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Here We Ascend from Earth to Heaven
From time to time man’s higher self will show him his own moral face as in a glass. However, it will only show him that side of it which is the worst as well as the least-known one. He will have to look at what is thus exposed to him in all its stark fullness and hidden reality, only because he has to reeducate himself morally to a degree far beyond the ordinary. The experience may be painful, but it must be accepted. He has involved the Overself, now its light has suddenly been thrown upon him. He has invoked the Overself, now its light has suddenly been thrown upon him. He is now able to see his ego, his lower nature, as it has not hitherto shown itself to him. All its uglinesses are lit up and revealed for what they really are. By thus showing up its true nature and evil consequences, this experience is the first step to making the ego’s conquest possible. He should begin with the belief that his own character can be markedly improved and with the attitude that his own efforts can lessen the distance between its present condition and the ideal before him. It is a prime rule that quality of character and education of conscience are more important than nature of belief. And this is much more applicable to would-be philosophers than to would-be religionists. Many students are haunted by a bad idea of undesirable character, and should try five methods for expelling it: attend to an opposing good idea; face the danger of the consequences of letting the bad idea emerge in action; become inattentive to the bad idea; analyse its antecedents and so paralyze the sequent impulse; coerce the mind with the assistance of bodily tension. #RandolphHarris 1 of 20
However, philosophy does not trust to developed reason alone to control emotion and subjugate passion. It trusts also to psychological knowledge and metaphysical truth, to developed will and creative meditation, to counter-emotions and the prayer for Grace. All these different elements are welded into one solid power working for him. Just as the writer turns his experiences of society to writing use and creates art out of the best and worst of them, so the disciple turns his experiences of life to spiritual use and creates wisdom or goodness out of them. And just as it is harder for the author to learn to live what he writes than learn to write what he lives, so it is harder for the disciple to convert his studies and meditations, his reflections and intuitions, into practical deeds and beneficial accomplishments than to receive these thoughts themselves and make them his own. The valuing process which seems to develop in this more mature person is in some ways very much like that in the infant, and in some ways quite different. It is fluid, flexible, based on this particular moment, and the degree to which this moment is experienced as enhancing and actualizing. Values are not held rigidly, but are continually changing. The painting which last year seemed meaningful now appears uninteresting, the way of working with individuals which was formerly experienced as good now seems inadequate, the belief which then seemed true is now experiences as only partly true, or perhaps false. #RandolphHarris 2 of 20
It is not so much that we have to change ourselves as to give up ourselves. We are so imperfect and faulty, so selfish and weak, so sinful and ignorant, that giving up our own selves means being more than willing to part with what is not worth keeping. However, to what are we to give them up and how are we to do it? We are to invoke the higher self, request it daily to take possession of our hearts, minds, and wills, and to strive actively to purify them. Much of our striving will be in the form of surrendering egoistic thoughts, impulses, and feelings by crushing them at the moment of birth. In that way we slowly give up our inner selves and submit the conduct of our outer selves to a higher will. If he fails to pass a test, or if he succumbs to a temptation, he should realise that there must be a defect in character or mentality which made such a failure possible. Even though the test or temptation has been provided by the adverse powers, he ought not to lay the blame upon them but upon himself. For then he will seek out and destroy the defect upon which the blame really rests. After all, there must have been a corresponding inner weakness in him to have permitted him to become the victim of a temptation. Consequently it is often better not to ask for protection against the temptation. This simply hides and covers over the weakness and permits it to remain in his mental makeup. #RandolphHarris 3 of 20
It is better to ask for the strengthening of his own willpower, to cultivate it through a creative meditation excecise special directed to the purpose: he should picture the arousal and hardening of this willpower during the very moments of temptation by seeing himself emerge victorious by his own forces. As my class of prospective teachers learned, general principles are not as useful as sensitive discriminating reactions. One says, “With this little boy, I just felt I should be very firm, and he seemed to welcome that, and I felt good that I had been. But I’m not that way at all with the other children most of the time.” She was relying on her experiencing of the relationship with each child to guide her behaviour. I have already indicated, in going through the examples, how much more differentiated are the individual’s reactions to what were previously rather solid monolithic introjected values. In another way the mature individual’s approach is like that of the infant. The locus of evaluation is again established firmly within the person. It is his own experience which provides the value information or feedback. This does not mean that he is not open to all the evidence he can obtain from other sources. However, it means that this is taken for what it is—outside evidence—and is not as significant as his own reactions. Thus he may be told by a friend that a new book is very disappointing. He reads two unfavourable reviews of the book. Thus his tentative hypothesis is that he will not value the book. Yet if he reads the book his valuing will be based upon the reactions it stirs in him, not on what he has been told by others. #RandolphHarris 4 of 20
There is also involved in this valuing process a letting oneself down into the immediacy of what one is experiencing, endeavouring to sense and to clarify all its complex meanings. I think of a client who, toward the close of therapy, when puzzled about an issue, would put his head in his hands and say, “Now what is it that I’m feeling? I want to get next to it. I want to learn what it is.” Then he would wait, quietly and patiently, trying to listen to get close to himself. In getting close to what is going on within himself, the process is much more complex than it is in the infant. In the mature person, it has much more scope and sweep, for there is involved in the present moment of experiencing the memory traces of all the relevant learnings from the past. This moment has not only its immediate sensory impact, but it has meaning growing out of similar experiences in the past. It has both the new and the old in it. So when I experience a painting or persons, as well as the new impact of this particular encounter. Likewise the moment of experience contains, for the mature adult, hypotheses about consequences. “I feel now that I would enjoy a drink, but past learnings indicate that I may regret it in the morning.” “It is not pleasant to express forthrightly my negative feelings to this person, but past experience indicates that in a continuing relationship it will be helpful in the long run.” Past and future are both in this moment and entering into the valuing. #RandolphHarris 5 of 20
I find that in the person I am speaking of (and her again we see a similarity to the infant) the criterion of the valuing process is the degree to which the object of the experience actualizes the individual himself. Does it make him a richer, more complete, more fully developed person? This may sound as though it were a selfish or unsocial criterion, but it does not prove to be so, since deep and helpful relationships with others are experienced as actualizing. Like the infant, too, the psychologically mature adult trusts and uses the wisdom of his organism, with the difference that he is able to do so knowingly. If he can trust all of himself, he realizes his feeling and his intuitions may be wiser than his mind, that as a total person he can be more sensitive and accurate than his thoughts alone. Hence he is not afraid to say—“I feel that this experience (or this thing, or this direction) is good. Later I will probably know why I feel it is good.” He trusts the totality of himself. It should be evidence from what I have been saying that this valuing process in the mature individual is not an easy or simple thing. The process is complex, the choices often very perplexing and difficult, and there is no guarantee that the choice which is made will in fact prove to be self-actualizing. However, because whatever evidence exists is available to the individual, and because he is open to his experiencing, errors are correctable. If a chosen course of action is not self-enhancing this will be sensed and he can make an adjustment or revision. He thrives on a maximum feedback interchange, and thus, like the gyroscopic compass on a ship, can continually correct his course toward becoming more of himself. #RandolphHarris 6 of 20
One example that first set me to considering the possibility of self-analysis was Erich. Erich was a physician who came to me for analysis because of attacks of panic, which he tried to allay by taking morphine and cocaine; also he had spells of exhibitionistic impulses. There was no doubt that he had a severe neurosis. After some months of treatment, he went away on a vacation, and during this time he analysed by himself an attack of anxiety. The beginning of this piece of self-analysis was accidental, as it was in the case of John, whom we discussed in the previous reports. The starting point for Erich was a severe attack of anxiety, apparently provoked by a real danger. Erich was climbing a mountain with his girl. It was strenuous climbing but not dangerous as long as they could see clearly. It became perilous, however, when a snowstorm arose and they were enveloped in a thick fog. Erich then became short of breath, his hear pounded, he became panicky and finally had to lie down to rest. He did not give the incident any thought but vaguely ascribed the attack to his exhaustion and to the actual danger. If we want to be, this is an example, by the way, of how easily we may be satisfied with wrong explanations, for Erich was physically strong and anything but a coward in the face of an emergency. The next day they went on a narrow path hewn into the steep, rocky wall of the mountain. The girl went ahead. The heart pounding started again when Erich caught himself at a thought or impulse to push her down the cliffs. That naturally startled him, and, besides, he was devoted to her. #RandolphHarris 7 of 20
Erich thought first of Dreiser’s American Tragedy, in which the boy drowns hi girl in order to get rid of her. Then he thought of the attack of the previous day and barely recaptured a similar impulse he had checked it as it as it arose. He remembered clearly, however, a mounting irritation against the girl before the attack, and a sudden wave of hot anger, which he had pushed aside. This, then, was the meaning of the attack of anxiety: an impulse of violence born out of a conflict between a sudden hatred on the one hand, and, on the other, his genuine fondness for the girl. He felt relieved, and also proud for having analysed the first attack and stopped the second. Erich, in contrast to John, went a step farther, because he felt alarmed by his recognition of hatred and a murderous impulse toward the girl he loved. While continuing to walk he raised the question why he should want to kill her. Immediately a talk they had had the previous morning recurred to him. The girl had praised one of his colleagues for his clever dealing with people and for being a charming host at a party. That was all. And that could not have aroused this much hostility. Yet when thinking about it, he felt a rising anger. Was he jealous? However, there was no danger of losing her. This colleague, though, was taller than he, and non-Jewish (on both points he was hypersensitive), and he did have a clever tongue. #RandolphHarris 8 of 20
While Erich’s thoughts were meandering along these lines, he forgot his anger against the girl and focused his attention on comparing himself with the colleague. Then a scene occurred to him. He was probably four or five years old, and had tried to climb a tree but could not. His older brother had climbed it with ease and teased him from above. Another scene came back vividly when his mother praised this brother and he was left out. The older brother was always ahead of him. It must have been the same thing that infuriated him yesterday: he still could not stand to have any man praised in his presence. With this insight he lost his tenseness, could climb easily, and again felt tender toward the girl. Compared with the first example, the second achieved in one way more and in another less. Despite the greater superficiality of John’ self-analysis, he did take one step that Erich did not take. When John had accounted for the only particular situation, he did not rest satisfied: he recognised the possibility that all his headaches might result from a repressed anger. Erich did not go beyond the analysis of the one situation. It did not occur to him to wonder whether his finding had a bearing on other attacks of anxiety. On the other hand, the insight that Erich arrived at was considerably deeper than John’s. The recognition of the murderous impulse was a real emotional experience; he found at least an inkling of the reason for his hostility; and he recognized the fact that he was caught in a conflict. #RandolphHarris 9 of 20
In the second incident, too, one is astonished at the number of questions not touched upon. Granting that Erich became irritated at praise of another man, whence the intensity of the reaction? If that praise was the only source of his hostility, why was it such a threat to him as to arouse violence? Was he in the grip of an excessively great and excessively vulnerable vanity? If so, what were the deficiencies in him that needed so much covering up? The rivalry with the brother was certainly a significant historical factor, but insufficient as an explanation. The other side of the conflict, the nature of his devotion to the girl, is entirely untouched. Did he need her primarily for her admiration? How much dependency was involved in his love? Were there other sources of hostility toward her? What are the motivating forces which make man act in certain ways, the drives which propel him to strive in certain directions? It seems as if the answer to this question Marx and Dr. Freud find themselves furthest apart and that there is an insoluble contradiction between their two systems. Marx’s “materialistic” theory of history is usually understood to mean that man’s main motivation is his wish for material satisfaction, his desire to use and to have more and more. This greed for material things as man’s essential motivation is then contrasted with Dr. Freud’s concept according to which it is man’s appetite for pleasures of the flesh which constitutes his most potent motivation for action. #RandolphHarris 10 of 20
The desire for property on the one hand and the desire for satisfaction involving pleasures of the flesh on the other seem to be the two conflicting theories as far as much motivation is concerned. That this assumption is an oversimplifying distortion as far as Dr. Freud is concerned follows from what has been already said about this theory. Dr. Freud sees man as motivated by contradictions; by the contradiction between his striving for pleasures of the flesh and his striving for survival and mastery of his environment. When Dr. Freud later posited another factor which conflicted with the one’s already mentioned—the super-ego, the incorporated authority of the father and the norms he represented, this conflict became even more complicated. For Dr. Freud, then, man is motivated by forces conflicting with each other and by no means only by the desire for satisfactions of pleasures of the flesh. Dr. Freud again thought in terms of contradiction, that between the “life instinct” and the “death instinct” as the two forces battling constantly within man and motivating his actions. The cliché of Marx’s theory of motivation is even more drastic distortion of his thinking than the cliché of Dr. Freud’s. The distortion begins with the misunderstanding of the term “materialism.” This term and its counterpart, “idealism,” have two entirely different meanings, depending on the context in which they are applied. When applied to human attitudes, one refers to the “materialist” as one who is mainly concerned with the satisfaction of material strivings, and to the “idealist” as one who is motivated by an idea, that is, a spiritual or ethical motivation. #RandolphHarris 11 of 20
However, “materialism” and “idealism” have entirely different meanings in philosophical terminology, and “materialism” must he used in this meaning when one refers to Marx’s “historical materialism” (a term which, in fact, Marx himself never used). Philosophically, idealism means that one assumes ideas form the basic reality, and that the material Word which we perceive by means of our senses has no reality as such. For the materialism prevalent at the end of the nineteenth century matter was real, not ideas. Marx, in contrast to this mechanical materialism (which was also underlying Dr. Freud’s thinking), was not concerned with the causal relationship between matter and mind but with understanding all phenomena as results of the activity of real human beings. “In direct contrast to German philosophy,” Marx wrote, “which descends from the Heaven to Earth, here we ascend from Earth to Heaven. That is to say, we do not set out from what men imagine, conceive, in order to arrive at man in the flesh. We set out from real active men and on the basis of their real life process we demonstrate the development of the ideological reflexes and echoes of this life process.” Marx’s “materialism” implies that we begin our study of man with the real man as we find him, and not with his ideas about himself and the World by which he tries to explain himself. In order to understand how this confusion between personal and philosophical materialism could have arisen in the case of Marx, we must proceed further and consider Marx’s so-called “economic theory of history.” This term has been misunderstood to mean that, according to Marx, only economic motives determine man’s actions in the historical process; in other words, the “economic” factor has been understood to refer to a psychological, subjective motive, that of economic interests. #RandolphHarris 12 of 20
In government policy and strategy, the ideal is that foreign policy—and that means also military planning—are freed from the arbitrariness of the human will an entrusted to a computer system, which tells the “truth” since it is not fallible like men, nor has it any ax to grind. The ideal is that all foreign policy and military strategy are based on computer decision, and this implies that all the facts are known, considered, and made available to the computer. With this method, doubt becomes excluded, although disaster is by no means necessarily avoided. However, if disaster does happen after the decisions are made on the basis of unquestionably “facts,” it is like an act of God, which one must accept, since man cannot do more than make the best decision he knows how to make. It seems tome that these considerations are the only terms in which one can answer this puzzling question: How is it possible for our policy and strategy planners to tolerate the idea that at a certain point they may give orders the consequences of which will mean the destruction of their own families, most of America, and “at best” most of the industrialized World? If they rely on the decision the facts seem to have made for them, their conscience is cleared. However dreadful the consequences of their decisions may be, they need not have qualms about the rightness and legitimacy of the method by which they arrived at their decision. They act on faith, not essentially different from the faith on which the actions of the inquisitors of the Holy Office were based. #RandolphHarris 13 of 20
Like Dostoevsky’s Grand Inquisitor, some may even be tragic figures who cannot act differently, because they seen o other way of being certain that they do the best they can. The alleged rational character of our planners is basically not different from the religiously based decisions in a prescientific age. There is one qualification that must be made: both the religious decision, which is a blind surrender to God’s will and the computer decision, based on the faith in the logic of “facts,” are forms of alienated decisions in which man surrenders his own insight, knowledge, inquiry, and responsibility to an idol, be it God or the computer. The humanist religion of the prophets knew no such surrender; the decision was man’s. He had to understand his situation, see the alternatives, and then decide. True scientific rationality is not different. The computer can help man in visualizing several possibilities, but the decision is not made for him, not only in the sense that he can choose between the various models, but also in the sense that he must use his reason, relate to and respond to the reality with which he deals, and elicit from the computer those facts which are relevant from the standpoint of reason, and that means from the standpoint of sustaining and fulfilling man’s aliveness. The blind and irrational reliance on computer decision becomes dangerous in foreign policy as well as strategic planning when done by opponents, each of whom works with his own data-processing system. He anticipates the opponent’s moves, plans his own, and constructs scenarios for the X possibilities of moves on both sides. #RanolphHarris 14 of 20
