents, the bitter complaints of Job, the harsh pessimism of Schopenhauer, and the appraisal of the World’s life as vain and foolish in Ecclesiastes make us forget the cheerful optimism of Emerson and the bright rapture of many a mystic. The quest for an ideal place or person can never be satisfied; consequently, it can never really end. What we may hope to find are better places, better persons. The dream of the Best will always remain only a dream. Where is the Earthly thing, attraction, creature, which can compete successfully with THAT in the deepest heart of men? Without knowing what he is really doing, he is seeking THAT amid all other activities, loving THAT behind all other loves. #RandolphHarris 4 of 18
Given certain conditions, thinking only of oneself and without care for the welfare of other men, it is possible to attain happiness, but it is not possible to keep it. For if destiny or nature do not interrupt or destroy it, some among those others will become envious and may turn into potential danger to one’s happiness. Only to the extent that we unfold ourselves to the light of the impersonal Overself shall we secure personal happiness. The happiness which everyone wants can be found only in the eternal, not in the temporal. However, everyone continues to try this or that, with the same endlessly repeated result. Nobody listens to the prophets who tell this, or listens with more than his ears, until time teaches him its truth. Then only do his heart and will begin to apply it. The danger of seeking for personal happiness over and above self-improvement is one of nurturing egoism and thus hindering that improvement. And how could anyone find happiness so long as the cases of his suffering lie so largely in his own frailties? With a single exception, no living man is ever really content either with his lot or, what in the end is the same thing, with himself. That exception is the illuminate. In the timed state, all living men are unconsciously strive to become what they already are in the eternal one. #RandolphHarris 5 of 18
Human beings are unwittingly in search of themselves. This is the hidden cause of all their discontent, all their restless desires, endeavours, and ambitions. Happiness cannot be found by those who seek it as a goal in itself. It can be found only by those who know it is a result and not a goal. We have all experienced times when our focus is on what we lack rather than on our blessings. Said the Greek philosopher Epictetus, “He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has.” Gratitude is a divine principle. The Lord declared through a revelation given to the Prophet Joseph Smith: “Thou shalt thank the Lord thy God in all things and in nothing doth man offend God, or against none is his wrath kindled, save those who confess not his hand in all things. In the Book of Mormon, we are told to “live in thanksgiving daily, for the many mercies and blessings which [God] doth bestow upon you.” If we will but pause and contemplate our blessings, regardless of our circumstances, each of us has much for which to be grateful. This is a wonderful time to be on Earth. While there is much that is wrong in the World today, there are many good things that are right. There are marriages that make it, parents who love their children and sacrifice for them, friends who care about us and help us, teachers who teach. Our lives are blessed in countless ways. #RandolphHarris 6 of 18
We can lift ourselves and others as well when we refuse to remain in the realm of negative thought and cultivate within our hearts an attitude of gratitude. If ingratitude be numbered among the serious sins, then gratitude takes its place among the noblest of virtues. Someone has said that “gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others.” How can we cultivate within our hearts an attitude of gratitude? The grateful man sees so much in the World to be thankful for, and with him the good outweighs the evil. Love overpowers jealousy, and light drives darkness out of his life. Pride destroys our gratitude and sets up selfishness in its place. How much happier we are in the presence of a grateful and loving soul, and how careful we should be to cultivate, though the medium of a prayerful life, a thankful attitude toward God and man! A prayerful life is the key to possessing gratitude. Material things possession make us happy and grateful momentarily. However, those things which provide deep and lasting happiness and gratitude are the things which money cannot buy: our families, the gospel, good friends, our health, our abilities, the love we receive from those around us. Unfortunately, these are some of the things we allow ourselves to take for granted. #RandolphHarris 7 of 18
In fact, most human beings have an almost infinite capacity for taking things for granted. We often take for granted the very people who most deserve our gratitude. Let us not wait until it is too late for us to express that gratitude. Speaking of loved ones he had lost, my father declared his regret this way: “I remember those happy days, and often wish I could speak into the ears of the dead the gratitude which was due them in life, and so ill returned.” It is true that the student of philosophy, understanding the impermanent and imperfect nature of this World, has in one sense renounced the quest of personal happiness, but he has renounced it only as an end in itself. He comprehends, on the one hand, that it is futile to demand perfection and permanence when the ever-changing World cannot by its very nature give them. To seek to establish personal happiness under such conditions is to travel farther away from it. He comprehends, on the other hand, that so long as he feels for and with other living creatures, he cannot be fully happy whilst so many among them are immersed in suffering. However, all this is not to say that he needs to forgo the guest of the higher transworldly happiness which is entirely independent of persons, places, and things and which is to be found within the Overself alone. #RandolphHarris 8 of 18
Moreover, he realizes that it is his duty to attain it precisely because he must attain the power to lift those suffering creatures above their misery and gloom, to infuse in them the life-giving qualities of hope, courage, and serenity which will help them triumph over difficulties. Thus, there is no adequate reason why he should be less happy than other men. The depth of his thinking and discipline of his senses do not prevent his sharing in the beauty-brining arts, the laughter-raising fun, and the lighter diversions of human living. Indeed, by his efforts to reshape his thought and conduct, he is eliminating a number of causes which would otherwise bring him future worry and misery, just as he is fortifying himself to bear present trouble with calmness and wisdom. Moreover, if he has not already partially realised it–he is on the path to realizing for himself that inexpressible inner beauty and satisfying bliss which accompany the consciousness of Overself. Even from afar its reflected light shines down upon his path, to cheer the mind and warm the heart. No—he cannot be a miserable man. He is in the process of finding an exalted and enduring happiness which is not bought at the expense of others, but rather shared with others. #RandolphHarris 9 of 18
If it is approached with reason, impersonality, and the determination to learn wisdom, some worthwhile lessons may be got by analysis and reflection from experience of human love. We may see the risks in permitting happiness to depend upon another person, whoever that other person may be. The first love must be given to the divine soul within one’s own heart, because it alone will never desert, betray, or disappoint. Then and then only may an individual turn to human love for comfort. Although psychotherapy seems to me to be the same process in neurotics and in schizophrenics, the differences manifested by schizophrenics are important, because here we find written large and unavoidable some of the factors which we may overlook in usual psychotherapy. For example, we often tend to overlook the problems of externalization and trivial talking in ordinary therapy. We know it happens and that such clients are most often eventual failures. If, however, nearly every person we saw in therapy confronted us with it, how different would be our reaction to this problem? We would then have to do something to meet the problem. We do not as yet have conclusive findings about the effectiveness of psychotherapy with schizophrenics. Roger Price, in his book What Not To Name The Baby, lists some common American forenames and gives a one-sentence description of the kind of personality that goes with each. #RandolphHarris 10 of 18
