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Mysteries Whispered in their Presence–A Person Clamoured for Love and Attention but I Did Not Hear!

No one knows what to say in the loser’s room. Divulging any client’s financial secrets is a criminal act and bank officers or employees can be punished by up to five years imprisonment and a fine of up to $5000.00. This secrecy requirement does not end with bank employment but goes with the employee to one’s grave. One study shows that only 30 percent of U.S. employers believe school graduates are literate and numerate; but 70 percent of students and 60 percent of parents think their schools are fine. This points to the core problem with U.S. education: low intensity, in all but sport, and low expectations, for all but the brightest students in honours classes. Also, the cost of private health insurance, mostly borne by industry, is doubling every seven years. What is more significant is that health is now a common-middle class headache for the first time. Employers are forcing their employees to contribute more and take less generous benefits; the high cost of insurance squeezes wages; people who have a poor health history, even if fully cured, find themselves locked into their jobs, because prospective new employers refuse to take them on. Many believe this added government control of an industry which comprises one fifth of the American economy has only meant higher taxes and reduced quality of medical care for everyone. #RandolphHarris 1 of 22
Now, a hypothesis. I believe that independent learning, the embodiment of the state of being fascinated, involves six stages. The first is the experience of the impasse. The next stage we will provisionally call the stage of detachment, a kind of dying. The third is immersion in oneself—an entry into one’s center, one’s source of experiencing. Next is an emergence, or rebirth. Fifth is the experience of new possibilities. Sixth is the selection and pursuit of one of these. I shall attempt to illustrate this hypothesis with examples from several realms: religious conversion, brainwashing, research in psychedelic drugs, psychotherapy, and dialogue. I base my hypothesis upon personal experience, buttressed by reading that has seemed related, and the reported experience of others. It appears to me that fascination-with-something, the process of being turned on, has a certain “natural” history in adults. It is the natural state with healthy children who have not yet been “turned off.” The “turning off” begins with the experience of despair, boredom, or meaninglessness as one continues one’s habitual way of life—acting in one’s roles, doing one’s work, being one’s public self. Friendships grow stale. Work becomes meaningless and pointless. One feels dead, or deadened. #RandolphHarris 2 of 22

The World looks stale, and music loses its savour. Nothing changes. Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose. I am doing something for everybody, and nothing for me. One feels trapped. No way out seems apparent. Each step out of the circle encounters dread or a sense of hopelessness, and futility. One tries new hobbies, new friends, new within which one feels like a robot. The depression deepens. One becomes afraid one is losing one’s mind. It is at this point that one’s friends, family, conventional psychiatry, and religion may enter. They try, and in this state gradually “loses interest,” “stops caring about thing.” One is regarded as sick, in need of “treatment” to stop one from going out of one’s mind. Actually, the “not-caring” is a self-initiated process of detachment from previous concerns, a phase in the death-rebirth process we are concerned with. If nothing stops the process, the person gradually enters one’s own experience more and more. One’s self-structure dissolves. One detaches oneself from one’s image of oneself, from previous friendships—which, after all, have been stabilizing one, keeping one in sameness, which is not the same as sanity. #RandolphHarris 3 of 22

This person may become panicky, as the process of detachment continues; and one finds oneself experiencing emotions, fantasies and memories, that ordinarily have been repressed. One surely needs reassurance here, to let the process unfold rather than shut it off. One is encountering one’s possibilities. If one lets go enough, one will fully enter the realm of experiencing that mystics have described as “transcendental,” like a homecoming, a visit to the course, rather than a hell to be avoided. It is, in fact, the way of experiencing that we all shared as children, before we were wholly engulfed by the culture. One cannot, and does not long stay in this realm. One re-enters one’s ego, but with a new perspective. The self-structure is redefined. I choose a new identity for myself and present it to others who may confirm it or not. The World does not look the same now. It is not the same because I am not the same, and it is my World. I look at the old things and the old people; and new features, new possibilities disclose themselves to me. I commit myself to some of these, and I am renewed, until some later time; when the new fascinations, values, and projects go stale, I must begin the process again. #RandolphHarris 4 of 22

When I am reborn and awakened, I experience the World and the people in it as a constant and varied calling, a constant source of invitations to become involved. The calls and invitations that were always there, but I never heard them before. The sky called to be looked at. A person clamoured for love and attention but I did not hear. Mysteries whispered their presence, but I did not notice; I thought what was mysterious was actually known and understood. In short, I begin once again to encounter the World, and the people in it. In the encounter, I let myself experience the varied reality of the World, a reality that I did not experience the varied reality of the World, a reality that I did not experience so richly, or in so many dimensions, as I do. Renewed by the plunge into the depths of my own experiencing, I survey the World that I am encountering. Some invitation, some call, some challenge, fascinates me more than the others. Nobody can predict what will now fascinate or repel me, not even me. I commit myself to this one, and off I go until I become deadened once again by a new set of habits. It has just occurred to me, after completing a year of sabbatical leave in England, that the process I just described is a sabbatical leave of one’s mind, of one’s personality structure. #RandolphHarris 5 of 22
The academic sabbatical is a removal from one’s usually surroundings, but I discovered it is easier to get out of one’s surroundings than to get them out of oneself so that new surroundings can invite one into encounter. Many of my American colleagues in England successfully shielded themselves from fascination with and involvement in the English experience, because of the panic they felt when invited to let go their usual preoccupations. They carried America with them. Indeed, the phenomenon of “culture shock,” long noted by anthropologists, is another dimension of the experience of leaving, not just one’s country, but one’s mind. One has to let the American in one die in order to become a participant in a new experience, to be reborn. Indeed, initiation ceremonies of all kinds recognize the, like fraternity initiation rites or Marine boot-camp training. The hazing, in whatever form, is a symbolic killing-off of a previous incarnation, to abet the reincarnation in the way of being. However, we are as afraid of dying as we are of leaving our minds. We equate habitual ways of valuing, construing, and acting with life itself. #RandolphHarris 6 of 22

Therefore, to stop these, even when they cease to yield satisfaction and meaning, is experienced as the end of life. It is equated with death. We are afraid to explore the possible experience beyond the tether. In the act of love, the climax is frequently experience as a “dying.” And after the successful act of love, a person feels oneself reborn, ready to respond anew to new dimensions of the World that suddenly, magically, have disclosed themselves to the person. However, many acts of love are climaxed not by ego-shattering orgasm; but only by localized, pleasurable twitching. Evidently one has to be ready to go out of one’s mind to make love the love that renews and revivifies. In the psychedelic-drug experience a person ingests a substance; and then, if one lets go, one commences a voyage into depth of experiencing of which one never would have dreamed oneself capable. However, taking one dose or consistent and frequent doses of any drug, especially one as potent as LSD or PCP, is by no means safe for all individuals and may put certain people at high risk of a psychotic episode they may never recover from or cause one to develop a drug addiction. People may believe the marijuana is a safe drug, but it is not. It is bad your lungs and could cause schizophrenia, or lead to the use of more dangerous and addictive drugs. #RandolphHarris 7 of 22
It may cause one to feel as if one is looking through a fogged-up window with only a tiny spot wiped clean. With religion, however, a rebirth is caused and the whole window is wiped clean; and the World stands forth. The World will disclose itself to one in different dimensions than it had disclosed itself hitherto, and one will select some aspects of it with which to involve oneself. Brainwashing is a corruption of the death and rebirth theme. There, the commissars, who know what they want a person to do and be, convince one that one (one’s old self) is dead. Under the regime of torture, a person may indeed enter the transcendental realm, but one re-enters a new “robot,” into new roles that have been ready-made for one. Doubtless, they seem as real and meaningful to the brainwashee as did one’s previous incarnation which had been made untenable and unlivable for one by one’s captors. In religious conversion, the common denominator seems to be the despair at continuing in the old way. The person enters one’s experience after leaving the World. If one’s background and present associates are appropriate, then, like the brainwashee, one enters a new way of being that is more or less ready-made for one. In good psychotherapy, the therapist lets one’s patient enter one’s experience deeply. #RandolphHarris 8 of 22

One remains present to help the patient cope with the terrors that arise as one lets go and experiences feelings, memories, and the like that have been long suppressed. With one’s interpretations, the therapist may assist the process of symbolic dying and facilitate the onset of the therapeutic despair, or the therapeutic psychosis which is part of every effective psychotherapy sequence. Then the person is reborn, and one faces the World with the capacity to respond to its invitations in new ways. In good teaching, after the fashion of Sokrates, the skilled and compassionate dialectician will challenge every assertion and belief of one’s pupil until the pupil feels one is going to go out of one’s mind. One may balk at this point. However, one may also flip into a realization of infinite possibility, and be thus turned on. This is my hypothesis restated: independent learning entails the experience of fascination. Fascination is a response to an invitation or challenge disclosed by the World. The invitation and challenge were always there, but the person could not experience them so long as one remained “hung up” or fixated in one’s usual roles, self-structure, and preoccupations. It is necessary that the usual attachments be suspended, and raw experiencing be turned on. #RandolphHarris 9 of 22
This disengagement from usual concerns is fostered by entrapment and despair (it can be fostered in dialogue); and it maybe experienced with dread, as a going out of one’s mind, or a dying, followed by rebirth or re-entry into an enlarged self-structure. In the reborn state, the person is now more open to one’s experience of the World. While one is in this “open” condition, a challenge appears, and the person responds. One may or may not be confirmed by others in one’s new being. I would propose that something like this happens repeatedly in those healthier personalities for whom independent learning is no problem. I would propose further that a variety of factors militate against this complete process of death and rebirth. And so, practically speaking, the renovation of the heart in the dimension of feeling is a matter of opening ourselves to and carefully cultivating love, joy, and peace: first by receiving them from God and from those already living in Him, and then as we grow, extending love, joy, and peace to others and everything around us in attitude, prayer, and action. Following our VIM (Vision, Integrity, and Mission) pattern, we must intend this and decide that it shall be in all we are and do. Of course our thought life, as already described, will be focused upon God. #RandolphHarris 10 of 22

Then through grace we can translate this intention to dwell in love, joy, and peace into the fine texture of daily existence. Our walk with Jesus and the Father will teach us and show us the details of the means required to bring it to pass. The conscious personal mind of the teacher may know nothing of the help that is radiating from one to one who silently calls on one from a long distance, yet the reality of that help remains. If the requisite condition exist, only then can this internal quickening and intense telepathy between the master and the disciple can occur. Even at the beginning of probation (spiritual probation) the seeker will often be given a hint of what awaits one later through the spiritual experience resulting out of the contact with the teacher. However, whether one gets it or not, from the moment of acceptance there will come to every student a sense of peace, and above all, an inner stability and certitude which will become one of the greatest assets in one’s life. Again and again the novice falls into mistakes about the telepathic communications which one feels one is receiving from the master. One regains them as such when they are nothing of the sort, or one interprets them in too material or too egoistic a manner. #RandolphHarris 11 of 22

The master sends a thought-current to one which is intended to lift one up to a diviner, hence more impersonal level. One, however, drags it down to a lower, more egocentric level. The telepathic impulses which one sends out to others during these times of prayer or meditation are most often received quite subconsciously. Only later is their effect felt or their origin suspected. One’s disciples may not be aware of any new reception of truth or beatitude at the time. However, increasing clarification or growing liberation may slowly change their course. It is also possible to take any revered person as a master and, in one’s own mind, make one the teacher. Even though no meeting on the physical level may occur, one’s attitude of attention and devotion in meditation will draw from one a reaction which will telepathically give whatever guidance is needed at the time. Just as the glance, the touch, or the spoken word may carry the ardour of mutual desire from to woman so may it also carry the initiatory blessing or the spiritual gift from master to disciple. Like the message of God to a praying spiritual person, the help which comes from such a teacher is above thinking but it translates itself into terms of thinking. In this process of translation, it is seized n by the ego and interfered with. #RandolphHarris 12 of 22
The guide may send one’s blessing telepathically only once but if it is powerful enough it may work itself out through a hundred different experiences extending over several years. Because one identifies oneself with the timeless spaceless soul, one’s blessing may express itself out through a hundred different experience extending over several years. Because one identifies oneself with the timeless spaceless soul, one’s blessing may express itself anywhere in space and anywhen in time. Moreover one may formulate it in a general way but it may take precise shapes unconsciously fashioned by and suited to the recipient’s own mentality and degree of development. Here is some of the work to be done. For many of us, just coming to honest terms with what our feelings really are will be a huge task. Paul says in Romans 12.9, “Let love be without hypocrisy.” That is, let it be genuine or sincere. To do only this will require serious effort, deep learning, and quantities of grace. Our ordinary life and our religious associations are so permeated with insincere expressions of love, often alongside of contempt and anger, that it is hard not to feel forced into hypocrisy in some situations. However, we can learn to avoid it, and we shall immediately begin to see what a huge difference that alone makes. #RandolphHarris 13 of 22
However, there is much more to do. Very few people are without deep negative feelings towards others who are or have been closely related to them. Wounds carried steadily through the years have weighed us down and prevented spiritual growth in love, joy, and peace. They may have seeped over into our identity. We would not know who we are without them. However, they can be healed or dismissed, if we are ready to give them up to God and receive the healing ministry of His Word and Spirit. This applies similarly to hopelessness over not achieving things long sought or long lost. In general, the task, once we have given ourselves to Christ, is to recognize the reality of our feelings and agree with the Lord to abandon those that are destructive and that lead us into doing or being what we know to be wrong. This one will then help us with. We may need to write out what those feelings are in a “letter to the Lord,” or perhaps confer about them with wise Christian friend who knows how to listen to us and to God at the same time. Perhaps individuals or our fellowship group can have a prayer ministry to us. Journaling about progress with feelings can also help. It can bring to light the ideas and images or past events on which destructive feelings are based. Those, too, will need to be replaced or revised. #RandolphHarris 14 of 22

Many such details may play a role as we progress toward predominance of love, joy, and peace in that dimension of our mind and our self that is our feelings. We can be very sure that this is our feelings. We can be very sure that this is God’s intent for us. Thus Paul prayed for his friends in Ephesus that they would be “rooted and grounded in love” and “know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God,” reports Ephesians 3.17-19. And we have seen the intent of Jesus: “That My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full,” reports John 15.11. Also his, “Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the World gives, do I give you. Let not your heart be troubled nor let it be fearful,” reports John 14.27. And here is Paul’s benediction to the Romans: “Now may the God of hope fill you with al joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit,” Romans 15.13. There are the same dispositions of things in being and truth. As good has the nature of what is desirable, so truth is related to knowledge. Now everything, in as far as it has being, so far is it knowable. The soul is in some manner all things through the senses and the intellect. And therefore, as good is convertible with being, so is the true. #RandolphHarris 15 of 22

However, as good adds to being the notion of desirable, so the truth adds relation to the intellect. “And it came to pass that there was a voice heard among all the inhabitants of the Earth, upon all the face of this land, crying: Wo, wo, wo unto this people; wo unto the inhabitants of the whole Earth except they shall repent; for the devil laugheth, and his Angels rejoice, because of the slain of the fair sons and daughters of my people; and it is because of their iniquity and abominations that they are fallen! Behold, that great city Zarahemla have I burned with fire, and the inhabitants thereof. And behold, that great city Moroni have I caused to be sunk in the depths of the sea, and the inhabitants thereof to be drowned. And behold, that great city Moronihah have I covered with Earth, and the inhabitants thereof, to hide their iniquities and their abominations from before my face, that the blood of the prophets and the saints shall not come any more unto me against them. And behold, the city of Gilgal have I caused to be sunk, and the inhabitants thereof to be buried up in the depths of the Earth; yea, and the city of Onihah and the inhabitants thereof, and the city of Mocum and the inhabitants thereof, and the city of Jerusalem and the inhabitants thereof. #RandolphHarris 16 of 22

“And water have I caused to come up in the stead thereof, to hide their wickedness and abomination from before my face, that the blood of the prophets and the saints shall not come up any more unto me against them. And behold, the city of Ganiandi, and the city of Gadiomnah, and the city of Gimgimno, all these have I caused to be sunk, and made hills and valleys in the places thereof; and the inhabitants thereof have I buried up in the depths of the Earth, to hide their wickedness and abominations from before my face, that the blood of the prophets and the saints should not come up any more unto me against them. And behold, that great city Jacobugath, which was inhabited by the people of the king Jacob, have I caused to be burned with fire because of their sins and their wickedness, which was above all the wickedness of the whole Earth, because of their secret murders and combinations; for it was they that did destroy the peace of my people and the government of the land; therefore I did cause them to be burned, to destroy them from before my face, that the blood of the prophets and the saints should not come up uno me any more against them. #RandolphHarris 17 of 22
“And behold, the city of Laman, and the city of Josh, and the city of Gad, and the city of Kishkumen, have I caused to be burned with fire, and the inhabitants thereof, because of their wickedness in casting out the prophets, and stoning those whom I did send to declare unto them concerning their wickedness and their abominations. And because they did cast them all out, that there were none righteous among them, I did send down fire and destroy them, that their wickedness and abomination might be hid from before my face, that the blood of the prophets and the saints whom I sent among them might not cry unto me from the ground against them. And many great destructions have I caused to come upon this land, and upon this people, because of their wickedness and their abominations. O all ye that are spared because ye were more righteous than they, will ye not now return unto me, and repent of your sins, and be converted, that I may heal you? Yea, verily I say unto you, if ye will come unto me ye shall have enteral life. Behold, mine arm of mercy is extended towards you, and whosoever will come, one will I receive; and blessed are those who come unto me. #RandolphHarris 18 of 22
“Behold, I am Jesus Christ the Son of God. I created the Heavens and the Earth, and all things that in the are. I was with the Father from the beginning. I am in the Father, and the Father in me; and in me hath the Father glorified His name. I came unto my own, and my own received me not. And the scriptures concerning my coming are fulfilled. And as many as have received me, to them have I given to become the sons of God; and even so will I to as many as shall believe on my name, for behold, by me redemption cometh, and in me is the law of Moses fulfilled. I am the light and the life of the World. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. And ye shall offer up unto me no more the shedding of blood; yea, your sacrifices and your burnt offerings shall be done away, for I will accept none of your sacrifices and your burnt offerings. And ye shall offer for a sacrifice unto me a broken heart and a contrite spirit. And whoso cometh unto me with a broken heart and a contrite spirit, one will I baptize with fire and with the Holy Ghost, even as the Lamanites, because of their faith in me at the time of their conversion, were baptized with fire and with the Holy Ghost, and they knew it not. Behold, I have come unto the World to bring redemption unto the World, to save the World from sin. #RandolphHarris 19 of 22
“Therefore, whoso repenteth and cometh unto me as a little child, one will I receive, for of such is the kingdom of God. Behold, for such I have laid down my life, and have taken it up again; therefore repent, and come unto me ye ends of the Earth, and be saved,” reports 3 Nephi 9.1-22. Some critics reject the idea of Grace and declare its impossibility in a World governed by strict cause and effect. The meaning of the word suggests something or anything of an immaterial moral or material nature. That is given to humans. Why should not the Master who has attained a higher strength wisdom and moral character than that which is common to the human race, give assistance freely out of one’s beneficent compassion for others struggling to climb the peak one has surmounted? One certainly cannot transmit one’s own inner life to another person in its fullness. However, one can receptive, sensitive, and in inward affinity with one. If this too is denied then let the objector explain why both the feeling of and the sense of the Master’s presence pervade the disciple’s existence for many years after one’s initiation, if not the rest of one’s life. The master, by process of telepathic transfer, enables the disciple to get a glimpse of what the realization of one’s own spiritual possibilities can lead to. #RandolphHarris 20 of 22

The pupil who has been allowed to sit in deep conversational prayer with God should be able to carry on with this impetus, even though it happened only once. It is really an initiation. During this intercession, the disciple may actually feel a stream of power flowing out to one from the master, but it is not essential that one do so. What the master reflects and radiates into the disciple’s deeper mind at this sitting, will necessarily incubate for a period of time which may be measurable in minutes, days, months, or even years. No one can predict how long it will be, for not only are the disciple’s readiness, capacity, and affinity determining factors but also one’s destiny. Nor can anyone predict whether the result will appear slowly, gently, little by little, or suddenly, with violent jolting force. The master is forever after present in the disciple’s heart, whether the disciple see one again or not. From the hour of this initiation the master will be much in one’s thoughts and the sense of affinity will be often in one’s heart. The experience which the candidate has at the initiatory intercession with the master is often (but not always) a herald and token of one’s possibilities of later attainment under this particular master. One must work harder than ever on one’s character and, by crushing one’s ego, sensitize one’s mind for the reception of the spiritual Grace that is to come during initiation. #RandolphHarris 21 of 22
It seems as if the Master has come into one’s consciousness and thereby changed its quality and area. If the change is necessarily for a brief while only, it is still a memorable one. Father of All, Father of All: as I go through the day, keep my eyes open wide. May I not miss beauty. May I not miss joy. May I not miss wonder. Please keep me away and aware of the World. Thou hast made known unto us, O Lord our God, Thy righteous judgments, and hast taught us to perform Thy statutes. Thou hast given us, O Lord our God, ordinances that are just and true, statutes and commandments that are good. Thou hast enriched our lives with joyous seasons and holy days and festivals to bring free will offerings, giving us as a sacred possession the Sabbath Day and Holy Days, and the joyous delight of the Three Festivals. Thou hast made distinction, O Lord our God, between the sacred and the secular, between light and darkness, between Israel and the heathens, between the seventh day of rest and the six days of work. Thou hast set a distinction between the higher sanctity of the Sabbath and the lesser sanctity of the Festival, and hast hallowed the seventh day above the six days of work. Thus hast Thou distinguished and sanctified Thy people Israel through Thy holiness. #RandolphHarris 22 of 22

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Human History Becomes More and More a Race Between Education and Catastrophe!