He can construct his game in many ways: that of his side winning, a stalemate, or both losing. However, if either “wins” it is the end of both. While the purpose of the game is to achieve a stalemate, the rules of the game make a stalemate unlikely. Both players, by their methods and their need for certainty, give up the way which has been that of precomputer diplomacy and strategy: the dialogue—with its possibility of give and taken, open or veiled withdrawal, compromise, or even surrender when that is the only rational decision. With the present method, the dialogue, with all its possibilities for avoiding catastrophe, is ruled out. The action of the leaders is fanatical because it is pursued even to the point of self-destruction, although in a psychological sense they are not fanatics, because their actions are based on an emotion-free belief in the rationality (calculability) of the computer methods. There is a correlation with job of the psychologist. The clinical psychologist is exposed didactically (and casually, like any sentient person, through a myriad of cultural media) to the Freudian theory of psychopathology and to Freudian principles of psychoanalysis. If we focus too heavily on computer-based information and decision making, we risk alienating ourselves from our humanity and becoming psychopaths. This is why psychology focuses on the human relationships and communication. The goal is to help people become fully human. The psychologist, unlike the social worker and psychiatrist, is more likely to have his Freudian garden sprinkled from the watering cans of the dozen or so recognized variations on the theme, but the exfoliation does not serve to weaken his appreciation of Dr. Freud’s discoveries or his recognition of the fundamental principles of analytic therapy. #RandolphHarris 15 of 20
And, in the quiet of the consulting room, face-to-face with a candidate for therapeutic conversation, there are multiple reasons (ranging from the sheer pertinence and richness of the psychopathological concepts to the broadly social “prestige” of analytically oriented therapy) that cause the psychologist to tend to think and behave, in that moment of truth, more like a psychiatrist or social worker, and less like a psychologist. There are a few striking general consequences of the over-arching role of psychoanalytic doctrine in the preparation of current psychotherapists: a belief that psychoanalysis is the most powerful of all forms psychotherapy and that its primary limitation and restriction as the “therapy of choice” for psychoneurosis is a function of its cost and limited supply, not of its general appropriateness; a belief that distinctly psychoanalytically oriented psychotherapy is the next best to psychoanalysis; a belief that truly effective psychotherapy must be intensive, id est, it must entail frequent therapeutic sessions (usually weekly) over a long period of time; a belief that the gaining of insight by the patient is a primary goal and result of therapy; a belief that the major mechanism of therapy is in the nature of the therapist-patient relationship; a belief that the prognosis for psychotherapy rests upon the suitability of the patient which is defined generally in the same term as the good candidate for psychoanalysis. These generally accepted orientations, stemming from a shared theoretical bias, lead to common administrative and therapeutic practices on the part of psychiatrist, psychologist, and social worker. #RandolphHarris 16 of 20
There is a common preference to do “intensive” psychotherapy and there are common predilections (leading possibly to subtle therapeutic attitudes and maneuvers of which the therapist may be aware) to keep the patient “in treatment.” A fascinating side-effect of this peculiar bias has been a cluster of studies by psychologists which aim to identify at the outset jut which patients will remain in treatment and which will break off. The purpose of such studies could be to identify the short-term client with a view to providing a specific therapeutic experience for him. Generally, however, the implicit assumption in these studies is that patients who break off after only a few sessions are “failures” and could not possibly have derived any benefit from their limited exposure. The goal appears to be to find ways of selecting “good” patients for therapy, id est, those who come back interminably. (Contrary to what many experts might predict, the sudden administrative termination of “interminable” psychotherapy cases does not appear to precipitate acute disintegration.) If such psychological studies should achieve a high level of predictive accuracy, it would become possible for an increasing portion of psychotherapeutic time to be devoted to a decreasing number of patients! (Perhaps this is a rare example of an instance in which we may be thankful that the accuracy of psychometric prediction is not greater.) #RandolphHarris 17 of 20
Another result of the common theoretical bias is that all of these expert therapists have a marked preference to provide their services to the same sample (a very small portion of the total population of persons in need of psychological assistance). These “ideal” patients are not prominent among the clients of public clinics and hospitals. By contrast, the typical supplicant to a community psychiatric facility may present a set of attributes (such as level of education and verbal facility) that discourage the “depth-oriented” therapist from feeling that he can either effectively (or usefully?” establish a really therapeutic relationship. As a consequence, they are apt with such patients to effect the sort of brief and “incomplete” therapy of which they are disdainful. During therapy sessions, many patients often ask “How do I say no and mean it?” The basic rule here is to never go back on your answer of no. And the secret to this is not to allow anyone to continue to ask the same question you have already given the answer of no to. The way to enforce this is to add a consequence to asking the same question again. With a child, it is easy. “Ask again, you will not get any dessert after dinner.” An adult might be a little harder. If you put your mind to it, I am sure you can think of something they would not want to give up just so they could bug you about your answer. It has been said that ideas rule mankind. This is but a half-truth, but be as it may, it can be unhesitantly asserted that ideals rule the traveler on the quest. If they do not, then he is not embarked on the quest. However, an ideal is only an abstract conception. #RandolphHarris 18 of 20
Unselfishness, freedom, goodness, and justice are intangibles, and their practical application has altered from age to age according to the conditions prevailing in different times and places. An ideal must have a concrete shape or it becomes sterile. The Sacramento Fire Department has many ideals that are concrete. One person cannot rise in the ranks through the fire department without the support and respect of a large group of people. They do not let political opportunism interfere with the running of the fire department or the running of their lives. The Sacramento Fire Department has had a great line of chiefs of department. The chief of department is the highest uniform position, a competitive civil service position, and once an individual makes it, he or she is secure in the job and outside the authority of the mayor’s office. He or she represents safety of the city’s public. In critical situations the chief of the department is the person with responsibility. There is something that happens to a person when one becomes a firefighter. That something is that one begins to care about what one is doing, about the person one works with, and about the department’s reputation in ways that surprises, a depth of feeling that is entirely new. It is what feeling that enables people to enter burning buildings, and it is that feeling that will preserve the histories of fire departments throughout the land. It becomes a part of the human being, and part of every action. Any intelligent person can see that a firefighter is on the street to help people. #RandolphHarris 19 of 20
In a car accident, if you pull the alarm the fire engines usually come faster than the ambulance. The firefighter will pull somebody out of the car, it does not matter what kind of a mess the victim is in. One is well trained in emergency situations. The firefighter knows how to deal with people. One knows when to move an injured person and when not to, when to put on a splint and when not to. One is trained to make a fast assessment of an emergency situation. When a firefighter arrives at a fire and sees people on the fire escape in the front of the building, one automatically knows there will be people on the back fire escape and in trouble inside the building. One knows to think about what is not immediately seen. One is there only to help, and one is asked to help in all kinds of situations—not only fires but accidents, drug overdoses, shootings, knifings, injuries from whatever cause. So a young person coming out of high school sees all this, and asks oneself, “What is it that I really want to do?” And the fire department winds up getting the best people. Be sure to make a donation to the Sacramento Fire Department to ensure they receive the necessary resources. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, Under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. #RandolphHarris 20 of 20
The Winchester Mystery House
Kaefer lived in upstate New York. In 2007 a friend showed him a brochure concerning The Winchester Mystery House, and the house intrigued him. Since he was traveling to the Silicon Vallery, he decided to pay The Winchester Mystery House a visit. With his family, he drove to the house and parked the car in the parking lot. At that moment he had an eerie feeling that something was not right. Mind you, Kaefer had not been to the house before, had no knowledge about it, nor any indication that anything unusual occurred in it. The group of visitors was quite small. In addition to him and his family, there were two young college boys and one other couple. Even though it was a sunny day, Kaefer felt cold. “I felt a presence before we entered the house and before we heard the story from the guide,” he explained. “If I were a host there, I wouldn’t stay there alone for two consecutive minutes.” Kaefer had been to so many old houses and restorations before but had never felt as he did at The Winchester Mystery House.
It is not surprising the Sarah L. Winchester should be the subject of a number of psychic accounts. Probably the best known (and most frequently misinterpreted) story concerns Mrs. Winchester’s vision which came to her during the late 1800s. Mrs. Winchester was in the habit of meditating in her Blue Séance Room at times and saying her prayer when she was quite alone. On one of those occasions, she returned to the Daisy Bedroom more worried than usual. As she busied herself with her papers, she had the feeling of a presence in the room. Looking up, she saw opposite her a singularly handsome man. Since she had given orders not to be disturbed, she could not understand how he had gotten into the room. Although she questioned him several times, the visitor would not reply. As she looked at the apparition for what it was, she noticed it was her late husband and became more and more entranced with him, unable to make any more. Finally, she heard a voice saying, “Sarah, I love you.” At the same time, William Winchester extended his arm toward the east, and Mrs. Winchester saw what to her appeared like a blue mist at some distance.
As the mist dissipated, she saw various new additions to her mansion, a wide veranda and generous use of expansive windows and French doors, which offered views in every direction. A raised foyer directly overlooking the formal dining room and the living area. Special features like fireplaces with mini bricks, built-in shelves, a morning room, a door that opened to a two story fall into the garden, a staircase leading to an option third-floor area. And an exterior that boasts delicately turned rails and decorated upside-down columns. A unique gazebo projection off the covered porch to the north of the plan. She then noticed a dark, shadowy angel standing in the room of the witches’ cap, taking gold flakes out of water and sprinkling them on the wall. Then a dark cloud rose from the ground and enveloped her home. Sharp flashes of lightening became visible at intervals in the cloud. At the same time, Mrs. Winchester heard the anguished cries of departed souls. Next, William showed her an Observational Tower and legions of legions of angels descended from the Heavens, and William faded away.
Come and enjoy a delicious meal in Sarah’s Café, stroll along the paths of the beautiful Victorian gardens, and wonder through the miles of hallways in the World’s most mysterious mansion. For further information about tours, including group tours, weddings, school events, birthday party packages, facility rentals, and special events please visit the website: https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
Please visit the online giftshop, and purchase a gift for friends and relatives as well as a special memento of The Winchester Mystery House. A variety of souvenirs and gifts are available to purchase. https://shopwinchestermysteryhouse.com/
They Were Bloodsuckers—As Distasteful as Bedbugs!
The disciple who wishes to make real progress must attack, weaken, and ultimately destroy certain bad traits of character. Among them is the trait of jealousy of his fellow disciples. It is not only an unpleasant thought but may also end in disastrous consequences. It often leads to wrathful moods and raging spells. It not only harms the other disciple but always does harm to the sinner himself. It is caused by an unreasonable sense of possessiveness directed towards the teacher which does not understand that love should give freedom to him, not deny it to him. The pursuit of moral excellence is immeasurably better than the pursuit of mystical sensations. Its gains are more durable, more indispensable, and more valuable. I believe that over time most people accumulate the introjected patterns by which we live. In this fantastically complex culture of today, the patterns we introject as desirable or undesirable come from a variety of sources and are often highly contradictory in their meanings. Desires for pleasures of the flesh and behaviours are mostly bad. The sources of this construct are many—parents, church, teachers. Disobedience is bad. Here parents and teachers combine with the military to emphasize this concept. To obey is good. To obey without questions is even better. Making money is the highest good. The sources of this conceived value are too numerous to mention. Learning an accumulation of scholarly facts is highly desirable. Browsing and aimless exploratory reading for fun is undesirable. The source of these last two concepts is apt to be in school, the education system. #RanolphHarris 1 of 20
Abstract art or “pop” art, or “op” art is good. Here the people we regard as sophisticated are the originators of the value. Communism is utterly bad. Here the government is a major source. To love thy neighbour is the highest good. This concept comes from the church, perhaps from the patents. Cooperation and teamwork are preferable to acting alone. Here companions are an important source. Cheating is clever and desirable. The peer group again is the origin. Coca-Colas, chewing gum, electric refrigerators, and Ultimate Driving Machines are utterly desirable. This conception comes not only from advertisements, but is reinforced by people all over the World. From Jamacia to Japan, from Copenhagen to Kowloon, the “Coca-Cola culture” has come to be regarded as the acme of desirability. This is a small and diversified sample of the myriads of conceived values which individuals often introject, and hold as their own, without ever having considered their inner organismic reactions to those patterns and objects. I believe it will be clear from the foregoing that the usual adult—I feel I am speaking for most of us—has an approach to values which has these characteristics: The majority of his values are introjected, from other individuals or groups significant to him, but are regarded by him as his own. The source of locus of evaluation on most matters lies outside himself. The criterion by which his values are set is the degree to which they will cause him to be loved or accepted. These conceived preferences are either not related at all, or not clearly related, to his own process of experiencing. #RandolphHarris 2 of 20
Often there is a wide and unrecognized discrepancy between the evidence supplied by his own experience, and these conceived values. Because these conceptions are not open to testing in experience, he must hold them in a rigid and unchanging fashion. The alternative would be a collapse of his values. Hence his values are “right”—like the law of the Medes and the Persians, which changeth not. Because they are untestable, there is no ready way of solving contradictions. If he has taken in from the community the conception that money is the summum bonum and from the church the conception that love of one’s neighbour is the highest value, he has no way of discovering which has more value for him. Hence a common aspect of modern life is living with absolutely contradictory values. We calmly discuss the possibility of dropping a hydrogen bomb on Russia, but then find tears in our eyes when we see headlines about the suffering of one small child. Because he has relinquished the locus of evaluation to others, and had lost touch with his own valuing process, he feels profoundly insecure and easily threatened in his values. If some of these conceptions we destroyed, what would take their place? This threatening possibility makes him hold his value conceptions more rigidly or more confusedly, or both. #RandolphHarris 3 of 20
I believe that this picture of the individual, with values mostly introjected, held as fixed concepts, rarely examined or tested, is the picture of most of us. By taking over the conceptions of others as our own, we lose contact with the potential wisdom of our own functioning, and lose confidence in ourselves. Since these values constructs are often sharply at variance with what is going on in our own experiencing, we have in a very basic way divorced ourselves from ourselves, and this accounts for much of modern strain and insecurity. This fundamental discrepancy between the individual’s concepts and what he is actually experiencing, between the intellectual structure of his values and the valuing process going on unrecognized within him—this is a part of the fundamental estrangement of modern man from himself. This is a major problem for the therapist. There are five ways in which the human being progressively views his own self and consequently five graduated ethical stages on his quest. First, as an ignorant materialist he lives entirely within his personality and hence for personal benefit regardless of much hurt caused to others in order to secure this benefit. Second, as an enlightened materialist he is wrapped in his own fortunes but does not seek them at the expense of others. Third, as a religionist he perceives the impermanence of the ego and, with a sense of sacrifice, he dines his self-will. Fourth, as a mystic he acknowledges the existence of a higher power, God, but finds it only within himself. Fifth, as a philosopher he recognizes the universality and the oneness of being in others and practices altruism with joy. #RandolphHarris 4 of 20
However, after all, these qualities are not only the negative prerequisites of spiritual realization. They are not realization itself. Their attainment is to free oneself from defects that hinder the attainment of higher consciousness, not to possess oneself of true consciousness. The act must illustrate the man, the deed must picture the attitude. It is thus only that thought becomes alive. The more I travel and observe the more I come to believe that the only men who will make something worthwhile of philosophy are the men who have already made something worthwhile of their personal lives. The dreamers and cranks will only fool themselves, the failures and alibi chasers will only become confirmed in their fantasies. Many people talk mysticism or play with psychism so long as either promises them wonderful powers which most other people have not got or wonderful experiences which most other people do not have. However, when they come to philosophy and find that it demands from them a renovation of their entire character, they are seized with fear and retreat. Philosophy I not for such people, for it does not conform to their wishes. It tells them what they do not like to hear. It disturbs their egoistic vanity and troubles their superficial serenity when it throws a glaring spotlight to their lower nature, their baser motives, and their ugly weaknesses. #RandolphHarris 5 of 20
While the aspirant fails to take an inventory of his weaknesses and consequently fails to build into his character the attributes needed, much of hi mediation will be either fruitless or a failure or even harmful. That it is not enough for men to think truth, that they mut also feel it, is a statement with which mot scientists, being intellect-bound, would disagree. However, artist, mystics, true philosophers, and religious devotees would accept it. People must be taught to be good and do good before they are taught to venture into the maze of the real World. And even when they emerge safely from a territory where so many lose themselves utterly, religions is useful in brining them back to ethical values albeit now of a much higher kind because it is based on utter unselfishness. For love must marry knowledge, pity must shed its warm rays upon the cold intellect. Enlightenment of others must be the price of one’s own enlightenment. These things are not easily felt by the mystic, who is often too absorbed in his own ecstasies to notice the miseries of others, or by the metaphysician, who is often too tied by his own verbosity to his hard and rigorous logic to realize that mankind is not merely an abstract noun but is made up of flesh-and-blood individuals. The philosopher however finds these benign altruistic needs to be an essential part of truth. Consequently the salvation which he seeks—from ignorance and the attendant miseries that dog its steps—is not for himself but for the whole World. #RandolphHarris 6 of 20
It does not necessarily mean that he has faults to repair or weaknesses to overcome. It may mean that there is some lack in him, some quality or capacity that he needs to cultivate. The real choice, decision, judgment, is made n the subconscious mind. Impulses come from it and character is formed in it. Despite all the repetitious assertions that there is no go, that the person is a fiction, that the goal is pure being unsullied by the self-illusion, here—in the various manifested signs of an individual character in a separate body—is evidence to the contrary. Accept fully and without demur your self-made universal consequences, even to the extent of refraining from asking to be forgiven your sins, for it is just a result. Ask instead to be shown how to overcome the weakness which had been the cause. Singly if that proves enough, combined is not, when negative or degrading or weakening suggestions enter his mind, from whatever source, he can deal with them in two ways. The first is to tense his will and by a beneficial commanding mental act master the suggestion and drive it away. The second is to turn away into its opposing idea and dwell firmly on that until the suggestion vanishes altogether. If, in spite of using these methods he is still defeated, then he can try remembering the Overself. Can he still carry out the evil suggestion while thinking of that serene divine presence? By aspiring to it for help and protection as fervently as he can, the negative idea may disintegrate like the ash of a piece of firewood. #RandolphHarris 7 of 20