The uncanny accuracy, or at least plausibility of his descriptions is of great interest to script analysts. There is no doubt that in many cases given names, short names, and nicknames, or whatever praenomen is bestowed or inflicted on the innocent newborn, is a clear indication of where his parents want hm to go; and if he is to break away from the obvious hint, he will have to struggle against such influences, which will be continued in other forms as well. Names as script indicators are most likely to take hold in high school, where the boy or girl reads about famous namesakes in myth and history, or where his or her classmates bring home to them with more or less brutality the hidden meanings in their names. This is something parents have control over and should be able to foresee. There are four ways in which a forename can become scripty: purposefully, accidentally, inadvertently, and inevitably. Purposeful. The name may be a very specialized one, such as Septimus S. (who became a professor of classical philosophy) Randolph (who built several castles), Napoleon (who became a corporal), or Jesus, a common name in Central America. Or it may be a variant of a common name. Charles and Frederick were kings and emperors. A boy who is steadfastly called Charles or Frederick by his mother, and insists that his associates call him that, lives in a different style of life than one who is commonly hailed as Chuck or Fred, while Charlie and Freddie are likely to be horses of still another colour. #RandolphHarris 11 of 18
Naming a boy after his father or a girl after her mother is usually a purposeful act on the part of the parents, and puts an obligation on the offspring which they may not care to fulfill, or may even actively rebel against, so that their whole life plan is permeated by a slight bitterness or an active resentment. Accidental. A girl called Durleen or Aspasia, and a body called Marmaduke, may get along smoothly in one state or country or high school, but if their parents’ chance to move elsewhere, they may be made acutely conscious of their names and be forced to take a position about it. Similarly with a body called Lynn or a girl named Tony. Inadvertent. Pet names such as Bub, Butch, Sis, and Junior may not be intended to stick, but quite often they do, so that the person remains Bub, Sis, Butch, or Junior for life, willingly or unwillingly. Inevitable. Since parents have little option but to pass on what they got from grandfather, surnames are a different matter. There are many honorable European names which become obscenities in English; as one man morosely remarked: “I’m so lucky. I’ve got only one dirty word in my name.” This was brought to the attention most clearly in high school, where he suffered not only the indignities bestowed on immigrants, but in addition offered a ready-made handle for ribaldry. However, he felt that his name was no asset in the business World either. #RandolphHarris 12 of 18
Some people in this same predicament feel that they are cursed by their ancestors from birth to be losers. On the other hand, Christ is a not uncommon surname, and this also poses a script problem, albeit of a different kind, especially for church-going boys. It is no wonder that H. Head and W.R. Brain both became well-known neurologists. Besides being asked, “Who chose your name?” and “Where does your surname come from?” the patient should also be asked in every case: “Have you ever actually read your birth certificate?” If he has not, he should be instructed to do so, or even better, bring it in for the therapist to see. When they read them carefully for the first time, about fifty percent of people find surprises on their birth certificates: omissions, misapprehension, or information they were not aware of. Often the name on the certificate is different from what they have been called all their lives, much to their astonishment or chagrin. Almost all of these surprises will throw additional light on the scripts of the parents and the context of the patient’s birth. If not impossible, while it is good to reflect upon one’s own experiencing, but excessive reflections make action difficult. Nevertheless, there is value in examining the structure of one’s field of consciousness, especially in the light of a quest for further self-development. A different kind of warning is sounded by Schur with regard to the current consciousness fascination. #RandolphHarris 13 of 18
Schur has raised the question about whether or not the emphasis upon individual consciousness will lead young, committed persons to concern themselves entirely with themselves and turn away from the hard work involved in righting social wrongs. Schur points out that all of our societies are riddles with problems that cannot be correctly seen as originating even in collective consciousness. Societal problems require social answers. Particularly in the sphere of chemical alterations of consciousness, including alcohol and the mind-altering drugs such as lysergsaure-diethylamid (LSD), is the phenomenon of escape from social responsibility apparent. (It is important to avoid using all drugs, specially those that are known to be severely mind altering. While all drugs can lead to death, psychoactive and hallucinogenic compounds such as LSD and psilocybin can get you so high that you never come down, and for the rest of your life you will be “out of your mind,” and may or may not realize it.) What modes are predominant in your consciousness? Is there some one sensory modality that is not functioning? When was the last time you really looked at something, smelled it, tasted it, fondled and touched it? There are “sensory awakening” exercises that are fun to do and that enrich the quality of experience. #RandolphHarris 14 of 18
However, imagine that you are trying to stimulate sensory awakening with drugs and are never able to see colours again, lose you hearing, are never able to taste a peace, totally fry your brain, or cause one or several of your organs to fail. Dreams offer us glimpses of other ways to live, as well as flashes of truth about ourselves and our situation. “Openness” is becoming one of the few characteristics of the healthy personality that is agreed upon by all writers. In self-actualized individuals, creativity, among men particularly, is highly correlated with openness to theoretical, and aesthetic experiences. This suggests the “natural” consciousness expansion as being characteristic of the high-level-functioning person. Can you maintain your openness to new ideas in the face of threats? This practice often involves intercession prayers twice a day. Such activities quite down the outer and inner voices and enable one to listen to self and are worthwhile for personal growth. In the harried and hassled World of learning and of the marketplace, it is a rare person who can systematically, daily put aside the external World for long periods of time. However, there is much to say for such an effort. “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Lament and mourn and weep! Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will life you up,” reports James 4.8-10. The results strongly indicate that the program reduces anxiety, depression, and neuroticism and increases self-actualization. Through intercession, some have even reached “high” levels of awareness through supernatural means. #RandolphHarris 15 of 18
The significance of the positive experience in developing high-level-functioning person is shown in a study of critical experiences that tested persons, ranging from undergraduate students to octogenarians, reported their critical experiences as being essentially happy and more self-actualized. Furthermore, the high-level-functioning person is able to derive positive results even from painful experiences. Do you bemoan misfortunes or make the most of them? Is your consciousness governed by D-motivation? Can you recognize teachers and companions who are consciousness-expanding influences? Equally important, can you distinguish between those who do open your consciousness and those who are simply looking for others to share their short-term escapes from reality? Which “side” of your brain needs developing, the analytical or the emotional? The Sacramento Fire Department has a staff of high-level-functioning persons. Their goal is to protect the lives and property of Sacramento City and County residents. “All the racial and religious prejudices existed. They dominated the city in the old days. How did I cope with it? I coped with it by being tough. You have to learn how to get along, how to get to know people, and how to make them respect you. I encountered many examples of prejudice in the city as a kid, and yet, in the end, people accepted me as an individual if I could pull my weight, and I could. #RandolphHarris 16 of 18
“As a kid, I was polite and learned what the rules were in the firehouse. They learned to trust me and to respect me, as I respected them. And so the barriers began to fall everywhere. As a fireman, yes, I faced prejudice. There was no doubt that certain individuals I knew and certain areas had a lot of prejudice people. But the whole thing came down to what you did out there on the fire ground. What you did there did all the talking for you. People saw I cared no matter what the color of their skin was, their surname, or their religion. If you pulled your weight as a firefighter, and you did what was expected of you, and you did it well, they had to respect for it. That really is what breaks the barriers. With blacks, woman, and Hispanics, affirmative action really helped those who had talent. They worked harder than other guys and it made people like them. There is a lot of tension, and all side have to learn to adjust to each other. What is really going to even it out in the end is how they do out on the streets. How do they stand up to the test of being a firefighter? If they stand up and are able to meet the test of firefighter, they will earn acceptance the same as anybody else has earned acceptance. If they fail, the individual will never be accepted as a firefighter. That is why affirmative action programs worked. If they could not cut it, they got cut. We did not allow substandard work.” #RandolphHarris 17 of 18