The Christian life is not a way “out” but a way “through” life. Americans are so tense and keyed up that it is impossible even to put them to sleep with a sermon. However, it is easy to sell anti-rationalism, because junk thought always involves a shortcut—whether a diet requiring no reduction in calorie intake; a responsibility-evading bogus apology for bad behaviour (“I am sorry that you were hurt” instead of “I am sorry that I hurt you”); or a cure that depends largely on whether a sick patient has an optimistic attitude. The virulent outbreak of anti-rationalism in America is also rooted in a much older, nonpolitical tendency in American thought—a chronic suspicion of experts that dovetails with the folk belief in the superior wisdom f ordinary people. Ironically but perhaps predictably, the upsurge in mistrust of expert authority followed several decades in which public deference to scientific and technological authority, a deference so great that is was sometimes exaggerated and misplaced, stood at an all-time high. The inseparability of junk science from junk thought is evinced by the telltale marks of endemic illogic coupled, in many instances, with deliberate manipulativeness. The first and most fundamental warning sign is an inability to distinguish between coincidence and causation—a basic requirement for scientific literacy. #RandolphHarris 1 of 21

The anti-vaccination movement is rife with conspiracy theories tied both to the right wing’s distrust of government and the left’s distrust of traditional medicine—the latter a heritage of the extreme wings of the holistic healing ad New Age movements of the late sixties and seventies. Currently, 50 percent of Americans and 49 percent of people in Japan report they are unwilling to get a COVID-19 vaccine when it is produced because they are fearful of adverse side effects from a procedure that has never been tried on large numbers of people. Opponents of compulsory immunization believe, with a near-religious fervor, that no child should ever be subjected by government fiat to the slightest risk—and all drugs, as is well known, have some risk of negative side effects. A decline in population, however, may actually be good for some countries. China’s economic development, for example, could not have taken place had population growth not been checked by measures, including a mandatory limit of one child per family, that are draconian and anti-democratic from a New World point of view. Social scientists, including demographers, use many of the tools of the physical sciences (including measurement and mathematics), but when they draw conclusions about future behaviour of the human species on the basis of past behaviour, their reasoning is often highly unscientific. #RandolphHarris 2 of 21

A psychologist studying reactions to “interpersonal problems,” like a demographer studying lifestyles choices, can only tell us how human beings have behaved in the past—not how they might behave under radically altered future conditions. Predictions should be made, and received, in the same spirit as the warning from the Ghost of Christmas Present, who told Scrooge that he foresaw the death of Tiny Tim if the shadow of the future remained unaltered. The show of the future predicted by many psychologists is often altered—by a person’s religious beliefs, work history, medical conditions, delays in starting a family, and the recognition that drug, alcohol use, pleasures of the flesh, and too many children are a burden rather than an asset in postindustrial economies. In the United States of America is not among the worst-performing countries but is merely mediocre, fourteenth among twenty-five nations studied. This is not to suggest that Americans are unique in their mathematical and scientific illiteracy but that there is a unique gap between America’s image of itself as the World’s leader in science and technology and the reality of a nation in which more students are spending more years in school while falling behind the most developed nations of Europe and Asia. #RandolphHarris 3 of 21

In Turkey and Mexico, people are not constantly told that they are, or ought to be, “number one.” Moreover, public ignorance in large and powerful counties is particularly dangerous to the rest of the World precisely because of the capacity of powerful states to inflict damage on the weak. Parents often believe deep in their hearts, that if they did their job well enough all of their children would be creative, intelligent, kind, generous, happy, brave, spontaneous, and good—each, of course, in one’s own special way. At a study by the Urban Institute reported that in Boston schools, 104 European American girls finished high school for every 100 boys—a gap but hardly a crisis. Among African Americans, the gap is 139 to 100. That is a real calamity, but it seems preposterous to attribute the gap to a “biologically disrespectful” school system that works quite well for upper-middle-class European Americas of both genders. Nationwide, more than half of American-American boys drop out of high school—a statistic with deeply rooted social causes that have been explored by a host of African American writers and scholars of varying political persuasions, including National Public Radio’s Juan Williams, Newsday’s Les Payne, New York Times op-ed columnist Bob Herbert, the conservative author Shebly Steele, the sociologist Orlando Patterson, and the historian Henry Louis Gates. #RandolphHarris 4 of 21

Unlike the European Americans enamored of the “boy crisis,” none of these American-American commentators focused on genetics or the supposedly different learning styles of girls and boys. Instead they examine a street culture that glorifies violence as proof of manhood and denigrates learning, as well as the absence of a father in so many less affluent African-American homes. A similar pattern is evident in less affluent Hispanic neighbourhoods and less affluent European American homes, for whom the divorce rate is also much higher than it is among more affluent European-Americans. Nonetheless, some African Americans and Hispanics do excel, and they know who they are is better than a negative stereotype. The reason why girls do better than boys, even in the subcultures permeated by violence and poverty, surely have something to do with the greater susceptibility of boys to malign influences—including drug, gangs, and probably poor parenting skills because in many single family homes with one parent, or a step-father, boy are looked at as expendable because they are male and someone else’s heir. Therefore, there is a lack of a beneficial, disciplined adult male role model in their lives. While girls hold more value because they are female and can also be used for pleasures of the flesh. A man does not want to help someone else’s son become better than he is, and therefore he is deemed a threat. #RandolphHarris 5 of 21

Yet (go figure!) American academics and members of the media are more interested in looking at the way boys brains and girls brains differ in “verbal processing.” The simplistic slogans of junk though are perfectly suited to modern mass media, which must fixate on novelty in order to catch the eyes and ears of public with an increasingly short attention span. It seems that the portion of the brain, the amygdala, where emotions are processed is poorly connected in boys to the part of the brain that expresses emotions in words; ergo, boys need to be taught to read and write in different ways from girls. According to this logic, the amygdalas of women before the eighteenth century must also have had a screw loose, given that nearly all great writers were men. Or could it be that women in pre-Enlightenment societies were rarely taught to read and write and systematically discouraged from intellectual pursuits? Because of the distress, both physical and psychologically that arises from an overload of the human organism’s physical adaptive systems and its decision-making processes, some people believe that government allowances for a parent otherwise compelled to work is a good idea, on the grounds that it would save money in the end—thus implying that only a full-time parent can avoid bringing up a child who is a social problem. #RandolphHarris 6 of 21

If at least one parent realizes clearly how vital this kind of care is to a child, it may make it easier for one to decide that the extra money one might earn, or the satisfaction one might receive from an outside job, is not so important after all. You have the capacity to rear a genius, a masterpiece. Such an activity is the most important thing you can do and should therefore rightfully absorb all of your time and energy. Given such an attitude it is relatively easy to expand child-rearing into a full-time job. However, some parents like to be friends with their children and share their problems with their children, but since a parent is supposed to be molding them into superior beings one cannot lean too heavily upon them for one’s own needs, although one is sorely tempted to do so because a child may not be able to tolerate such massive inputs of one person’s personality. The mission in middle-class America is to create a near-perfect being. This means that every parental quirk, every parental hang-up, and ever parental deprivation will be experienced by the child as heavily amplified noise from which there is no respite. Our society is presently founded on overstimulation—on the generation of needs and desires which cannot be directly gratified, but which ensure a great deal of striving and buying in an effort to gratify them. #RandolphHarris 7 of 21

The goal is commercialize America, make everyone and everything into a brand or a product in an infinite number of ways to create and endless demand for goods and services. However, there is a limit, in any case, to the amount of emotional crippling that can be borne. When we realize that horrors of turning a child into a product, we begin to see why this child will encounter some resentment when one grows up. The child is not really responsible for the bad bargain the parents have made with each other (and with themselves), but one lends moral credit to it. Indeed, “for the children” is a kind of priest’s blessing or notary seal given to all bad marital bargains. And since the child is the sanction for the parents’ neurotic division of labour, they cannot help but blame the child when they begin to suffer from it. Furthermore, as the suffering increases, this sanction tends more and more to be the only force holding them to it. The husband’s ambition and the wife’s domesticity originally promised their own rewards and did not need to be buttressed by thoughts of the child’s future—just as a voluntary and mutually profitable deal between two business people does not initially require a written contract. However, such a contract binds them if there is a change of heart, at which point one of them might say, “if it were not for the contract, I would not go on with this.” #RandolphHarris 8 of 21

Similarly, as ambition and domesticity fail to bring happiness to husband and wife, respectively, both begin to say, “if it were not for the children, I might chuck this and do something more interesting (enjoyable, fulfilling, exciting, relaxing).” One can admit wanting to tear up a contract, however, and one cannot admit wanting to tear up a child. Nor is it easy for parents to admit their initial error (if needed they can even comprehend it). This means that the child is not only a scapegoat but a scapegoat that cannot be attacked. The result is a free-floating resentment with a vague tropism toward youth—a resentment with roots in the parents’ discontent with their own lives. This condition would seem ideally suited to product anger toward young people who show tendencies to live differently and more pleasurably than did the parental generation. This is not to say that parents do not in fact make sacrifices for their children—in a child-oriented society like ours such sacrifices are resented. Parents in many societies make severe sacrifices for their children which never cause any hostile reaction later on, largely because the sacrifices “pay off” in some way, or lead to some predictable outcome. In our society parents never know exactly what their sacrifices will lead to, although they have many fantasies about it. #RandolphHarris 9 of 21

In the recent past, for example, and in working-class families today, parents sacrificed in order to prepare their children to be economically and socially better off than the parents were, and often hated them for fulfilling this goal and leaving the parents behind. Now middle-class parents sacrifice in order to prepare their children to be emotionally better off—more loving, expressive, creative, cooperative, honest—and once again, resent being outdistanced. In both cases the parents feel left out of the triumphs they made possible; and the children feel ashamed of the parents who wanted them to be superior. The parents want their fantasies of vicarious success fulfilled but never seem to recognize that both kinds of success involve a change to a new milieu from which the parents are automatically excluded. The earlier group of parents wanted their children to become rich and respectable and still remain somehow part of the working-class milieu. The later group want their children to be more cultures, less money-grubbing, more spontaneous and creative, yet still somehow willing to remain on the same treadmill with the parents. And this is why some children will do things like pay to have a parents fence repaired. Also, most parents do not want to be in a nursing home when they get old and realize rich kids can pay for their homecare. #RandolphHarris 10 of 21

Furthermore, while raising children, parents do not reveal pleasures of the flesh to children because their primary function is to control such impulses. Still many people spend a great deal of trying not to “cop out” in a society whose corruption generates moral dilemmas that compel a hundred cop-outs a day even for the most obsessionally pure radical. And all of this, of course, makes them extremely vulnerable to moral contamination: when confronted with situations in which they took the easy way out they are usually demoralized. God ministers His grace to us through the ministry of other believers. This truly is a primary means God uses, because He has ordained that in the Body of Christ all the members “should have equal concern for each other,” reports 1 Corinthians 12.25. Of course, this is to be a reciprocal ministry. We should be channels of grace to one another. Let me deliberately misuse a statement of Scripture to make a point: this is one area where most of us feel it is indeed “more blessed to give than to receive,” reports Acts 20.35. That is, we are more inclined to be minister of grace to others than to allow others to be ministers of grace to us. Our problem is we are reluctant to be transparent and vulnerable to each other. We humans do not like to admit we have problems. This is perceived as a sign of weakness. #RandolphHarris 11 of 21

We want to appear that we have life under control. We want to appear that we are successfully dealing with temptations to sin, and that we are successfully dealing with the difficult circumstances of life. We are just as unwilling to let others know how we have been passed over for promotion at work as to admit we are having lustful thoughts about the legal secretary in the next office. The times when we need an extra measure of God’s grace are often the times when we are most reluctant to let other people know we need it. This leads to an important principle regarding the ministry of grace. Each of us needs to cultivate a small group of friends with whom we can be transparent and vulnerable. This might be on an individual or small group basis. However, we need a few people—including our spouse, if we have one—with whom we feel free to share our failures, hurts, and sorrows. The Puritans used to ask God for one “bosom friend” with whom they could share absolutely everything. That is a good goal for us today. We should store up God’s word in our heart against a time of future need. We also should “store up” a few bosom friends against the day when we need them to be God’s ministers of grace to us. Usually when we think of the ministry of grace to one another, we think of the initiative being with the person who will be the minister. #RandolphHarris 12 of 21

However, the initiative is often with the one who has a need. We have to admit our need and give the other person “permission” to minister to us. We have to, in some way, communicate that we are not only willing to share our needs but are willing to be ministered to. What are some ways in which we can asked others to be ministers of grace to us? In answering, we need to keep in mind that we are asking the person to be an avenue for God’s Spirit to pour out His grace to us. We are asking the person, or persons, to help strengthen our contact with the Holy Spirit so that we can better receive the divine assistance He has promised to give. We are not asking, at this point, for practical assistance or human counsel. That may be appropriate at the right time. However, for now, we are thinking of our need for grace, for God’s divine power to come to help us in our time of need. That being true, the first thing we need from others is prayer support. It is instructive how often Paul asked the recipients of his letters to pray for him, even when he did not seem to have extremely pressing needs. So certainly, in our times of need we should ask others to pray for us. However, if they are to pray effectively for us, we must be willing to share what our real needs are. #RandolphHarris 13 of 21

The second thing we need is their help in accepting and applying Scripture to our specific needs. We might say, “Here is my problem. What Scriptures do you think might help me?” I realize this is a radical suggestion, because so often, when we are experiencing adversity, the last thing we want is for someone to give us a pat answer in the form of a Scripture verse. However, if we have developed the kind of friendship where we can be transparent and vulnerable with one another, then we are no going to be giving each other pat answer type responses. Third, we can ask the other person to be a minister of grace to us by helping us see our situation with a better, more objective, perspective. We all know our tendency to magnify problems, or perhaps put the worst construction on events affecting us. The other person can be the Holy’s Spirit’s agent to help us see our circumstances more objectively. That better perspective may help us to more readily humble ourselves under God’s hand. You will recognize that, all another person can do is facilitate our own contact with the Holy Spirit. All another can be is an avenue of God’s grace. We have nothing to offer each other just from ourselves. We cannot deprive Christ of his finite freedom; for a transmuted being does not have the freedom to be other than divine. Let Christ work through you and keep your faith. #RandolphHarris 14 of 21

Faith in the Resurrection of Christ has traditionally been a touchstone of orthodox Christology. Christ resurrected himself because, being God, he could do it; and he had occasion to rise from the dead only because, being fully man, he had died. The Resurrection is thus the biblical ground of the dogma of Chalcedon. Whatever disturbs that Chalcedonian balance must necessarily alter the scriptural data on the Resurrection. Faith is only committed to the Resurrection itself, as symbol and as event. If Christ has not risen from the dead, vain is our faith. The Resurrection is a mysterious experience. Christ rose form the tomb on the third day. This can obviously only mean that he rose with his own body. The disciple realized the Jesus was dead, and yet they knew that, being the Christ, the New Being, he must have power beyond death. If God had not been incarnated in the flesh, there would be little basic for a resurrection of Christ in the flesh. Resurrection is not something added to the death of him who is the Christ; but it is implied in his death. No longer is the Universe subjected to a higher law, to the law of life out of death by the death of one who represents eternal life. The tombs were opened and bodies were raised when one man in whom God was present without limits committed his spirit into his Father’s hands. #RandolphHarris 15 of 21

“And now behold, it came to pass in the commencement of the fortieth year of the reign of the judges over the people of Nephi, there began to be a serious difficulty among the people of the Nephites. For behold, Pahoran had died, and gone they way of all the Earth; therefore there began to be a serious contention concerning who should have the judgment-seat among the brethren, who were the sons f Pahoran. Now these are their names who did contend for the judgment-seat, who did also cause the people to contend: Pahoran, Paanchi, and Pacumenia. Now these are not all the sons of Pahoran (for he had many), but these are they who did contend for the judgment-seat; therefore, they did cause three divisions among the people. Nevertheless, it came to pass that Pahoran was appointed by the voice of the people to be chief judge and a governor over the people of Nephi. And it came to pass that Pacumeni, when he saw that he could not obtain the judgment-seat, he did unite with the voice of the people. However, behold, Pannchi, and that part of the people that were desirous that he should be their governor, was exceedingly wroth; therefore, he was about to flatter away those people to rise up in rebellion against their brethren. #RandolphHarris 16 of 21

“And it came to pass as he was about to do this, behold, he was taken, and was tried according to the voice of the people, and condemned unto death; for he had risen up in rebellion and sought to destroy the liberty of the people. Now when these people who were desirous that he should be their governor saw that he was condemned unto death, therefore they were angry, and behold, they sent forth one Kishkumen, even to the judgment-seat of Pahoran, and murdered Pahoran as he sat upon the judgment-seat. And he was pursued by the servants of Pahoran; but behold, so speedy was the flight of Kishkumen that no human could overtake him. And he went unto those that sent him, and they all entered int a covenant, yea, swearing by their everlasting Maker, that they would tell no human that Kishkumen had murdered Pahoran. Therefore, Kishkumen was not known among the people of Nephi, for he was in disguise at the time that he murdered Pahoran. And Kishkumen and his band, who had covenanted with him, did mingle themselves among the people, in a manner that they all could not be found; but as many as were found were condemned unto death. And now behold, Pacumeni was appointed, according to the voice of the people, to be a chief judge and a governor over the people, to reign in the stead of his brother Pahoran; and it was according to his right. #RandolphHarris 17 of 21