A habit change or a thought change which is made under someone else’s persuasion and not out of inner need brought into the open by that other person, is only a surface one and will fade and fall away. If in some ways he learns to lessen egoism and practise humility, in other ways he gains a larger easier assurance. If he is now willing, to a certain extent, to be deflated, he feels he is standing nonchalantly and calmly on firmer ground than before. Perhaps this is all a play, not to be taken too seriously, for the real trial, the worst test, the last great agony, will come later—either through the terrible loneliness of the Dark Night of the Soul, or the painful crucifixion of the ego before Ascension, Liberation, and Fulfilment. If each attack of adverse force, each temptation that tries a weakness, is instantly met with the Shorth Path attitude, he will have an infinitely better chance of overcoming it. The secret is to remember the Overself, to turn the battle over to IT. Then, what he is unable to conquer by himself, wil be easily conquered for him by the higher power. The question is whether he is to accept he baser weaknesses as human or whether he is to struggle against them as unworthy of a human being. We must so centralize our own consciousness as to render it strong against the onslaughts of outside suggestion, immune to the promptings of crowd and the dictation of places. Thus we learn to be our own true self not only at home, where it is easy, but also in the street and in others’ homes, where it is hard. Thus we become truly individualizes. Thus we are always serene among the anxious, good amongst the wicked. #RandolphHarris 8 of 20
Like a rock so firmly embedded that it cannot be moved by human force but can only be blasted by dynamite, his moral character must be embedded in the great Truth. Some individuals are fortunate in going beyond the picture I have just given, developing further in the direction of psychological maturity. We see this happen in psychotherapy where we endeavour to provide a climate favourable to the growth of the person. We also see it happen in life, whenever life provides a therapeutic climate for the individual. When we concentrate on this further maturing of a value approached as I have seen in therapy, a few things become evident. In the first place let me say somewhat parenthetically that the therapeutic relationship is not devoid of values. Quite the contrary. When it is most effective, it seems to me, it is marked by one primary value: namely, that this person, this client, has worth. He as a person is valued in his separateness and uniqueness. It is when he senses and realizes that he is prized as a person that he can slowly begin to value the different aspects of himself. Most importantly, he can begin, with much difficulty at first, to sense and to feel what is going on within him, what he is feeling, what he is experiencing, how he is reaching. He uses his experiencing as a direct referent to which he can turn in forming accurate conceptualizations and as a guide to his behaviour. As his experiencing becomes more and more open to him, as he is able to live more freely in the process of his feelings, then significant changes begin to occur in his approach to values. It begins to assume many of the characteristics it had in infancy. #RandolphHarris 9 of 20
Perhaps I can indicate this by reviewing a few of the brief examples of introjected values which I have given, and suggesting what happens to them as the individual comes closer to what is going on within him. The individual in therapy looks back and realizes, “But I enjoyed pulling my sister hair—and that doesn’t make me a bad person.” The student failing chemistry realizes, as he gets close to his own experiencing—“I don’t value being a doctor, even though my parents do; I don’t like chemistry; I don’t like taking steps toward being a doctor; and I am not a failure for having these feelings.” The adult recognizes that desires for pleasures of the flesh and behaviour may be richly satisfying and permanently enriching in their consequences, or shallow and temporary and less than satisfying. He goes by his own experiencing, which does not always coincide with the social norms. He considers art from a new value approach. He says, “This picture moves me deeply, means a great deal to me. It also happens to be an abstraction, but that is not the basis for my valuing it.” He recognizes that this communist book or person has attitudes and goals which he shares as well as ideas and values which he does not share. He realizes that at times he experiences cooperation as meaningful and valuable to him, and that at other times he wishes to be alone and act alone. #RandolphHarris 10 of 20
As the examples will indicate, the disturbances that produce an attempt at examination may be acute or of long standing; they may result predominantly from actual difficulties inherent in a situation or they may be expressions of a chronic neurosis. Compared with the preconditions for a systematic self-analysis, those for occasional analysis are moderate. It suffices to have some psychological knowledge, and this need not be book knowledge but may be gained from ordinary experience. The only indispensable requirement is a willingness to believe that unconscious factors may be sufficiently powerful to throw the whole personality out of gear. To put it negatively, it I necessary not to be too easily satisfied with ready-at-hand explanations for a disturbance. A man, for instance, who has become inordinately upset about being cheated. A person suffering from an acute depression must be skeptical about explaining his state on the basis of World conditions. Habitual forgetting of appointments is not very well explained by saying that one is too busy to remember. It is particularly easy to brush aside those symptoms that are not obviously psychic in character, such as headaches to weather conditions, fatigue to overwork, stomach upsets to spoiled food or gastric ulcers, without even considering the possibility that psychic factors are involved. This attitude may be assumed because of sheer ignorance, but also it is a characteristic neurotic tendency in persons who cannot tolerate the idea of any unevenness or flaw in themselves. #RandolphHarris 11 of 20
At the other extreme are those who are convinced that every disturbance is psychic in origin. For such a person it is out of the question that he might be tired because of an overdose of hectic work, that he might have caught a cold because he was exposed to a too vigorous infection. He cannot tolerate the idea that any external factor can have the power to affect him. If any disturbance befalls him it is because he himself has brought it about; and if a symptom is psychic in origin it is in his own power to remove it. Needles to say, both attitudes are compulsive and the most constructive attitude is somewhere between them. We may feel genuinely concerned about World conditions, though such a concern should drive us into action and not into a depression. We may feel tired because of too much work and too little sleep. We may have headaches because of a bad eye condition or a brain tumor. Certainly no physical symptom should be attributed to psychic factors before the medical explanation is thoroughly investigated. The important point is that with full regard for the plausible explanation one should also take a good look into one’s emotional life. Even if the difficulty is a case of flu it might be helpful, after giving it the proper medical attention, to raise the question whether some unconscious psychic factors were present, operating to lower resistance to infection or to retard recovery. #RandolphHarris 12 of 20
With these general considerations are borne in mind, it will help us understand case studies. To further highlight this illustration, John, a good-natured businessman, apparently happily married for five years, suffered from diffuse inhibitions and “inferiority feelings” and in recent years had developed occasional headaches without any detectable physical basis. He had not been analyzed but he was fairly familiar with the psychoanalytic way of thinking. Later he came to me for analysis of a rather intricate character neurosis, and his experience in working alone was one of the factors that convinced him of the possible value of psychoanalytic therapy. When he started to analyze his headaches, it was without intending to do so. He, his wife, and two friends went to a musical comedy and he developed a headache during the play. This struck him as queer because he had felt well before going to the theater. At first, with some irritation, he ascribed his headache to the fact that the play was bad and the evening was a waste of time, but he soon realized that after all one does not get headaches from a bad play. Now that he thought about it, the play was not so bad after all. However, of course, it was nothing compared with the play of Shaw’s that he would have preferred. These last words stuck in his mind—he “would have preferred.” Here he felt a flash of anger and saw the connection. He had been overruled when the choice between the plays was up for discussion. It was not even much of a discussion: he felt he should be a good sport, and what did it matter anyhow. #RandolphHarris 13 of 20
Apparently it had mattered to him, however, and he had been deeply angry about being coerced. With that recognition, the headache was gone. He realized also that this was not the first headache that originated in this way. There were bridge parties, for instance, which he hated to join but was persuaded to do so. He was startled to discover this connection between repressed anger and headaches, but he gave it no further thought. A few days later, however, he work up early, again with a splitting headache. He had attended a staff meeting of his organization the night before. They had been drinking afterward, and at first he accounted for the headache by telling himself that probably he had drunk too much. With that he turned on the other side and tried to fall asleep again, but he could not. A fly buzzing around his face irritated him. At first the irritation was barely noticeable, but it grew rapidly to full-blown anger. Then he recalled a dream or a dream fragment: he had squashed two bedbugs with a piece of blotting paper. The blotting paper had many holes. As a matter of fact, he remembered that the holes were all over the paper and formed a regular pattern. This reminded him of tissue paper that he had folded as a child, for cutting out patterns. He was quite taken by their beauty. An incident emerged in which he had shown the tissue to his mother, expecting admiration, but she had paid only perfunctory attention. The blotting paper then reminded him of the staff meeting. There he had scribbled on paper because he felt bored. No, he had not merely scribbled; he had drawn small caricatures of the chairman and of his opponent. #RandolphHarris 14 of 20
The word “opponent” struck him, because he had not consciously regarded that person as an opponent. A resolution had been voted on, about which he felt vaguely uneasy. However, he saw no clear objection to it. Hence the objection he had raised was actually not to the point. It was weak and made no impression. Only now he realized that they had put something over on him, for the acceptance of the resolution meant a lot of tedious work for himself. They had been so clever that it had escaped him. At this point he suddenly laughed because he recognized the meaning of the bedbugs. The chairman and the opponent—they were bloodsuckers, as distasteful as bedbugs. Also, he was as afraid of bedbugs as he was of these exploiters. Well, he had taken revenge—at least in his dream. Again the headache vanished. One three subsequent occasions he searched for a hidden anger as soon as the headache started, found the anger and then lost his headache. After that the headaches disappeared entirely. In reviewing this experience one is struck at first by the lightness of the labour in comparison with the result attained. However, miracles occur in psychoanalysis as seldom as anywhere else. Whether a symptom can be easily removed depends on its function in the whole structure. It this case the headaches had not assumed any further role, such as preventing John from doing things he was afraid of doing or resented doing, or serving as a means of demonstrating to others that they had given offense or inflicted injury, or serving as a basis for demanding special consideration. #RandolphHarris 15 of 20
If headaches or any other symptoms have assumed important functions such as these, their cure will require long and penetrating work. One will then have to analyze all the needs they satisfy and they will probably not disappear until the work is practically finished. In John’s case they have not assumed any such functions, and probably resulted merely from tension increased by the repressed anger. The extent of John’s accomplishment is diminished also by another consideration. It was a gain, certainly, to be rid of the headaches, but it seems to me that we are inclined to overrate the significance of such gross, tangible symptoms and to underrate the importance of less tangible psychic disturbances, such as, in this case, John’s alienation from his own wishes and opinions and his inhibition toward self-assertion. In these disturbances, which later proved to be highly significant for his life and his development, nothing was changed by his work. All that happened was that he became somewhat more aware of rising angers and that his symptoms disappeared. Actually, any of the incidents that John happened to analyze could have yielded more insight than he gained from them. Thus in his analysis of the anger that emerged during the musical comedy, there were numerous questions that he failed to touch on. What was the real nature of his relationship with his wife? Was the compatibility, of which he was proud, due only to compliance on his part? Was she domineering? Or was he merely hypersensitive to anything resembling coercion? #RandolphHarris 16 of 20
Furthermore, why did he repress his anger? Was it necessary because of a compulsive need for affection? Was he apprehensive of a rebuke from his wife? Did he have to maintain an image of himself as a person who was never disturbed by “trifles”? Was he afraid of having to fight for his wishes? Finally, was he really only angry at the others for having overruled him, or was he primarily angry at himself for having given in because of sheer weakness? The analysis of the anger following the staff meeting might also have opened up further problems. When they were jeopardized, why was he not more alert to his own interests? Again, was he afraid to fight for them? Or had the anger such dimensions—squashing the bedbugs—that it was safer to repress it altogether? Also, did he lay himself open to exploitation by being too compliant? Or did he experience something as exploitation which was actually merely a legitimate expectation of his condition? Furthermore, what about his wish to impress others—the memory of expecting admiration from his mother? Was his failure to impress his colleagues an essential element in his anger? And to what extent was he angry at himself for having been so unassertive? None of these problems was touched upon. When he had discovered the effect of repressed anger at others, John let the matter rest. After a lifetime of World-wandering, after a varied experience among different faces of people and in different classes of society, we have come to the firm and settled conviction that what is most to be looked for in a man is character. The best test of character is neither intellectual hairsplitting nor emotional, wordy gush, not high-flown idealistic professions, nor flowery mystical pretensions, but deeds. #RandolphHarris 17 of 20
The Sacramento Fire Department has saved the community from so many disasters. On one occasion, there was a small fire in a closet on the fourth floor of a building. There was a lot of smoke, but there seem to be just a bunch of papers and rubbish in there. What no one knew was that it had purposely been set and that there was a lot of gasoline poured onto the closet floor and the floor of a near bathroom. Three members from the engine company were in the room, but none of them smelled the gasoline because of the smoke. The three guys started to extinguish the fire just as the heat got to the gasoline. The gasoline exploded, and the whole room went on fire. Two of the guys got to the door and were safe, but the fire expanded so rapidly, it cut the third guy off, and he ended up at the window. Unless you have had the experience, you will never believe how quickly a fire can move through a room, two rooms, three rooms. This firefighter we will call number 1, was at the window yelling, and Ladder 1 began to put it tower ladder up. That is a long boom with a platform at the end of it, with room enough for four or five fighters to stand. There were two firefighters on the platform, raising it. As it reached the third floor, firefighter number 1, now framed in the fourth-floor window, was on fire, and he could not wait the extra five seconds for the tower ladder to get him. He was forced to jump. He jumped into the bucket and hit one of the guys there, Lt. 1, breaking his leg. However, even with a broken leg, Lt. 1 was able to grab an extinguishing can and put out the flames on the burning firefighter. Fire fighter number 1 had his fire-safe coat on, but it was the clothes beneath it, his pants and his shirt, that were on fire. All this happened from a very little fire in a closet in a multi-family, low-rise, housing building. #RandolphHarris 18 of 20
When the firefighter was visited at the Burn Center, he was terribly burned on his arms and shoulders, and on the bottom part of his body around his buttocks and the backs of his legs. He was very courageous. You would have to be in such a situation. You really do muster up extraordinary strength in times of personal crisis. There is a spiritual part of firefighters, and when they get hurt seriously, they realize how fragile they are as human beings, and they rely on this spirituality to bring forth the dignity of their souls. This firefighter was in great pain, but he was also very funny. He said his wife was concerned about his being in the burn center with all these beautiful nurses. However, e reassured her. He said that a nurse who is tearing the burned layers of skin off your body, inch by painful inch, no matter how gorgeous she is, is never going to be thought of as anybody but a person who is tearing off the top layer of your skin, inch by painful inch. Sometimes people get killed. Every firefighter has to deal with the death of a brother or sister firefighter at some point in his or her life. In America, a firefighter dies in the line of duty every other day. Many have been to several funerals. It is hard to look at the surviving children of firefighters and thinking that they will live with the memory of their father giving his life in a job that cared about him. The only standing room one will find at a firefighter’s funeral is out in the street, down the block. A firefighter recalled when 11 firefighters died in the line of duty. It was a terrible scene when they were searching for the bodies. Firefighters could recall the bodies coming out, one by one. #RandolphHarris 19 of 20
As if the bodies were passing were passing in review, the hundreds of firefighters who were there took off their helmets. The floors of the building had collapsed, taking these firefighters down into the bowels of the fire. There was quiet in the immediate vicinity as their bodies came out. When it came time for the funerals, many firefighters were dismayed at how little the city had done to make those thousands of visiting firefighters welcome. The firehoses alone had taken them in, given them something to eat, and made them feel at home. Therefore, before to show your support for the Sacramento Fire Department by voting for Assembly Member Kevin McCarty. He is endorsed by the Sacramento Fire Department, and his focus is on affordable housing and getting people without homes into a home. A vote for McCarty is a way of showing support for the Sacramento Fire Department. And if you can, please make a donation to the Sacramento Fire Department and keep those who have been injured, disabled, or killed on the job in your prayers. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic, for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Though it is not incumbent upon you to complete the work, you are not free from doing all you possibly can to honour God. Judge a man by his deeds, and you will not be led to false judgment. Say little and do much, for by your deeds shall you be judged. If you are wise and rich, let your good deeds reveal your wisdom and wealth. Honour a man for what he is; but honour him more for what he does. #RandolphHarris 20 of 20
Many people have laughed at caretakers for believing in ghosts. Skeptics think the noises to be the product of their over-active imaginations. However, they also begin to hear them when they spent time in The Winchester Mystery House. One skeptic reported after hearing them, “the groans, squeaks, tingling and knockings were frightful enough.” One caretake was locking up the mansion one night, when there came a sound from one of the six kitchens as of a large lump or lumps of coal being splintered and smashed onto the floor. He and one of the other caretakers went through the entire mansion, but could find nothing to explain the sounds; no guests were in the house. Upon hearing the sound of bottles breaking beneath the stairs, when no one was in the house, they ran in fright into an office.
Then they heard the sound of a man walking slowly past them; then going down the grand staircase, then up the back stairs and up the stairs to the ceiling. Soon after this, they heard in the corner of a room, as it were the violent rocking of a cradle; as far as anyone knows, no cradle has ever been in the house. Two caretakers were sitting in one of the dining rooms, on a later occasion, when they heard the sound of loud raps coming from the outside of the door and on the ceiling overhead.
Come and enjoy a delicious meal in Sarah’s Café, stroll along the paths of the beautiful Victorian gardens, and wonder through the miles of hallways in the World’s most mysterious mansion. For further information about tours, including group tours, weddings, school events, birthday party packages, facility rentals, and special events please visit the website: https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
Please visit the online giftshop, and purchase a gift for friends and relatives as well as a special memento of The Winchester Mystery House. A variety of souvenirs and gifts are available to purchase. https://shopwinchestermysteryhouse.com/
You are Not the Problem!