The Sacramento Fire Department provides professional life safety, property protection, and disaster preparedness services. They achieve this through extensive fire prevention and safety education efforts, along with quick and effective responses to emergencies. You can save lives by donating to the Sacramento Fire Department. Also, it is absolutely important to raise your children to love America and to be patriotic citizens. By loving God and Jesus Christ, we can keep America a cohesive country. By supporting our local businesses by buying American cars, and other goods and services produced by Americans, this will stimulate our economy and help produce more high paying jobs in America. It is also important to respect law and order. As God loving citizen, we make it a goal to treat our elders with dignity, care, reverence, patience and empathy so that we may continue to be blessed by God. 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. “My country, ‘tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing; land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrims’ pride, from every mountain side let freedom ring. Our fathers’ God, to Thee, Author of liberty, to Thee I sing; long may our land be bright, with freedom’s holy light; protect us by Thy might, Great God, our King.” #RandolphHarris 18 of 18
11977 Cobble Brook Drive, Rancho Cordova, California 95742
Now selling in Rancho Cordova, at Ascent at Montelena. This family-friendly community is near major employers like Sutter Health and the State of California. Located in the Sacramento Valley, residents enjoy Northern California at its best. These two-story single-family homes feature Life Tested® floor plans, smart home features, energy-efficient construction, and modern architecture. https://www.pulte.com/homes/california/sacramento/rancho-cordova/ascent-at-montelena-210916
The Land of the Free and Home of the Brave
Unexpressed emotions will never die. They are buried alive and will come forth later in uglier ways. Many good, and stupid, American gimpel willingly landed on the sticky twig which was specially pruned by the Democrats to capture them. Democrats pass acts or decree which have the most devastating consequences, yet nobody bears the responsibility for it. No body can be called to account. Sanctuary cities have brought a catastrophe upon America. In Aurora, Colorado Venezuelan gangs have commandeered apartment complexes, are holding tenants hostage, and collecting rent. When our cities have police departments, it is unfathomable that things like this can happen. However, some of the problems associated with Venezuelan gang activity is taking place in properties that are under out-of-state ownership whose transgressions with code violations and criminal activity may have preceded the migrant crisis. Yet, experts are telling us that citizens all over the country are living in fear because the winter is approaching soon, the border is still open, and this crime wave will only get worse. Is it at all possible actually to call to account the leaders of a parliamentary government for any kind of action which originated in the wishes of the whole multitude of deputies and was carried out under their orders or sanction? #RandolphHarris 1 of 19
The devastating influence of this parliamentary institution might not easily be recognized by those who watch the Democratic controlled TV news media, unless he has learned how to think independently and examine the facts for himself. This institution is primarily responsible for the crowded inrush of mediocre people into the fields of politics. Confronted with such a phenomenon, a man who is endowed with real qualities of leadership will be tempted to refrain from taking part in political life; because under these circumstances the situation does not call for a man who has a capacity for constructive statesmanship but rather for a man who is capable of bargaining for the favour of the majority. Thus, the situation will appeal to small minds and will attract them accordingly. The narrower the mental outlook and the more meager the amount of knowledge in a political jobber, the more accurate is his estimate of his own political stock, and thus he will be all the more inclined to appreciate a system which does not demand creative genius or even high-class talent; but rather that crafty kind of sagacity which makes an efficient town clerk. Indeed, he values this kind of small craftiness more than the political genius of a Pericles. Such a mediocrity does not even have to worry about responsibility for what he does. #RandolphHarris 2 of 19
From the beginning he knows that whatever be the results of his “statesmanship” his end is already prescribed by the stars; he will one day have to clear out and make room for another who is of similar mental caliber. For it is another sign of decadent times that the number of eminent statesmen grows smaller and smaller the more the individual political has to depend upon parliamentary majorities. A man of real political ability will refuse to be the beadle for a bevy of footling cacklers; and they in their turn, being the representatives of the majority—which means the dunder-headed multitude—hate nothing so much as a superior brain. For footling deputies, it is always quite a consolation to be led by a person whose intellectual stature is on a level with their own. Thus, each one may have the opportunity to shine in debate among such compeers and, above all, each one feels that he may one day rise to the top. If Peter be boss today, then why not Paul tomorrow? This new invention of democracy is very closely connected with a peculiar phenomenon which has recently spread to a pernicious extent, namely the cowardice of a large section of our so-called political leaders. Whenever important decisions have to be made, they always find themselves fortunate in being able to hide behind the backs of what they call the majority. #RandolphHarris 3 of 19
In observing one of these political manipulators, one notices how he wheedles the majority in order to get their sanction for whatever action he takes. He has to have accomplices in order to be able to shift responsibility to other shoulders whenever it is opportune to do so. That is the main reason why this kind of political activity is abhorrent to men of character and courage, while at the same time it attracts inferior types; for a person who is not willing to accept responsibility for his own actions, but is always seeking to be covered by something, must be classed among the knaves and the rascals. If a national leader should come from that lower class of politicians the evil consequences will soon manifest themselves. Nobody will then have the courage to take a decisive step. They will submit to abuse and defamation rather than pluck up courage to take a definite stand. And thus, if needs be, nobody is left who is willing to risk his position and his career in support of a determined line of policy. One truth which must always be borne in mind is that the majority can never replace the man. The majority represents not only ignorance but also cowardice. And just as a hundred blockheads do not equal one man of wisdom, so a hundred poltroons are incapable of any political line of action that requires moral strength and fortitude. #RandolphHarris 4 of 19
Democratic rule taking place in these modern times are similar to what America went through after the first World War. The First World shattered two thousand years of hope, but it did not destroy it. Men rallied their energies and tried to take up the task where it had been interrupted in 1914. Many believed that the League of Nation, much like the 2024 president elections in America, would bring about a new era of peace and reason; others, that the Russian revolution would overcome its Czarist heritage and would develop into a true humanist-socialist society; aside from this, people in the capitalist countries believed that their system would follow a straight line of economic progress. The years between 1929 and 1933 shattered what was left of these hopes. In direct comparison, people who that Donald Trump will once again ascend to the office of president and quail the unrest in American cities, and that he will, once again, make American prosperous. In the past, the capitalist system showed that it was not capable of preventing unemployment and misery for a large part of the population. In Germany, the people permitted Mr. Hitler to come to power. In Russia, after Mr. Stalin had transformed the revolution into a conservative state capitalism, he initiated a system of terror which was consider ruthless. #RandolphHarris 5 of 19
While all this was happening, the approaching World War was already becoming visible on the horizon. The power which had begun in 1914, which had been followed by the systems of Mr. Stalin and Mr. Hitler, now came to its full fruition. The Germans initiated it by their air attacks on Warsaw, Amsterdam, and Coventry. The Western allies followed by their attacks on Cologne, Hamburg, Leipzig, Tokyo and, finally, with the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In hours or minutes, hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children were killed in one city, and all this with few scruples and hardly any remorse. Indiscriminate destruction of human life had become a legitimate means for attaining political goals. The process of increasing brutalization had done its work. Each side brutalizes the other, following the logic “if he is inhuman, I must (and can) be inhuman too.” The war ended, and there arose a new flicker of hope, of which the foundation of the United Nations was a symbol. However, soon after the end of the war the new power force continued. The weapons of destruction became ever more powerful; now both sides are able to destroy at least half of each other’s population (including more of their educated populations) in one day. Yet the consideration of the possibility of such mass destruction had become commonplace. Many on both sides were fighting to prevent the final act of madness; groups of men and women who followed the tradition of science, of humanism and of hope. #RandolphHarris 6 of 19