“And all this was done in the fortieth year of the reign of the judges; and it had an end. And it came to pass in the forty and first year of the reign of the judges, that the Lamanites had gathered together an innumerable army of humans, and armed them with swords, and with cimeters and with bows, and with arrows, and with head-plates, and with breastplates, and with all manner of shields of every kind. And they came down again that they might pitch battle against the Nephites. And they were led by a man whose name was Coriantumr; and he was a descendant of Zarahemla; and he was a dissenter from among the Nephites; and he was a large and a might man. Therefore, the king of the Lamanites, whose name was Tubaloth, who was the son of Ammoron, supposing that Coriantumr, being a mighty man, could stand against the Nephites, with his strength and also with his great wisdom, insomuch that by sending him forth he should gain power over the Nephites—therefore, he did stir them up to anger, and he did gather together his armies, and he did appoint Coriantumr to their leader, and did cause that they should march down to the land of Zarahemla to battle against the Nephites. #RandolphHarris 18 of 21

And it came to pass that because of so much contention and so much difficulty in the government, that they had not kept sufficient guards in the land of Zarahemla; for they had supposed that the Lamanites durst not come into the heart of their lands to attack that great city Zarahemla. However, it came to pass that Coriantumr did march forth at the head of his numerous host, and came upon the inhabitants of the city, and their march was with such exceedingly great speed that there was no time for the Nephites to gather together their armies. Therefore Coriantumr did cut down the watch by the entrance of the city, and did march forth with his whole army into the city, and they did slay every one who did oppose them, insomuch that they did take possession of the whole city. And it came to pass that Pacumeni, who was the chief judge, did flee before Coriantumr, even to the walls of the city. And it came t pass that Coriantumr did smite him against the wall, insomuch that he died. And thus ended the days of Pacumeni. And now when Coriantumr saw that he was in possession of the city of Zarahemla, and were marching through the most capital parts of the land, slaying the people with great slaughter, both men, women, and children, taking possession of many cities and of many strongholds. #RandolphHarris 19 of 21

“However, when Moronihah had discovered this, he immediately sent forth Lehi with an army round about to head them before they should come to the land Bountiful. And thus he did; and he did head them before they came to the land of Bountiful, and gave unto them battle, insomuch that they began to retreat back towards the land of Zarahemla. And it came to pass that Moronihah did head them in their retreat, and did give unto them battle, insomuch that it became an exceedingly bloody battle; yea, many were slain, and among the number who were slain Coriantumr was also found. And now, behold, the Lamanites could not retreat either way, neither on the north, nor on the south, nor on the east, nor on the west, for they were surrounded on every hand by the Nephites. And thus had Coriantumr plunged the Lamanites into the midst of the Nephites, insomuch that they were in the power f the Nephites, and he himself was slain, and the Lamanites did yield themselves into the hands of Nephites. And it came to pass that Moronihah took possession of the city of Zarahemla again, and caused that the Lamanites who had bee taken prisoner should depart out of the mand in peace. And thus ended the forty and first year of the reign of the judges,” reports Helaman 1.1-34. #RandolphHarris 20 of 21

Father of all, we praise you, we praise you. Earth beneath us, we praise you, we praise you. King of kings, we praise you, we praise you. Love of our Lord, we praise you, we praise you. Shining Father, we praise you, we praise you. Giver of wisdom, we praise you, we praise you. Open0handed one, we praise you, we praise you. May Your great name be blessed forever and ever. Exalted and honoured be the name of the Holy One, blessed be He, whose glory transcends, yea, is beyond all praises, hymns and blessings that humans can render unto Him. O Lord, open Thou my lips and my mouth shall declare Thy praise. Praised art Thou, O Lord our God and God of our fathers, God of Abraham, God of Isaac, and God of Jacob, mighty, revered and exalted God. Thou bestowest loving-kindness and possesses all things. Mindful of the patriarchs’ love for Thee, Thou wilt in Thy love bring a redeemer to their children’s children for the sake of Thy name. Remember us unto life, O King who delightest in life, and inscribe us in the Book of Life so that we may live worthily for Thy sake, O Lord of life. O King, Thou Helper, Redeemer and Shield, be Thou praised, O Lord, Shield of Abraham. Thou, O Lord, art mighty forever. Thou callest the dead to immortal life for Thou art mighty in deliverance. #RandolphHarris 21 of 21

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Blood, Toil, Tears, and Sweat—God Moves in a Mysterious Way, Survival of the Fittest!
Half of the reporters in town are looking on you as a Pulitzer Prize waiting to be won. The word norm means an authoritative standard, and correspondingly, normal means abiding by such a standard. It follows that a normal personality is one whose conduct conforms to an authoritative standard, and an abnormal personality is one whose conduct does not do so. However, having said this much we immediately discover that there are two entirely different kinds of standards that may be applied to divide the normal from the abnormal: the one statistical, the other ethical. The one pertains to the average or usual, and the other to the desirable or valuable. These two standards are not only different, but in many ways they stand in flat contradiction to one another. It is, for example, usual for people to have some noxious trends in their natures, some pathology of tissues or organs, some evidences of nervousness and some self-defeating habits; but though usual or avege, such trends are not healthy. Or again, society’s authoritative standard for a wholesome love life may be achieved by only a minority of American males. Here too the usual is not the desirable; what is normal in one sense is not normal in the other sense. #RandolphHarris 1 of 24
Certainly, unless they are taught what is legal, ethical, moral and Godly, no system of ethics in the civilized World holds up as a model for its children becoming productive members of society. It is not the actualities, but rather the potentialities, of human nature that somehow provide us with a standard for a sound and healthy personality. One hundred years ago this double meaning of norm and normal did not trouble psychology so much as it does today. In those days psychology was deeply involved in discovering average norms for every conceivable type of mental function. Means, modes, and sigmas were in the saddle, and differential psychology was riding high. Intoxicated with the new-found beauty of the normal distribution curve, psychologists were content to declare its slender tails as the one and only sensible measure of “abnormality.” Departures from the means were abnormal and for this reason slightly unsavory. In this era there grew up the concept of mental adjustment, and this concept held sway well into the decade of the 1920s. While not all psychologists adjustment with average behaviour, this implication was pretty generally present. It was, for example, frequently pointed out that an animal who does not adjust to the norm for one’s species usually dies. It was not yet pointed out that a human being who does so adjust is a bore and a mediocrity. #RandolphHarris 2 of 24
Now time have changed. Our concern for the improvement of average human behaviour is deep, for we now seriously doubt that the merely mediocre human can survive. As social anomie spreads, as society itself becomes more and more sick, we doubt that the mediocre human will escape mental disease and delinquency, or that one will keep oneself out of the clutch of dictators or succeed in preventing atomic or biological warfare. The normal distribution curve, we see, holds out no hope of salvation. We need citizens who are in a more beneficial and optimistic sense of normal, healthy and sound. And the World needs them more urgently than it ever did before. It is for this reason, I think, that psychologists are now seeking a fresh definition of what is normal and what is abnormal. They are asking questions concerning the valuable, the right, and the good as they have never asked them before. At the same time psychologists know that in seeking for a criterion of normality in this new sense they are trespassing on the traditional domain of moral philosophy. They also know that, by and large, philosophers have failed to establish authoritative standards for what constitutes the sound life—the life that educators, parents, and therapist should seek to mold. #RandolphHarris 3 of 24
And so psychologist, for the most part, wish to pursue the search in a fresh way and if they can, avoid the traditional traps of axiology. During the past few months two proposals have been published that merit serious attention. Both are by social scientists, one a psychologist in the United States of America, the other a sociologist in England. Their aim is to derive a concept of normality (in the value sense) from the condition of humans (in the naturalistic sense). Both seek their ethical imperatives from biology and psychology, not from value-theory directly. In short, they boldly seek the ought (the goal to which teachers, counsellors, therapists should strive) from the is of human nature. Many philosophers tell us that this is an impossible undertaking. However, before we pass judgment let us see what success they have had. Humans are expected to maximize those attributes that are distinctively human. The first is human’s capacity for the use of propositional language (symbolization). From this particular superiority over animals derives several specific guidelines for normality. With the assistance of symbolic language, for example, humans can delay their gratifications, holding in mind a distant goal, a remote reward, an objective to be reached perhaps only at the end of one’s life or perhaps never. #RandolphHarris 4 of 24
With the assistance of symbolic language, one can imagine a future for oneself that is far better than the present. One can also develop an intricate system of social concepts that leads one to all manner of possible relations with other human beings, far exceeding the rigid symbiotic rituals of, say, the social insects. A second distinctive human quality is related to the prolonged childhood in the human species. Dependence, basic trust, sympathy and altruism are absolutely essential to human survival, in a sense and to a degree that is maybe not always true for animals. The conception of normality has to do with a model of integrative adjustment. It follows that a sense of personal responsibility marks the normal human, for responsibility is a distinctive capacity derived from holding in mind a symbolic image of the future, delaying gratification, and being able to strive in accordance with one’s conception of the best principles of conduct for oneself. Similarly social responsibility is normal; for all these symbolic capacities can interact with the unique factor of trust or altruism. Closely related is the criterion of democratic social interest which derives from both symbolization and trust. Similarly, the possession of ideals and the necessity for self–control follow from the same naturalistic analysis. #RandolphHarris 5 of 24
A sense of guilt is an inevitable consequence of human’s failure to live according to the distinctive human pattern, and so in our concept of normality we must include both guilt and devices for expiation. Every psychologist who wishes to make minimum assumptions and who wishes to keep close to empirical evidence, and who inclines toward the naturalism of biological science prefers fact-based evidence that has not been manipulated. Manipulated and prejudice science is worthless junk. It is must like fake news and has no value other than propaganda. Nonetheless, our philosopher friends will arise to confound us with some uncomfortable questions. Is it not a distinctively human capacity, they will ask, for a possessive mother to keep her child permanently tied to her apron strings? Does any lower animal engage in this destructive behaviour? Likewise, is it not distinctively human to develop fierce in-group loyalties that lead to prejudice, contempt, and war? Is it not possible that the burden of symbolization, social responsibility, and guilt may lead a person to depression and suicide? Suicide, along with all the other destructive patterns I have mentioned, is distinctly human. #RandolphHarris 6 of 24
A philosopher who raises these questions would conclude, “No, you cannot derive the ought from the is of human nature. What is distinctively human is not necessarily distinctively good.” What are the minimum conditions for survival? When we know these minimum conditions we can declare that any situations falling below this level will lead to abnormality, and tend toward death and destruction, which COVID-19 could be symbolic of—humanity falling below minimum conditions needed to sustain a developing nation like America, and others around the World. This criterion is called the abnorm and we can define it, even if we cannot define normality, because people in general agree more readily on what is bad for humans than on what is good for them. They agree on the bad because all mortals are subject to the basic imperative of survival. The need for survival is connected to our need for growth and the need for social cohesion. These two principles are the universal conditions of all life, not merely of human life. Growth means autonomy and the process of individuation. Cohesion is the basic fact of social interdependence, involving, at least for human beings, initial trust, heteronomy, mating and the founding of family. #RandolphHarris 7 of 24
By taking an inventory of conditions deleterious to growth and cohesion we may establish the “abnorm.” As a start, the first and foremost disorders of child training is the continued or repeated interruption of physical proximity between mother and child and emotional rejection of the child by the mother are conditions that harm survival of the individual and the group. In the first criterion of abnormality lies in a rupture in the transmutation of cohesion into love. Most of what is abnormal can be traced to failures in the principle of cohesion, so that the child becomes excessively demanding and compulsive. It is abnormal (inimical to survival) if repetition of conduct occurs irrespective of the situation and unmodified by its consequences; also when one’s accomplishments constantly fall short of one’s potentialities; likewise when one’s psychosexual frustrations prevent both growth and cohesion. Normality requires a balance between individuation and socialization, between autonomy and heteronomy. When an individual identifies oneself to an extreme degree with a group, the effect is that one loses one’s value. On the other hand, a complete inability to identify has the effect that the environment loses its value for the individual. #RandolphHarris 8 of 24
In both extreme cases the dynamic relationship between individual and environment is distorted. An individual behaving in such a way is called neurotic. In a normal group each member preserves one’s individuality but accepts one’s role as participator also. While there is much agreement that the normal personality must strike a serviceable balance between growth as an individual and cohesion with society, we do not yet have a clear criterion for determining when these factors are in serviceable balance and when they are not. However, Philosophers, I fear, would shake their heads at us and ask us, “How do you know that survival is a good thing?” Further, “Why should all people enjoy equal rights to the benefits of growth and cohesion?” And, “How are we to define the optimum balance between cohesion and growth within the single personality?” We also have to worry about the relationship between abnormality and creativity. It was Nietzsche who declared, “I say unto you: a human must have chaos yet within one to be able to give birth to a dancing star.” Have not many meritorious works of music, literature, and even of science draw their inspiration not from balance but from some kind of psychic chaos? In effect that creativity and normality are not identical values. #RandolphHarris 9 of 24
On the whole the normal person will be creative, but if valuable creations come likewise from people who are slipping away from the norm of survival, this fact can only be accepted and valued on the scale of creativity, but not properly on the scale of normality. In this day of existentialism I sense that psychologist are becoming less and less content with the concept of adjustment, and correspondingly with the concepts of tension reduction, restoration of equilibrium, and homeostasis. We wonder if a human who enjoys these beatific conditions is truly human. Growth we know is not due to homeostasis but to a kind of “transiistasis.” And cohesion is a matter of keeping our human relationships moving and not in mere stationary equilibrium. Stability cannot be a criterion of normality since stability brings evolution to a standstill, negating both growth and cohesion. Dr. Freud once wrote to Dr. Fliess that he finds “moderate misery necessary for intensive work.” When people have a zero correlation between self and ideal self, it is too low for normality; it leads to such anguish that the sufferer seeks therapy. At the same time normal people are by no means perfectly adjusted to themselves. There is always a wholesome gap between self and ideal self, between present existence and aspiration. On the other hand, too high a satisfaction indicates pathology. #RandolphHarris 10 of 24