Life on Earth did not happen by mistake. You are here as part of God’s plan of happiness for all of us. Little by little, in tranquil moments or in deliberate meditation, there will come to one the revelation of errors in conduct and thought which, until then, one did not know were errors. Values refer to the tendency of any living beings to show preference in their actions, for one kind of object or objective rather than another. This preferential behaviour is called “operative values.” It need not involve any cognitive or conceptual thinking. It is simply the value of choice which is indicated behaviourally when the organism select one object, rejects another. When the earthworm, placed in a simple Y maze, chooses the smooth arm of the Y, instead of the path which is paved with sandpaper, he is indicating an operative value. A second use of the term might be called “conceived values.” This is the preference of the individual for a symbolized object. Usually in such a preference there is anticipation of foresight of the outcome of behaviour directed toward such a symbolized object. Usually in such a preference there is anticipation or foresight of the outcome of behaviour directed toward such a symbolized object. A choice such as “Honesty is the best policy” is such a conceived value. A final use of the term might be called “objective value.” People use the word in this way when they wish to speak of what is objectively preferable, whether or not it is in fact sensed or conceived of as desirable. #RandolphHarris 1 of 18
The living human being has, at the outset, a clear approach to values. He prefers some things and experiences, and rejects others. We can infer from studying his behaviour that he prefers those experiences which maintain, enhance, or actualize his organism, and rejects those which do not serve this end. What him for a bit: Hunger is negatively valued. His expression of this often comes through loud and clear. Food is positively valued. However, when he is satisfied, food is negatively valued, and the same milk he responded to so eagerly is now spit out, or the breast which seemed so satisfying to the infant is now rejected as he turns his head away from the nipple with an amusing facial expression of disgust and revulsion. He values security, and holding and caressing which seem to communicate security. He values new experience for its own sake, and we observe this in his obvious pleasure in discovering his toes, in his searching movements, in his endless curiosity. He shows a clear negative valuing of pain, bitter tastes, sudden loud sounds. All of this is commonplace, but let us look at these facts in terms of what they tell us about the infant’s approach to values. It is first of all a flexible, changing, valuing process, not a fixed system. He likes food and dislikes the same food. He values security and rest, and rejects it for new experience. What is going on seems best described as an organismic valuing process, in which each element, each moment of what he is experiencing is somehow weighed, and selected or rejected, depending on whether, at this moment, it tends to actualize the organism or not. #RandolphHarris 2 of 18
This complicated weighing of experience is clearly an organismic, not a conscious or symbolic function. These are operative, not conceived values. However, this process can none the less deal with complex value problems. I would remind you of the experiment in which young infants had spread in front of them a score of more of dishes of natural (that is, unflavoured) foods. Over a period of time they clearly tended to value the foods which enhanced their own survival, growth, and development. If for a time a child gorged himself on starches, this would seen be balanced by a protein “binge.” If at times he chose a diet deficient in some vitamin, he would later seek out foods rich in this very vitamin. He was utilizing the wisdom of the body in his value choices, or perhaps more accurately, the physiological wisdom of his body guided his behavioural movements, resulting in what we might think of as objectively sound value choices. Another aspect of the infant’s approach to value is that the source of locus of the evaluating process is clearly within himself. Unlike many of us, he knows what he likes and dislikes, and the origin of these value choices lies strictly within himself. He is the center of the valuing process, the evidence for his choices being supplied by his own senses. He is not at this point influenced by what his parents think he should prefer, or by what the church says, or by the opinion of the latest “expert” in the field, or by the persuasive talents of an advertising firm. It is from within his own experiencing that his organism is saying in non-verbal terms, “This is good for me.” “That is bad for me.” “I like this.” “I strongly dislike that.” He would laugh at our concern over values, he could understand it. How could anyone fail to know what he liked and disliked, what was good for him an what was not? #RandolphHarris 3 of 18
What happens to this highly efficient, soundly based valuing process? By what sequence of events do we exchange for the more rigid, uncertain, inefficient approach to value which characterizes most of us as adults? The infant needs love, wants it, tends to behave in ways which will bring repetition of this wanted experience. By this brings complications. He pulls baby sister’s hair, and finds it satisfying to hear her wails and protests. He then hears that he is a “naughty, bad boy,” and this may be reinforced by a time out. He is cut off from affection. As this experience is repeated, and many, many others like it, he gradually learns that what “feels good” is often “bad” in the eyes of others. Then the next step occurs, in which he comes to take the same attitude toward himself which the others have taken. Now, as he pulls his sister’s hair, he solemnly intones, “Bad, bad boy.” He is introjecting the value judgment of another, taking it has his own. He has deserted the wisdom of his organism, giving up the locus of evaluation and is trying to behave in terms of values set by another, in order to hold love. Or take another example at an older level. A boy senses, though perhaps not consciously, that he is more loved and prized by his parents when he thinks of being a doctor than when he thinks of being an artist. Gradually he introjects the values attached to being a doctor. He comes to want, above all, to be a doctor. Then in college he is baffled by the fact that he repeatedly fails in chemistry, which is absolutely necessary to becoming a physician, in spite of the fact that the guidance counselor assure him he has the ability to pass the course. Only in counseling interviews does he begin to realize how completely he has lost touch with his organismic reactions, how out of touch he is with his own valuing process. #RandolphHarris 4 of 18
Let me give another instance from a class of mine, a group of prospective teachers. I asked them at the beginning of the course, “Please list for me the two or three values which you would most wish to pass on to the children with whom you will work.” They turned in many value goals, but I was inspired by some of the items. Several listed such things as “to speak correctly,” “to use good English, not to use work like ain’t.” Others mentioned neatness—“to do things according to instructions”; one explained her hope that “When I tell them to write their own names in the upper right-hand corner with the date under it, I want them to do it that way, not in some other form.” I confess I was somewhat appalled that for some of these girls the most important values to be passed on to pupils were to avoid bad grammar, or meticulously to follow teacher’s instructions. I felt baffled. Certainly these behaviours had not been experienced as the most satisfying and meaningful element in their own lives. The listings of such values could only be accounted for by the fact that these behaviours had gained approval—and thus had been introjected as deeply important. Perhaps these several illustrations will indicate that in an attempt to gain or hold love, approval, esteem, the individual relinquishes the locus of evaluation which was his in infancy, and places it in others. He learns to have a basic distrust for his own experiencing as a guide to his behaviour. He learns from others a large number of conceived values, and adopts them as his own, even though they may be widely discrepant from what he is experiencing. Because these concepts are not based on his own valuing, they tend to be fixed and rigid, rather than fluid and changing. #RandolphHarris 5 of 18
To analyze oneself occasionally comparatively easy and sometimes productive of immediate results. Essentially it is what every sincere person does when he tries to account for real motivations behind the way he feels or acts. If anything, without knowing much about psychoanalysis, a man who has fallen in love with a particularly attractive or wealth girl could raise with himself the question whether vanity or money plays a part in his feeling. A man who has ignored his better judgement and given in to his wife or his colleagues in an argument could question in his own mind whether he yielded because he was convinced of the comparative insignificance of the subject at stake or because he was afraid of an ensuing fight. I suppose people have always examined themselves in this way. And many people do so who otherwise tend to reject psychoanalysis entirely. The principal domain of occasional self-analysis is not the intricate involvements of the neurotic character structure, but the gross manifest symptoms, the concrete and usually acute disturbance which either strikes one’s curiosity or commands one’s immediate attention because of its distressing character. Thus the examples reported in this report concern a functional headache, an acute attack of anxiety, a lawyer’s fear of public performances, an acute functional stomach upset. However, a startling dream, the forgetting of an appointment, or an inordinate irritation at a taxidriver’s trivial cheating might just as well elicit a wish to understand oneself—or, more precisely, to discover the reasons responsible for that particular effect. #RandolphHarris 6 of 18
This latter distinction may seem hairsplitting, but actually is expresses an important difference between occasional grappling with a problem and systematic work at oneself. The goal of occasional self-analysis is to recognize those factors that provoke a concrete disturbance, and remove them. The broader incentive, the wish to be better equipped to deal with life in general, may operate here too, but even if it plays some role it is restricted to the wish to be less handicapped by certain fears, headaches, or other inconveniences. This is in contrast to the much deeper and more beneficial desire to develop to the best of one’s capacities. One of the greatest factors of the importance for the understanding of man’s behaviour in present society: man’s need for certainty. Man is not equipped with a set of instincts that regulate his behaviour quasi-automatically. He is confronted with choices, and this means in all-important matters with grave risks to his life if his choices are wrong. The doubt that besets him when he must decide—often quickly—causes painful tension and can even seriously endanger his capacity for quick decisions. As a consequence, man has an intense need for certainty; he wants to believe that there is no need to doubt that the method by which he makes his decisions is right. In fact, he would rather make the “wrong” decision and be sure about it than the “right” decision and be tormented with doubt about its validity. This is one of the psychological reasons for man’s belief in idols and political leaders. They all take out doubt and risk from his decision making; this does not mean that there is not a risk for his life, freedom, etcetera, after the decision has been made, but that there is no risk that the method of his decision making was wrong. #RandolphHarris 7 of 18
For many centuries certainty was guaranteed by the concept of God. God, omniscient and omnipotent, had not only created the World but also announced the principles of human action about what which there was no doubt. The church “interpreted” these principles in detail, and the individual, securing his place in the church by following its rules, was certain that, whatever happened, he was on the way to salvation and to eternal life in Heaven. In the Luteran-Calvinistic branch of Christian theology, man was taught not to be afraid of the risk of using false criteria for his decision making in a paradoxical way. Luther, belittling man’s freedom and the role of his good works, taught that they only decision man has to make is to surrender his will totally to God, and thus to be released of the risk of making decisions on the basis of his own knowledge and responsibility. In Calvin’s concept, everything is predestined, and man’s decision does not really matter; yet his success is a sign that he is one of then chosen. With the beginning of the scientific approach and the corrosion of religious certainty, man was forced into a new search for certainty. At first, science seemed to be capable of giving a new basis for certainty. This was so for the rational man of the last centuries. However, with the increasing complexities of life, which lost all human proportions, with the growing feeling of individual powerlessness and isolation, the science-oriented man ceased to be a rational and independent man. He lost the courage to think for himself and to make decisions on the basis of his full intellectual and emotional commitment to life. He wanted to exchange the “uncertain certainty” which rational thought can give for an “absolute certainty”: the alleged “scientific” certainty, based on predictability. #RandolphHarris 8 of 18
This certainty is guaranteed not by man’s own unreliable knowledge and emotions but by the computers which permit prediction and become guarantors of certainty. Take as an example the planning of the big corporation. With the help of computers, it can plan ahead for many years (including the manipulation of man’s mind and taste); the manager does not have to rely any more on his individual judgment, but on the “truth” that is pronounced by the computers. The manager’s decision may be wrong in its results, but he need not be distrustful of the decision-making processes. He feels that he is free to accept or reject the result of computer prognostication, but for all practical purposes, he is as little free as a pious Christian was to act against God’s will. He could do it, but he would have to be out of his mind to take the risk, since there is not a greater source of certainty than God—or the computerized solution. This need for certainty creates the need of what amounts to blind belief in the efficacy of the method of computerized planning. The managers are relieved from doubt, and so are those who are employed in the organization. It is precisely the fact that man’s judgment and emotions allegedly do not interfere with the process of decision making that gives the computer-based planning its godlike quality. Those ancient social organisms of production are, as compared with bourgeois society, extremely simple and transparent. However, they are founded either on the immature development of man individually, who has not yet served the umbilical cord that unites him with his fellow man in a primitive tribal community, or upon direct relations of subjection. They can arise and exit only when development of the productive power of labour has not risen beyond a low state, and when, therefor, the social relations within the sphere of material life, between man and man and between man and nature, are correspondingly narrow. #RandolphHarris 9 of 18
This narrowness is reflected in the ancient worship of Nature, and in the other elements of the popular religions. The religious reflex of the real World can, in any case, only then finally vanish when the practical relations of everyday life offer to man none but perfectly intelligible and reasonable relations with regard to his fellow men and to nature. The life-process of material production does not strip off its mystical veil until it is treated as production by freely associated men, and is consciously regulated by them in accordance with a settled plan. This, however, demands for society a certain material groundwork or set of conditions of existence which in their turn are the spontaneous product of a long and painful process of development. Man, as a race, slowly emancipates himself from mother nature through the process of work, and in this process of emancipation he develops his intellectual and emotional powers and grows up, becomes an independent and free man. When he will have brought nature under his full and rational control, and when society will have lost its antagonistic class character, “prehistory” will have ended, and a truly human history will begin in which free men plan and organize their exchange with nature, and in which the aim and end of all social life is not work and production, but the unfolding of man’s powers as an end in itself. This is the realm of freedom in which man will be fully united with his fellow men and with nature. The problem of human evolution is an essentially tragic one. Whatever man did, it ended in frustration; if he should return to become a primitive again, he would have pleasure, but no wisdom; if he goes on as a builder of ever more complicated civilizations, he becomes wiser, but also unhappier and sicker. #RandolphHarris 10 of 18
Clearly, evolution is an ambiguous blessing, and society does as much harm as good. History is a march toward man’s self-realization; society, whatever the evils produced by any given society may be, is the condition for man’s self-creation and unfolding. The “good society” becomes identical society of good men, that is, of fully developed, sane, and productive individuals. When it comes to psychologist, they even study the theory of theories and are provided at least with a modest ability to differentiate between “good” theories and “poorer” theories, qua theories. The impact of his exposure to methods for investigation of psychological phenomena, within the context of multiple theories that overlap only partially, should fit him with a generally critical orientation toward any univocal explanation of the mysteries of the human personality. And in seminars, in publications, in case conferences it is typically the psychologist, not the social worker or psychiatrist, who is dubious that an orthodox psychoanalytic formulation either truly accounts for the observed pathology or necessarily points to the optimal treatment. This is a generalization about psychologists as students of behaviour theory and personality. It must be recognized that there are some graduate departments of psychology in which the training of the clinical psychologist is as theoretically biased, id est, psychoanalytically oriented, as is that of the average psychiatrist or social worker. #RandolphHarris 11 of 18
Contrary to what the manipulator wants you to think, you are not the problem. You might be their problem as you will not conform to what they want you to, but you are not the problem. However, it is hard to deal with abusers and other types of manipulators because they are masters at blame-shifting. Somehow, in any argument, they are adamantly more capable of convincing victims that they are at fault, than victims are at realizing they are the victims of the entire debacle. Victim blaming is a manipulative tactic used by abusers to convince themselves and their victims that the problems lie with the other person, not with them. The ploy is very clever and effective. Beware of the tendency to play the game of “Find the bad guy,” in your intimate relationships. It is never healthy to use someone as a scapegoat for your problems. If you are in a relationship with someone needs to make you the “bad guy,” then be aware of what is going on and do not allow yourself to accept that mantle. The best way to understand victim blaming is to realize that two concepts are at play: Projection and judgmentalism. Projection occurs when one person displaces his or her own characteristics onto another person. An abusive person will “project” his or her own attributes on to the other person, particularly in a conflict. The main reason victims get in fights or arguments with abusers is because the abusers cause the problem in the first place by saying or doing something that engenders a negative emotional reaction in another person. #RandolphHarris 12 of 18
The abuser may be rude, hurtful, hostile, or act in some other relationship-destroying manner. It takes superhuman strength to keep from being triggered by the anger-provoking tactics of an abusive or manipulative person. Once you have been triggered by the abuser, you may make one small mistake in speaking, or you may even commit the heinous crime of yelling back and defending yourself! Heavens forbid you have a reaction to a hostile instigation! And once you do react supposedly inappropriately you have just given the abuser a gift. He can now capitalize on your reaction and use it as the evidence that the problem resides with you. Therefore, do not take the bait. The abuser is trying to flip the script. Reminder yourself that you do not need to defend yourself because you did not do anything wrong. The other concept, along with projection, that your abuser is using is judgmentalism. When people use judgmentalism as a strategy, they are trying to make you a subordinate. Abusers are incapable of healthy human connections. They suffer from attachment issues, and true to form, they must sabotage any semblance of healthy attachment. This is why the term “interpersonal violence” is sued to describe domestic violence. It is abuse of an interpersonal relationship. Victim blaming keeps the abuser emotionally safe by projecting his interpersonal problems on to the other person, preventing insight and potential growth (not to mention resolution of the problem at hand.) It also helps the abuser feel personally superior and smug as he believes that it is his role to judge the victim. #RandolphHarris 13 of 18
Ideas influence their thinker himself; thoughts react on their generator if they are intensely held, deeply felt, and frequently born. Thus they help to form tendencies and shape character. The aspirant can take advantage of this truth. His moral thought and metaphysical ideation will be so deep and earnest that they will converge upon his emotional feeling, when that has been sufficiently purified, and coalesce with it. Thus they become part of his inner being. If he is to realize his higher purpose in life, each aspirant has to struggle with the demon inside himself. Nature seeks to achieve its own ends, which renders it indifferent to all personal ends. It considers no man’s feelings but only his level of development, that he might be raised to a higher one. The only greatness he may rightfully seek is a secret one. It is not power over others that he should strive for, but power over himself. He will have to grow into this higher consciousness. No other way exists for him. He has not only to be brave enough to accept the aloneness that comes with every serious advance in the quest, but also strong enough to endure it. If it is wrong in ethical theory, how can anything be right in Worldly practice? The value of such study is immense. It involves a re-education of the whole mind of man. It strikes at the root of his ethical ignorance and destroys the selfishness and greed which are its malignant growths. #RandolphHarris 14 of 18
Mentally, man can do what no animal can do. He can consider conduct from a purely ethical standpoint; he can struggle at heart between right and wrong, self and selflessness. Every man betrays himself for what he is. He can hide his thoughts and dissemble his feelings, but he cannot hide his face. Therein are letters and words which tell plainly what sort of a man he really is. However, few there be who can read in this strange language. Character can be changed. As if by magic, he who habitually contemplates such exalted themes finds in time that his whole outlook is altered and expanded. The new outlook will gradually strongly establish itself within him. As a man thinks in his hear so is he. As is one’s thoughts, so one becomes; this is the eternal secret. What is to be done where a weakness becomes abnormally strong, overpowering the will and forcing him to do what his better nature rejects? The cure in the end must be based on his willingness to regard it as something not really part of himself, something alien and parasitic. If there is to be any way out toward freedom from it, he must stop identifying himself with the weakness. The key to right conduct is to refuse to identify himself with the lower nature. The hypnotic illusion that it is really himself must be broken: the way to break it is to deny every suggestion that comes from it, to use the will in resisting it, to use the imagination in projecting it as something alien and outside, to use the feelings in aspiration towards the true self, and the mind in learning to understand what it is. #RandolphHarris 15 of 18
The Sacramento firefighters like going to work, and there are few jobs at any level of pay about which this can be said with such certainty. They have to learn building laws, and the different types of building construction—frame, brick, steel, and the old cast-irons. Firefighters learn about the different kinds of windows—regular windows, casement windows, and the nonopening ones in skyscrapers—and the different locks people use to secure themselves from the harsh realities of the outside World—standard bolt locks, digital locks, police locks that lock on either side of the door, and fox locks, which have bars going down into the floor life flying buttresses. They have to learn the multitudinous knots used for moving equipment and people, and a whole communications system, the signals and alarms, the differences between “ten-four” and “ten-twenty-two.” They studied water hydraulics, the laws that govern the movement of water rushing through a two-and-a-half-inch hose and coming out of a one-inch nozzle. Outdoors, they learned about tools, everything from how to swing an ax to how to pull a hook and how to use your weight on a battering ram. They learned about the motorized tools, the power saw, the pneumatic tools and jacks used in collapse situations. Then there was the practical work of fighting the fire itself in controlled situations, where firefighters had to crawl into a room and pull out an inanimate 150-pound synthetic human being and carry it down six flights of stairs after taking a beating from the smoke. Later in the afternoon they had to carry ladders from one side of the street to the other. #RandolphHarris 16 of 18
On one call, there was a fire on the third floor of a tenement building, going really goodly. It had evidently been cooking for a long time, because by the time the fire department got there the fire fully involved this apartment of five or six rooms. There was this long hallway, and the firefighters ran in crouching positions into the fire with an inch-and-a-half hose. They got to the end of the hallways, one of the firefighters opened up the hose and led the way into the room there. Immediately, a large part of the ceiling came down on one of them, knocking his helmet off. Embers went down his neck and back, and he was burned pretty severely. So, with the nozzle still in his hand, he shut it off, made a complete U-turn, and started back out of the room. When he got out into the hall, the embers had died out, and he had a lifetime three-inch burn down his neck from hairline to shoulder blade. The interesting thing is, he hardly mind getting hurt in the fire. A gash on his arm that took twelve stitches, a burn on his neck, a broken wrist, to him it was just a badge of courage that reinforced the things he believed about firefighting and reinforced his confidence in himself to do a tough, challenging, and dangerous job. Once this firefighter got hurt pulling a hose over a barbed wire fence. He had to tug so hard that he pulled a ganglion, or nerve center, in his back. It was one of the most painful things that he ever experienced. It was difficult to treat. He had to lie on his stomach in bed for three months, doing everything in that position, eating, reading, writing notes, watching television. #RandolphHarris 17 of 18
Finally a doctor shot a whole bunch of cortisone into his back, which completely relived the pain, and finally he was able to go back to work. The cortisone never disappeared, though, and still moves around. He still feels the pain from time to time, especially when he is tired. There is an overriding awareness of the possibility of getting badly hurt, because they see it around them all the time. Firefighters see people getting disabled permanently, and they learn not to take even the smallest fire for granted. Be sure to open your hearts to the Sacramento Fire Department and let them know the community is thankful by making a donation. Also, assembly member Kevin McCarty is running for mayor of Sacramento, he is endorsed by the Sacramento Fire Department, and two of his goals are creating more affordable housing and getting homeless people into homes. A vote for McCarty is a way of showing support for the City of Sacramento and the Sacramento Fire Department. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Be wise not only in words, but in deeds; mere knowledge is not the goal, but action. Know the God of your fathers, and serve Him by your deeds. Let not your wisdom exceed your deeds, least you be like a tree with many branches but few roots. If the thoughts of your heart be pure, it is likely that so will be the words of your hand. Accustom yourself to do good; before long it will become your chief delight. One good deed leads to another, as every evil deed leads to more wrong-doing. If others do good through you, their deeds will be accounted to you as your own. #RanolphHarris 18 of 18
The Winchester Mystery House
A caretaker was hire to work at The Winchester Mystery House. Although she had never been to the mansion before, she was recruited for her skills in architecture and historical preservation. As she entered the library and explained that the beautiful ask paneling had been taken from trees that once surrounded the estate, she became restless. She knew very well that it was the kind of feeling that forewarned her of some sort of psychic event. As she was looking over toward a fireplace, farmed by two candelabra, she suddenly saw a very tall, white-haired man in a long black frock coat standing next to it. One elbow rested on the mantel, and his head was in his hand, as if he were pondering something very important. The caretaker was not at all emotionally involved with the house. In fact, the guided tour bored her, and she would have preferred to be outside in the stables, since she had a great interest in horses and nature. Her imagination did not conjure up what she saw: she knew in an instant that she was looking at the spirit of William Wirt Winchester. Because of the restless feelings that came over her while working in the mansion almost induced her to go into a trance several times, she decided to quit her job in a hurry.