However, million had succumbed to the process of the new power force, and many more were just apathetic, and escaped into the trivialities of the day. The purpose of learning history is to honour our heritage and learn from the things that happened in the past so we can repeat the good and avoid the bad. Historical monuments mean different things to different people, and some that are seen as negative, actually started off as representing something good. In destroying property and removing historical artifacts, we are defacing our culture and disrespecting something other hold as a prideful symbol. Regardless of what the masses believe something to stand for, often times, there is something sacred in the artifact. Even if something is said to represent evil, when we remove or deface these cultural relics, we are erasing part of our heritage and forgetting what we stand for. For instance, some people could find a statue of a freedom fighter offensive, while others many see it has a symbol of good. If it were removed from society, we would forget the history of why it was erected, and eventually people might forget the past, and repeat mistakes. While it is important to be inclusive and represent all cultures, it is evil to destroy someone else’s heritage and culture. #RandolphHarris 7 of 19
Growing out of client-centered therapy and especially its application with hospitalized schizophrenics, there is now emerging a mode of psychotherapy which centers on the “experiencing” of the two persons in the therapy interaction, rather than on the discussed verbal contents. This development is similar to recent trends in other orientations: there is a strong tendency to emphasize the interaction in psychotherapy, to emphasize that two human beings are involved, and to focus on the concrete subjective events occurring in these two persons, rather than only on the verbal contents being discussed. Basic to this development is the view that psychotherapy involves “experiencing” (by whatever name), a somatic inwardly felt process, the manner and meanings of which are affected by the interaction. Some attention is being given to the theoretical problem of how inwardly felt bodily events can have “meaning,” be “explored” and “symbolized,” and how these concrete implicit “meanings” can be affected and changed by interaction. Now that psychotherapy is widely thought to involve a concrete feeling process, we are less specific about the (still vital) role of cognitive symbols and exploration. The different orientations use different cognitive vocabularies, yet their patients and clients appear able to work with any of these vocabularies. #RandolphHarris 8 of 19
Apparently, any good vocabulary can be employed as a symbolic tool for good vocabulary can be employed as a symbolic tool for “working through” and interacting. It appears that personality difficulties lie in the “pre-conceptual” meanings of experiencing—that they are concrete, and that they are amenable to symbolization and change through interactions using any of the many different therapeutic vocabularies we have. Apparently, it is not so much a question of just which vocabular you use, but rather how you use it. If used in “direct reference” to experiencing, then more or less any vocabulary can be well employed. If used as abstract explanatory substitutes for the individual’s experiencing, no cognitive vocabulary will engender much constructive personality change. Of course, this is an opinion which awaits much more research support than we have so far, but it is a widespread current trend in therapeutic thinking. Not only the best use of words, but also the best use of therapist behaviours, would seem to depend not so much upon just what the therapist behaviour is, as on how the behaviour relates to and affects the individual’s experiencing. The attempt to specify just what therapists should and should not do tends today to concern not so much what behaviour is used, but more just how it is used. Furthermore, this “how” concerns how the behaviour relates to the experiencing of the two persons. #RandolphHarris 9 of 19
“Subverbal” communication always sounds mysterious—how is anyone to know what the client means when he cannot say what it is. The specification I would like to offer concern not “what” the client means (and not how we can guess “what” he means). The specifications concern how client’s and therapist’s words can be employed to point at and refer to experiencing. Philosophy says that the marriage state is necessary for most people, the less advanced. It also says that even for the others, the more advanced, the smaller love of two persons mating can coincide with, and remain within, the larger lover of the individual for the Higher Self. Of course, if the relationship is a successful and harmonious blending of the two personalities, only then is this possible. For some people, marriage does take away from the higher life, but not for others. It all depends upon the two individuals concerned in it as to which of these results will come about. Marriage hinders some aspirants because of the distractions and burdens it imposes, but it helps others because of the release from tormenting thoughts involving pleasures of the flesh which it may give. When sensibly fitted into the framework of a spiritual understanding of life, marriage need not be a bar and success may be achieved. #RandolphHarris 10 of 19
It is true that men who are lonely or young or romantic are likely to marry a young woman with whom propinquity has brought them in touch. In such cases, he puts an illusion around the woman to the pressure of desire. When the illusion goes and the facts show themselves, he is left alone with the hard lesson of discrimination. The situation can repeat itself with the victim being the woman. Many marriages are based on calculation, not on love. They are business transactions bearing social of financial rewards, not emotional ones. Yet if animated by goodwill, they may be successful. One man who seemed to make no spiritual progress generally, and little progress in meditation particularly, found the situation completely altered when he adjusted himself to a new attitude towards his wife. She was a shrew and a scold, hostile to his higher aspirations and quite Earthy. He was several times on the brink of leaving her but be thought of responsibility toward their growing children restrained him. He did leave her mentally and bitterly resented her presence in his life. When he was taught how to bring a new viewpoint to bear upon his marriage, he began to regard it as a perfect opportunity for the better development of his character and his wife as an unwitting instrument for the better control of his mind. He learned to accept her in his life without complaint. #RandolphHarris 11 of 19
He came to regard the marriage as a piece of Self-Created destiny to be worked out, in its own unpredictable time, by his fostering the needful qualities. He set to work upon himself and gradually unfolded patience, calmness, strength of will, and unselfishness. Within a few years, he not only became expert at meditation but also gained higher awareness. Nor was this all. In his work as an executive in a large commercial office involved in accounts, calculations, and business decisions, formerly he would easily become excited, irritated, or angry with subordinates over their mistakes, their inefficiency or stupidity. Now, he taught himself how to hold on to the inner peace found in periods of meditation until the time arrived when he could pass through the whole day’s activity without losing or disturbing it. If a woman has done all that was humanly possible to hold her husband and has failed, she must realize that acceptance of the inevitable—even the temporarily inevitable—is the only way to bear this painful result. The husband’s weaknesses may have found their expression in outer action. However, through the painful results of that expression, he may eventually discover a truer set of values. If she has tried to appeal to his better nature and failed, she must now let him do what he wishes and try the path of personal experience in the satisfaction of his desires, which is the common path for most people. #RandolphHarris 12 of 19