When individuals reach an extremely high coefficient for self-satisfaction, it is clear that one is pathological. Perfect correlations we might expect only from smug psychotics, particularly paranoid schizophrenics. And whatever our definition of normality turns out to be it must allow for serviceable imbalances within personality, and between person and society. There is an approach dear to the psychologist’s heart. The established criterion of normality or otherwise known as soundness, leads us to identify people who are “sound.” Teachers of graduate students in the University of California nominated a large number of people whom they considered sound, and some of the opposite trend. In testing and experimenting with these two groups, whose identities were unknow to the investigators, certain significant difference appeared. For one thing the sounder human had more realistic perceptions; they were not thrown off by distortions or by surrounding context in the sensory field. Further, on adjective check-lists they stood high on such traits as integrated pursuit of goals, persistence, adaptability, good nature. On the Minnesota Personality Inventory they were high in equanimity, self-confidence, objectivity and virility. Their self-insight was superior, as was their physical health. Finally, they came from homes where there was little or not affective rupture. #RandolphHarris 11 of 24
A healthy person will be able to “love” and to “work.” On the schedule of other qualities a healthy person possesses include among others: efficient perception of reality, philosophical humour, spontaneity, detachment, and acceptance of self and others. A normal person has a strong ego, an abnormal person has a weak ego. Whether one is normal or abnormal depends on the degree to which one can manage one’s relationships successfully. Furthermore, the earlier enthusiasm of psychologist for the normal distribution curve helps to entrench the theory of continuum. Extreme withdrawal and escape constitute psychosis. However, you may ask, do no we all do some escaping? Yes, we do, and what is more, escapism may provide not only recreation but may sometimes have a certain constructive utility, as it has in mild daydreaming. Only if the dominant process is confrontation, the process of escape can still be harmless. Left to itself escapism spells disaster. In the psychotic this process has the upper hand; in the normal person, on the contrary, confrontation has the upper hand. Following this line of reasoning we can list other processes that intrinsically generate abnormality, and those that generate normality. #RandolphHarris 12 of 24
The first list deals with catabolic (energy used to break down) functions. I would mention: Escape or withdrawal (including fantasy), repression or dissociation, other “ego defences,” including rationalization, reaction formation, projection, displacement, impulsivity (uncontrolled), restriction of thinking to concrete level, fixation of personality at a juvenile level, all forms of rigidification. The list is not complete, but the process in question, I submit, are intrinsically catabolic. They are as much so as are the disease mechanisms responsible for diabetes, tuberculosis, hyperthyroidism, or cancer. A person suffering only a small dose of these mechanisms may appear to be normal, but only if anabolic (requires energy to grow and build) mechanisms predominate. Among the latter I would list: Confrontation (or, if you prefer, reality testing) availability of knowledge to consciousness, self-insight, with its attendant humour, integrative action of the nervous system, ability to think abstractly, continuous individuation (without arrested or fixated development), functional autonomy of motives, frustration of tolerance. I realize that what I have called processes, or mechanisms, are not in all cases logically parallel. However, they serve to make my point, that normality depends on the dominance of one set of principles, abnormality upon the dominance of another. #RandolphHarris 13 of 24
The fact that all normal people are occasionally afflicted with catabolic processes does not alter the point. The normal life is marked by a preponderance of the anabolic functions; the abnormal by a preponderance of the catabolic. Investigations have told us much concerning the nature of human needs and motives, both conscious and unconscious. Much is known concerning the pathologies that result from frustration and imbalance of these needs. We know much about childhood conditions that predispose toward delinquency, prejudice, and mental disorder. A moralist might do well to cast one’s imperatives in terms of standards for child training. I can suggest, for example, that the abstract imperative “respect for persons” should be tested and formulated from the point of view for child training. The distinction between the anabolic and catabolic processes in the formation of personality represents a fact of importance. Instead of judging merely the end-product of action, perhaps the moralist would do well to focus one’s attention upon the process by which various ends are achieved. Conceivably, the moral law could be written in terms of strengthening anabolic functions in oneself and in others whilst fighting against catabolic functions. #RandolphHarris 14 of 24
Apriorism, belief in a priori principles or reasoning specifically: the doctrine that knowledge rests upon principles that are self-evident to reason or are presupposed by experience in general, is a legitimate tool of philosophy. Up to now this method as yielded a wide array of moral imperatives, including the following: so act that maxim of thy action can become a universal law; be a respecter of persons; seek to reduce your desires; harmonize your interests with the interest of others; thou art nothing, thy folk is everything; thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind…and thy neighbour as thyself. Psychologists who in their teaching and counselling follow the lines now laid down will not go far wrong in guiding personalities toward normality. “Do not speak evil against one another, brethren,” reports James 4.11. God forbids any speech (whether true or false) which runs down another person. Certainly no Christian should ever be a party to slander—making false charges against another’s reputation. Yet some do. However, even more penetrating is the challenge to refrain from any speech intends to run down someone else, even if it is totally true. Personally I can think of few commands that go against commonly accepted conventions more than this, for most people think it is okay to convey negative information if it is true. #RandolphHarris 15 of 24
Some people have had to defend themselves because no one else would. Still, no innocent person should be physically attacked and terrorized by a violent mob and forced to defend themselves. We understand that lying is immoral. However, is passing along damaging truth immoral? It seems almost a moral responsibility! By such reasoning, criticism behind another’s back is thought to be all right as long as it is based on fact. Likewise, denigrating gossip (of course it is never called gossip!) is seen as okay if the information is true. Thus many believers use truth as a license to righteously diminish others’ reputations. Related to this, some reject running down another behind one’s back, but believe it is okay if done face to face. These persons are driven by a “moral” compulsion to make others aware of their shortcomings. Fault-finding is, to them, a spiritual gift – a license to conduct spiritual search-and-destroy missions. What people like this do not know is that most people are painfully aware of their own faults – and would like to overcome them – and are trying very hard to do so. Then someone mercilessly assaults them believing they are doing their spiritual duty – and, oh, the hurt! This destructive speaking down against others can also manifest itself in the subtle art of minimizing another’s virtues, and accomplishments. #RandolphHarris 16 of 24
After being with such people, your mental abilities, athletic accomplishments, musical skills, and domestic virtues seem not to be quite as good as they were a few minutes earlier. Some of this feeling came perhaps from their words about your Ultimate Driving Machine—“what a nice little BMW”—or from surprised exclamations about what you did not know. It was also the tone of the voice, the cast of the eye, and the surgical silences. There are many sinful reasons why humans in Christ talk down to one another. Revenge over some slight, real or imagined, may be the motivation of “Christian” slander. Others imagine that their spirituality and sensitivity equips them to pull others from their ivory towers and unmask their hypocrisies. Gideon once rightly cried, “A sword for the Lord and for Gideon!” (Judges 7.20), and we may do the same, but in our case it is too often a sword of self-righteousness. Condescending words and actions may also come from the need to elevate oneself – like the Pharisee who thanked God he was not like other sinners “or even like this tax collector” (Luke 18.11). We thus enjoy the dubious elevation of walking on the bruised head of others, and coming down on innocent heads. #RandolphHarris 17 of 24
Sometimes this diminishing of others simply comes from too much empty talk. People do not have much to talk about, so they fuel the fires of conversation with the flesh of others. The abilities and motivations of the Body of Christ to run itself down could fill a library. We are all skillful in rationalizing such talk, but God’s Word still speaks: “Christians do not speak against one another.” Verbal cyanide comes in many forms. Gossip, innuendo, flattery, criticism, diminishment, are only a few of the venoms with which Christians inject each other. And the results are universal: toxic gastric juices a Devil’s feast – the swill of souls. Dear Lord in Heaven, please eat what is offered to you and transform it, as food is transformed, into blessings for me, and for all my household. The fire that burns on my hearth is the very heart of my Cresleigh Home. By feeding the fire with wood and with air, I am feeding my Cresleigh Home with what it needs most. I give you these things, fire on my hearth and more gifts will follow as we live our lives together. I light a fire on my family’s hearth and praise the God of our home. I pray to the Most High and praise the Ancestors. Hear my words, see me as I perform the rites, receive the gifts I offer you. Threshold Spirit, guardian and protector of my Cresleigh Home’s entrance, I honour you as I pass through the beautiful door. #RandolphHarris 18 of 24
God of doorways, bless my goings out, bless my comings in. Lord of the threshold, of doors and gates Lord, place where inside and outside meet: God is my threshold. Please Guard my doors, God, keeper of the keys. Watch it with care, please keep my Cresleigh Homes safe. May the blessings of God guard this door. God it is who guards our doors. The Lord commands Ammon to lead the people of Anti-Nephi-Lehi to safety—upon meeting Alma, Ammon’s joy exhausts his strength—the Nephites give the Anti-Nephi-Lehies the land of Jershon—they are called the people of Amon. About 90-77 Before Christ. “Now it came to pass that when those Lamanites who had gone to war against the Nephites had found, after their many struggles to destroy them, that it was in vain to seek their destruction, they returned again to the land of Nephi. And it came to pass that the Amalekites, because of their loss, were exceedingly angry. And when they saw that they could not seek revenge from the Nephites, they began to stir up the people in anger against their brethren, the people of Anti-Nephi-Lehi; therefore they began again to destroy them. Now this people again refused to take their arms, and they suffered themselves to be slain according to the desires of their enemies. #RandolphHarris 19 of 24
“Now when Amon and his brethren saw this work of destruction among those whom they so dearly beloved, and among those who had so dearly beloved them—for hey were treated as though they were angels sent from God to save them from everlasting destruction—therefore, when Amon and his brethren saw this great work of destruction, they were moved with compassion, and they said unto the king: Let us gather together this people of the Lord, and let us go down to the land of Zarahemla to our brethren the Nephites, and flee out of the hands of our enemies, that we be not destroyed. However, the king said unto them: Behold, the Nephites will destroy us, because of the many murders and sins we have committed against them. And Ammon said: I will go and inquire of the Lord, and if he say unto us, go down unto our brethren, will ye go? And the king said unto him: Yea, if the Lord saith unto us go, we will go down unto our brethren, and we will be any slaves among them; therefore let us go down and rely upon the mercies of our brethren. However, the king said unto him: Inquire of the Lord, and if he saith unto us go, we will go; otherwise we will perish in the land. #RandolphHarris 20 of 24
“And it came to pass that Ammon went and inquired of the Lord and the Lord aid unto him: Get this people out of this land, that they perish not; for Satan has great hold on the hearts of the Amalekites, who do stir up the Lamanites to anger against their brethren to slay them; therefore get thee out of this land; and blessed are this people in this generation, for I will preserve them. And now it came to pass that Ammon went and told the king all the words which the Lord had said unto him. And they gathered together all their people, yea, all the people of the Lord, and did gather together all their flocks and herds, and departed out of the land, and came into the wilderness which divided the land of Nephi from the land of Zarahemla, and came over near the borders of the land. And it came to pass that Ammon said unto them: Behold, I and my brethren will go forth into the land of Zarahemla, and ye shall remain here until we return; and we will try the hearts of our brethren, whether they will that ye shall come into their land. And it came to pass that as Ammon was going forth into the land, that he and his brethren met Alma, over in the place of which has been spoken; and behold, this was a joyful meeting. #RandolphHarris 21 of 24
“Now the joy of Ammon was so great even that he was full; yea, he was swallowed up in the joy of his God, even to the exhausting of his strength; and he fell again to the Earth. Now was not this exceeding joy? Behold, this is joy which none receiveth save it be the truly penitent and humble seeker of happiness. Now the joy of Alma in meeting his brethren was truly great, and also the joy of Aaron, of Omner, and Himni; but behold their joy was not that to exceed their strength. And now it came to pass that Alma conducted his brethren back to the land of Zarahemla; even to his own house. And they went and told the chief judge all the things that that happened unto them in the land of Nephi, among their brethren, the Lamanites. And it came to pass that the chief judge sent a proclamation throughout all the land, desiring the voice of the people concerning the admitting their brethren, who were the people of Anti-Nephi-Lehi. And it came to pass that the voice of the people came, saying: Behold, we will give up the land of Jershon, which is on the east by the sea, which joins the land Bountiful, which is on the south of the land Bountiful; and this land Jershon is the land which we will give unto our brethren for an inheritance. #RandolphHarris 22 of 24
“And behold, we will set our armies between the land Jershon and the land Nephi, that we may protect our brethren in the land of Jershon; and this we do for our brethren lest they should commit sin; and this their great fear came because of their sore repentance which they had, on account of their many murders and their awful wickedness. And now behold, this will we do unto our brethren, that they may inherit the land Jershon; and we will guard them from their enemies with our armies, on condition that they will give us a portion of their substance to assist us that we may maintain our armies. Now, it came to pass that when Ammon had heard this, he returned to the people of Anti0Nephi-Lehi, and also Alma with him, into the wilderness, where they had pitched their tents, and made known unto them all these things. And Alma also related unto them his conversion, with Ammon and Aaron, and his brethren. And it came to pass that it did cause great joy among them. And they went down into the land of Jershon, and took possession of the land of Jershon; and they were called by the Nephites the people of Ammon; therefore they were distinguished by that name ever after. #RandolphHarris 23 of 24
“And they were among the people of Nephi, and also numbered among the people who were of the church of God. And they were also distinguished for their zeal towards God, and also towards humans; for they were perfectly honest and upright in all things; and they were firm in the faith of Christ, even unto the end. And they did look upon shedding the blood of their brethren with the greatest abhorrence; and they never could be prevailed upon to take up arms against their brethren; and they never did look upon death with any degree of terror, for their hope and views of Christ and the resurrection; therefore, death was swallowed up to them by the victory of Christ over it. Therefore, they would suffer death in the most aggravating and distressing manner which could be inflicted by their brethren, before they would take the sword or cimeter to smite them. And thus they were a zealous and beloved people, a highly favoured people of the Lord,” reports Alma 27.1-30. O God, Whose will it runs down the order of all the ages; come to me, please look favorably on your servant’s sake. I try to live up to the order of Godly people and promote the messages in the scripture. You are the one and only God, and I approve of dedicating my service to you, Lord. Thank you for your gifts and take pity of me. #RandolphHarris 24 of 24
Cresleigh Homes