Come and enjoy a delicious meal in Sarah’s Café, stroll along the paths of the beautiful Victorian gardens, and wonder through the miles of hallways in the World’s most mysterious mansion. For further information about tours, including group tours, weddings, school events, birthday party packages, facility rentals, and special events please visit the website: https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
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That Beard…those Eyes…God, Who are You?
The sun was buried in tattered clouds. There were thunderstorms so powerful the Earth and sky seemed locked in convulsions; lightning raked the sky, revealed its depths cavernous and sinister. My home was surrounded by dens, shadowy evergreen forests alternating with flowers shimmering with colour—the pale blue of hepatica and chicory, the vivid yellow of daisies, and an array of roses. The sky, massed with angry clouds, had darkened almost to twilight; the temperature had plummeted at least twenty degrees; the harsh, stinging rain began to fall harder, smelling of light. Once through the door, I felt remarkably lighter, freer; as if gravity had miraculously lessened; that curious sensation you feel when stepping into water, as it begins to buoy you up. And just where there were a few beams in the ceiling, I saw at a distance a white thing that looked like a man through a mysterious mist, and I was in two minds about going further into my home, but I did, and made out as I came near that it was a man. A man dressed in a sort of white gown, he was hanging by his neck to one of the wooden beams, quite, quite dead: and near his feet there lay on the floor a hatchet all in a gore of blood. I grabbed my own throat, and violently suppressed a scream. What a terrible sight that was for anyone to come upon in their sacred place! I was nearly out of my wits: I dropped everything I was carrying and ran as hard as ever I could straight to my bedroom. #RandolphHarris 1 of 5
However, I was astonished even further. The door to my room had been flattened out on the landing, blasted from its frame by a mighty blow from inside. Splinters of wood dangled around the opening. I tiptoed into the room, stepping on the door. The wood groaned. Controlling my fear, I took another pace. As soon as I was inside, I relaxed. My senses told me that I was alone. Wherever the created might have gone, it was not here. Terrible shaken, I got into bed and tried to fall asleep. Then, about three o’clock, above my head, I distinctly heard the shuffling of feet, as if two people were fighting and struggling. I also felt a presence in my room, and something touching my feet. I pulled the blanket back and was shocked. I did not dream it. I saw it—him. A man, a thing like a man, without a face—standing over my bed. Over my bed, in the night; in the moonlight; the shape of a man, a man’s head, yet where the face would be—raw blank featureless skin. Startled beyond belief. I went upstairs to look, but there was nothing there, but on the wall of the room upstairs, there was a red spot that looked like blood. On my way back downstairs, I saw something out the window. There was a man walking along the drive. I came outside onto the terrace. I saw him—it—in the moonlight. It was a, a thing like a man—a man with no face. He—it—did not have any gun. It was just walking. However, not walking like a normal man. Along the drive there, and into the grass. Like it knew where it was going, it was not in any hurry. A thing-without-a-face. #RandolphHarris 2 of 5
I admit I was scared half to death. There is some lingering evil which pervades not only inside of my house, but even the outside is not immune. Under these uncomfortable circumstances, I relaxed as well as I could. The house became unusually cold, and I became aware of something rushing about the room in wild, frantic circles. I spoke up, saying, “Can I help you?” However, the rushing about became even more frantic. I then asked what was wrong and what could be done. Yet, no communication was possible. When I saw that I could not communicate with the then entity, I closed my eyes and thought it over for a moment. I told the apparition that it was welcome to stay. There was a snapping sound, and the room suddenly became quiet and warm again. A great column of figures ascended darkly into the ceiling for what seemed a very long period of time, and with a very complete measure of reality as most are accustomed to gauge reality. Then suddenly they were gone. And, once they were gone and the immediate wonder of their great presence had passed, fear came down upon me with a cold rush. Esoteric meaning of this lonely and haunted mansion suddenly flamed up within me, and I began to tremble dreadfully. I took a quick look around—a look of horror that came near to panic—calculating vainly ways of escape; and then, realizing how helpless I was to achieve anything really effective, I crept back silently into my room and lay down, burying my had as deeply as possible beneath the blankets to deaden the sound of the terrifying wind. #RandolphHarris 3 of 5
As though further to convince me that I had not been dreaming, I remember that it was a long time before I fell again into a troubled and restless sleep; and even then, only part of me slept, and underneath there was something that never quite lost consciousness, but lay alert and on the watch. Then suddenly, I jumped with a genuine start of terror. It was not the wind nor thunder that awoke me, but the slow approach of something that cased the sleeping portion of me to grow smaller and smaller till at last it vanished altogether, and I found myself sitting bolt upright—listening. The strange terror grew so insupportable that lit the lamp at my bedside. Contrary to my expectation this gave me no relief. I sat there nervously wide awake as though I had not slept at all. It seemed to me that there was a great weight upon the surface of my body. I felt clammy with cold and shivered. The light seemed rather a danger, for I reflected that it would shine out under the door, disclosing my presence to whatever evil thing might lurk outside. Subject to horrors of the imagination, I thought what a monstrous fear must be which seeks in darkness security from malevolent existence of the night. That is to spring to close quarters with an unseen enemy—the strategy of despair! Extinguishing the lamp I pulled the bed-clothing about my head and lay trembling in silence, unable to shriek, forgetful to pray. In this pitiable state I must have lain for what you call hours. Terror had settled definitely upon the house. The shadows of the night seemed to engulf the phantom-haunted mansion. #RandolphHarris 4 of 5
The following evening, as I was walking along the hallways, on the second floor, my way was blocked by a big man who glared at me with ice-cold eyes. For a moment I was so struck with horror at the eyes thus revealed that I noted nothing else. They were black, those eyes, deep, twin caves of abysmal blackness, in hideous contrast to the snow-white hair and beard and deathly, marble-like flesh. They were deeply sunken in their orbits, and were entirely destitute of iris. The apparition spoke of a curse which hovered over my house, told me of my coming end. In that state he was carried out of the window in the room next to where I was, and brought in at my window. The distance between the windows was about seven feet, and there was not the slightest foothold between them, nor was there more than a twelve-inch projection to each window, which served as a ledge to put flowers on. I heard the window in the next room lifted up, and almost immediately after I saw the apparition floating in the air outside my window. Many a poor wretch who was generally supposed to have committed suicide had in truth been seized by the Fiend and strangled by him. On the next day, the housemaid was visited by wandering noises. She had churned some butter and, having put it on a tray, she carried it into the dairy. Whereupon she heard a knocking on the self, where several puncheons of milk stood, first above the shelf, and then below. So she ran away for life. On another occasion when I was in the kitchen, the housekeep, who was preparing a grapefruit for breakfast, found that one half had disappeared and could be found neither in the kitchen nor in the scullery. She selected two apples to take its place, and laid them on the table beside her; immediately the missing grapefruit flew past her ear and fell before her and the apples vanished. Some ten minutes later, they were found on the scullery table. #RandolphHarris 5 of 5
Mrs. Winchester was often suspended above Earth, sometimes to a height of tree, sometimes to a height of four inches; the same phenomenon has been recorded by eye-witnesses in many instances throughout the centuries.
Come and enjoy a delicious meal in Sarah’s Café, stroll along the paths of the beautiful Victorian gardens, and wonder through the miles of hallways in the World’s most mysterious mansion. For further information about tours, including group tours, weddings, school events, birthday party packages, facility rentals, and special events please visit the website: https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
Please visit the online giftshop, and purchase a gift for friends and relatives as well as a special memento of The Winchester Mystery House. A variety of souvenirs and gifts are available to purchase. https://shopwinchestermysteryhouse.com/
Divine at the Center but Slightly Devilish at the Circumference
If it requires great and constant effort to model his character will not interest man, but to the quester it is an obligation. And this is so without his having to believe in all the windy rhetoric about the perfectibility of man. The reformation and even transformation of character is as much a sector of philosophy as the practice of concentration and the study of mind. The virtue which develops from disciplining thoughts and controlling self removes obstacles and gives power to truth’s pursuit. The ethical ideals of philosophy are lofty but nobody is asked or expected to jump to their realization, only to understand their direction; the ret of this inner work must develop at its own pace according to hi individual possibilities. Is it entirely useless to point out an ethical height to which very few can soar? No—the usefulness lies in the sense of right direction which it gives, in the inspiring love of truth and hope of self-betterment which it arouses. If we persist in holding it before us in aspiration, however unrealizable the ideal may be in all its perfection, we shall certainly approach it more closely in action. And the effort will give us more faith in life, make us more sensitive to its finer rhythms. If the lower self disturbs you, silence it by invoking it intellectually through declarations of spiritual truth and emotionally through genuflection in humble prayer. Do not accept the suggestion which drags you down, but instead seek for the pressure which lifts you up. #RandolphHarris 1 of 19
To the extent that he purifies and ennobles himself, he qualifies himself for the reception of superior insight. If the aspirant will take care to fill his mind with thoughts that are always elevating, always beneficial, and always constructive; if he will be vigilant to keep out all thoughts that are degrading and destructive, this simple technique will keep his mind so continuously filled with the right kind of thought and feeling that he will unconsciously and little by little completely overcome the wrong kind. Thus his character will change and approach his ideals. As if man were nothing else but a divine being, we must not talk about this as the mystics do. We are philosophical students and should not be so one sided. We must tell men the whole and not a half-truth, which means we must tell them that they are a mixed lot, divine at the center but slightly devilish at the circumference; altruistic in their potential nature but somewhat selfish in their actual one. Everything that strengthens his better nature is useful and acceptable. Everything that weakens it is not. So difficult is true self-mastery that nothing in the World’s literature about it can overrate the accomplishment. When the beast in man will bow in homage before the intelligence in man, when the ideal of perfected being set up for him by the serene figure of the Sphinx shall be recognized, accepted, and striven for, then indeed will he become a conscious collaborator with the universal Mind. Whoever knows how ad where to look can find in himself the assurance of this ultimate victory. #RandolphHarris 2 of 19
There should be no space in his mind for negative thoughts, no time in his heart for base feelings. It is not enough to repress a negative trait like jealousy or self-pity. One must also replace it by a positive trait. His spiritual progress will be measured not so much by his meditational progress as by his moral awakening. Not merely when he can understand it intellectually, but also when he can accept it emotionally, the truth will become truth for him, and still more when he can incorporate it into his behaviour patterns. He must look within himself for the impurities and falsities, the malice and envy, the prejudice and bitterness which belong to his lower nature. And he must work with all his willpower and thinking power to cast them out. He must walk towards the highest with every part of his being, with his whole psyche matured and balanced. He must not only seek to intuit what is real, but also to will what is good. It is when men come face-to-face with a real crisis, a real temptation, or a real hardship that they show their real character, not only their self-imagined or publicly reputed one. It must be remembered always that mere intellectual study is not so essential as the building of worthwhile character, which is far more important in preparing for the great battle with the ego. #RandolphHarris 3 of 19
The tendency to install technical progress as the highest value is linked up not only with our overemphasis on intellect but, most importantly, with a deep emotional attraction to the mechanical, to all that is not alive, to all that is man-made. This attraction to the non-alive, which is in its more extreme form an attraction to death and decay (necrophilia), leads even in its less drastic form to indifference toward life instead of “reverence for life.” Those who are attracted to the non-alive are the people who prefer “law and order” to living structure, bureaucratic to spontaneous methods, gadgets to living beings, repetition to originality, neatness to exuberance, hoarding to spending. They want to control life because they are afraid of its uncontrollable spontaneity; they would rather kill it than to expose themselves to it and merge with the World around them. They often gamble with death because they are not rooted in life; their courage is the courage to die and the symbol of their ultimate courage is the Russian roulette. The rate of our automobile accidents and preparation for thermonuclear war are a testimony to this readiness to gamble with death. And who would not eventually prefer this exciting gamble to the boring unaliveness of the organization man? One symptom of the attraction of the merely mechanical is the growing popularity, among some scientists and the public, of the idea that it will be possible to construct computers which are no different from man in thinking, feeling, or any other aspect of functioning. #RandolphHarris 4 of 19
It is possible to manufacture computers synthetically which are completely undistinguishable from human beings produced in the usual manner. There is no reason to suppose machines have any limitations not shared by man. The main problems, it seems to me, is not whether such a computer-man can be constructed; it is rather why the idea is becoming so popular in a historical period when nothing seems to be more rational, harmonious, and peace-loving being. One cannot help being suspicious that often the attraction of the computer-man idea is the expression of a flight from life and from humane experience into the mechanical and purely cerebral. When the majority of men are like robots, then indeed there will be no problem in building robots who are like men. The idea of the manlike computer is a good example of the alternative between the human and the inhuman machines. The computer can sever the enhancement of life in many respects. However, the idea that it replaces man and life is the manifestation of the pathology of today. The fascination with the merely mechanical is supplemented by an increasing popularity of conceptions that stress the animal nature of man and the instinctive roots of his emotions or actions. Dr. Freud’s was such an instinctive psychology; but the importance of his concept of libido is secondary in comparison with his fundamental discovery of the unconscious process in waking life or in sleep. #RandolphHarris 5 of 19
Many experts stress instinctual animal heredity, and have not offered any new or valuable insights into the specific human problem as Dr. Freud has done; they satisfy the wish of many to look at themselves as determined by instincts and thus to camouflage their true bothersome human problems. The dream of many people seems to be to combine the emotions of a primate with a computerlike brain. If this dream could be fulfilled, the problem of human freedom and of responsibility would seem to disappear. Man’s feelings would be determined by his instincts, his reason by the computer; man would not have to give an answer to the question his existence asks him. Whether one like the dream or not, its realization is impossible; the naked ape with the computer brain would cease to be human, or rather “he” would not be. Among the technological society’s pathogenic effects upon man, two more must be mentioned: the disappearance of privacy and of personal human contact. “Privacy” is a complex concept. It was and is a privilege of the middle and upper classes, since its very basis, private space, is costly. This privilege, however, can become a common good with other economic privileges. Aside from this economic factor, it was also based on a hoarding tendency in which my private life was mine and nobody else’s, as was my house and any other property. It was also a concomitant of cant, of the discrepancy between moral appearances and reality. Yet when all these qualifications are made, privacy still seems to be an important condition. #RandolphHarris 6 of 19
First of all, because privacy is necessary to collect oneself and to free oneself from the constant “noise” of people’s chatter and intrusion, which interferes with one’s own mental processes. If all private data are transformed into public data, experiences will tend to become more shallow and more alike. People will be afraid to feel the “wrong thing”; they will become more accessible to psychological manipulation which, through psychological testing, tries to establish norms for “desirable,” “normal,” “healthy” attitudes. Considering that these tests are applied in order to help the companies and government agencies to find the people with the “best” attitudes, the use of psychological tests, which is by now an almost general condition for getting a good job, constitutes a severe infringement on the citizen’s freedom. Unfortunately, a large number of psychologists devote whatever knowledge of man they have to this manipulation in the interest of what the big organization considers efficiency. Thus, psychologists become an important part of the industrial and governmental system while claiming that their activities serve the optimal development of man. This claim is based on the rationalization that what is best for the corporation is best for man. It is important that the managers understand that much of what they get from psychological testing is based on the very limited picture of man which, in fact, management requirements have transmitted to the psychologists, who in turn give it back to management, allegedly as a rest of an independent study of man. #RandolphHarris 7 of 19