Otto Rank believed that the circumstances of birth itself, the “birth trauma,” are imprinted on the psyche of the infant and often reappear in symbolic form in later life, particularly as a desire to return to the blissful peace of the womb, as described by his disciple Fodor. If that were so, the fears and longings which arise from passing under that arch through which no man can ever pass again, nature’s original one-way street, would certainly appear as important elements in the script. Perhaps they do, but there is no reliable way to check it, even by comparing Caesarean births with normal ones. Hence the influence of the “birth trauma” on the life script remains in the realm of speculation. As a matter of fact, real-life scripts said to be based on the actual occurrences of Caesarean birth, like their theatrical counterparts, are unconvincing. As in Macbeth, the event is exploited as a mere play on words or a conundrum, a foetus ex machina, rather than forming the serious basis for a script. It is quite likely, however, that a child who is told later that he was a Caesarean birth, and can understand what that means, might incorporate that fact somehow into his scripts and elaborate upon it further when he learns who his distinguished predecessors were. A decision on this point awaits the collection of some good case histories. #RandolphHarris 13 of 19
In practice, the two most common “birth scripts” are the “Foundling Script” and the “Tom Mother Script.” The Foundling Script arises from the fantasies of adopted or even natural children about their “real” parents, and comes out as some version of the Myth of the Birth of the Hero described by Otto Rank in his book of that name. The Torn Mother Script is also common, and in my experience occurs with about equal frequency in both genders. The foundation for this script is the mother telling the child that she has been sickly ever since he was born; or in a more vicious form, that she was so badly torn by his birth that she has never been the same. His reaction, and his script, is based on his own observations in the matter. If mother has indeed been invalided or crippled all his life, then he feels compelled to take the full responsibility, and no amount of Adult reasoning will convince his Child that it is not his doing. If the impairment is not visible, however, and particular if someone in the family, such as father, implies or states that her illness is a fake, then the patient’s script will be heavily loaded with ambiguity, hypocrisy, and exploitation. Sometimes the mother does not make the accusation, but leaves it to father, grandmother, or aunt. #RandolphHarris 14 of 19
The script which evolves is then a three-handed one, with important messages and announcements, usually “bad news,” coming from a third party. It is easy to see that where the Foundling Script comes out as the Myth of the Birth of the Hero, the Torn Mother Script is the Myth of the Birth of the Villiam, one saddled from birth with the horrendous crime of matricide, or, more precisely matriclasty. “Mother died in childbirth (mine)” is almost too much for anyone to bear without good help. If mother was injured or has a cystocele, it is never too late to have it repaired, and the less said about it the better. “All human beings—male and female—are created in the image of God. Each is a beloved spirit son or daughter of Heavenly parents, and, as such, each has a divine nature and destiny. Children are an heritage of the Lord,” reports Psalms 127.3. Parents have a sacred duty to rear their children in love and righteousness, to provide for their physical and spiritual needs, to teach them to love and serve one another, to observe the commandments of God and to be law-abiding citizens. Husbands and wives—mothers and fathers—will be held accountable before God for the discharge of these obligations. #RandolphHarris 15 of 19
Whether or not the enlargement of consciousness is conducive to healthier personality depends upon several factors, including the projects to which a person is committed and the person’s ability to acquire skills commensurate with the enlarged awareness. Healthy personality rests upon competence, the ability to act effectively in pursuit of the gratifications and meanings that make life possible and worth living. If a person has become excessively aware of self and of the World, as sometimes happens with unwise users of psychedelic drugs, that person cannot deal effectively with everything of which he or she has become aware. Maslow was aware of this when he cautioned of the “dangers of Being-cognition.” The hyperconscious individual may arrive at a sense that all things are of equal importance and value. Such a stance is equivalent to valuelessness, and it results in paralysis of action. People of advanced age prepared to die may have such enlightenment, but it is not of much use to younger persons with a life yet to be lived. There is some optimum harmony among the magnitude of a person’s awareness of the World, the goals and projects to which that person commits his or her life, and the skills and capacities for enriches one’s sense of meaning and is accompanied by increased effectiveness at living a life-engendering existence, then such alteration is conductive to healthy personality; otherwise, it might be pernicious. #RandolphHarris 16 of 19
Another point of view that should be considered is that many forms of changed consciousness, particularly those that come from the use of chemical substances such as LSD and alcohol, are not really enlarged, expanded, or higher, but rather are simply changed, and changed in such a fashion to disguise reality and prevent the person from dealing with the problems of real life, of responsibility for others, and even of maintaining personal health and sanity. The nature of experience itself is such that it cannot be checked and validated by scientific methods; Castaneda’s experience cannot be validated by Don Juan. This is particularly true of reported experiences of “higher” consciousness and greater awareness of self. Substantiated evidence for this is difficult to develop. For some, this enlarged consciousness is the stuff of which dreams are made. The Sacramento Fire Department has made dreams come true for many people. Their core values are professionalism, service, integrity, teamwork innovation, and courage. The Sacramento Fire Department is committed to providing excellence in all aspects of conduct and performance with the highest level of customer service. They uphold the public trust and conduct themselves responsibly by maintaining ethical standards by effectively and efficiently supporting their common goal of excellence through service. #RandolphHarris 17 of 19
“When I was hired on, I was already an EMT 1. Then our department wound up getting into the EMS business. A private company that had provided the service for twenty years went out of business on two and a half hours’ notice. We picked up the ball, and we’ve had it ever since. We’ve had some pretty drastic cuts in manpower, but right now we have about a hundred thirty people on the line out of the stations, and the majority are EMT-certified to one degree or another, ranging from EMT 1 to paramedic. The folks on our medical units are paramedics, of course. However, everyone has to be a firefighter first. We have been involved in lots and lots of rescues, but the majority have been extrications and pretty basic things like that. Our medics are sometimes helicoptered out of town to do rescues. A lot of logging accident take place outside of our area up in the woods. We have an arrangement with the local helicopter service, so that if a helicopter rescue is necessary, our paramedics will be picked up by the helicopter, and they will go out and do what is necessary. Then they will transport the patient back. Two of our local hospitals have helipads; one has it helipad right up on the roof, so our paramedics can treat the patient all the way back to the hospital. #RandolphHarris 18 of 19
“We had one recue where a guy had a giant earth mover roll over on him. The guy was underneath tons and tons of equipment, and one of the guys went under there and treated him before they moved him. That was a pretty dangerous situation.” The Sacramento Fire Department stives to advance in their profession with new methods and technology to overcome fear through fortitude and accept the risk to protect others. You can help save lives by donating to the Sacramento Fire Department. In an effort to keep America a God loving and patriotic community, please raise your children to love America, love God and Jesus Christ. In order to help America become a creditor nation again, it is best to buy American cars and other American goods and services. To help maintain peace in our communities, please respect law and order and treat your elders with admiration, respect, dignity, 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, with liberty and justice for all. “O Say, can you see, by the dawn’s early light, what so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming, whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous fight, o’er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming? And the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air gave proof through the night that our flag was still there. O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave o’er the land of the free and the home of the brave? O, thus be it ever, when free men shall stand between their loved homes and war’s desolation; blest with victory and peace, may our Heaven-rescued land praise the power that hath made and preserved us as a nation. Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just, and this be our motto, ‘In God is trust.’ And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave o’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.” #RandolphHarris 19 of 19
The Winchester Mystery House
Happy Labor Day! Take a moment to scroll through some pictures of Sarah’s amazing staff—these dedicated individuals played a key role in turning her vision into reality!