We might have found the coziest reading spot in #PlumasRanch. 😍📚
Visit our website to take a virtual tour of our homes at Plumas Ranch. Link in bio! https://cresleigh.com/cresleigh-riverside-at-plumas-ranch/
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Look down from Heaven, O Christ, on Thy flock and lambs, and bless their bodies and souls. Grant those who have received Thy sign, O Christ, on their foreheads, to be Thine own in the day of judgment.
I Felt the Power of the ‘Life Force’ that Infuses Each of Us—Whatever this is!
There is no good in arguing with the inevitable. The only argument available with an east wind is to put on your overcoat. What part does our awareness have in the formative function of the consciousness in human beings? I believer that consciousness has a small but very important part. The ability to focus consciousness attention seems to be one of the latest evolutionary developments in our species. This ability can be described as a tiny peak of awareness, of symbolizing capacity, topping a vast pyramid of nonconscious organismic functioning. Perhaps a better analogy, more indicative of the continual change going on, is to think of the pyramid as a large fountain of the same shape. The very tip of the fountain is intermittently illuminated with the flickering light of consciousness, but the constant flow of life goes on in the darkness as well, in nonconscious as well as conscious ways. It seems that the human organism has been moving toward the more complete development of awareness. It is at this level hat new forms are invented, perhaps even new directions for the human species. It is here that the reciprocal relationship between cause and effect is most demonstrably evident. It is here that choices are made, spontaneous forms created. We here see perhaps the highest of the human functions. #RandolphHarris 1 of 20
Some of my colleagues have said that organismic choice—the nonverbal, subconscious choice of way of being—is guided by the evolutionary flow. I agree; I will even go one step further. I would point out that in psychotherapy we have learned something about the psychological conditions that are most conducive to increasing this highly important self-awareness. With greater self-awareness, a more informed choice is possible, a choice more free from introjects, a conscious choice that is even more in tune with the evolutionary flow. Such a person is more potentially aware, not only of the stimuli from outside, but of ideas and dreams, and of the ongoing flow of feelings, emotions, and physiological reactions that one senses from within. The greater this awareness, the more surely the person will float in a direction consonant with the directional evolutionary flow. When a person is functioning in this way, it does not mean that there is a self-conscious awareness of all that is going on within, like the centipede whose movements were paralyzed when it became aware of each of its legs. On the contrary, such a person is free to live a feeling subjectively, as well as be aware of it. The individual might experience love, or pain, or fear, or just live in these experiences subjectively. #RandolphHarris 2 of 20
Or, one might abstract self from this subjectivity and realize in awareness, “I am in pain;” “I am afraid;” “I do love.” The crucial point is that when a person is functioning fully, there are no barriers, no inhibitions, which prevent the full experiencing of whatever is organismically present. This person is moving in the direction of wholeness, integration, a unified life. Consciousness is participating in this larger, creative, formative tendency. But some go even further in their theories. Researchers such as Grof and Grof (1977) and Lilly (1973) believe that persons are able to advance beyond the ordinary level of consciousness. Their studies appear to reveal that in altered states of consciousness, persons feel they are in touch with, and grasp the meaning of, this evolutionary flow. They experience it as tending toward a transcending experience of unity. They picture the individual self as being dissolved in a whole area of higher values, especially beauty, harmony, and love. The persons feels at one with the cosmos. Hard-headed research seems to be confirming the mystic’s experience of union with the universal. For me, this point of view is confirmed by more recent experience in working with clients, and especially in dealing with intensive groups. #RandolphHarris 3 of 20
I describe earlier those characteristics of a growth-prompting relationship that have been investigated and supported by research. However, recently, my view has broadened into a new rea which cannot as yet be studied empirically. When I am at my best, as a group facilitator or as a therapist, I discover another characteristic. I find that when I am closet to my inner, intuitive self, when I am somehow in touch with the unknown in me, when perhaps I am in a slightly altered state of consciousness, then whatever I do seems to be full of healing. Then, simply my presence is releasing and helpful to the other. There is nothing I can do to force this experience, but when I can relax an be close to the transcendental core of me, then I may behave in strange and impulsive ways in the relationship, ways which I cannot justify rationally, which have nothing to do with my thought process. However, these strange behaviours turn out to be right, in some odd way: it seems that my inner spirit has reached out and touched the inner spirit of the other. Our relationship transcends itself and becomes a part of something larger. Profound growth and healing and energy are present. #RandolphHarris 4 of 20
This kind of transcendent phenomenon has certainly been experienced at times in groups in which I have worked, changing the lives of some of those involved. One participant in a workshop put it eloquently: “I found it to be a profound spiritual experience. I felt the oneness of spirit in the community. We breathed together, felt together, even spoke for one another. I felt the power of the ‘life force’ that infuses each of us—whatever this is. I felt its presence without the usual barricades of ‘me-ness’ or ‘you-ness’-it was like a meditative experience when I feel myself as a center of consciousness, very much a part of the broader, universal consciousness. And yet with that extraordinary sense of oneness, the separateness of each person present has never been more clearly preserved.” Again, as in the description of altered states of consciousness, this account partakes of the mystical. Our experiences in therapy and groups, it is clear, involve the transcendent, the indescribable, the spiritual; I am compelled to believe that I, like many others, have underestimated the importance of this mystical, spiritual dimension. #RandolphHarris 5 of 20
Here many readers, I am sure, will part company with me. What they wish to know, has become of logic, of science, of hard-headedness? However, before they leave me entirely, I would like to adduce some surprising support for such views, from the most unexpected quarters. Fritjof Capra (1975), a well-known theoretical physicist, has shown how present-day physics has almost completely abolished any solid concepts of our World, with the exception of energy. In a summarizing statement, he says, “In modern physics the Universe is thus experiences as a dynamic, inseparable whole which always includes the observer in an essential way. In this experience the traditional concepts of space and time, of isolated objects, and of the cause and effect lose their meaning. Such an experience, however, is very similar to that of the Eastern mystics (p.81).” He then goes on o point out the astonishing parallels of Zen, Taoism, Buddhism, and other Old World views. His own conviction is that physics and Eastern mysticism are separate but complementary roads to the same knowledge, supplementing each other in providing a fuller understanding of the Universe. #RandolphHarris 6 of 20
Recently, the work of chemist-philosopher Ilya Prigogine (Ferguson, 1979) offers a different perspective, which also throws new light on what I have been discussing. In trying to answer the basic question of how order and complexity emerge from the process of entropy, he has originated an entirely new theoretical system. He has developed mathematical formulas and proofs which demonstrate that the World of living nature is probabilistic, rather than solely deterministic. His views apply to all open systems in which energy is exchanged with the environment. This obviously includes the human organism. Briefly, the more complex the structure—whether a chemical or a human—the more energy it expends to maintain that complexity. For example, the human brain, with only 2 percent of body weight, uses 20 percent of available oxygen! Such a system is unstable, has fluctuations or “perturbations,” as Prigogine calls them. As these fluctuations increase, they are amplified by the system’s many connections, and thus drive the system—whether chemical compound or human individual—into a new, altered state, more ordered and coherent than before. This new state has still greater complexity, and hence, even more potential for creating change. #RandolphHarris 7 of 20
The transformation from one state to another is a sudden shift, a nonlinear event, in which many factors act on one another at once. It is especially interesting to me that this phenomenon has already been demonstrated by Don (1977-1978) in his investigation of Gendlin’s concept of “experiencing” in psychotherapy (Gendlin, 1978). When a hitherto repressed feeling is fully and acceptantly experienced in awareness during the therapeutic relationship, there is not only a definitely felt physiological change, as a new state of insight is achieved. Prigogine’s theory appears to shed light on meditation, relaxation techniques, and altered states of consciousness, in which fluctuations are augmented by various means. It gives support to the value of fully recognizing and expressing one’s feelings—positive or negative—thus permitted the full perturbation of the system. Prigogine recognizes the strong resemblance between his “science of complexity” and the views of Eastern sages and mystics, as well as the philosophies of Alfred North Whitehead and Henri Bergson. His view points, he says, toward “a deep collective vision.” Rather amazingly, the title of his latest book is From Being to Becoming (1979), a strange label for a volume by a chemist-philosopher. His conclusion can be stated very briefly: “The more complex a system, the greater its potential for self-transcendence: its parts cooperate to reorganize it” (Ferguson, 1979). #RandolphHarris 8 of 20
Thus, from theoretical physics and chemistry comes some confirmation of the validity of experiences that are transcendent, indescribable, unexpected, transformational—the sort of phenomena that I and my colleagues have observed and felts as concomitant of the person-centered approach. As I try to take into account the scope of the various themes I have presented, along with some of the available evidence that appears to support them, I am led to formulate a broad hypothesis. In my mind, this hypothesis is very tentative. However, for the sake of clarity, I will state it in definite terms. I hypothesize that there is a formative directional tendency in the Universe, which can be traced and observed in stellar space, in crystals, in microorganisms, in more complex organic life, and in human being. This is an evolutionary tendency toward greater order, greater complexity, greater interrelatedness. In humankind, this tendency exhibits itself as the individual moves from a single-cell origin to complex organic functioning, to know and sensing below the level of consciousness, to a conscious awareness of the organism and the external World, to a transcendent awareness of the harmony and unity of the cosmic system, including humankind. #RandolphHarris 9 of 20
What I have been saying is that in our work as person-centered therapists and facilitators, we have discovered the attitudinal qualities that are demonstrably effective in releasing constructive and growthful changes in the personality and behaviour of individuals. Persons in an environment infused with these attitudes develop more self-understanding, more self-confidence, more ability to choose their behaviours. They learn more significantly, they have more freedom to be and become. The individual in this nurturing climate is free to choose any direction, but actually selects positive and constructive ways. The actualizing tendency is operative in the human being. It is still further confirming to find that this is not simply a tendency in living systems but is part of a strong formative tendency in our Universe, which is evident at all levels. Thus, when we provide a psychological climate that permits persons to be—whether they are clients, students, workers, or persons in a group—we are not involved in a chance event. We are tapping into a tendency which permeates all of organic life—a tendency to become all the complexity of which the organism is capable. #RandolphHarris 10 of 20
And on an even larger scale, I believe we are tuning in to a potent creative tendency which has formed our Universe, from the smallest snowflake to the largest galaxy, from the lowly amoeba to the most sensitive and gifted of persons. And perhaps we are touching the cutting edge of our ability to transcend ourselves, to create new and more spiritual directions in human evolution. This kind of formulation is, for me, a philosophical base for a person-centered approach. It justifies me in engaging in a life-affirming way of being. “Love never faileth; but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. However, when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known,” reports 1 Corinthians 13.8-12. Paul speaks, in the famous words of our text, of things which are perfect, or complete. #RandolphHarris 11 of 20
The fragmentary things shall vanish away; the complete things shall abide. The former are temporal; the later are eternal. The fragmentary, temporal things are not merely material; they are some of the highest gifts of the Divine Spirit: prophecy, which is the interpretation of our time and history; tongues, which are our ecstatic feeling and speaking; and knowledge, which is the understanding of our existence. Even those spiritual goods shall disappear with all the material and intellectual goods. They are all fragmentary, temporal, transitory. Love alone does not disappear; it endures forever. For God Himself is love, according to John who carries through the thought of Paul. However, there is another consideration in our text which seems to contradict the words about love. Paul singles out knowledge, and points to the difference between our fragmentary, indirect and darkened knowledge, and the full, direct and total knowledge to come. He compares the childish imaginations with the mature insight of the adult. He speaks of something, which, besides love, is perfect and eternal—namely, the seeing of the truth, face to face; the knowledge which is as full as God’s knowledge of us. #RandolphHarris 12 of 20
How are these two considerations united? Did Paul forget that he had just predicted the perfection and eternity of love alone? No, he did not forget; for he closes this part of his letter by re-emphasizing he abiding character of love as the greatest thing of all. Or are the words about knowledge inserted without thought of a definite connection with the rest of the passage? They are not merely inserted; for there is a link, one of the most profound phrases in this great chapter: “even as also I am fully known”—fully known, that is, by God. However, there is only one way to know a personality—to become united with that personality through love. Full knowledge presupposes full love. God knows me, because He love me; and I shall know Him face to face through a similar uniting, which is love and knowledge at the same time. Love lasts; love alone endures, and nothing else besides love, nothing independent of love. Yet, in love, the seeing face to face and the knowledge of the center of the other I are implied. It is not blind love that is the enduring love, the love that God Himself is. It is a seeing love, a knowing love, a love that looks through into the depth of the Heart of God, and into the depth of our hearts. There is no strangeness to love; love knows; it is the only power of complete ad lasting knowledge. #RandolphHarris 13 of 20
There is a Greek word which can designate both knowledge and sensual love. It can designate both, because both meanings express an act of union, an overcoming of the cleavage between beings. Knowledge shall be done away with in so far as it is different from love; knowledge shall become eternal in so far as it is one with love. Therefore, the standard of knowledge is the standard of love. For Paul, the difference between knowledge and love, between seeing and acting between theory and practice, exists only when fragmentary knowledge is our concern. Full knowledge does not admit a difference between itself and love, or between theory and practice. Love overcomes the seeming opposition between theory and practice; it is knowing and doing at the same time. Therefore, it is the greatest thing of all; therefore, God Himself, the “life force” that infuses all of us, is love; therefore, the Christ, as the manifestation of the Divine Love, is full of grace and of truth. That is what Paul means; and that is the standard of knowledge he gives. “And again, my brethren, I would cite your minds forward to the time when the Lord God gave these commandments unto his children; and I would that ye should remember that the Lord God ordained priests, after his holy order, which was after the order of his Son, to teach these things unto the people. #RandolphHarris 14 of 20
“And these priests were ordained after the order of his Son, in a manner that thereby the people might know in what manner to look forward to his Son for redemption. And this is the manner after which they were ordained—being called and prepared from the foundation of the World according to the foreknowledge of God, on account of their exceeding faith and good works; in the first place being left to choose good or evil; therefore they having chosen good, and exercising exceedingly great faith, are called with a holy calling, yea, with that holy calling which was prepared with, and according to, a preparatory redemption for such. And thus they have been called to this holy calling on account of their faith, while others would reject the Spirit of God on account of their hearts and blindness of their minds, while, if it had not been for this they might have had as great privilege as their brethren. Or in fine, in the first place they were on the same standing with their brethren; thus this holy calling being prepared from the foundations of the World for such as would not harden their hearts, being in and through the atonement of the Only Begotten Son, who was prepared. #RandolphHarris 15 of 20
“And thus being called by this holy calling, and ordained unto the high priesthood of the holy order of God, to teach his commandments unto the children of humans, that they also might enter into his rest. This high priesthood being after the order of his Son, which order was from the foundation of the World; or in other words, being without beginning of days or end of years, being prepared from eternity to all eternity, according to his foreknowledge of all things—now they were ordained after this manner—being called with a holy calling, and ordained with a holy ordinance, and taking upon them the high priesthood of the holy order, which calling, and ordinance, and high priesthood, is without beginning or end—thus they become high priests forever, after the order of the Son, the Only Begotten of the Father, who is without beginning of days or end of years, who is full of grace, equity, and truth. And thus it is. Amen. Now, as I said concerning the holy order, or this high priesthood, there were many who were ordained and because high priests of God; and it was on account of their exceeding faith and repentance, and their righteousness before God, they choosing to repent and work righteousness rather than to perish; therefore they were called after this holy order, and were sanctified, and their garments were washed white through the blood of the Lamb. #RandolphHarris 16 of 20
“Now they, after being sanctified by the Holy Ghost, having their garments made white, being pure and spotless before God, could not look upon sin save it were with abhorrence; and there were many, exceedingly great many, who were made pure and entered into the rest of the Lord their God. And now, my brethren, I would that ye should humble yourselves before God, and bring forth fruit meet for repentance, that ye may also enter into that rest. Yea, humble yourselves even as the people in the days of Melchizedek, who was also a high priest after this same order which I have spoken, who also took upon him the high priesthood forever. And it was this same Melchizedek to whom Abraham paid tithes; yes of one-tenth part of all he possessed. Now these ordinances were given after this manner, that thereby the people might look forward on the Son of God, it being a type of his order, or it being his order, and this that they might look forward to him for a remission of their sins, that they might enter into the rest of the Lord. Now this Melchizedek was a king over the land of Salem; and his people had waxed strong in iniquity and abomination; yea, they had all gone astray; there were full of all manner of wickedness. However, Melchizedek having exercised might faith, and received the office of the high priesthood according to the holy order of God, did preach repentance unto his people. #RandolphHarris 17 of 20
“And behold, they did establish peace in the land in his days; therefore he was called the prince of peace, for he was the king of Salem; and he did reign under his father. Now, there were many before him, and also there were many afterwards, but none were greater; therefore, of him hey have more particularly made mention. Now, I need not rehearse the matter; what I have said may suffice. Before, the scriptures are before you; if ye will wrest them it shall be to your own destruction. And now it came to pass that when Alma has said these words unto them, he stretched forth his hand unto them and cried with a mighty voice, saying: Now is the time to repent, for the day of salvation draweth nigh; yea, and the voice of the Lord, by the mouth of angels, doth declare it unto all nations; yea, doth declare it, that they may have glad tidings of great joy; yea, and he doth sound these glad tidings among all his people, yea, even to them that are scattered abroad upon the face of the Earth; wherefore they have come unto us. And they are made know unto us in plain terms that we may understand, that we cannot err; and this because of our being wanderers in a strange land; therefore, we are his highly favoured, for we have these glad tidings declared unto us in all part of our vineyard. #RandolphHarris 18 of 20
“For behold, angels are declaring it unto many at this time in our land; and this is for the purpose of preparing the hearts of the children of human to receive his word at the time of his coming in his glory. And now we only wait to hear the joyful news declared unto us by the mouth of angels, of his coming; for the time cometh, we know not how soon. Would to God that it might be in may day; but let it be sooner or later, in it I will rejoice. And it shall be made known unto just and holy humans, by the mouth of angels, a the time of his coming, that the words of our father may be fulfilled, according to that which they have spoken concerning him, which was according to the spirit of prophecy which was in them. And now, my brethren, I wish from the inmost part of my heart, yes, with great anxiety even unto pain, that ye would hearken unto my words, and cast off your sins, and not procrastinate the say of your repentance; but that ye would humble yourselves before the Lord, and call on his holy name, and watch and pray continually, that ye may not be tempted above that which ye can bear, and thus be led by the Holy Spirit becoming humble, meek, submissive, patient, full of love and long-suffering. Having faith n the Lord; having a hope that ye shall receive eternal life; having the love of God always in your heart, that ye may be lifted up at the last day an enter into his rest. #RandolphHarris 19 of 20
“And may the Lord grant unto you repentance, that ye may not bring down his wrath upon you, that ye may not be bound down by the chains of hell, that ye may not suffer the second death. And Alma spake many more words unto the people, which are not written in this book,” reports Alma 13.1-31. Please attend, O Lord Jesus Christ our God, from Thy holy habitation, and from the glorious throne of Thy kingdom, and come to sanctify us, Thou Who sittest above with the Father, and art here invisibly present with us; please vouchsafe with Thy mighty hand to impart Thine immaculate Body and Thy precious Blood to us, and by us to all Thy people. Possessive love is natural. We want to have and keep what we love. However, when an object is another human being, there is an inevitable desire for the return of our love, for the restriction of their affection to us alone, so that we give is not given in purity but in extended selfishness. Hence when other love you they want to deprive you of your freedom. But when the disciple loves you, one must give you freedom. #RandolphHarris 20 of 20
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Love is Full of as Many Mysteries as the Winchester Mansion, it Can be Beautiful and Bizarre!
How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty World. Why then the World is mine oyster, which I with sword will open. How beautiful it is to be in love; how interesting it is to know that one is in love. This, you see, is the difference. I can become furious at the thought that she disappeared before me the second time, and ye in a certain sense I am glad of it. The image I have of her hovers indefinitely somewhere between her actual and her ideal form. I now have this image before me, but precisely because either it is actuality or actuality is indeed the occasion, it had a singular magic. I feel no impatience, for she must live here in the city, and at this moment that is enough for me. This possibility is the condition for the proper appearance of her image—everything will enjoyed in slow drafts. And should I not be calm—I, who can regard myself as a favourite of the gods, I, whose lot was the rare good fortune of falling in love again. This is something that cannot be elicited by skill or study—I is a gift. However, if I have succeeded in stirring up an erotic love again, I do want to see how long it can be sustained. I coddle this love as I never did my first. The opportunity falls to one’s lot rarely enough—therefore the point is truly to utilize it if it does come along, for it is dismaying that it is no art to seduce a young lady but it is a stroke of good fortune to find one who is worth seducing. #RandolphHarris 1 of 19