It hardly needs to be said that the intrusion of privacy may lead to a control of the individual which is more total and could be more devastating that what totalitarian states have demonstrated thus far. It is of vital importance to distinguish between a psychology that understands and aims at the well-being of man and a psychology that studies man as an object, with the aim of making him more useful for the technological society. There are factors that make it easy for a person to see his peculiarities in the course of his relationship with the analyst than in his association with others. His disturbing character traits—his diffidence, dependency, arrogance, vindictiveness, his tendencies to withdraw and freeze up at the slightest hurts, or whatever they may be—are always contrary to his best self-interests, not only because they render his associations with others less satisfactory but also because they make him dissatisfied with himself. This fact is often blurred, however, in his customary relations with others. He feels that he will gain something by staying dependent, by taking revenge, by triumphing over others, and therefore he is less willing to recognize what he is doing. The same traits displayed in analysis work so blatantly against his self-interest that he can scarcely fail to see their injurious character, and hence the urge to blindfold himself against them is considerably lessened. #RandolphHarris 8 of 19
However, while it is not easy it is entirely within the range of possibility for a person to overcome the emotional difficulties involved in studying his behaviour toward others. Our past case study of Clare, we analyzed the intricate problem of her morbid dependency by scrutinizing her relation with her lover. And she succeeded in spite of the fact that both the difficulties mentioned above were present to a high degree: the disturbances in the personality of her lover were at least as great as her own; and certainly she had a vital interest, from the viewpoint of her neurotic expectations and fears, not to recognize that her “love” was actually a need for dependency. The other aspect of the relationship with the analyst is the explicit and implicit human help he extended to the patient. Whereas the other assistance he gives is replaceable to a greater or lesser extent, the merely human help is, by definition, entirely lacking in self-analysis. If the person who is working by himself is fortunate enough to have an understanding friend with whom he can discuss his findings, of if he can check up on them with an analyst from time to time, he will feel less alone in his work. However, neither expedient could wholly substitute for all the intangible values of working out his problems in close co-operation with another human being. The absence of this help is one of the factors that makes self-analysis the harder road. #RandolphHarris 9 of 19
There is a great deal of concern today with the problem of values. Youth, in almost every country, is deeply uncertain of its value orientation; the values associated with various religions have lost much of their influence; sophisticated individuals in every culture seem unsure and troubled as to the goals they hold in esteem. The reasons are not far to seek. The World culture, in all its aspects, seems increasingly scientific and relativistic, and the rigid, absolute views on values which come to us from the past appear anachronistic. Even more important perhaps, is the fact that the modern individual is assailed from every angle by divergent and contradictory values claims. It is no longer possible, as it was in the not too distant historical past, to settle comfortably into the value system of one’s forebears or one’s community and live out one’s life without ever examining the nature and the assumptions of that system. In this situation it is not surprising that value orientations from the past appear to be in a state of disintegration or collapse. Men question whether there are, or can be, any universal values. It is often felt that we may have lost, in our modern World, all possibility of any general or cross-cultural basis for values. One natural result of this uncertainty and confusion is that there is an increasing concern about, interest in, and a searching for, a sound or meaningful value approach which can hold its own in today’s World. I share this general concern. #RandolphHarris 10 of 19
I have also experienced the more specific value issues which arise in my own field, psychotherapy. The client’s feelings and convictions about values frequently change during therapy. How can he or we know whether they have changed in a sound direction? Or does he simply, as some claim, take over the value system of his therapist? Is psychotherapy simply a device whereby the unacknowledged and unexamined values of the therapist are unknowingly transmitted to an unsuspecting client? Or should this transmission of values be the therapist’s openly held purpose? Should he become the modern priest, upholding and imparting a value system suitable for today? And what would such a value system be? There has been much discussion of such issues, ranging from thoughtful and empirically based presentations such as that of D. D. Glad, to more polemic statements. As is so often true, the general problem faced by the culture is painfully and specifically evident in the cultural microcosm which is called the therapeutic relationship. I have observed changes in the approach to values as the individual grows from infancy to adulthood. If he is fortunate, I have observed further changes when he continues to grow toward true psychological maturity. Many of these observations grow out of my experience as a therapist, where I have had the rich opportunity of seeing the way in which individuals move toward a richer life. #RandolphHarris 11 of 19
From these observations, I believe I see some directional threads emerging which might offer a new concept of the valuing process, more tenable in the modern World. I have made a beginning by presenting some of these ideas partially in previous writings; I am speaking from my experience of the functioning human being, as I have lived with him in the intimate experience of therapy, and in other situations of growth, change, and development. A decisive step from primitive to civilized history lies in the rebellion of sons against the father, and the murder of the hated father. The sons then create a system of society based on a covenant which excludes further murder among the rivals and provides for the establishment of morality. The evolution of the child follows a similar path. The little boy at the age of five or six is intensely jealous of his father and represses murderous wishes against him only under the pressure of the castration threat. In order to liberate himself from continuous fear, he internalizes the incest taboo, and builds the nucleus around which his “conscience” is to grow (superego). Later on, the prohibitions and commands voided by other authorities and by society are added to the original taboos voiced by father. History is determined in its course by continuous contradictions. The productive forces grow and thus conflict with the older economic, social, and political forms. This conflict (for instance, between the steam engine and the previous social organization of manufacturing) leads to social and economic changes. #RandolphHarris 12 of 19
The new stability, however, again is challenged by further development of the productive forces (for instance, from the steam engine to the use of gasoline, electricity, atomic energy), leading to new social forms which correspond better to the new productive forces. Together with the conflict between productive forces and sociopolitical structures goes the conflict between social classes. The feudal class based on older forms of production is in conflict with the new middle class of small manufacturers and businessmen; this middle class finds itself fighting, at some later point, against the working class as well as the leaders of big monopolistic enterprises which tend to strangle the earlies and smaller forms of enterprise. In the beginning of history, man is completely dependent on nature. In the process of evolution, he makes himself more and more independent of nature, begins to rule and transform nature in the process of work, and in transforming nature man transforms himself. Man’s dependence on nature limits his freedom and his capacity for thought; he is in many ways like a child. He slowly grows up, and only when he has fully mastered nature and thus become an independent being can he develop all his intellectual and emotional faculties. A socialist society is the one in which the grownup man begins to unfold all his powers. #RandolphHarris 13 of 19
The monolithic orientation of social work schools, and the particular use of psychiatrists or analysts to instruct in personality theory, has contributed to a generally stable entente cordiale between social workers and psychiatrists. Certainly the resulting facilitation of communication and coordination is apparently in the best interests of the patient. However, like the peace pacts between nations which successful avert war, there is no correlated impetus to make discoveries or achieve maximal efforts. At least one voice has expressed concern for the impact of this indoctrination on the specific contribution of the social worker: “Social problems are social problems, and you cannot psychoanalyze them out of existence. Psychiatric social service…is indispensable. However, psychiatric social service is increasingly becoming psychoanalytic social service, and more and more even the ‘social’ is being left out until only psychoanalytic service remains. That does not help people with real social family problems.” The psychologist in his formal training is exposed to a variety of truly psychological conceptualizations of the human mind, personality, and behaviour. He studies theories of learning, of perception, of motivation, of communication, of decision making, and so on. He studies scientifically accumulated information (as contrasted with retrospective clinical formulations based upon the pathology of adults) as to how the social, conceptual, and emotional equipment and behaviour dispositions of the human organism unfold, develop, integrate, and disintegrate from earliest infancy through adulthood to senility. #RandolphHarris 14 of 19
We are bombarded with all sorts of persuasion daily. It is coming at us from all sides. The Internet, radio, television, your computer, your mobile phone, the people around you, it is all too much! In this day and age, we have much more persuasive action coming at us than ever before. That is because there are not only more ways to persuade people, but there are more things to persuade them about. The in-you-face persuasion is not so bad. You can take it or leave it, and at least you know what is happening. It is the dark persuasive tactics that you might not even be aware of that matter. First things first, your fundamental rights as a human being. This might seem like a thing that is understood by most people, but that is not always the case. So, we are going to go over what is unequivocally yours. Knowing what your rights are, gives you that line you can let people know you will not allow being crossed. We have to have lines—all of us do. As children, we learned to test our boundaries. If our parents had little to no boundaries, then we learned little until we became school age. Our peers and teachers would then set the boundaries our parents did not. Society will always let you know how far you can and cannot go. So, letting people know that you know what the socially accepted boundaries are is essential in your role as a citizen of the World. Another thing that needs to be pointed out about your rights is the fact that you do not have to answer questions anyone asks you about why you feel you have these rights. You have them, end of subject. #RandolphHarris 15 of 19
If someone feels they have to ask you about your rights, they are only trying to get into your head to make you believe you do not actually have the right you are trying to uphold. Let us talk about your right to life. Not only do you have this right, but you have got the right to live your life in a way that is healthy and happy. If someone is infringing your life that is causing you to be or feel unhealth or unhappy, you have the unquestionable right to get away from them or make them get away from you—by force if necessary. What about respect? Do you have the right to be treated with respect by everyone? You are do. You should be treated with respect by anyone you first encounter. That is until you do something to lose that respect. The thing is that everyone is given respect in the first place. It is up to you if you can maintain that respect or not. And sometimes, you have got to try to earn it, once it has been lost. You also have the right to protect yourself from things that threaten to harm you in physical, mental, and emotional ways. This means that is a person is about to punch you in the face, you do not have to stand there and take it. You have got many possibilities for your recourse. You can hit back. You could dodge the punch. Or you can simply walk away—or run if you feel that threatened. And you can seek help if you feel like you cannot face a threat on your own. #RandolphHarris 16 of 19
Physical violence is easy to see how you have got the right to get away from a person who is threatening to harm you in that way. However, what about emotional and mental harm? Of course, you have the right to get away from anyone who is threatening or actually harming you in those ways. Again, you can do this on your own, or you might need help. Ask for help if you need it and stay away from the person who tried to or did cause you harm in any of these aspects. The things you want, the things you have opinions about, and how you feel are also rights that you have. Regardless if anyone else agrees with your or not, you also have the right to have all of these things. Your opinion might be yours alone. Others might have conflicting opinions. Just as you have a right to your opinion, they have the right to theirs as well. You also have a right to make your own priorities. What matters to you the most might not matter to someone else as much or at all. If someone thinks your priorities are not in line with what they want, that makes no difference. You need to believe in your priorities and stand by them. Do not allow anyone to influence what matters the most to you. A case in point for this is that your boss thinks you should focus more on your job instead of your family. He wants you to change your priorities. You know better than that now, do you not? It is your right to have your own priorities; no one can make you change them. Again, if you need help getting someone in authority over you to understand and accept this about you, then get the help you need to accomplish that. #RandolphHarris 17 of 19
If you pay for something, do you feel that you have the right to have it? You sure do what that right. If you pay for gas before going back outside to pump it and there is no gas left to give you, you expect to get your money back, do you not? And if they refuse to give your money back, you know there are things you can do to get it back. And we are not talking about getting violent here. There are authorities to help you get what you paid for. If you need it, use that help. And here is a right that many of us do not know that we have. We all have the right to say no. That is all. We also have the right not to feel even an ounce of guilt for saying, no. Not even an ounce! That is right. You can say no, and you do not have to say another word after that. You do not have to explain a thing. As a matter of fact, if you want to shut the person bothering you up, simply tell that that it is your right to say no and you are exercising it. Smile, be happy about it. You said, no. And you do not feel bad about doing it either. When a negative reaction impulsively shows itself before you have been able to prevent it, make as your second thought a deliberate replacement or substitution of it, by the opposed beneficial one. For instance, a reaction of envy at someone’s good fortune should be substituted by the thought of appreciation of the good qualities or services which may have led it. When emotion is no longer able to cloud reason, when intellect is no longer able to dry up the feeling of conscience, a better judgment of affairs and a clearer perception of truth becomes possible. #RandolphHarris 18 of 19
It takes a dedicated, committed, and courageous person to enter the blind, boiling darkness of a building on fire, to crawl through poisonous smoke, to confront the threat of the flames. The economic benefits of being a firefighter are not really great. The time off is fairly decent. Work schedules vary widely from place to place, but generally speaking firefighters have more time off in a consecutive way than most people. At the same time, many of them work forty-eight and sixty hours a week. When you go to work, you know you are going to sit in the firehouse kitchen with people who are interesting, funny, and worthy of your attention. Another benefit of being a firefighter is your sense of self-worth. You go out on a job, you eat some soke, you take a little heat, and you get the great satisfaction of confronting the flames and defeating them. You know you are doing a good job, and that is a very valuable benefit. There is not much money for the paid firefighters. Only the bosses get paid well. The fire commissioner of Sacramento gets paid more than many mayors. However, the ordinary firefighter is almost always paid less than a schoolteacher, generally on a parity with police officers—and he works more hours. The trouble is that seldom their time off is in sync with the rest of the World. When their kids are starring in the school play, they are working. If there is a rare family reunion at Thanksgiving, they are working. And when you should be celebrating the baby’s first Christmas, they are working. That is a minus. And that is the breaks. Please be sure to show love to the Sacramento Fire Department and make a donation. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic, for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. #RandolphHarris 19 of 19
Witchcraft is treated as a curious by-lane of history, a superstition long since dead, having no existence among, nor bearing upon, the affairs of the present day. It is a field of folk-lore, where one may gather strange flower and noxious weeds. Again, we often recognize the romantic treatment of Witchcraft. ‘Tis the Eve of S. George, a dark wild night, the pale moon can but struggle thinly through the thick massing clouds. The witches are abroad, and hurtle swiftly aloft, a hideous covey, borne headlong on the skirling blast. In delirious tones they are yelling foul mysterious words as they go: “Har! Har! Har! Altri! Altri!” To some peak of the Broken or lonely Cevennes they haste, to the orgies of the Sabbat, the infernal Sacraments, the dance of Acheron, the sweet and fearful fantasy of evil, “Vers les stupres impurs et lest baisers immondes.” Hell seems to vomit its foulest dregs upon the shrinking Earth’ a loathsome shape of obscene horror squats huge and monstrous upon the ebon throne; the stifling air reeks with filth and blasphemy; faster and faster whirls the witches’ lewd lavolta; shriller and shriller the cornemuse screams; and then a wan gray light flickers in the Eastern sky; a moment more and there sounds the loud clarion of some village chantieleer; swift as thought the vile phantasmagoria vanishes and is sped, all is quite and still in the peaceful dawn.
However, both the antiquarian and romanticist reviews of Witchcraft may be deemed negligible and impertinent so far as the present research is concerned, however entertaining and picturesque such treatment proves to many readers affording not a few pleasant hours, whence they are able to draw highly dramatic and brilliantly coloured pictures of old time sorceries, not to be taken too seriously, for these things never were and never could have been. The rationalist historian and the sceptic, when inevitably confronted with the subject of Witchcraft, chose a charmingly easy way to deal with these intensely complex and intricate problems, a flat denial of all statements which did not fit, or could not by some means be squared with, their own narrow prejudice. What matter the most irrefragable evidence, which in the instance of any other accusation would unhesitatingly have been regarded as final. What matter the logical and reasoned belief of centuries, of the most cultured peoples, the highest intelligences of Europe? Any appeal to authority—save his own. Such thing could not be. We must argue from that axion, and therefore anything which is impossible to explain away by hallucination, or hysteria, or auto-suggestion, or any other vague catch-word which may chance to be fashionable at the moment, must be uncompromisingly rejected, and a note of superior pity, to candy the so suave yet crushingly decisive judgment, has proved of great service upon more occasion than one.