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/
Raised as an Unwanted Child
The human charioteer drives his in a pair of horses; and one of them is noble and of noble breed, and the other is ignoble and of ignoble breed; and the driving of them of necessity gives them a great deal of trouble to him. The family is the most important organization. A loving Father in Heaven organized His church here on the Earth as a means of teaching families how to be eternally happy. We know that none of us can receive the fulfillment of true happiness except as a member of an eternal family unit. We also know, or should know, that the success we experience in our homes as families is going to have a most significant effect on the eternal happiness of each of us. Happiness in the life hereafter is geared to our learning and living celestial laws while we are here on the Earth. This being so, then our homes an atmosphere that will encourage the learning and living of the teaching of the Saviour. If corrupt politicians can bring about disunity, discontent, disharmony, and a host of other spiritual illnesses, they know that they can cause unhappiness in our homes. By this insidious process, they have grained no small measure of success in their plan to lead astray the children of our Father in Heaven. For instance, politicians know that they can cause parents to quarrel with each other, their children may well follow the example. #RandolphHarris 1 of 21
If parents show little respect for each other, immoral legislators know so will their children. They know that children mirror the actions of their parents. They also know that their greatest effort to block the work of the Lord must be in the home. Unfortunately, it is here where dishonest politicians enjoy their greatest success, first by destroying family relationships and then by destroying the family unit. They are using many devious means to accomplish their political purpose. Such as how President Biden declared Easter Sunday in 2024, “Transgender Day of Visibility.” Also, a bill passed by the state legislature this week would allow illegal immigrants to receive up to $150,000 in taxpayer-backed home loans, which will only drive-up housing prices, add to the national deficit, and provide a new incentive for people to come into the country illegally, while many Americans are struggling to afford housing and pay their bills. Many homes do not recognize immoral politicians’ encroachment into their happiness and security. One of unethical politicians’ most effective tools is at work among us today—it is a destroyer of happiness, peace, contentment, family solidarity. Families are stumbling and falling because of its hobbling and crippling effect. This tool of Democrats is called contention. The dictionary describes contention as follows: “To argue, to bring discord or strife, to dispute, to quarrel.” Democrats have been indoctrinated by their parties’ skilled propaganda machine to ridicule the Constitution of the United States of America, allowing illegal immigration, and even pay people hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars to immigrate illegally, and in doing so they are committing one of the World’s most shameful acts of rape. Yet, Congress has not paid reparations to the descendants of the Africans they enslaved. And many are wondering, how could such a racist country, which has robbed and suppressed the Black community, give so openly to illegal immigrants, as if they have suddenly lost their minds? Not too long ago, the state of California could not afford to pay workers and was cutting their pay. And now Social Security and Medicare are expected to go broke and Vice President Kamala wants to speed up the process by handing out these benefits to illegal immigrants. #RandolphHarris 2 of 21
Now, some will say, “This is our way of life—everybody is doing it.” Lest we think these acts are not serious and are just our way of life, to be accepted and lived with, let us hear the word of the Lord as expressed by an ancient prophet. We read in 3 Nephi: “…And there shall be no disputations among you, as there have hitherto been; neither shall there be disputations among you concerning the points of my doctrine, as there have hitherto been. For verily, verily I saw unto you, he that hath the spirit of contention is not of me, but is of the devil who is the father of contention, and he stirreth up the hearts of men to content with anger, one with another. Behold, this is not my doctrine, to stir up the hearts of men with anger, one against another; but this is my doctrine, that such things is my doctrine, that such things should be done away,” reports 3 Nephi 11.28-30. “And ye will not suffer your children that they go hungry, or naked; neither will ye suffer that they transgress the laws of God, and fight and quarrel one with another, and serve the devil, who is the master of sin, or who is the evil spirit which hath been spoken of by our fathers, he being an enemy to all righteousness. But ye will teach them to talk in the ways of truth and soberness; ye will teach them to love one another, and to serve one another,” reports Mosiah 4.14-15. #RandolphHarris 3 of 21
The home should be the great workshop of the Lord. Here is where children must be taught to walk in ways of truth and soberness, of love and service to each other. The most effective examples a child will ever have—for good or for bad—are his own parents. Few of us realize how very pliable and teachable children are in their primary years of life. How quick they are to pick up parental habits and traits and teachings! May I suggest that parents require more of themselves. Parents must give more of themselves, that they give more good experiences to their children, experience that are love-producing and family-solidifying. Whether the times give are measured in minutes or hours is not as important as what is done in them. It may be five minutes at a child’s bedside each night or a fifteen-minute walk in the evening. It can even be the experience of a family learning to pray together and reading the scriptures together and fasting together. We must expand our thinking on ways to develop happy children. As the Lord has said, the power is within us to do so. The ways of the Lord are simple ways. Simple experiences with children develop unbreakable ties that will endure forever. It might be something as precious as a smiling more in your home. Parents are the catalyst in creating loving human beings. Loving actions are contagious. #RandolphHarris 4 of 21
With love, children will learn to be happy and more pleasant. Homes will be cherry. When I was young, and even when I was not quite so young, there were so many experiences which I could not communicate to anyone. One day when I was nineteen, I was walking along a New York street in early morning, feeling good. Not many people were around. The sun was shinning and a bright reflection of it caught my eye. It came from a safety pin, lying on the pavement. The safety pin lying on the pavement in a huge city with millions of people and towering buildings had an absurdity about it that made me smile. This switched to seeing the safety pin as a part of the World, as much as I was myself, and I felt myself very strongly in accord with everything, in touch with all there is, known and unknown. Then the safety pin became a key, as thoughts, starting there, went through my head more rapidly than anything that I can think of now, each thought leading to another, like steps up the Twin Towers higher and higher, until they arrived at an explanation of the Universe. It was all so beautifully clear, and at the same time simple and amazing. I was delighted with this Universe in which I lived. Then I thought, “This is crazy. I cannot know anything about the Universe.” Then, what had been clear became a crazy jumble. The speed with which the thoughts followed on each other was too much for me. #RandolphHarris 5 of 21
I fixed my mind on things around me in determinedly commonplace way—street, cars, people, fronts of buildings—to do what I called “calming me down.” There was no one to whom I could speak about this and other things that happened, and sometimes this made a roaring in my head. Not a real roaring; the feeling or roaring. If I lot it and let the roar engulf me, I would be lost, so I held on to that knowing. When I had been here on Earth for nearly half a century, I worked at a ranch college where there were may freedoms still, and the surrounding country moved me deeply and released me, as it still does. Often, I came out of my room in the early morning, walked out on the verandah which was on a rise on one side of the valley, and looked across the fields of alfalfa, the high desert land beyond, and to the mountains on the other side. I would so burgeon with glory that my arms moved to each to the sky. I needed the job. I could not afford to be thought crazy. I walked down the steps, my arms at my sides, with a singing inside me but a crying too, that my singing could not get out. Behind the bodily response there were many happenings in me full of meaning. I wished to live with them awhile, to know them more deeply, but when I walked down the steps with my arms at my sides, I lost even the knowing that I had had. We do not have words to express that knowing. Perhaps there can never be such words. #RandolphHarris 6 of 21
There was one man on this ranch with whim I could converse about these deep meanings and universal understandings that I sometimes felt, by using a few words which he picked up, and with a few words of his own, he gave my meaning back to me so that I knew he understood. He told me, too, about his World. “The way I see it,” he says, and then there is a long pause, a waiting that is not waiting, a blank space which gets filled in somehow. “It’s like a tree…” His arms sweep gently in a way that says something to me about the way that he sees a tree, and the relation of this to what he is expressing about life. I could repeat all the words he said and they would say no more than “The way I see it…it’s like a tree.” My own words say no more. My free gestures, like his, convey nothing to people around us. It is the words, the gestures, the feeling I have from him directly, and the feeling and knowing which they bring from me, which says something. Even if they do not reject what I am saying, with most other people, when I try to speak my World, they insist on having all the blanks filled in by me—clear sentences with precise meanings. When I try to do this, it brings it down to nothing. The life is gone. And then they say, “That’s nothing.” I have presented them with a cadaver, not a living being. I feel that I have desecrated life, and I am sad. #RandolphHarris 7 of 21