Love is full of as many mysteries as the Winchester mansion, it can be beautiful and bizarre, and this falling in love is also a mystery, even though a minor one. Most people rush ahead, become engaged or do other unwise things, and in a turn of hand everything is over, and they know neither what they have won nor what they have lost. Two times she has appeared before me and has disappeared; that means she will appear more often. When Joseph had interpreted Pharaoh’s dream, he added: But the fact that you dreamed twice means that it will be fulfilled soon. Yet, if one could discern somewhat ahead of time the forces whose emergence forms the content of life, it would be interesting. At present she is living in all her tranquil peace; she does not have even an inkling of my existence, even less of what is going on within me, to say nothing of the assurance with which I gaze into her future, for my soul is demanding more and more actuality, and it is becoming stronger and stronger. If at first sight a young lady does no make such a deep impression on a person that she awakens the ideal, then ordinarily the actuality is not especially desirable; but if she does, then no matter how experienced a person is he usually is rather overwhelmed. #RandolphHarris 2 of 19
I always advise the person who is not sure of one’s hand, his eye, and his victory to venture the attack in this first state, in which, precisely because he is overwhelmed, he has supranatural powers—for being overwhelmed is a curious mixture of sympathy and egotism. He will, however, miss out on an enjoyment, for he does not enjoy the situation since he himself is wrapped up in it, hidden in it. Which the more beautiful is difficult to decide—which is the more beautiful is difficult to decide—which is the more interesting is easy. It is, however, always best to come as close as possible to the line. This is the real enjoyment, and what others enjoy I do not know for sure. Mere possession is very little, and the means such lovers use are usually paltry enough; they do not even reject money, power, alien influence, sleeping positions, excreta. However, what pleasure is there in live if absolute is not intrinsic to it, that is, from the one side—but ordinarily that takes spirit, and such lovers generally do not have that. I am not alone in seeing such an actualizing tendency as the fundamental answer to the question of what makes an organism “tick.” This tendency involves a development toward the differentiation of organs and functions; it involves enhancement through reproduction. #RandolphHarris 3 of 19
Szent-Gyoergyi says that he cannot explain the mysteries of biological development without supposing an innate drive in living matter to perfect itself. The organism, in its normal state, moves toward its own fulfillment, toward self-regulation and an independence from external control. However, is this view confirmed by other evidence? Let me point to some of the work in biology that supports the concept of the actualizing tendency. One example, replicated with different species, is the work of Hans Driesch with the sea urchins many years ago. Driesch learned how to tease apart the two cells that are formed after the first division of the fertilized egg. Had they been left to develop normally, it is clear that each of these two cells would have grown into a portion of a sea urchin larva, the contributions of both being needed o form a whole creature. So it seems equally obvious that when two cells are skillfully separated, each, if it grows, will simply develop into some portion of a sea urchin. However, this assumption overlooks the directional growth. It is found that each cell, if it can be kept alive, now develops into a whole sea urchin larva—a bit smaller than usual, but normal and complete. #RandolphHarris 4 of 19
I have chosen this example because it seems so closely analogous to my experience in dealing with individuals one-to-one therapeutic relationships, in facilitating intensive groups, in providing freedom to learn for students in classes. In these situations, I am most impressed with the fact that each human being has a directional tendency toward wholes, toward actualization of one’s potentialities. I have not found psychotherapy or a group experience effective when I have tried to create in another individual something that is not already there; I have found, however, that if I can provide the conditions that allow growth to occur, then this positive directional tendency brings about constructive results. The scientist with the divided sea urchin egg was in the same situation. He could not cause the cell to develop in one way or another, but when he focused his skill on providing the conditions that permitted the cell to survive and grow, the tendency for growth and the direction of growth were evident, and came from within the organism. I cannot think of a better analogy for therapy or the group experience, where, if I can supply a psychological amniotic fluid, forward movement of a constructive sort will occur. #RandolphHarris 5 of 19
I would like to add one comment which may be clarifying. Sometimes this growth tendency is spoken of as though it involved the development of all the potentialities of the organism. This is clearly not true. As one of my colleagues pointed out, the organism does not tend toward developing its capacity for nausea, nor does it actualize it potentiality for self-destruction, nor its ability to bear pain. Only under unusual or perverse circumstances do these potentialities become actualized. It is clear that the actualizing tendency is selective and directional—a constructive tendency, if you will. Those who favour the view of an actualizing tendency does not need to be inhibited by the belief that it is in conflict with modern science or theories of knowledge. It is now theorized that the genetic code necessary to specify the characteristics of the mature organism. Instead, it contains a set of roles determining the interactions of the dividing cells. Much less information is needed to codify the rules than to guide every aspect of maturing development. Thus information can be generated within the organism system—information can grow. Hence, Driesch’s sea urchin cells are doubtless following the coded rules and, consequently, are able to develop in original, not previously or rigidly specified ways. #RandolphHarris 6 of 19
All this goes deeply against the current (and possibly outdated) epistemology of the social sciences, which holds that a cause is followed in a one-way direction by an effect. In contrast, Murayama and others believe that there are mutual cause-effect interactions which amplify deviations and permit new information and new forms to develop. This morphogenetic epistemology appears to be basic to understanding of all living systems, including all growth processes in organisms. Murayama states that an understanding of biology “lies in the recognition that biological processes are reciprocal causal processes, not random processes.” On the other hand, as he points out elsewhere, an understanding of biology does not emerge from an epistemology based on one-way cause-effect systems. Thus, there is great need to rethink the stimulus-response, cause-effect basis on which most of social science rests. The work in the field of sensory deprivation shows how strong is the organismic tendency to amplify diversities and create new information and new forms. Certainly, tension reduction, or the absence of stimulation, is a far cry from being the desired state of the organism. Dr. Freud could not have been more wrong in his postulate that “The nervous system is an apparatus which would even, if this were feasible, maintain itself in an altogether unstimulated condition.” #RandolphHarris 7 of 19
On the contrary, when deprived of external stimuli, the human organism produces a flood of internal stimuli, sometimes of the most bizarre sort. Lilly was one of the first to tell of his experiences when suspended weightless in a soundproof tank of water. He speaks of trancelike states, mystical experiences, the sense of being tuned in on communication networks no available to ordinary consciousness, and ever experiences that can only be called hallucinatory. It is very clear that when a person is receiving an absolute minimum of external stimuli, one is opened to a flood of experiencing at a level far beyond that of everyday living. The individual most certainly does not lapse into homeostasis, into a passive equilibrium. This occurs only in diseased organisms. Thus, to me it is meaningful to say that the substratum of all motivation is the organismic tendency toward fulfillment. This tendency may express itself in the widest range of behaviours and in response to a wide variety of needs. To be sure, certain basic wants must be at least partially met before other needs become urgent. Consequently, the tendency of the organism to actualize itself may at one moment lead to the seeking of food or satisfaction in pleasures of the flesh, and yet, unless these needs are overpoweringly great, even these satisfactions will be sought in ways that enhance, rather than diminish, self-esteem. #RandolphHarris 8 of 19
And the organism will also seek other fulfillment in its transactions with the environment. The need for exploration of and producing change in the environment, the need for play and for self-exploration—all of these and many other behaviours are basically expressions of the actualizing tendency. In short, organisms are always seeking, always initiating always “up to something.” There is one central source of energy in the human organism. This source is a trustworthy function of the whole system rather than of some portion of it; it is most simply conceptualized as a tendency toward fulfillment, toward actualization, involving not only the maintenance but also the enhancement of the organism. There are many who criticize this point of view. They regard it as too optimistic, not dealing adequately with the negative element, the evil, the dark side in human beings. Consequently, I would like to put this directional tendency in a broader context. There appears to be a formative tendency at work in the Universe, which can be observed at every level. This tendency has received much less attention than it deserves. Physical scientists up to now have focused primarily on “entropy,” the tendency toward deterioration, or disorder. They know a great deal about this tendency. Studying closed systems, they can give it a clear mathematical description. They know that order tends to deteriorate into randomness, each stage les organized than the last. #RandolphHarris 9 of 19
We are also very familiar with deterioration in organic life. The system—whether plant, animal, or human—eventually deteriorates into a lesser and lesser degree of functioning organization, or order, until decay reaches a stasis. In one sense, this is what one aspect of medicine is all about—a concern with the malfunctioning or deterioration of an organ or the organism as a whole. The complex process of death of the physical organism is increasingly well understood. So a great deal is known of the universal tendency of systems at all levels to deteriorate in the direction of less and less orderliness, more and more randomness. When this system operates, it is a one-way street: the World seems to be a great machine, running down and wearing out. However, there is far less recognition of, or emphasis on, the even more important formative tendency which can be equally well observed at every level of the Universe. After all, every form that we see or know emerged from a simpler, less complex form. This is a phenomenon which is at leas as significant as entropy. Examples could be given from every form of inorganic or organic being. Let me illustrate with just a few. In appears that every galaxy, every star, every planet, including our own, was formed from a less organized whirling storm of particles. Many of these stellar objects are themselves formative. #RandolphHarris 10 of 19
In the atmosphere of our Sun, hydrogen nuclei collide to form molecules of helium, which are more complex in nature. It is hypothesized that in other stars, even heavier molecules are formed by such interactions. I understand that when the simple materials of the Earth’s atmosphere which were present before life began—hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen, in the form of water and ammonia—are infused by electrical charges or by radiation, heavier molecules begin to form first, followed by the more complex amnio acids. We seem only a step away from the formation of viruses and the even more complex living organisms. A creative, not disintegrative process, is at work. Another fascinating example is the formation of crystals. In every case, from less ordered and less symmetrical fluid matter there emerges the startlingly unique, ordered symmetrical and often beautiful crystalline form. All of us have marveled at the perfection and complexity of the snowflake. Yet it emerged from formless vapour. When we consider the single living cell, we discover that it often forms more complex colonies, as in coral reefs. Even more order enters the picture as the cell emerges into an organism of many cells with specialized functions. #RandolphHarris 11 of 19
I do not need to portray the whole gradual process of organic evolution. We are all familiar with the steadily increasing complexity of organisms. They are not always successful in their ability to cope with the changing environment, but the trend toward complexity is always evident. Perhaps, for most of us, the process of organic evolution is best recognized as we consider the development of the single fertilized human ovum through the simplest stages of cell division, then the aquatic gill stage, and on to the vastly complex, highly organized human infant. There is a manifest and increasing order in evolution. Thus, without ignoring the tendency toward deterioration, we need to recognize fully what Szent-Gyoergyi terms “syntropy” and what Whyte calls the “morphic tendency,” the ever operating trend toward increase order and interrelated complexity evident at both the inorganic and the organic level. The Universe is always building and creating as well as deteriorating. This process is evident in the human being, too. The Nephite monetary system is set forth—Amulek contends with Zeezrom—Christ will not save people in their sins—only those who inherit the kingdom of Heaven are saved—all humans will rise in immortality—there is no death after the Resurrection. About 82 Before Christ. #RandolphHarris 12 of 19
“Now it was in the law of Mosiah that every human who was a judge of the law, or those who were appointed to be judges, should receive wages according to the time which they laboured to judge those who were brought before them to be judged. Now, if a human owed another, and one would not pay that which one did owe, one was complained of to the judge; and the judge executed authority, and sent forth officers that the human should be brought before him; and he judged the man according to the law and the evidences which were brought against him, and thus the man was compelled to pay that which he owed, or be stripped, or be cast out from among the people as a thief and a robber. And the judges received from one’s wages according to one’s time—a senine of gold; and this is according to the law which was given. Now these are the names of the different pieces of their gold, and of their silver, according to their value. And the names are given by the Nephites, for they did not reckon after the manner of the Jews who were at Jerusalem; neither did they measure after the manner of the Jews; but they altered their reckoning and their measure, according to the minds and the circumstances of the people, in every generation, until the reign of the judges, they having been established by king Mosiah. #RandolphHarris 13 of 19
“Now the reckoning is thus—a senine of gold, a seon of gold, a shum of gold, and a limnah of gold. A senum of silver, an amnor of silver, an ezrom of silver, and an onti of silver. A senum of silver was equal to a senine of gol, and either for a measure of barely, and also for a measure of every kind of grain. Now the amount of a seon of gold was twice the value of a senine. And a shum of gold was twice the value of a seon. And a limnah of gold was the value of them all. And an amnor of silver was as great as four senums. And an onti was as great as them al. Now this is the value of the lesser numbers of their reckoning—a shibion is half of a senum; therefore, a shiblon for half a measure of barely. And a shiblum is a half of a shiblon. And a leah is the half of a shiblum. Now this their number, according to their reckoning. Now an antion of gold is equal to three shiblons. Now, it was for the sole purpose to get gain, because they received their wages according to heir employ, therefore, they did stir up the people to riotings, ad all manner of disturbances and wickedness, that they might have more employ, that they might get money according to the suits which were brought before them; therefore they did stir up the people against Alma and Amulek. #RandolphHarris 14 of 19
“And this Zeezrom began to question Amulek, saying: Will ye answer me a few questions which I shall ask you? Now Zeezrom was a man who was expert in the devices of the devil, that he might destroy that which was good; therefore, he said unto Amulek: Will ye answer the questions which I shall put unto you? And Amulek said unto him: Yea, if it be according to the Spirit of the Lord, which is in me; for I shall say nothing which is contrary to the Spirit of the Lord. And Zeezrom said unto him: Behold, here are six onties of silver, and all these I will give thee if thou wilt deny the existence of a Supreme Being. Now Amulek said: O thou child of hell, why tempt ye me? Knowest thou that the righteous yieldeth to no such temptations? Believest thou that there is no God? I say unto you, Nay, thou knowest that there is a God, but thou lovest that lucre more than him. And now thou hast lied before God unto me. Thou sadist unto me—Behold these six onties which are of great worth, I will give unto thee—when thou hadest it in thy heart to retain them from me; and it was only thy desire that I should deny the true and living God, that thou mightest have cause to destroy me. And now behold, for this great evil thou shalt have they reward. And Zeezrom said unto him: Thou sayest there is a true and living God? #RandolphHarris 15 of 19
“And Amulek said: Yea, there is a true and living God. Now Zeezrom said: Is there more than one God? And I answered, No. Now Zeezrom said unto him again: How knows thou these things? And he said: An angel hath made them known uno me. And Zeerom said again: Who is he that shall come? Is it the Son of God? And he said unto him, Yea. And Zeezrom said again: Shall he save his people in their sins? And Amulek answered and said unto him: I say unto you he shall not, for it is impossible for him to deny his word. Now Zeezrom said unto the people: See that ye remember these things; for he said there is but one God; yet he saith that the Son of God shall come, but he shall not save his people—as though he had authority to command God. Now Amulek saith again unto him: Behold thou hast lied, for thou sayest that I spake as though I had authority to command God because I said he shall not save his people in their sins. And I say unto you again that he cannot save them in their sins; for I cannot deny his word, and he hath said that no unclean thing can inherit the kingdom of Heaven; therefore, how can ye be saved, except ye inherit the kingdom of Heaven? Therefore, ye cannot be saved in your sins. Now Zeezrom saith again unto him: Is the Son of God the very Eternal Father? #RandolphHarris 16 of 19
“And Amulek said unto him: Yea, he is the very Eternal Father of Heaven and of Earth, and all things which in them are; he is the beginning and the end, the first and the last; and he shall come into the World to redeem his people; and he shall take upon him the transgressions of those who believe on his name; and these are they that shall have eternal life, and salvation cometh to none else. Therefore the wicked remain as though there had been no redemption made, expect it be the loosing of the bands of death; for behold, the day cometh that all shall rise from the dead and stand before God, and be judged according to their works. Now, there is a death which is called a temporal death; and the death of Christ shall loose the bands of this temporal death, that all shall be raised from this temporal death. The spirit and the body shall be reunited again in its perfect form; both limb and join shall be restored to its proper frame, even as we now are at this time; and we shall be brought to stand before God, knowing even as we know now, and have a bright recollection of all our guilt. Now, this restoration shall come to all, both old and young, both bond and free, both male and female, both the wicked and the righteous; and even so much as a hair of their heads be lost. #RandolphHarris 17 of 19
“However, every thing shall be restored to its perfect frame, as it is now, or in the body, and shall be brought and be arraigned before the bar of Christ the Son, and God the Father, and the Holy Spirit, which is one Eternal God, to be judged according to their works, whether they be good or whether they be evil. Now, behold, I have spoken unto you concerning the death of the mortal body, and also concerning the resurrection of the mortal body. I say unto you that this mortal body is raised to an immortal body, that is from death, even from the first death unto life, that they can die no more; their spirits uniting with their bodies, never to be divided; thus the whole becoming spiritual and immortal, that they can no more see corruption. Now, when Amulek had finished these words the people began again to be astonished, and also Zeezrom began to tremble. And thus ended the words of Amulek, or this is all that I have written,” reports Alma 11.1-46. Sovereign Lord, Thy will is supreme in Heaven and Earth, and all beings are creatures of Thy power. Thou art the Father of our spirits; Thy inspiration gives us understanding, Thy providence governs our lives. However, O God, we are sinners in Thy sight; thou hast judged us so, and if we deny it we make Thee a liar. #RandolphHarris 18 of 19
Yet in Christ Thou art reconciled to Thy rebellious subjects; please give us the ear of faith to hear him, the eye of faith to see him, the hand of faith to receive him, the appetite of faith to feed upon him; that we might find him light, riches, honour, eternal life. Thou art the inviting one, may we hearken to Thee; the almighty instructor, teach us to live to Thee; the light-dweller, inaccessible to humans and angels, hiding Thyself behind the elements of creation, but known to us in Jesus; possess our minds with the grandeur of Thy perfections. Thy love to us in Jesus is firm and changeless, nothing can separate us from it, and in the enjoyment of it nothing can make us miserable. Preserve us from hypocrisy and formality in religion; enable us to remember what thou art and what we are, to recall Thy holiness and our unworthiness; help us to approach Thee clothed with humility, for vanity, forwardness, insensibility, disorderly affection, backwardness to duty, proneness to evil are in our hearts. Let us never forget Thy patience, wisdom, power, faithfulness, care, and never cease to respond to Thy invitations. O LORD GOD, there is no blessing we implore but Thou art able to give hast promised to give, hast given already to countless multitudes, all unworthy and guilty like ourselves; make us willing to receive the supply of our need from Thy bounty. #RandolphHarris 19 of 19
Just because 2020 had other plans, does not mean you have to! Check out today’s blog post for socially distant outdoor activities to pass the time with this summer. ☀️ Link in bio. https://cresleigh.com/blog/
For your bounty, to this end, please convince us of sin, soften our hard hearts, to bewail our folly, ingratitude, pride, unbelief, rebellion, corruption. Through the law may we die to the law, then look with wonder, submission, delight, to the provision Thou hast made for the glory of Thy name in the salvation of sinners. Please give us a hope that makes us not ashamed, a love that excites to holy obedience, a joy in Thee that is our strength, a faith in Thy Son who loved us and died for us. May we preserve in duty when not fully conscious of Thee, wait upon Thee and keep Thy way, be humble and earnest suppliants at Thy feet, live continually as on the brink of eternity. #CresleighHomes
Please let us be at Thy disposal for the duties and evens of life, submit our preferences to Thy wisdom and will, resign our enjoyments if Thou shouldest require it as our absolute Proprietor and best Friend. In our unworthiness and provocations please make us grateful for the means of grace ad the ordinances of religion and please teach us to profit by them more than we have done. Please help us to be in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day, to enter upon the sabbath mindful of its solemnities, duties, privileges, setting all things Worldly aside while we worship Thee. May we know the blessedness of humans whose strength is in Thee, and in whose hearts are the highway to Heaven.
Winchester Mystery House
A 160-room mansion built to appease the spirits who died at the hands of the Winchester Rifle 👻
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It is Not Found in the Solid Earth or Twinkling Stars, but When the Skies Grow Dark, the Stars Begin to Shine!
In the United States of America there is more space where nobody is then where anybody is. That is what makes America what it is. As we know, there is no human experience, nor would experience be possible at all, without the intervention of a subjective aptitude. What is this subjective aptitude? Ultimately it consists in an innate psychic structure which allows humans to have experiences of this kind. Thus the whole nature of humans presupposes woman, both physically and spiritually. The human system is tuned in to woman from the start, just as it is prepared for a quite definite World where there is water, light, air, slat, carbohydrates, excreta. The form of the Word into which humans are born is already inborn in them as a virtual image. Likewise parents, wife, children, birth, and death are inborn in humans as virtual images, as psychic aptitudes. These a priori categories have by nature a collective character; they are images of parents, wife, and children in general, and are not individual predestinations. We must therefore think of these images as lacking in solid content, hence as unconscious. They only acquire solidity, influence, and eventual consciousness in the encounter with empirical facts, which touch the unconscious aptitude and quicken it to life. They are in a sense the deposits of all our ancestral experience, but they are not the experiences themselves. #RandolphHarris 1 of 22
So at least it seems to us, in the present limited state of our knowledge. (I must confess that I have never yet found infallible evidence for the inheritance of memory images, but I do not regard it as positively precluded that in addition to these collective deposits which contain nothing specifically individual, there may also be inherited memories that are individually determined.) An inherited collective image of woman exists in a man’s unconscious, with the help of which he apprehends the nature of woman. This inherited image is the third important source for the femininity of the soul. Now, everything that is true of the persona and of all autonomous complexes in general also holds true of the anima. She likewise is a personality, and this is why she is so easily projected upon a woman. So long as the anima is unconscious she is always projected, for everything unconscious is projected. The first bearer of the soul-image is always the mother; later it is borne by those women who arouse the man’s feelings, whether in a positive or a negative sense. Because the mother is the first bearer of the soul-image, separation from her is a delicate and important matter of the greatest educational significance. Accordingly among primitives we find a large number of rites designed to organize this separation. #RandolphHarris 2 of 22