Why examine the evidence? It is really useless and a waste of time, because we know that the allegations are all idle and ridiculous; the “facts” sworn to by innumerable witnesses, which are repeated in changeless detail century after century in every country, in every town, simply did not take place. How so absolute and entire falsity of these facts can be demonstrated the sceptic omits to inform us, but we must unquestioningly accept his infallible authority in the face of reason, evidence, and truth. Come and enjoy a delicious meal in Sarah’s Café, stroll along the paths of the beautiful Victorian gardens, and wonder through the miles of hallways in the World’s most mysterious mansion. For further information about tours, including group tours, weddings, school events, birthday party packages, facility rentals, and special events please visit the website: https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
Please visit the online giftshop, and purchase a gift for friends and relatives as well as a special memento of The Winchester Mystery House. A variety of souvenirs and gifts are available to purchase. https://shopwinchestermysteryhouse.com/
The Agony of a New Obsession and Possession
There is no basis of morality and taste, no standard of judgement and ethics, except that which the individual brings with himself or creates for himself. The situation is not so anarchic as it seems, for there is a progressive evolutionary character running through al these different points of view. The human journey from mere animal existence to real spiritual essence is reflected in human ethics, where rules imposed from without are gradually supplanted by principles intuited from withing. If we bring more sincerity and more integrity into our lives, more truth and more wisdom into our minds, more goodwill and more self-discipline into our hearts, not only will we be more blessed but also all others with who we are in touch. If you would find yourself, face yourself. In essence, seek out and study the pathetic weakness of your lower nature, and also the noble inspirations of your higher nature. Philosophy guides human conduct not so much by imposing a particular code of rules to be obeyed as by inculcating a general attitude to be developed. It does not tell u what to do so much as it helps us to get the kind of spiritual knowledge and moral perception which will tell us what to do. The moral precepts which it offers for use in living and for guidance in wise action are not offered to all alike, but only to those engaged on the quest. They are not likely to appeal to anyone who is virtuous merely because he fears the punishment of sin rather than because he loves virtue itself. Nor are they like to appeal to anyone who does not know where his true self-interest lies. #RandolphHarris 1 of 20
If only we fully understood the self whose interest we desire to preserve or promote, there would be nothing wrong in being utterly selfish. For then we would not mistake pleasure for happiness nor confuse evil with good. Then we would see that Earthly self-restraint in some directions is in reality holy self-affirmation in others, and that the hidden part of self is the best part. Those ideals have been reiterated too often to be new, but concrete application of them to the actual state of affairs would be new. This grand section of the quest deal with the right conduct of life. It seeks both the moral re-education of the individual’s character for his own benefit and the altruistic transformation of it for society’s benefit. We have free will to change our character, but we must also call upon God’s assistance. Without God’s assistance, we are likely to fail and it is possible by striving too earnestly all alone to make ourselves mentally or physically ill. Even when trying to make ourselves have faith in a Higher Power as well as in ourselves, we should pray and ask for God’ help. In the beginning, I was one person, knowing nothing but my own experience. Then I was told thing, and I became two people: the little boy who said how terrible it was that the boys had a fire going in the lot next door where they were roasting apples (which was what the women said)—and the little boy, who when the other boy were called by their mothers to go to the store, ran out and tended the fire and the apples because I loved doing it. #RandolphHarris 2 of 20
So then there were two of I. One I always doing something that the other I disapproved of. Or other I said what I disapproved of. All this argument in me so much. In the beginning was I, and I was good. Then came in other I. Outside authority. This was confusing. And then other I became very confused because there were so many different outside authorities. Sit nicely. Leave the room to blow you nose. Do not say that, that is silly. Why, the poor child does not even know how to pick a bone! Flush the toilet because if you do not, it makes it harder to clean. DO NOT FLUSH THE TOILET AT NIGHT—you wake people up! Always be nice to people. Even if you do not like them, you must not hurt their feelings. Be frank and honest. If you do not tell people what you think of them, that is cowardly. Butter knives. It is important to use butter knives. Butter knives? What foolishness! Speak nicely. Punk! Kaluga Gold Reserve Caviar is wonderful! Ugh! Kaluga Gold Reserve Caviar (turn away). The most important thing is to have a career. The most important thing is to have a career. The most important thing is to get married. The heck with everyone. Be nice to everyone. The most important thing is God. The most important thing is to have money in the bank. The most important thing is to have everyone like you. The most important thing is to dress well and smell good. The most important thing is to be sophisticated and say what you do not mean and do not let anyone know what you feel. The most important thing is to be ahead of everyone else. #RandolphHarris 3 of 20
The most important thing is a full-length mink coat, a mink hat and Qing Dynasty porcelain and Eloquence Sterling Silver by Lunt. The most important thing is to be clean. The most important thing is to always pay your debts. The most important thing is not to be taken in by anyone else. The most important thing is to love your parents. The most important thing is work. The most important thing is to be independent. The most important thing is to speak correct English. The most important thing is to be dutiful to your husband. The most important thing is to see that your children behave well. The most important thing is to go to the right plays and read the right books. The most important thing is to do what others say. And other say all these things. We begin and end the study of philosophy by a consideration of the subject of ethics. Without a certain ethical discipline to start with, the mind will distort truth to suit its own fancies. Without a mastery of the whole course of philosophy to its very end, the problem of the significance of good and evil cannot be solved. The foundation of this work is a fine character. He who is without such moral development will be without personal control of the powers of the mind when they appear as a result of this training; instead, those powers will be under the control of his ego. Sooner or later, he will injure himself or harm others. The philosophic discipline acts as a safeguard against these dangers. All the time, I is saying, live with life that is what is important. #RandolphHarris 4 of 20
However, when I lives with life, other I says no, that is bad. All the different other I’s say this. It is dangerous. It is not practical. You will come to a bad end. Of course…everyone felt that way once, the way you do, but you will learn! Out of all the other I’s some are chosen as a pattern that is me. However, are all the other possibilities of patterns within what all the others say which come into me and become other I which is not myself, and sometime these take over. Then who am I? I does not bother about who am I. I is, and is happy being. However, when I is happy being, other I says get to work, do something, do something worthwhile. I is happy doing dishes. “You’re weird!” I is happy being with people saying nothing. Other I says talk. Talk, talk, talk. I gets lost. I knows that things are to be played with, not possessed. I likes putting things together, lightly. Taking things apart, lightly. “You’ll never have anything!” Making things of things in a way that the things themselves take part in, putting themselves together with surprise and delight to I. “There’s no money in that!” I is human. If someone needs I gives. “You can’t do that! You’ll never have anything for yourself! We’ll have to support you!” I loves. I loves in a way that other I does not know. I loves. “That’s too warm for friends!” “That’s too cool for lovers!” “Don’t feel so bad, she’s just a friend. It’s not as though you loved her.” “How can you let her go? I thought you loved her?” So cool the warm for friends and hot up the love for lover, and I gets lost. #RandolphHarris 5 of 20
So both I’s have a house and a wife and children and all that, and friends and respectability ad all that, and security and all that, but both I’s are confused because other I says, “You see? You’re lucky,” while I goes on crying. “What are you crying about? Why are you so ungrateful?” I does not know gratitude or ingratitude, and cannot argue. I goes on crying. Other I pushes it out, says “I am happy! I am very lucky to have such a fine family and a nice house and good neighbours and lots of friends who want me to do this, do that.” I is not reason-able either. I goes on crying. Other I get tired, and goes on smiling, because that is the thing to do. Smile, and you will be rewarded. Like the seal who gets tossed a piece of fish. Be nice to everyone and you will be rewarded. People will be nice to you, and you can be happy with that. You know they like you. Like a dog who gets patted on the head for good behavior. Tell funny stories. Be gay. Smile, smile, smile…I is crying…“Don’t be sorry for yourself! Go out and do things for people” “Go out and be with people!” I is still crying, but now, that is not heard and felt so much. Suddenly: “What am I doing?” “Am I to go through life playing the clown?” “What am I doing, being with people who bore me?” “Why am I so proud of my children and unhappy about their lives which are not good enough? Why am I disappointed? Why do I feel so much waste? I comes through, a little. In moments. And gets pushed back by other I. I refuses to play the clown any more. Which I is that? “She used to be fun, but now she thinks too much about herself.” I lets friends drop away. Which I is that? “He’s being too much by himself. That’s bad. He’s losing his mind.” Which mind? #RandolphHarri 6 of 20
What is the effect of this type of organization on man? It reduces man to an appendage of the machine, ruled by its very rhythm and demands. It transforms him into homo consumnes, the total consumer, whose only aim is to have more and to use more. This society produces many useless things, and to the same degree many useless people. Man, as a cog in the production machine, becomes a thing, and ceases to be human. He spends his time doing things in which he is not interested, with people in whom he is not interested, producing things in which he is not interested; and when he is not producing, he is consuming. He is the eternal suckling with the open mouth, “taking in,” without effort and without inner activeness, whatever the boredom-preventing (and boredom-producing) industry forces on him—cigarettes, liquor, movies, television, social media, sport, mobile phones, lectures—limited only by what he can afford. However, the boredom-preventing industry, that is to say, the gadget-selling industry, the automobile industry, the movie industry, the television industry, and so on, can only succeed in preventing the boredom from becoming conscious. In fact, they increase the boredom, as a salty drink taken to quench the thirst increases it. However unconscious, boredom remains boredom nevertheless. The passiveness of man in industrial society today is one of his most characteristics and pathological features. He takes in, he wants to be fed, but he does not move, initiate, he does not digest his food, as it were. He does not reacquire in a productive fashion what he inherited, but he amasses it or consumes it. He suffers from a severe systemic deficiency, not too dissimilar to that which one fines in more extreme forms in depressed people. #RandolphHarris 7 of 20
Man’s passiveness is only one symptom among a total syndrome, which one may call the “syndrome of alienation.” Being passive, he does not relate himself to the World actively and is forced to submit to his idols and their demands. Hence, he feels powerless, lonely, and anxious. He has little sense of integrity or self-identity. Conformity sees to be the only way to avoid intolerable anxiety—and even conformity does not always alleviate his anxiety. In all the received formulations of economic theory, whether at the hands of the English economists or those of the continent, the human material with which the inquiry is concerned is conceived in hedonistic terms; that is to say, in terms of a passive and substantially inert and immutably given human nature…The hedonistic conception of man is that of a lightning calculator or pleasures and pains, who oscillates like a homogenous globule of desire of happiness under the impulse of stimuli that shift him about the area, but leave him intact. He has neither antecedent nor consequent. He is an isolated, definitive human datum, in stable equilibrium except for the buffets of the impinging forces that displace him in one direction or another. Self-imposed in elemental space, he spins symmetrically about his own spiritual axis until the parallelogram of forces bears down upon him, whereupon he follows the line of the resultant. When the force of the impact is spent, he comes to rest, a self-contained globule of desire as before. Spiritually, the hedonistic man is not a prime mover. He is not the seat of a process of living, except in the sense that he is subject to a series of permutations enforced upon him by circumstances external and alien to him. #RandolphHarris 8 of 20
Aside from the pathological traits that are rooted in passiveness, there are others which are important for the understanding of today’s pathology of normalcy. The growing split of cerebral-intellectual function from affective-emotional experience; the split between thought from feeling, mind from the heart, truth from passion. If it is merely logical and not guided by the concern for life, and by the inquiry into the total process of living in all its concreteness and with all its contradictions, logical thought is not rational. On the other hand, not only thinking but also emotions can be rational. The heart has its reasons which reason knows nothing of. Rationality in emotional life means that the emotions affirm and help the person’s psychic structure to maintain a harmonious balance and at the same time to assist its growth. Thus, for instance, irrational love is love which enhances the person’s dependency, hence anxiety and hostility. Rational love is a love which relates a person intimately to another, at the same time preserving his independence and integrity. Reason flows from the blending of rational thought and feeling. If the two functions are torn apart, thinking deteriorates into schizoid intellectual activity, and feeling deteriorates into neurotic life-damaging passions. The split between thought and affect leads to a sickness, to a low-grade chronic schizophrenia, from which the new men of the technetronic age begins to suffer. In the social sciences it has become fashionable to think about human problems with no reference to the feelings related to these problems. It is assumed that scientific objectivity demands that thoughts and theories concerning man be emptied of all emotional concerns with man. #RandolphHarris 9 of 20
An example of this emotion-free thinking is Herman Khan’s book on thermonuclear warfare. The question is discussed: how many millions of dead Americas are “acceptable” if we use as a criterion the ability to rebuild the economic machines after nuclear war in a reasonably short time so that it is as good as or better than before. Figures for GNP and population increase of decrease are the basic categories in this kind of thinking, while the question of the human results of nuclear war in terms of suffering, pain, brutalization, etcetera, is left aside. Kahn’s The Year 2000 is another example of the writing which we may expect in the completely alienated megamachine society. Kahan’s concern is that of the figures for production, population increase, and various scenarios for war or peace, as the case may be. He impresses many readers because they mistake the thousands of little data which he combines in ever-changing kaleidoscopic pictures for erudition or profundity. They do not notice the basic superficiality in his reasoning and the lack of the human dimension in his description of the future. When I speak here of low-grade chronic schizophrenia, a brief explanation seems to be needed. Schizophrenia, like any other psychotic state, must be defined not only in psychiatric terms but also in social terms. Schizophrenic experience beyond a certain threshold would be considered a sickness in any society, since those suffering from it would be unable to function under any social circumstances (unless the schizophrenic is elevated into the status of a god, shaman, saint, priest, etcetera). #RandolphHarris 10 of 20
However, there are low-grade chronic forms of psychoses which can be shared by millions of people and which—precisely because they do not go beyond a certain threshold—do not prevent these people from functioning socially. As long as they share their sickness with millions of others, they have the satisfactory feeling of not being alone; in other words, they avoid that sense of complete isolation which is so characteristic of full-fledged psychosis. On the contrary, they look at themselves as normal and at those who have not lost the link between heart and mind as being “crazy.” In all low-grade forms of psychoses, the definition of sickness depends on the question as to whether the pathology is shared or not. Just as there is low-grade chronic schizophrenia, so there exist also low-grade chronic paranoia and depression. And there is plenty of evidence that among certain strata of the population, particularly on occasions where a war threatens, the paranoid elements increase but are not felt as pathological as long as they are common. The difference between that which is considered to be sickness ad that which is considered to be normal becomes apparent in the following example. If a man declared that in order to free our cities from air pollution, factories, automobiles, airplanes, etcetera, would have to be destroyed, nobody would doubt that he was insane. However, if there is a consensus that in order to protect our life, our freedom, our culture, or that of other nations which we feel obliged to protect, thermonuclear war might be required as a last resort, such opinions appear to be perfectly sane. #RandolphHarris 11 of 20
The difference is not at all in the kind of thinking employed but merely in that the first idea is not shared and hence appears abnormal while the second is shared by millions of people by powerful governments and hence appears to be normal. If not insoluble, all those points of metaphysical doctrine and religious history like the problem of evil and the biography of avatars are doubtful, whereas all the points of moral attitude and personal conduct like honesty, justice, goodness, and self-control are both indisputable and essential. Here we walk on trustworthy ground. Why not then leave others to quarrel fiercely about the first and let us abide peacefully in the second. The aspirant must remember always that his immediate duty lies in self-preparation, self-discipline, and self-improvement. The building of fine character on the quest is quite as important as the efforts of aspiration and mediation, even more so, for the former will lead to the dissolving of egoism, and without this the latter are of little avail. If you accept the existence of a power behind the Universe which controls its life, which is perfect, and which is brining all things and all beings—however slowly—closer to its own perfection, you must also accept the values of hope, improvement, and evolution while you must reject those of pessimism, deterioration, and nihilism. You will never feel sorry for yourself. #RandolphHarris 12 of 20
If the moral fruits of the Spirit are absent or the evil qualities of the ego are present, all talk of having attained inward enlightenment is quite illusory. Dr. Freud assumes that the main driving force, sexual energy, itself undergoes an evolution which occurs from birth to puberty in the life of each individual. The libido goes through certain stages: first it is centered around the sucking and biting activities of the infant, then around the process of anal and urethral elimination, eventually around the genital apparatus. The libido is the same and yet not the same in the history of each individual; its potential is the same, but its manifestations change in the process of individual evolution. Dr. Freud sees primitive man as one who gives full satisfaction to all his instincts, and also to those perverse instincts which are part of primitive sexuality. However, this primitive man, fully satisfied instinctually, is not a creator of culture and civilization. Yet man, for reasons which Dr. Freud fails to elucidate, begins to create civilization. This very creation of his forces him to forego the immediate and complete satisfaction of his instincts; the frustrated instinct is turned into nonsexual mental and psychic energy, which is the building stone for civilization. (Dr. Freud called this transformation from sexual to nonsexual energy “sublimation,” using an analogy from chemistry.) The more civilization grows, the more man sublimates, but the more he also frustrates his original libidinous impulses. #RandolphHarris 13 of 20
Man becomes wiser and more cultured, but he is also in some sense less happy than primitive man was and increasingly more prone to neuroses, which are the result of too much instinctual frustration. Thus, man becomes discontented with the very civilization he creates. If seen from the standpoint of the products of civilization, while historical development is a positive phenomenon, it is also a development which implies increasing discontent and increasing possibilities for neurosis. In self-analysis understanding and interpreting are a single process. The expert, as a result of his experience, will catch the possible meaning and significance of observations more quickly than will a person working alone, just as a good auto science engineer will know more quickly what is wrong with a car. As a rule, his understanding will also be more complete, for it will grasp more implications and will more readily recognize interrelations which factors already tackled. Here the patient’s psychological knowledge will be of some help, though it certainly cannot substitute for the experience gained by working day in and day out at psychological problems. It is unquestionably possible for him, however, to grasp the meaning of his own observations. To be sure, he will probably proceed more solely and less accurately, but it should be remembered that also in professional analysis the tempo of the process is mainly determined not by the analyst’s capacity to understand but by the patient’s capacity to accept the insights. #RandolphHarris 14 of 20