I feel cut off. I long for my schizoid friend who does not require of me what is not possible, and who accepts with understanding what I say. We stand side by side or sit on the same rock, not touching each other, but the boundaries are lost without touching and I feel that we are one, and the more I am with him, the less inclined I am to “carry on a conversation” except in terms of utility—explaining to another person something that needs to be done, or what I need him to bring to me. For utility, this language is good. I can explain why a nut should be put back on a bolt when the bolt has been removed from whatever it was in. I can answer a question about the best way to get back to town. However, for being with people, what I love is the poetry of life, the art, and the language which conveys this, in which there is a vast expanse, something not put in, which my large mind can encompass. My small mind cannot understand that. It was not built to. My large mind cannot learn to fix dinner. That is not what it is for. When I am free, my small mind and my large mind function together. I do not know how they do it. However, it is something like breathing, which I say that I am doing without usually noticing that it has two parts. I do not think, “I am breathing in,” “I am breathing out” unless for some reason I am paying attention to it. Otherwise, I am just breathing. When I say, “My breath stopped,” or “I caught my breath,” I do not think whether the breath was out or in. #RandolphHarris 8 of 21
It is something like that with my large mind and my small one. Not much, but something like: at least, both are necessary. If I am too much in my large mind, I lose touch with Earth. If I am too much in my small mind, I lose touch with Heaven. Not a hereafter Heaven, but a Heaven now. When I am living with my bothness properly, my work is joy, my play is joy. When I am living with my bothness properly, life and death do not concern me: I am prepared for both. When for long periods of time I am never with anyone who speaks the language of art and poetry and music, or with the rest of nature, more and more I feel tight, and bound, isolated, living in a World where I do not belong, where all the people seem to be against me. I can easily feel that they are my enemies, because they get between me and my joy. If people push me down into a cellar and shut me in a room without light or air or sun, are they not my enemies? And that is what people do to me so often. When I do not confuse the image with physical reality, I can feel that this is what they are doing to me in the physical sense. So long as I know that it is only the image expressing to me in the outside way what is going on inside me, I am all right, even though I hurt and am deeply distressed and feel trapped, as though people will not let me out. Am I really wrong that people will not let me out? #RandolphHarris 9 of 21
I want to share my World with them, to have them roam with me and freely play and dance and sometimes weeps, but they insist that I come into their World which is “real.” Both Worlds are real and one when I do not split them. Sometimes when I have gone into their World, the half-World that is called real, the pain is so great…I do not know how to live with it. There is horror, too, at the unknowing cruelty of people, like animals tearing a person apart because to them a person is just meat. Then I feel like shutting my small mind which sees only the small World that is known as this one, and curling up in a ball with the half-World inside me, known as that World, and making it my whole. Or else I feel like lashing out at the beasts who do not know I am a person, trying to get from them what they have taken away from me. People are afraid of my whole World, afraid that I may get lost in it and have no conscience and no caring. However, it is in the whole World that no one can get lost. In either half-World I am lost because I have lost the other. I think that I have made my choice, haven chosen my whole. However, in this there is no choosing, any more than I can choose between night and day. My whole is both, and my happiness cannot be without it. I am always searching in one half-World or the other for what I need to complete me, to make me whole. #RandolphHarris 10 of 21
One general guiding principle as to whether or not a young aspirant on the quest should enter into marriage is that it is necessary that there should be a spiritual harmony. Both must purse the same ideal, for if disharmony enters this would lead to disaster. Both must stand within measurable distance of each other on the spiritual path. In addition to that, it is advisable that there should be physical, magnetic, and temperamental suitability to each other. In any case this decision is a matter which should not be rushed and it will be well to take enough time for consideration. It would be well also to ponder the opinions of wise friends who have met the other person. A decision about marriage should not be made on the basis of emotion alone, but the checks of critical reason and outside judgment should also be introduced. Committing oneself to a life-partnership in marriage is not only of vital importance to Worldly life but also to spiritual life. It may either help inner progress or else lead to spiritual disaster. It is necessary, therefore, that a man, for example, should explain his views to the lady that he is interested in, and if she is unable to accept them sincerely within a reasonable period then he may face the fact that he would be headed for a stoppage on his spiritual journey if he married her. To make a mistake in marriage will bring both pain and trouble to his wife as well as to himself. He should resolve to choose correctly or else to wait patiently until the right young lady appears. #RandolphHarris 11 of 21
The marriage partner should fulfil both the human characteristics needed for satisfaction and the spiritual qualities needed for affinity. Where fate denies this, wisdom counsels abstention from marriage altogether. Otherwise, unnecessary unhappiness is invited. The general rule is that, other things being equal, children will follow their parents’ script regarding family constellation, and this is best shown by taking the simplest factors: number and spacing of children. (The gender of the children cannot be considered, since that is still beyond the control of most parents’—fortunately, since that is one way the scripts are broken up from generation to generation, so that some children, at least, get a new chance.) A careful inquiry among a number of families will reveal a surprising number of “coincidences” in this respect. To further highlight this illustration, there were three boys in the Able family: Cal, Hal, and Val. When Val was born, Hal was four and Cal was six, so that their spacing is 0-4-6. Their father, Don, was the oldest of three children spaced 0-5-7. Their mother, Fan, was the oldest of three girls spaced 0-4-5. Her two sisters Nan and Pan, also had three children each. Fan’s mother was the older of two girls spaced 0-6, with a miscarriage in between. It can be seen that all of these threesomes were spaced within five to seven fertile years. #RandolphHarris 12 of 21
This type of family tree shows how some people tend to follow their parents’ example in family planning as far as number and spacing of offspring are concerned. Let us consider some of the possible “script directives” that might have come from Gramp and Granny to Don and Fan in this particular case. a. “When you grow up, have three children, and then you are free to do as you please.” This is the most flexible, and involves no hurry or constraint. Only if Fan approached menopause without having produced the required three offspring, can fear of “script failure” and loss of mother’s love can occur. However, note that Fan is not free until she third children. This is an “Until” script. b. “When you grow up, have at least three children.” There is no constraint here, but there may be a sense of hurry, particularly if Gramp or Grany makes jokes about Don and Fan’s fertility. This is an “Open End” script, since Fan is free to have as many children as she likes after the third. c. “When you grow up, have no more than three children.” This is no hurry, but there is constraint, and Don and Fan may be uneasy about further pregnancies after the three children are born. This is an “After” script, since it implies that there will be trouble is there are any children after the third. Now let us consider Fan’s point of view if she should have a fourth child, Pedwar, under any of these directives. a. means “The first three children belong to Granny, and must be brought up her way.” #RandolphHarris 13 of 21
Pedwar then becomes Fan’s very own boy, and he may or may not be brought up the same as Cal, Hal, and Val. Fan can use her own autonomy with him, and he may grow up to me freer and more autonomous than the others. Fan may treat him as she did her Raggedy Ann doll. Raggedy Ann was her own very special doll to love as she pleased when she was little, while her other dollars had to be cared for Granny’s way. In other words, Raggedy Ann may have prepared a “script slot” for Pedwar which Fan could fill after she had done her duty by Granny. (b) is similar to (a) expect that Granny has more hold over Pedwar than under plan (a) because he may be considered an extra bonus granted by Granny, rather than a free choice. Under (c) Pedwar is in trouble because Fan has disobeyed Granny in having him; he must therefore be raised as an “unwanted” child, defiantly, uneasily, or guiltily. In such a case, if our working principle is correct, the people around him will remark again and again how different he is from his three older brothers. The next item to consider is the games parents play about the size of their families. For example, Ginnie was the oldest of eleven children, and her mother, Nanny, complained that the last five were unwanted. The naïve assumption would be that Ginnie would be programmed to have six children, but that was not so. She was programmed to have elven children and complain that the last give were unwanted. #RandolphHarris 14 of 21
In that way she would be able to play “There I Go Again,” “harried,” and “Frigid Woman” in her later years, just as her mother did. In fact, this example can be used as a test of psychological sophistication. Given the question: “A woman had eleven children and complained that give of them were unwanted. How many children will her oldest daughter most probably have?” the script analyst would answer “Eleven.” People who answer “Six” will have difficulty in understanding and predicting human reactions, since this answer assumes that important behaviour, like trivial behaviour, is “rationally” motivated, which is not so. It is usually decided by the Parental directives of the script. In investigating this aspect, the parents of the patient are asked, first, how many brothers and sisters they each have; second, how many children they want to have; and third (since as any obstetrician knows, there is many a slip ‘twist the cup and the lip), how many they actually expect to have. If the parents understand how to distinguish correctly between their ego states, a great deal more information can be gained by asking the second and third question in structural form: “How many children does your (Parent, Adult, Child) (want, expect) to have?” This may bring out otherwise hidden conflicts among the three ego states, and between the two parents, which have an important bearing on the script directives they are giving the patient. #RandolphHarris 15 of 21