The mere fact of becoming adult, and of outward separation, is not enough; impressive initiation into the “men’s house” and ceremonies of rebirth are still needed in order to make the separation from mother (and hence from childhood) entirely effective. Just as the father acts as a protection against the dangers of the external World and thus serves his son as a model persona, so the mother protects him against the dangers that threaten from the darkness of his psyche. In the puberty rites, therefore, the initiate receives instruction about these things of “the other side,” so that he is put in a position to dispense with his mother’s protection. The modern civilized man has to forgo this primitive but nonetheless admirable system of education. The consequence is that the anima, in the form of the mother-imago, is transferred to the wife; and the man, so soon as he marries, becomes childish, sentimental, dependent, and subservient or else truculent, tyrannical, hypersensitive, always thinking about the prestige of his superior masculinity. The last is of course merely the reverse of the first. The safeguard against the unconscious, which what his mother meant to him, is not replaced by anything in the modern man’s education; unconsciously, therefore, his ideal of marriage is so arranged that his wife has to take over the magical role of the mother. #RandolphHarris 3 of 22
Under the cloak of the ideally exclusive marriage he is really seeking his mother’s protection, and thus he plays into the hands of his wife’s possessive instincts. His fear of the dark incalculable power of the unconscious gives his wife an illegitimate authority over him, and forges such a dangerously close union that the marriage is permanently on the brink of explosion for internal tension—or else, out of protest, he files to the other extreme, with the same results. That little episode opens up a whole train of thought about inner Worlds and separate realities. What do we make of the vision or dream that Johnny Owen has at the age of three? He saw a large mysterious underground cavern, with all the light focused on a great pillar of flesh with something like a head on top, enthroned on a royal chair. Twenty years passed before he fully understood this experience, when he rediscovered this same vision in the phallic rituals of some primitive tribes. How had that vision come to him at the age of three? In what real World does this phenomenon belong? Read the story of Robert Monroe (1971), a hardheaded businessman and engineer, who, after some puzzling experiences, found himself one night floating up to the ceiling of his room, looking down on his own body and that of his wife. #RandolphHarris 4 of 22
His account of these experiences, in which he tells of his initial fright, then his increasing willingness to take journeys out of his body, is startling indeed, and often very convincing. One cannot help but ponder the question: What reality can encompass such experiences, as well as the real experiences I know? How about Don Juan, the ageless Yaqui Indian, who opened whole new Worlds to the stubbornly skeptical anthropologist, Carlos Castaneda? Worlds of magical events, of flights through the air, of a nonordinary reality where death is not different from life, where the man of knowledge has a spirit ally, where the impossible is experienced. Rubbish, you say? His own experiences were enough to force Castaneda to recognize that there exist separate realities completely alien to the thinking of the modern scientific mind. I think of John Lilly, a scientist trained at the California Institute Technology, who went on to study neuroanatomy, medicine, and psychiatry, and who is perhaps best known for his twelve years of work with dolphins, trying to communicate with these animals, who he believes are at least as intelligent as human beings. To trace his path from his beginnings as a scientist who believed only in mechanical models of reality, to his present view that there are various levels of altered consciousness (which he had achieved and helped others to achieve), is mind-boggling. #RandolphHarris 5 of 22
Along the way, he came convinced that the dolphins could read his thoughts. Lilly’s experiences in a sensory deprivation tank, where he floated in warm water with absolutely minimal input of sight, sound, touch, or taste—were fascinating. He discovered that the inner World, without any external stimuli, was incredibly rich, sometimes frightening, often bizarre. In trying to understand this inner World, he experimented with Lysergic Acid Diethylamide (LSD), with both illuminating and terrifying results. This led to meditation, unbidden thought transmission, and higher and higher state of consciousness in which he—like many before him, who were called mystics—experienced the Universe as a unity, a unity based on love. Quite a distance from this Caltech training! These and other accounts cannot simply be dismissed with contempt or ridicule. The witnesses are too honest, their experiences too real. All these accounts indicate that vast and mysterious Universe—perhaps an inner reality, or perhaps a spirit World of which we are all unknowingly a part—seems to exist. Such a Universe delivers a final crushing blow to our comfortable belief that we all know what the real World is. Where have my thoughts led me in relation to an objective World of reality? It clearly does not exist in the objects we can see and feel and hold. It does not exist in the technology we admire so greatly. #RandolphHarris 6 of 22
It is not found in the solid Earth or the twinkling stars. It does not lie in a solid knowledge of those around us. It is not found in the organizations or customs or rituals of any one culture. It is not even in our own known personal Worlds. It must take into account mysterious and currently unfathomable separate realities, incredibly different from an objective World. I, and many others, have come to a new realization. It is this: The only reality I can possibly know is the World as I perceive and experience it at this moment. The only reality you can possibly know is the World as you perceive and experience it at this moment. And the only certainty is that those perceived realities are different. There are as many real Worlds as there are people! This creates a most burdensome dilemma, one never before experienced in history. From time immemorial, the tribe or the community or the nation or the culture as agreed upon what constitutes the real World. To be sure, different tribes or different cultures might have held sharply different World views, but at least there was a large, relatively unified group which felt assured in its knowledge of the World and the Universe, and knew that this perception was true. So the community frowned upon, condemned, persecuted, even killed those who did not agree, who perceived reality differently. #RandolphHarris 7 of 22
Copernicus, even though he kept his findings secret for many years, was eventually declared a heretic. Galileo established proof of Copernicus’s views, but in his seventies, he was forced to recant this teaching. Giordano Brun was burned at the stake in 1600 for teaching that there were many Worlds in the Universe. Executioners set the stake up in line with the scaffold, then the trunk and the rest were covered with logs and faggots, and the fire was put to the straw mixed with this wood, and they stunk a match and watched him go up in flames are he screamed, “My God, have pity on me! Jesus, Help me!” Individuals who deviated in their perceptions of religious reality were tortured and killed. In the mid-1800s, Ignaz Semmelweis, an intense young Hungarian physician-scientist, was driven insane by his persecutors because he made the then absurd claim that childbed fever, that dread scourge of the maternity room, was carried from one woman to another by invisible germs on the hands and instruments of the doctors. Obvious nonsense, in terms of the reality of his day. In our own American Colonies, those who were even suspected of having psychic powers were considered witches and were hanged or crushed under great sones. History offers a continuing series of examples of the awful price paid by those who perceived a reality different from the agreed-upon real World. #RandolphHarris 8 of 22
Although society has often come around eventually to agree with its dissidents, as in the instances I have mentioned, there is doubt that this insistence upon a known and certain Universe has been par of the cement that holds a culture together. Today we face a different situation. The ease and rapidity of Worldwide communication means that everyone of us is aware of dozens realities; even though we may thin some of them absurd (like reincarnation) or dangerous (like communism which is becoming a staple in California’s democratic party), we cannot help but be aware of them. No longer can we exist in a secure cocoon, knowing that we all see the World in the same way. Because of this change, I want to raise a very serious questions: Can we today afford the luxury of having “a” reality? Can we still preserve the belief that there is a “real World” upon whose definition we all agree? I am convinced that this is a luxury we cannot afford, a myth we dare no maintain. Only once in recent history has his been fully and successfully achieved. Millions of people were in complete agreement as to the nature of social and cultural reality—an agreement brought about by the mesmerizing influence of Adolph Hitler. This agreement about reality marked the destruction of Western culture. I do not see it as something to be emulated. #RandolphHarris 9 of 22
In Western culture during this century—especially in the United States of America—there has also been an agreed-upon reality of values. This gospel can be stated very briefly: “More is better, bigger is better, faster is better, and modern technology will achieve all three of these eminently desirable goals.” However, now that credo is a crumbling disaster in which few believe. It is dissolving in the smog of pollution, the famine of overpopulation, the Damocles’ sword of the nuclear bomb. We have so successfully achieved the goal of a “bigger bang for a buck” that we are in danger of destroying all life on this planet. Our attempt, then, to live in the “real World” which all perceive in the same way have, in my opinion, led us to the brink of annihilation as a species. I will be so bold as to suggest alternative. It appears to me that they way of the future must be to base our lives and our education on the assumption that there are as many realities as there are persons, and that our highest priority is to accept that hypothesis and proceed from there. Proceed where? Proceed, each of us, to explore open-mindedly the many, many perceptions of reality that exist. We would, I believe, enrich our own lives in the process. We would also become more able to cope with the reality in which each one of us exist, because we would be aware of many more options. #RandolphHarris 10 of 22
A World with the possibility of countless realities might well be a life full of perplexity and difficult choices, demanding greater maturity, but it would be an exciting and adventurous life. The question may well be raised, however, whether we could have a community or a society based on this hypothesis of multiple realities. Might not such a society be a completely individualistic anarchy? That is not my opinion. Suppose my grudging tolerance of your separate World view became a fully acceptance of you and your right to have such a view. Supposed that instead of shutting out the realities of others as absurd or dangerous or heretical or stupid, I was willing to explore and learn about those realities? Suppose you were willing to do the same. What would be the social result? I thin that our society would be based not on a blind commitment to a cause or creed or view of reality, but on a common commitment to each other as rightfully separate persons, with separate realities. The natural human tendency to care for another would no longer be, “I care for you because you are the same as I,” but, instead, “I prize and treasure you because you are different from me.” Idealistic, you say? It surely is. How can I be so utterly naïve and “unrealistic” as to have any hope that such a drastic change could conceivably come about? #RandolphHarris 11 of 22
I base my hope partly on the view of World history so aptly stated by Charles Beard: “When the skies grow dark, the stars begin to shine.” So we may see the emergence of leaders who are moving in this new direction. I base my hope, even more solidly, on the view enunciated by Lancelot Whyte, the historian of idea, in his final book before his death. It is his theory, in which he is not alone, that great steps in human history are anticipated, and probably brought about, by changes in the unconscious thinking of thousands and millions of individuals during the period preceding the change. Then, in a relatively short space of time, a new idea, a new perspective, seems to burst upon the World scene, and change occurs. He gives the example that before 1914, patriotism and nationalism were unquestioned virtues. Then began the faint unconscious questioning which built an unconscious tradition reversing a whole pattern of thought. This new perspective burst into open between 1950 and 1970. “My country, right or wrong” is no longer a belief to live by. Nationalistic wars are out of date and out of favour, and even though they continue, World opinion is deeply opposed. Whyte (1974) points out that “at any moment the unconscious levels are ahead of the conscious in the task of unifying emotion, thought and action!” (p.107) #RandolphHarris 12 of 22
For me, this line of thought is entirely congenial. I have stated that we are wiser than our intellects, that our organisms as a whole have a wisdom and purposiveness which goes well beyond our conscious thought. I believe that this idea applies to the concept I have been presenting thus far. I think that men and women, individually and collectively, are inwardly and organismically rejecting the view of one single, culture-approved reality. I believe they are moving inevitably toward the acceptance of millions of separate, challenging, exciting, informative, individual perceptions of reality. I regard it as possible that this view—like the sudden and separate discovery of the principles of quantum mechanics by scientists in different countries—may begin to come into effective existence in many parts of the World at once. If so, we will be living in a totally new Universe, different from any in history. Is it conceivable that such a change can come about? Here lies the challenge to educators—probably the most insecure and frightened among any of the professions—battered by public pressures, limited by legislative restrictions, essentially conservative in their reactions. Can they possibly espouse such a new of multiple realities as I have been describing? Can they begin to bring into being the changes in attitudes, behaviours, and values that such a World view would demand? #RandolphHarris 13 of 22
Certainly, by themselves they cannot. However, with the underlying change in what Whyte calls “the unconscious tradition,” and with the assistance of the new person whom I and many others see emerging in our culture, it is just conceivable that they might succeed. If nations follow their past ways, then, because of the speed of World communication of separate views, each society will have to exert more and more coercion to bring about a forced agreement as to what constitutes the real World and its values. Those coerced agreements will differ from nation to nation, from culture to culture. The coercion will destroy individual freedom. We will bring about our own destruction through the clashes caused by differing World views. However, I have suggested an alternative. If we accept as a basic fact of all human life that we live in separate realities; if we can see those differing realities as the most promising resource for learning in all the history of the World; if we can live together in order to learn from one another without fear; if we can do all this, then a new age could be dawning. And perhaps—just perhaps—humankind’s deep organic sensing are paving the way for just a change. “And such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and in the Spirit of our God,” reports 1 Corinthians 6.11. #RandolphHarris 14 of 22
One of the amazing things about the human being is that it is capable of restoration, and indeed of a restoration that makes it somehow more magnificent because it has been ruined. This is a hopeful but strange thought. How it is so should become clear as we proceed. However, for now we want to see clearly what goes on within the person who is “unruined,” as we might say. In particular, we must see what is the basic shift (given regeneration and forgiveness) that can lead to the reordering of the six universal dimensions of the human self in subordination to God. The key to understanding the overall reordering is provided by what we learned about the human ruin in the past. For as the surest source of destruction to humans is to obey themselves, so the only haven for safety is to have no other will, no other wisdom, than to follow the Lord wherever he leads. Let thus, then, be the first step, to abandon ourselves, and devote the whole energy of our mind to the service of God. With theses words, we simply restate the basic point of view of Christ’s people through the ages. By service, I mean not only that which consists in verbal obedience, but that by which the mind, diverted of its own carnal feelings, implicitly obeys the call of the Spirit of God. #RandolphHarris 15 of 22
It is part of the task of a spiritual director to point out tactfully but firmly the faults and deficiencies of one’s disciples, to make them more aware of what is needed in their moral self-correction. The spiritual directors who is over-severe in one’s correction of the aspirant’s faults, needs correcting oneself. “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this World, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve that God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will,” reports Romans 12.2. The spiritual leader who is always soft and sentimental may help some of one’s pupils but one would help them more if, at the same time, one were also hard and firm. The first attitude will attract more to one, but without the second to balance it neither one nor they will get the proper view of life. A true teacher must warn one’s followers against false expectations and irredeemable promises, “And to be renewed in the sprit of your minds,” reports Ephesians 4.23. It is not enough to one has the penetration to perceive the truth; one must also have the courage to tell it to one’s disciples, even though one knows it will shock them. There is a need for people to have caution, discernment, and even secrecy in this matter. “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me,” reports Galatians 2.20. #RandolphHarris 16 of 22
Disciples often go to a spiritual leader for their emotional comfort, they do not come for their ego’s emotional quietus. They want to remain enclosed in its little circle, not to be taken completely out of it. “Now there was a place in Shemlon where the daughters of the Lamanites did gather themselves together to sing, and to dance, and to make themselves merry. And it came to pass that there was one day a small number of them gathered together to sing and to dance. And now the priests of king Noah being ashamed to return to the city of Nephi, yea, and also fearing that the people would slay them, therefore they durst not return to their wives and their children. And having tarried in the wilderness, and having discovered the daughters of the Lamanites, they laid and watched them; and when there were but few of them gathered together to dance, they came forth out of their secret places and took them and carried them into the wilderness; yea, twenty and four of the daughters of the Lamanites they carried into the wilderness. And it came to pass that when the Lamanites found that their daughters had been missing, they were angry with the people of Limhi, for they thought it was the people of Limhi. Therefore they sent their armies forth; yea, even the king himself went before his people; and they went up to the land of Nephi to destroy the people of Limhi. #RandolphHarris 17 of 22
“And now Limhi had discovered them from the tower, even all their preparation for war did he discover; therefore he gathered his people together, and laid wait for them in the fields and in the forests. And it came to pass that when the Lamanites had come up, that the people of Limhi began to fall upon them from their waiting places, and began to slay them. And it came to pass that the battle became exceedingly sore, for they fought like lions for their prey. And it came to pass that the people of Limhi began to drive the Lamanites before them; yet they were not half so numerous as the Lamanites. However, they fought for their lives, and for their wives, and for their children; therefore they exerted themselves and like dragons did they fight. And it came to pass that they found the king of the Lamanites among the number of their dead; yet he was not dead, having been wounded and left upon the ground, so speedy was the flight of his people. And they took him and bound up his wounds, and brought him before Limhi, and said: Behold, here is the king of the Lamanites; he having received a wound has fallen dead, and they have left him; and behold, we have brought him before you; and now let us slay him. However, Limhi said unto them: Ye shall not slay him, but bring him hither that I may see him. And they brought him. #RandolphHarris 18 of 22
“And Limhi said unto him: What cause have ye to come up to war against my people? Behold, my people have not broken the oath that I made unto you; therefore, why should ye break the oath which ye made unto my people? And now the kind said: I have broken the oath because thy people did carry away the daughters of my people did carry away the daughters of my people; therefore, in my anger did I cause my people to come up to war against thy people. And now Limhi had heard nothing concerning this matter; therefore he said: I will search among my people and whosoever has done this thing shall perish. Therefore he caused a search to be made among his people. Now when Gideon had heard these things, he being the king’s captain, he went forth and said unto the king: I pray three forbear, and do not search this people, and lay not this thing to their charge. For do ye not remember the priests of thy father, whom this people sought to destroy? And are they not in the wilderness? And are not they the ones who have stolen the daughters of the Lamanites? And now, behold, and tell the king of these things, that he may tell his people that they may be pacified towards us; for behold they are already preparing to come against us; and behold also there are but few of us. #RandolphHarris 19 of 22
“And behold, they come with their numerous hosts; and expect the king doth pacify them towards us we must perish. For are not the words of Abinadi fulfilled, which he prophesied against us—and all this because we would not hearken unto the words of the Lord, and turn from our iniquities? And now let us pacify the king, and fulfill the oath which we have made unto him; for it is better than we should lose our lives; therefore, let us put a stop to the shedding of so much blood. And now Limhi told the kind all the things concerning his father, and the priests that had fled into the wilderness, and attributed the carrying away of their daughters to them. And it came to pass that the king was pacified towards his people; and he said unto them: Let us go forth to meet my people, without arms; and I swear unto you with an oath that my people shall not play thy people. And it came to pass that they followed the king, and went forth without arms to meet the Lamanites. And it came to pass that they did meet the Lamanites; and they king of the Lamanites did bow himself down before them, and did plead in behalf of the people of Limhi. And when the Lamanites saw the people of Limhi, that they were without arms, they had compassion on them and were pacified towards them, and returned with their king in peace to their own land,” reports Mosiah 20.1-26. #RandolphHarris 20 of 22
God of all Good, I bless Thee for the means of grace; please teach me to see in them Thy loving purposes and the joy and strength of my soul. Thou hast prepared for me a feast; and though I am unworthy to sit down as guest, I wholly rest on the merits of Jesus, and hide myself beneath his righteousness; when I hear his tender invitation and see his wonderous grace, I cannot hesitate, but must come to Thee in love. By Thy Spirit enliven my faith rightly to discern and spiritually to apprehend the Saviour. While I gaze upon the emblems of my Saviour’s death, may I ponder why he died, and hear him say, ‘I gave my life to purchase yours, presented myself an offering to expiate your sin, shed my blood to blot out your guilt, opened my side to make you clean, endure your curses to set you free, bore your condemnation to satisfy divine justice.’ O May I rightly grasp the breadth and length of this design, draw near, obey, extend the hand, take the bread, receive the cup, eat and drink, testify before all humans that I do for myself, gladly, in faith, reverence and love, receive my Lord, to be my life, strength, nourishment, joy, delight. In the supper I remember his eternal love, boundless grace, infinite compassion, agony, cross, redemption, and receive assurance of pardon, adoption, life, glory. #RandolphHarris 21 of 22
As the outward elements nourish my body, so may Thy indwelling Spirit invigorate my soul, until that day when I hunger and thirst no more, and sit with Jesus at his Heavenly feast. O God, Who desirest not the death, but the repentance of sinners, we beseech Thee, in Thy loving-kindness, to turn Thy people to Thyself; that when they devote themselves to Thee, Thou mayest remove the scourges of Thine anger; through Jesus Christ our Lord. We beseech Thee, O Lord, mercifully to drive away from Thy faithful, together with their own errors, the destructive fury of diseases; that as Thou deservedly scourgest them when they go astray, Thou mayest cherish them with Thy pity when they are brought back; through Jesus Christ our Lord. The kind of master needed and sought after by those who are on the religio-mystic-occult path is one who will take a keen interest in their personal life as well as spiritual welfare, one who is willing to help them with any and every problem, one who by virtue of residence or correspondence is always and quickly available to them. The philosophic master is not like this but of a different kind. One is not a missionary telling others that they must follow the Quest but an educator telling them that they may follow it if they so choose. #RandolphHarris 22 of 22