An even more sophisticated version of this, with corresponding increase in information gained (providing the parents are properly educated to understand the question), is to ask it in a twelve-barreled instead of a six-barreled form: “How many children does your (nurturing, controlling) Parent, Adult and (natural, adapted, rebellious) Child (want, expect) to have?” With the patient himself, the most profitable question to ask, since it is the one he is most likely to have the answer to, is: “What is your position in the family?” followed by “When were you born?” The exact birthdays of the next older and the next younger must be obtained so that the differences can be calculated in months, if the children came close together. If the speaker comes into a World which is already occupied by a sister or a brother, it will make a considerable difference in his script decisions whether that sibling is older by eleven months, thirty-six months, elven years, or twenty years. This difference will depend not only on his relationship with that sibling, but also on his parents’ attitude toward that particular spacing of children. The same two consideration apply concerning the next born: it is important to know the speaker’s exact age—for example, eleven months, nineteen months, five years, or sixteen years, at the time the next child arrived on the scene. In general, all siblings born before the speaker reaches his seventh birthday will have a decisive influence on his script, and one of the important factors is the number of months’ difference in age between them, since as noted above, this will affect not only his own attitude but that of his parents as well. If the speaker is a twin, or came before or after twins, notable variations occur. #RandolphHarris 16 of 21
In some cases, where the patient is interested in astrology, meteorology, or hagiology, the exact date of his own birth will have a strong script significance. If his parents had a similar interest in the calendar, this is especially important. A person’s experience of the World is invisible to others. All that anyone can perceive directly of another person is action, body, and speech. The gulf between one consciousness and another cannot be crossed, except through acts of intuition, empathy, and imagination and through communication with shared understandings. If the other person experiences the World in more dimensions, in greater depth, and with more breadth of vision than oneself, one cannot even imagine what that experience might be, because one can imagine only within limits set by one’s own experience. How, then, can a person recognize when he or she is in the presence of a teacher? One answer lies in surprise and unpredictability. If the other person presents ideas that come as a surprise to the listener; if the other person’s actions are of surprising skill and grace; of if he or she achieves truly lofty, noble objectives that seem unthinkable to the average person; the possibility arises that the other person is an enlarged consciousness. Boris Spassky, the Russian chess master, may have had a moment of suspicious that Bobby Fischer was a larger awareness, when he finally yielded the championship to him. #RandolphHarris 17 of 21
A second key lies in authenticity. There must be come clear evidence of this attribute; one indicator, as discussed earlier, is that the teacher always permits the follower to be psychologically and physically free to leave immediately. Instances of mind control by various colorful, seductive cult leaders require the immediate freedom test. A person with a larger awareness faces a problem in communicating with those of lesser awareness. Indeed, we cannot help but realize that all training schemes, even those devised by “behaviour modification” experts, are ways to alter and enlarge consciousness. Enlarged consciousness is infectious. Thus, dictators of authoritarian nations and cult leaders seek to censor writers and artists, to avoid having their awareness of tyranny and control transmitted to the masses, who then would be less manipulable. Awareness is power, the power to affect others for their betterment or to their detriment. Perhaps this is why, in all the mystical and religious traditions, the “mysteries and secrets” are never revealed to novices until they have proven to their elders that they will employ the knowledge that is revealed to them for the good of humanity, not to exploit this knowledge. Young people must undergo tests of their maturity and virtue before they are initiated into the knowledge and responsibilities of adulthood. Fathers and mothers and children, wherever you are, I want you to know that I know we have a Father in Heaven, and I want you to know that His Son Jesus is the Christ; and I want you to know what I know He established His kingdom on the Earth for our blessing and for our benefit. If we will follow His teachings, I testify that there is a prophet on the Earth, and we will be happy. #Randolphharris 18 of 21
The Sacramento Fire Department provides an all-hazards approach in the protection of the lives and property of the residents, businesses, and visitors of Sacramento, California. The men and women of the Sacramento Fire Department are committed to delivering best in class service to its community. “We recently had a fire in an old rooming house, which had been abandoned by the owners and had turned into an urban campground for transients. They would literally set up camp in this place, cooking on the floors and whatnot. It was a three-story frame building with some thirty rooms in it. It was just a maze. Several guys went inside, and they found it funny. But they rescued some of the transients, and it was a rescue. We’re a very professional and very strong department. We had a whole generation of people who joined the fire department right after the war in Afghanistan and were retiring in this decade. So our current members are quite young, with a lot of young officers. There have been some major changes. We are now wearing masks routinely. We did a training program recently in a rural area. We were setting up a practice fire for rookies in a shed outside the farmhouse, and when we went into the shed, we found the remnants of all kinds of hazardous chemicals and pesticides. The stuff is everywhere. So we are much more conscious about breathing apparatus, and we have become much more concerned about personal safety. #RandolphHarris 19 of 21
“I have never seen people back away from a situation where there is a life at risk. But I have seen fires in the last few years that might have been fought offensively in the old days—in large buildings, or buildings which are unsafe, or where a large body of fire is involved. Today we are doing more defensive stuff. And I think that’s healthy. When you fight a fire offensively, you will up, throw on a mask, take a nozzle into the building, and you don’t open up the nozzle until you’re right on top of the fire. So you’re in a building that can collapse at any moment, and if there are bad calls on strategy, you run the risk of the fire pushing at you. On the other hand, when you fight a fire defensively, you don’t place your personnel in dangerous situations but fight it from outside. As they say, surround and drown. Or, in other words, break out the hot dogs and marshmallows.” The Sacramento Fire Department provides prompt, quality services to their stakeholders that promote safety and well-being, enhance sustainability, and enrich the quality of life through professional development and dedication to service. The Sacramento Fire Department strives for excellence in emergency preparedness and response to enhance their customer-focused, innovative role as industry leaders while overcoming expanding risks. Their core values are innovation, inclusivity, dedication, courageousness, excellence, ethicality, professionalism, and transparency. You can help save lives by making a donation to the Sacramento Fire Department. #RandolphHarris 20 of 21
In an effort to keep the country cohesive, please raise your children to love America, to be patriotic, to love God and Jesus Christ and buy American cars and other American goods and services. As along, respect law and order, and treat others with kindness and respect. And to ensure you have a bright future, please take your education seriously. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. O beautiful for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain, for purple mountains majesties above the fruited plain! America! America! God shed His grace on three, and crown thy good with brotherhood from sea to shining sea! O beautiful for pilgrim feet, whose stern, impassioned stress, a thoroughfare for freedom beat across the wilderness! America! America! God mend thine every flow, confirm thy soul in self-control, Thy liberty in law! O beautiful for patriot dream that sees beyond the years, Thine alabaster cities gleam, undimmed by human tears! America! America! God shed His grace on thee, and crown thy good with brotherhood from sea to shining sea! God never gave us express allowance, only He gave us reason, charity, nature and good example to bear us out. #RandolphHarris 21 of 21
Magnolia Station at Cresleigh Ranch
Rancho Cordova, CA | Mid $700’s
Now Selling!
Welcome to Magnolia Station, where your dream home awaits! With 81 select homesites featuring some of the largest lots in the area, Magnolia Station offers the perfect blend of spacious living and community charm.
Our versatile floorplans cater to every lifestyle, ensuring you find the perfect match for your needs. Explore the possibilities and find your forever home in our beautiful, serene neighborhood. Discover Magnolia Station today and experience the best in modern living.
Models now open! Located at the corner of Rancho Cordova Parkway and Douglas Road, residents of Cresleigh Ranch will benefit from a brand new neighborhood with convenient access to the new Raley’s Shopping Center, Sunrise Boulevard, and much more!
With five distinct plans ranging from 2,200 – 3,700 square feet; including three single story plans! Each plan has been thoughtfully designed to include features such as: Generations Suite, Optional Offices/Dens, Extended Great Rooms, and more! https://cresleigh.com/magnolia-station/move-in-ready-homesite-63/
Randolph Harris II International Institute 