Orange you glad our open-concept floor plans mean lots of windows and ample natural light? 😍 #MillsStation Residence 1 at #CresleighRanch is a single-story home with 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, our signature Home Hub, and lots more! 🙌
Check out the virtual tour on our website. Link in bio. https://cresleigh.com/mills-station/residence-1/
We beseech Thee, O Lord, give effect to our devout supplication, and mercifully turn away the famine (or the pestilence); that the hearts of humans may know that these scourges both proceed from Thine indignation, and cease by Thy compassion; through Jesus Christ our Lord. #CresleighHomes
God Bless the Inventor of Sleep, the Cloak that Covers All People’s thoughts, the Food that Cures All Hunger!
The rewards of educating comes from a teachers’ innate belief that every day they have the opportunity to enrich the lives of their students by igniting the human spirit, dignifying the human experience, and inspiring human excellence. You know the old saying, “If you plan ahead God goes with you.” Commerce is everything, but everybody goes about consulting astrologers, talking about magic, and trying to drive out evil spirits. People have families, eat, drink, and try to achieve success in every way possible, yet carry on all the time about luck. Now Americans do not talk about demons, no, but they rattle on about “negative thinking,” and “self-destructive ideas” and “bad self-image.” It is a lot the same, Babylon and America. The law has become perverted! The law—and, in its wake, all the collective forces of the nation—the law, I say, not only diverted from its proper direction, but made to pursue one entirely contrary! The law has become the tool of every kind of avarice, instead of being its check! The law guilty of that very iniquity which it was its mission to punish! Truly, this is a serious fact, if it exists, and one to which I feel bound to call the attention of my fellow citizens. We hold from God the gift that, as far as we are concerned, contains all others, Life—physical, intellectual, and more life. #RandolphHarris 1 of 24
However, life cannot support itself. One who has bestowed it, has entrusted us with the care of supporting it, of developing it, and of perfecting it. To that end, He has provided us with a collection of wonderful faculties; He has plunged us into the midst of a variety of elements. It is by the application of our faculties to these elements that the phenomena of assimilation and of appropriation, by which life pursues the circle that has been assigned to it are realized. Existence, faculties, assimilation—in other words, personality, liberty, property—this is human. It is of these three things that it may be said, apart from all demagogic subtlety, that they are anterior and superior to all human legislation. It is not because humans have made laws, that personality, liberty, and property exist. On the contrary, it is because personality, liberty, and property exist before hand, that humans make laws. What, then, is law? Law is the collective organization of the individual right to lawful defense. Nature, or rather God, has bestowed upon every one of us the right to defend one’s person, one’s liberty, and one’s property, since these are three constituent or preserving elements of life; elements, each of which is rendered complete by the others, and that cannot be understood without them. For what are our faculties, but the extension of our personality? And what is property, but an extension of our faculties? #RandolphHarris 2 of 24
If every person has the right of defending, even by force, one’s person, one’s liberty, and one’s property, a number of humans have the right to combine together to extend, to organize a common force to provide regularly for this defense. Collective right, then, has its principle, its reason for existing, its lawfulness, in individual right; and the common force cannot rationally have any other end, or any other mission, than that of the isolated forces for which it is substituted. Thus, as the force of an individual cannot lawfully touch the person, the liberty, or the property of another individual—for the same reason, the common force cannot lawfully be used to destroy the person, the liberty, or the property of individual classes. For this perversion of force would be, in one case as in the other, in contradiction to our premises. For who will dare to say that force has been given to us, not to defend our rights, but to annihilate the equal rights of our brethren? And if this be not true of every individual force, acting independently, how can it be true of the collective force, which is only the organized union of isolated forces? It is not for one to work for humanity by only helping particular persons and by alleviating isolated distresses. One’s form of service must be stretch over wider areas, must affect a multitude of persons. However, this is possible only if one works in deeper ground and through secret unobtrusive ways. #RandolphHarris 3 of 24
The World being what it is, human nature what it has long been, and human affairs all-too-repetitious, one will not waste time and energy attempting to re-arrange the by surface efforts. One may do nothing more than put one’s mite of cheering truth and softening goodness into the grim World around one, but this will be enough. One cannot contribute more than one has. The ultimate result of this contribution may be little, but one has tried to do God’s will on Earth. Nothing, therefore, can be more evident than this: The law is the organization of the natural right of lawful defense; it is the substitution of collective for individual forces, for the purpose of acting in the sphere in which they have a right to act, of doing what they have a right to do, to secure persons, liberties, and properties, and to maintain each in its right, so as to cause justice to reign over all. Just the fact that one is here, on this planet and at this time, makes its own contribution to humanity’s welfare. This is still true even though one may not try to manage other people’s lives on the plea of serving them. One’s service may not be immediately, or locally, apparent; it may need time to come up from the subconscious levels that are the deeper layers of mind and spirit, but it will be nevertheless real. Although it is not one’s direct purpose, one’s existence will lessen humanity’s suffering, and increase its hope and goodwill through obeying and enforcing law and order. #RandolphHarris 4 of 24
And if people established upon this basis were to exist, it seems to me that order would prevail among them in their acts as well as in their ideas. It seems to me that such people would have the most simple, the most economical, the least oppressive, the least to be felt, the most restrained, the most just, and, consequently, the most stable Government that could be imagined, whatever its political form might be. For under such an administration, everyone would feel that one possessed all the fullness, as well as all the responsibility of one’s existence. So long as personal safety was ensured, so long as labour was free, and the fruits of labour secured against all unjust attacks, no one would have any difficulties to content with in the State. When prosperous, we should not, it is true, have to thank the State for our success; but when unfortunate, we should no more think of taxing it with our disasters than our less affluents think of attributing to it the arrival of hail or of frost. We should know it only by the inestimable blessing of Safety. Those who cross this path may feel like it is only a once in a lifetime experience, and they will receive instruction, even though they are not outwardly being taught. America is under God’s divine blessing and God’s grace has bestowed us with Manifest Destiny, which has influenced kings and rulers and leaders of humans and culture. #RandolphHarris 5 of 24
Manifest Destiny has guaranteed America with the birth rite to expand its boarders from sea to shining sea. The poem of the Statue of Liberty is a prophecy that one day, America will be One World, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. I mean, really, who would not like to move around the World and be protected by the laws, rights, and justice that Americans are granted on their beautiful island? Americans have emerged into public view in order to quicken the pace of evolution by active external work, but some do not have their spiritual identity and as a result their efforts where not always successful because they had to deal with frail stubborn human nature. Knowing this convinces us better than printed arguments of the eternal Spiritual truths. It may further be affirmed, that, thanks to the non-intervention of the State in private affairs, our wants and their satisfactions would develop themselves in their natural order. We should not see less affluent families seeking for literary instruction before they were supplied with bread. We should not see those great displacements of capital, of labour, and population, that legislative measures occasion; displacements that render so uncertain and precarious the very sources of existence, and thus enlarge to such an extent the responsibility of Governments. #RandolphHarris 6 of 24
Unhappily, law is by no means confirmed to its own sphere. Nor is it merely in some ambiguous and debatable views that it has left it proper sphere. It has done more than this. It has acted in direct opposition to its proper end; it has destroyed its own object; it has been employed in annihilating that justice which it ought to have established, in effacing amongst Rights, that limit which it was its true mission to respect; it has placed the collective force in the service of those who wish to traffic, without risk and without scruple, in the persons, the liberty, and the property of others; it has converted plunder into a right, that it may protect it, and lawful defense into a crime, that it may punish it. How has this perversion of law been accomplished? And what has resulted from it? The law has been perverted through the influence of two very different causes—naked greed and misconceived philanthropy. Let us speak of the former. Self-preservation and development is the common aspiration of all human, in such a way that if every one enjoyed the free exercise of one’s faculties and the free disposition of their fruits, social progress would be incessant, uninterrupted, inevitable. However, there is also another disposition which is common to them. This is to live and to develop, when they can, at the expense of another. This is no rash imputation, emanating from a gloomy, uncharitable spirit. #RandolphHarris 7 of 24
History bears witness to the truth of it, by the incessant wars, the migrations of races, sectarian oppressions, the universality of slavery, the frauds in trade, and the monopolies with which it annals universal, and invincible sentiment that urges it towards its well-being, and makes it seek to escape pain. Humans can only derive life and enjoy from a perpetual search and appropriation; that is, from a perpetual application of one’s faculties to objects, or from labour. This is the origin of property. However, also one may live and enjoy, by seizing and appropriating the productions of the faculties of one’s fellow humans. This is the origin of plunder. Now, labour being in itself a pain, and humans being naturally inclined to avoid pain, it follows, and history proves it, that whatever plunder is less burdensome than labour, it prevails; and neither religion nor morality can, in this case, prevent it from prevailing. When does plunder cease, then? When it becomes more burdensome and more dangerous than labour. It is very evident that the proper aim of law is to oppose the fatal tendency to plunder with the powerful obstacle of collective force; that all its measures should be in favour of property, and against plunder. However, law is made, generally, by one human, or by one class of humans. #RandolphHarris 8 of 24
And as law cannot exist without the sanction and the support of preponderant force, it must finally place this force in the hands of those who legislate. This inevitable phenomenon, combined with the fatal tendency that, we have said, exists in the heart of humans, explains the almost universal perversions of law. It is easy to conceive that, instead of being a check upon injustice, it becomes its most invincible instrument. It is easy to conceive that, according to the power of the legislator, it destroys for its own profit, and in different degrees amongst the rest of the community, personal independence by slavery, liberty by oppression, and property by plunder. It is in the nature of humans to rise against the injustice of which they are the victims. When, therefore, plunder is organized by law, for the profit of those who perpetrate it, all the plundered classes tend, either by peaceful or revolutionary means, to enter in some way into the manufacturing of laws. These classes, according to the degree of enlightenment at which they have arrived, may propose to themselves two very different ends, when they thus attempt the attainment of their political rights; either they may wish to put an end to lawful plunder, or they may desire to take part in it. Woe to the nation where this latter thought prevails amongst the masses, at the moment when they, in their turn, seize upon the legislative power! #RandolphHarris 9 of 24
Up to that time, lawful plunder has been exercised by the few upon the many, as is the case in the case in countries where the right of legislating is confined to a few hands. However, now it has become universal, and the equilibrium is sought in universal plunder. The injustice that society contains, instead of being rooted out of it, is generalized. As soon as the injured classes have recovered their political rights, their first thought is not to abolish plunder (this would suppose them to possess enlightenment, which they cannot have), but to organize against the other classes, and to their own detriment, a system of reprisals—as if it was necessary, before the reign of justice arrives, that all should undergo a cruel retribution—some for their iniquity and some for their ignorance. It would be the consequences of such a perversion? It would require volumes to describe them all. We must content ourselves with pointing out the most striking. In the first place, it would efface from everybody’s conscience the distinction between justice and injustice. No society can exist unless the laws are respected to a certain degree, but the safest way to make them respected is to make them respectable. When law and morality are in contradiction to each other, the citizen find oneself in the cruel alternative of either losing one’s moral sense, or of losing one’s respect for the law—two evils of equal magnitude, between which it would be difficult to choose. #RandolphHarris 10 of 24
It is so much in the nature of law to support justice that in the minds of the masses they are one and the same. There is in all of us a strong disposition to regard what is lawful as legitimate, so much so that many falsely derive all justice from law. It is sufficient, then, for the law to order and sanction plunder, that it may appear to many consciences just and sacred. Slavery, protection, and monopoly find defenders, not only in those who profit by them, but in those who suffer by them. If you suggest a doubt as to the morality of these institutions, it is said directly—“You are dangerous experimenter, a utopian, a theorist, a despiser of the laws; your would shake the basis upon which society rests.” The imagination is responsible for imagery of all kinds. It is the representation of an individual thought. The imagination reproduces images made originally by the senses or held in memory and creates images either in cooperation with reason or in its own right. These functions are in turn revealed in three kinds of imagination, the first joined with belief of that which is to come; the second joined with memory of that which is past; and the third is of things present, or as if they were presented; imaginations are feigned and at pleasure; as if one should imagine such a person to be in the vestments of a Pope, or to have wings. #RandolphHarris 11 of 24
Examination of the three kind of imagination, the first joined with the memory of that which is to come; the second joined with memory of that which is past; and the third is of things present, as if they were present, discloses the reproductive and creative roles of imagination, and about the force of imagery qua imagery, exempli gratia, imagination intensive. What is the representation of an individual thought? At the level of understanding and reason, thought could be so abstract as to be impalpable. Imagination has the power of rendering abstract thought tangible. The tangible manifestation appeared most widely as words in speech and writing, for the words were the images of thought, the images of cogitations. Thinking can occur in the absence of imagery, but if it were to be available to sense, it has to appear as auditory and verbal imagery. Thought images serve as if they were the contents of perception, but thinking does not take place at all without some kind of an image. The mind can frame a purely mental proposition without the use of words. So from the point of view of the mind that makes them, the imagery of speech and language is the concrete analogue of abstract thought. The imagination thus gives body to thought. A thought occurred, an image followed upon it. Imagery is in this sense a re-presenting of thought. #RandolphHarris 12 of 24
The objectification of thought as verbal imagery is strikingly perceived when one contemplates the context within which we locate speech and writing along with the communication, or transmission, of ideas among the rational or intellectual arts. We distinguish four intellectual or logical activities, and these give their names to corresponding arts. Reason is the discursive movement of the understanding, and logic is a term applied to the study of its modes of discursion as they appear in discourse. There is invention—the finding and discovering of ideas; there is judging—the evaluation and criticism of the results of invention; there is memory—the retention of what is judged acceptable; and there is the transmission and communication of ideas. The first three of these activities are mental, or as more properly, psychological, processes. They were unavailable to our sense directly. To the extent that they became available as discourse, rather than through spirit (human or divine) or in other nondiscursive, immediate ways, they must appear as material and form. So we place under the transmission of ideas three other features of intellectual discursiveness; the organ of discourse, the method of discourse, and the illustration of discourse. #RandolphHarris 13 of 24
The organ of discourse deals with the smallest physical elements, and the smallest number of them, that can be used alone or in combination to depict thought and its process. In ordinary languages these are speech and writing, though other kinds of characters have been used, such as hieroglyphics. Abstractly considered, the organ of discourse is grammar; concretely considered, the organ of discourse is speech and writing. The organ is so designated precisely because reason in its discursiveness needs and organ. On the other hand, the understanding as such, or pure reason, does not require an organ. In brief, the sound images of voice and speech and the visual images of language written are the simplest and most pervasive products of imagination. They are somehow bound in with thought. Imagine and thought are two facets of a unitary whole. The whole may be a modulation of the spirit. As to miracle, it is the sign-event which has occasioned or provoked the ecstatic awareness of revelation. It does not require special supernatural interference in natural process. The structure of natural causality is not broken. What happens is that certain natural events, when encountered in a special turn of mind, point to the mystery of being and non-being, and induce the beholder to commit oneself unconditionally to this revelation. #RandolphHarris 14 of 24
The sign-events in which the mystery be being gives itself consist in special constellations of elements of reality in correlation with special constellations of elements of the mind. Miracle occasions ecstasy; yet the event in question has become a miracle only through ecstasy. The subjective and the objective condition one another. Taking these revelatory elements together, one can say that ecstasy is the miracle of the mind and that miracle is the ecstasy of reality. By definition, religion originates in a correlation of miracle and ecstasy. The basic problem of all religions, however, is that literally anything may be a medium of revelation. Any event may be a miracle. Nature, history, groups, individuals and the word may be, and have been, mediums of revelation. The multiplicity of revelatory situations is at the origin of many different symbols of ultimate concern which have been developed by religions. Faith is unique. However, its symbols are manifold. Could there be only one symbol, there would be only one concrete content of faith, and therefore one religion. This naturally raises the problem of a final revelation: is there one revelatory event that transcends and underlies all others? The problem of Christianity and of its universal claim is thus posited. #RandolphHarris 15 of 24
No discussion of Christianity is meaningful if we leave out the sight of conception of a revelatory experience: a final revelation, if there is one, is first of all a constellation of revelatory character. The discipline of petitionary prayer: The practice of prayer—the list, the quiet, the place, the time, the posture, preparation, and the length—all suggest one thing—discipline. Work—candidly, prayer is work, not a sport. It is not something that you do if you like it, or devote your spare time to, or do only if you are good at it. Prayer is the proper work of the soul which loves Christ (Ephesians 6.18): And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayer and requests. With this in mind, be alter and always keep on praying for all the saints. This is a call to work! We must never wait until we feel like praying—otherwise we may never pray, unless, perhaps, we fall headfirst into an open wall. The context of Paul’s charge in Ephesians 6 is spiritual warfare—and that is what prayer is! Christian people face the World in prayer. Work and war, war and work—these are the words we must keep before us if we are to become humans of prayer. “Now I, Nephi, do speak somewhat concerning the words which I have written, which have written, which have been spoken by the mouth of Isaiah. For Behold, Isaiah spake many things which were hard for many of my people to understand; for they know not concerning the manner of prophesying among the Jews. #RandolphHarris 16 of 24
“For I, Nephi, have not taught them many things concerning the manner of the Jews; for their works were works of darkness, and their doings were doings of abominations. Wherefore, I write unto my people, unto all those that shall receive hereafter these things which I write, that they may know the judgments of God, that they come upon all nations, according to the word which he hath spoken. Wherefore, hearken, O my people, which are of the house of Israel, and give ear unto my words; for because the words of Isaiah are not plain unto you, nevertheless they are plain unto all those that are filled with the spirit of prophecy. However, I give unto you a prophecy, accord to the spirit which is in me; wherefore I shall prophesy according to the plainness which hath been with me from the time that I came out from Jerusalem with my father; for behold, my soul delighteth in plainness unto my people, that they may learn. Yea, and my soul delighteth in the words of Isaiah, for I came out from Jerusalem, and mine eyes hath beheld the things of the Jews, and I know that the Jews do understand the things of the prophets, and there is none other people that understand the things which were spoken unto the Jews like unto them, save it be that they are taught after the manner of the things of the Jews. #RandolphHarris 17 of 24
“But behold, I, Nephi, have not taught my children after the manner of the Jews; but behold, I, of myself, have dwelt at Jerusalem, wherefore I know concerning the regions round about; and I have made mention unto my children concerning the judgments of God, which hath come to pass among the Jews, unto my children, according to al that which Isaiah hath spoken, and I do not write them. However, behold, I proceed with mine own prophecy, according to my plainness; in the which I know that no person can err; nevertheless, in the days that the prophecies of Isaiah shall be fulfilled people shall know of a surety, at the times when they shall come to pass. Wherefore, they are of worth unto the children of humans, and one that supposeth that they are not, unto them will I speak particularly, and confine the words unto mine own people; for I know that they shall be of great worth unto them in the last days; for in that day shall they understand them; wherefore, for their good have I written them. And as one generation hath been destroyed among the Jews because of iniquity, even so have they been destroyed from generation to generation to generation according to their iniquities; and never hath any of the been destroyed save it were foretold them by the prophets of the Lord. #RandolphHarris 18 of 24
“Wherefore, it hath been told them concerning the destruction which should come upon them, immediately after my father left Jerusalem; nevertheless, they hardened their hearts; and according to my prophecy they have been destroyed, save it be those which are carried away captive into Babylon. And now this I speak because of the spirit which is in me. And notwithstanding they have been carried away they shall have return again, and possess the land of Jerusalem; wherefore, they shall be restored again to the land of their inheritance. However, behold, they shall have wars, and rumors of wars; and when that day cometh that the Only Begotten of the Father, yea, even the Father of Heaven and of Earth, shall manifest himself unto them in the flesh, behold, they will reject him, because of their iniquities, and the hardness of their hearts, and the stiffness of their necks. Behold, they will crucify him; and after he is laid in a sepulcher for the space of three days he shall rise from the dead, with healing in his wings; and all those who shall believe on his name shall be saved in the kingdom of God. Wherefore, my soul delighteth to prophesy concerning him, for I have seen his day, and my heart doth magnify his holy name. #RandolphHarris 19 of 24
“And behold it shall come to pass that after the Messiah hath risen from the dead, and hath manifested himself unto his people, unto as many as will believe on his name, behold, Jerusalem shall be destroyed again; for wo unto them that fight against God and the people of his church. Wherefore, the Jews shall be scattered among all nations; yea, and also Babylon shall be destroyed; wherefore, the Jews shall be scattered by other nations. And after they have been scattered, and the Lord God hath scourged them by other nations for the space of many generations, yea, even down from generation to generation until they shall be persuaded to believe in Christ, the Son of God, and the atonement, which is infinite for all humankind—and when that say shall come that they shall believe in Christ, and worship the Father in his name, with pure hearts and clean hands, and look not forward any more for another Messiah, then, at that time, the day will come that it must needs be expedient that they should believe these things. And the Lord will set his hand again the second time to restore his people from their lost and fallen state. Wherefore, one will proceed to do a marvelous work and a wonder among the children of humans. Wherefore, he shall bring forth his words unto them, which words shall judge them at the last day, for they shall be given them for the purpose of convincing them of the true Messiah, who was rejected by them. #RandolphHarris 20 of 24
“And unto the convincing of them that they need not look forward any more for a Messiah to come, for there should not any come, save it should be a false Messiah which should deceive the people; for there is save one Messiah spoken of by the prophets, and that Messiah is one who should be rejected of the Jews. For according to the words of the prophets, the Messiah cometh in six hundred years from the time that my father left Jerusalem; and according to the words of the prophets, and also the word of the Angel of God, his name shall be Jesus Christ, the Son of God. And now, my brethren, I have spoken plainly that ye cannot err. And as the Lord God liveth that brought Israel up out of the land of Egypt, and have unto Moses power that he should heal nations after they have been bitten by the poisonous serpents, if they would cast their eyes unto the serpent which he did raise up before them, and also gave him power that he should smite the rock and the water should come forth; yea, behold I say unto you, that as these things are true, and as the Lord God liveth, there is none other name given under Heaven save it be this Jesus Christ, of which I have spoken, whereby humans can be saved. Wherefore, for this cause hath the Lord God promised unto me that these things which I write shall be kept and preserved, and handed down unto my seed, from generation to generation, that the promise may be fulfilled unto Joseph, that his seed should never perish as long as the Earth should stand. #RandolphHarris 21 of 24
“Wherefore, these things shall go from generation to generation as long as the Earth shall stand; and they shall go according to the will and pleasure of God; and the nations who shall possess them shall be judged of them according to the words which are written. For we labour diligently to write, to persuade our children, and also our brethren, to believe in Christ, and to be reconciled to God; for we know that it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do. And, notwithstanding we believe in Christ, we keep the law of Moses, and look forward with the steadfastness unto Christ, until the law shall be fulfilled. For, for this end was the law given; wherefore the law hath become dead unto us, and we are made alive in Christ because of our faith; yet we keep the law because of the commandments. And we talk of Christ, we rejoice in Christ, we preach of Christ, we prophesy of Christ, and we write according to our prophecies, that our children may know to what source they may look for a remission of their sins. Wherefore, we speak concerning the law that our children may know the deadness of the law; and they, by knowing the deadness of the law, may look forward unto that life which is in Christ, and know for what end the law is given. And after the law is fulfilled in Christ, that they need not harden their hearts against him when the law ought to be done away. #RandolphHarris 22 of 24
“And now behold, my people, ye, are a stiffnecked people; wherefore, I have spoken plainly unto you, that ye cannot misunderstand. And the words which I have spoken shall stand as a testimony against you; for they are sufficient to teach any human the right way; for the right way is to believe in Christ and deny him not; for by denying him ye also deny the prophets and the law. And now behold, I say unto you that the right way is to believe in Christ, and deny him not; and Christ is the Holy One of Israel; wherefore ye must bow down before hum, and worship him with all your might, mind, and strength, and your whole soul; and if ye do this ye shall in nowsie be cast out. And, inasmuch as it shall be expedient, ye must keep the performances and ordinances of God until the law shall be fulfilled which was given uno Moses. O LORD God, Who hast taught us to pray all together, and hast promised to hear the united voices of two or three invoking Thy Name; hear now, O Lord, the prayers of Thy servants unto their salvation, and give us in this World knowledge of Thy truth, and in the World to come life everlasting. Living by prayer—O God of the open ear, please teach me to live by prayer as well as by providence, for myself, soul, body, children, family, church; please give me a heart frameable to Thy will; so might I live in prayer, and honour Thee, being kept from evil, known and unknown. #RandolphHarris 23 of 24
Please help me to see the sin that accompanies all I do, and the good I can distil from everything. Let me know that the work of prayer is to bring my will to thine, and that without this it is folly to pray; when I try to bring Thy will to mine it is to command Christ, to be above him, and wiser than he: this is my sin and pride. I can only succeed when I pray according to Thy precept and promise, and to be done with as it pleases Thee, according to Thy sovereign will. When Thou commandest me to pray for pardon, peace, brokenness, it is because Thou wilt give me the thing promised, for Thy glory, as well as for my good. Help me not only to desire small things but holy boldness to desire great things for Thy people, for myself, that they and I might live to show Thy glory. Teach me that it is wisdom for me to pray for all I have, out of love, willingly, not of necessity; that I may come to Thee at any time, to lay open my need acceptably to Thee; that my great sin lies in my not keeping the savour of Thy ways; that the remembrance of this truth is one way to the sense of Thy presence; that there is no wrath like the wrath of being governed by my own lusts for my own ends. Regard, O Lord, the prayers of Thy family, and please grant Thine assistance to their humble supplications; that, by means of the assistance which they require, they may persevere in the confession of Thy Name: through Jesus Christ our Lord. #RandolphHarris 24 of 24
BRIGHTON STATION AT CRESLEIGH RANCH
Rancho Cordova, CA |
Now Selling!
4 Bedrooms – 3.5 Bathrooms – 2,757 square feet
Brighton Station at Cresleigh Ranch is Rancho Cordova’s newest home community! This charming neighborhood offers an array of home types with eye catching architecture styles such as Mid-Century Modern, California Modern, Prairie, and Contemporary Farmhouse.
Located off Douglas Road and Rancho Cordova Parkway, the residents of Cresleigh Ranch will enjoy, being just minutes from shopping, dining, and entertainment, and quick access to Highway 50 and Grant Line Road providing a direct route into Folsom. Residents here also benefit from no HOA fees, two community parks and the benefits of being a part of the highly-rated Elk Grove Unified School District. https://youtu.be/yQTnZ0oO2OEhttps://youtu.be/yQTnZ0oO2OE




