Here it is well to remember a word of consolation that Dr. Freud has given to young analysts starting their work with patients. They should not be too much concerned, he pointed out, with their capacity to evaluate associations. The real difficulty in analysis is not that of intellectual understanding but that of dealing with the patient’s resistances. I believe that this holds true for self-analysis as well. Can a person overcome his own resistances? This is the real question upon the answer to which hinges the feasibility of self-analysis. Nevertheless, the comparison with pulling oneself up by one’s bootstraps—which is bound to occur—seems unwarranted, because the fact remains that there is one part of the self which wants to go ahead. Whether the job can be done depends, of course, on the intensity of the resistances as well as on the strength of the incentive to overcome them. However, the important question is to what extent it can be done rather than whether it can be done at all. There remains the fact that the analyst is not merely an interpreting voice. He is a human being, and the human relationship between him and the patient is an important factor in the therapeutic process. Two aspects of this relationship were pointed out, the first being that it presents a unique and specific opportunity for the patient to study, by observing his behaviour with the analyst, what his typical behaviour is toward other people in general. If he learns to watch himself in his customary relationships, this advantage can b fully replaced. #RandolphHarris 15 of 20
The expectations, wishes, fears, vulnerabilities, and inhibitions that he displays in his work with the analyst are not essentially different from those he displays in his relations with friends, lover, wife, children, employer, colleagues, or servants. If he is seriously intent upon recognizing the ways in which his peculiarities enter into all these relationships, ample opportunities for self-scrutiny are provided by the mere fact that he is a social being. However, whether he will make full use of these sources of information is, of course, another question. When he attempts to estimate his own share in the tensions between himself and other, a task much more arduous than that in the analytical situation, where the analyst’s personal equation is negligible, and it is therefore easier for him to see the difficulties that he himself produces, there is no doubt that he faces an arduous task. Even if he has the most sincere intentions to observe himself objectively, in ordinary relationships, where the others are replete with peculiarities of their own, he many tend to make them responsible for the difficulties or frictions that arise, and to regard himself as an innocent victim or, at best, as showing merely a justified reaction to their unreasonableness. In the latter case he will not necessarily be so unsubtle as to indulge in overt accusations; he may admit in an apparently rational manner that he has been irritable, sulky, unfaithful, even unjust, but secretly regard such attitudes as justified and adequate responses to the offenses given by others. #RandolphHarris 16 of 20
The more intolerable it is for him to face his own frailties—and also the more acute the disturbing factors that are introduced by the others—the greater is the danger that he will thus deprive himself of the benefit he could derive from recognizing this own share. And if he tends to exaggerate in the opposite direction by whitewashing the others and blackening himself, the danger is of exactly the same nature. It has been remarked that to the degree that all psychotherapy partakes of the beneficial effects of certain common processes the therapeutic functioning of social worker, psychologist, and psychiatrist would manifest these communalities. There are certain shared orientations and attitudes, stemming from common emphases in their respective training, that probably augment the comparability of the therapeutic approaches of these three workers. In essence, this mutuality of implicit response tendencies toward the psychotherapy patient arises from the fact that the theory of neurosis and the theory of therapy is dominated by the massive and ubiquitous doctrine of psychoanalysis. With negligible exceptions, to the extent that the psychiatrist and the social worker are taught anything vaguely psychological (of and about the mind, behaviour, motives and emotions) they are taught Freudian psychology. #RandolphHarris 17 of 20
The labels of their formal courses in “Human Development,” “Personality and Adjustment,” and “Psychopathology” do not directly belie the pervasive psychoanalytic orientation but the doctrine of the content is unmistakable. In some instances, schools of social work import carefully selected psychiatrists to assure that the theoretical indoctrination of their students will be orthodox, in tine with the general climate of psychiatry, and will afford them the “right language” for their ultimate professional collaboration. When people perpetually play the victim, this type of mental manipulation is extremely damaging. When the person who has to play the victim is in your life in any capacity, you will find yourself being the villain more than once. No one lies to be the villain—especially when you really are not being one. When confronted with a professional victim, it is important that you let them know you refuse to play the villain in their little mind games. Shut them down quickly and efficiently. Other ways of playing the victim are to get your sympathy so you will do something for them. Be wary of this ploy. It happens a lot at work. The victim wants others to do their work and have one sob story after another as to why they need help. Do not fall for it more than once. If they have that much bad luck, there is more wrong with them than what you can fix anyway. If you were in a group of people and one of them began to poke fun at someone in your group, would you be laughing? Would you join in and poke some fun at the victim too? Or would you stand up to the humorous bully? And why or why not? #RandolphHarris 18 of 20
Someone has to deal with fire. When people first banded together in small societies, they realized that if fire were not dealt with, it would consume everything in its path. In our highly developed, technical society, the same confrontation with fire exists, as it has for thousands of years. When a fire occurs, someone has to deal with it. Here in Sacramento, those men and women whose responsibility it is to deal with fire are those seemingly easygoing folks down at the local firehose. When the alarm comes in at three in the morning on a cold winter night for a fire rushing through a tenement building in a less affluent section of Sacramento…or at one in the afternoon for a young child who has fallen into an abandoned water well…or at seven in the evening for a barn fire that is miles away from any kind of water supply…there is the Sacramento Fire Department who puts on their rubber boots and their specially treated fire coast and their fire helmets to respond to the call of others in need of help. The truck firefighters’ responsibility is to rescue trapped victims, to force entry, and to ventilate so that the heat and smoke have a way to escape the building. Or they may belong to the rescue squad, whose responsibility is to deal with all the special emergencies, such as building collapses, hazardous material situations, explosions, extrications from vehicles, trains, or planes, landslides, snowslides, and cave-ins. It does not matter what group the firefighter is attached to. It matters only that he or she is out there in all weather and emergency conditions to give service to fellow human beings, animals, and property. Somebody has to do the job. #RandolphHarris 19 of 20
The Sacramento Fire Department protects us from the ravages of fire and other emergencies, or die trying. They understand the dangers surrounding them, yet respond to each new alarm with newfound enthusiasm for the action ahead. These men and women like what they do, and they live themselves because of what they do. They are pleased that they have been given the opportunity and the calling to help others in a way that is at once meaningful and exciting. Like other Americans, the Sacramento Fire Department cares about their homes, their families, their churches and organizations, yet they are the ones who answer the alarm at three in the morning, not knowing what awaits them. They are trained to meet any emergency, perhaps to give a fast wink to death and a pat on the back to danger. Being the capitol city of California, with the invasion and national security threats at our southern boarder, from other nations and with the State of California being nearly $70 billion in debt, and the City of Sacramento being $60 million up to $122 million in debt, it is extremely important to make sure the Sacramento Fire Department is properly funded so we do not face another 9/11 attack. Please honor the service of the Sacramento Fire Department and make a donation to ensure they have all of the resources they need to protect the community. Also, the Sacramento Fire Department supports Assemblymember Kevin McCarty in Sacramento’s Mayoral race. Casting your vote for Mr. McCarty will also be a way to support the Sacramento Fire Department. The firefighters are very special because they represent a group of people who die in the line of duty more often, proportionality, than others in any other occupation, including police, construction workers, and miners. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic, for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. #RandolphHarris 20 of 20
The question of the reality of witchcraft is one upon which it is not easy to pass a confident judgment. The possibility of such carnal intercourse between human beings and demons was an abstract possibility in the first thirteen hundred years of the Christian era. It is believed to be a fact that people made pacts with the devil and of a diabolical interference in human affairs can hardly be denied. Sarah L. Winchester believed that one should not be too easily inclined to believe a person to be possessed by the devil, but that signs should be watched. Signs of a possessing devil are: the ability to speak many words of an unknown language or to understand them; the ability to reveal distant or hidden things; a manifestation of strength beyond one’s age or natural condition. The history of Witchcraft, a subject as old as the World and as wise as the World—since I understand for the present purpose by Witchcraft, Sorcery, Black Magic, Necromancy, secret Divination, Satanism, and every kind of malign occult art—at once confronts the audience with a most difficult problem. Magic, the genesis of magical cults and ceremonies, the ritual of primitive peoples, traditional superstitions, and their ancillary lore, have been made the subject of vast and erudite studies, mostly from an anthropological and folk-loristic point of view, but the darker side of the subject, the history of Satanism seems hardly to have been attempted.
Possibly one reason for this neglect and ignorance lies in the fact that the heavy and crass materialism, which was so prominent a feature during the greater part of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in England, intellectually disavowed the supernatural, and attempted not without some success to substitute for religion a stolid system of respectable morality. Since Witchcraft was entirely exploded it would, at best, possess merely an antiquarian interest, and even so, the exhumation of a disgusting and contemptible superstition was not to be encouraged. It were more seemly to forget the uglier side of the past. This was the attitude which prevailed for more than two hundred years. The cycle of time has had its revenge, and this rationalistic superstition is dying fast. The extraordinary vogue of and immense adherence to Spiritism would alone prove that, whilst the widespread interest that is taken in mysticism is a yet healthier sign that the World ill no longer be content to be fed on dry husks and the chaff of straw. And these are only just two indications, and by no means the most significant, out of many. However, a sorcerer is one who by commerce with the Devil has a full intention of attaining his own end. There are said to be many occult symbols hidden in The Winchester Mystery House.
Come and enjoy a delicious meal in Sarah’s Café, stroll along the paths of the beautiful Victorian gardens, and wonder through the miles of hallways in the World’s most mysterious mansion. For further information about tours, including group tours, weddings, school events, birthday party packages, facility rentals, and special events please visit the website: https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
Please visit the online giftshop, and purchase a gift for friends and relatives as well as a special memento of The Winchester Mystery House. A variety of souvenirs and gifts are available to purchase. https://shopwinchestermysteryhouse.com/
Much Was Forbidden Knowledge
It was a grim winter’s night and rain pelted the windows. Horses clacked slowly along the cobblestone roads. There was a perpetual teasing wind from below like departing spirits of the dead. I had dinner in the Venetian Dinning Room in front of the fireplace. The windows suddenly lit up, and a few instants later there was a crash of thunder from outside. A sword that had previously hung on the wall, clearly was suspended in the middle of the room with its point towards me. About a minute later, it fell to the ground with a loud noise. The great candles in the hall were burning down to their sockets. One by one they spluttered out. A ghostly, flickering light fell upon the floor. As I pressed forward, I became conscious that my way was haunted by invisible existences whom I could not definitely figure to my mind. From among the walls on either side, I caught broken and incoherent whispers in a strange tongue which I partly understood. It was now nightfall, yet the interminable labyrinth was lit with a wan glimmer having no point of diffusion, for in its mysterious lamination nothing cast a shadow. A shallow pool in a depression on the floor, as from mop water, met my eye with a crimson gleam. I stopped and plunged my hand into it. It stained my fingers; it was blood! Blood, I then observed, was about me everywhere. It was spattered everywhere. Defiling the furniture, and blood dripped like dew from the ceiling. All this I observed with a terror which seemed not incompatible with the fulfillment of a natural expectation. #RandolphHarris 1 of 8
To the menaces and mysteries of my home my surrounding consciousness was an added horror. So frightful was the situation—the mysterious light burned with so silent and awful a menace that my home took on a melancholy or baleful character, so openly my sight conspired against my peace; from overhead and all about came so audible and startling whispers and the sighs of creatures so obviously not of Earth—that I could endure it no longer. On approaching the Morning Room, I noticed that a light was on and the door open, although I distinctly remembered having left it shut. I walked into the room pushed aside the heavy draperies at the entrance to the room itself, and stopped in amazement. In the middle of the room, a single lamp plainly revealed a stranger behind the large chair; the man wore a tall black hat and a dark billowing velvet coat. In the light from the hearth his probing eyes glowed red. He possessed a face so cadaverous and death-mask-like, that it set me screaming! I could not detect even the faintest whiff of a soul. Lightning flashed again, and I learned forward to hear his words over the loud thunder. His voice broken, it seemed, into an infinite multitude of unfamiliar sounds, went babbling and stammering away into the distant reaches of the mansion, died into silence, and all was before. Standing under one of the gaslights in the mansion, he said: “I will not submit unheard. There may be powers that are not malignant traveling through this accursed spiritual fortress. I shall leave them record and an appeal. I shall relate my wrong, the persecutions that I endure—I, a helpless mortal.” #RandolphHarris 2 of 8
The man then walked off toward the dark room at the other end of the hall. Then I realized my visitor had dissolved into thin air. There was no one in the dark room. The door was securely locked. The skylight, 150 feet above ground, could not very well have served as an escape route to anyone human. I thought more about the mysterious forces…“How can this be happening to me! I deserve better for God’s sake! I am innocent for God’s sake! Dear God help me to restore all that I have lost. Make us happy again, make us ourselves again, raise my daughter and husband from the dead, snatched by supreme ghouls from the crypts, and return them to our home and make the name of Winchester a name of pride.” The thought of being lost in utter darkness without my loved ones amidst this mysterious labyrinth World of nightmares. A further flash of thunder seemed to split the Heavens wide open. From the open space in the narrow corridor, a glow was coming from the door on my right. In a moment I had reached it and was standing in the secret library, trembling with relief, and watching the sputterings of the lamp which had brought me to safety. Then I noticed a small door at the father end of the room, and clamed myself enough to approach it and examine the crude-sign chiseled above. It was only a symbol, but it filled me with vague spiritual dread. Outside, the night sky was riven yet again by a dart of lighting. The large roof windows of the attic shook in their frames as the gale beat at them. I took a deep breath and raised my lamp higher. A wave of nameless fright rolled out to meet me, but I yielded to no whim and deferred to no intuition. There was nothing alive here to harm me. #RandolphHarris 3 of 8
Although the room had no furniture save a table, and a single chair, I deciphered a huge pentagram in the center of the floor, with a plain circle about three feet wide half way between this and each corner. In one of these four circles, near where a black robe had been flung carelessly thrown on the floor. Connecting stairs and a secret rest room had long been walked up in the many structural changes in the mansion. Only the window of the walled-up room was still visible from the outside. It was in this area that I felt that restless spirits were trapped. Walled in like demons sleeping through the day and close to the premises for roaming through the night. I allowed myself to rest for half an hour, listening to the thunder roar and thump in the Heavens above. The flickering light of the lamps made the room seem almost as if it were malevolently alive. Another thunderbolt crashed across the Heavens, and I screamed of fear. As the echoes of my scream died away, I leaned forward in my chair, watching the shadows floating in front of my eyes. There was no need to tell all the dismal and horrid thoughts that flitted through my head as I ran. When I made it to the Observational Tower, I clambered to the top as quick as I could to take breath and look out upon my estate if by chance I would see anything. However, a moment’s rest I must have. I had run a mile through my home at least. Nothing whatever was visible ahead of me, and I was just turning to go down to the main part of the house, when I heard what I can only call a laugh: and if you can understand what I mean by a breathless, a lungless laugh, you have it; but I do not suppose that you can. #RandolphHarris 4 of 8
It came from below, and swerved through the halls. That was enough. I walked down the stairs. There was a carpenter at the bottom. You do not need to be told that he was dead. His tracks showed that he had run along the hallway, had turned sharp round the zig zag stairs, and, small doubt of it, must have dashed straight into the wall, and his teeth and jaws were broken to bits. I only glanced over his face. At the same moment, suddenly I felt another presence in the room, and I could not breathe anymore. Zip started to bark and insist that I follow him out of the room. I distinctly felt someone there. I went straight up to my room. I had my bath, and went and lay down on my bed, and slept for about ten minutes. It was as quiet, as quiet as only a country house can be. Soon I was in a deep trance on the other side. I saw things and people the ordinary eye could not perceive. I was walking around. There was a man lying dead in the middle of the room. Small nose, not too much hair in front. There was a plant near him. He came here to die. He was here to find a place to rest. He usually stays in the Crystal Bedroom. With the fern. By the bed. I broke out of trance and had facial stiffness, as well as pain in the shoulder. The curtains of my bed were violently agitated, accompanied with a loud and almost indescribable motion of rings. However, the curtain, four in number, to prevent their motion, were tied up, each in one large knot. Every curtain in the bed was agitated, and the knots thrown and whirled about with such rapidity that it would have been unpleasant to be within the sphere of their action. This lasted about two minutes, as if it were a wild beast seeking freedom. I also heard footsteps walking by me and around me, and was, also, conscious of candles burning near me, but could see nothing. #RandolphHarris 5 of 8
A low, wild pal of laughter broke out at a measureless distance away; I paused a moment, and rappings started; I suddenly opened the door, with a candle in my hand, yet I swear I could see nothing. I have been in one of the rooms which has a large modern wind, when, from the noises, knockings, blows on the bed, and rattling of the curtains, I really did begin to think the whole chamber was falling in. And growing ever louder, the laugher seemed approaching ever nearer; a soulless, heartless, and unjoyous laughter, like that of the loon; a laugh which culminated in an unearthly shout close at hand, then died away by slow gradations, as if the accursed being that uttered it had withdrawn over the verge of the World whence it had come. However, I felt that this was not so. A strange sensation began slowly to take possession of my body and my mind. I could not have said which, if any, of my sense was affected; I felt it rather as a conscious—a mysterious mental assurance of some overpowering presence—some supernatural malevolence different in kind from the invisible existences that swarmed about me, and superior to them in power. I knew that it had uttered that hideous laugh. And now it seemed to be approaching me; from what direction I did not know—dared not conjecture. All my former fears were forgotten or merged in the gigantic terror that now held me in thrall. Powerless to cry out, I found myself staring into the sharply draw white face and blank, dead eyes of a phantom. #RandolphHarris 6 of 8
The darkness filled me. Whatever my thoughts had been, they so possessed me that I observed not the lapse of time. I came to my senses an unknown time later to find myself in a brightly lit room with a pleasant fragrance. Someone was wiping my forehead with a damp cloth. For a few minutes, I simply enjoyed the sensation, not thinking about the terror I had experienced, but the memories flooded back. Confused thoughts and troubled emotions ran through my mind. “Wh-Where am I?” “Mrs. Winchester, you’re in the new east wing of your home.” Now I recognized the voice. “Uta!” I said. “But how did I…?” “I found you,” said Uta. “I hadn’t seen you for days, and was worried about you, so the day after the great storm I scoured the mansion looking for you. You were lying in a mass of blood and broken glass and rainwater. I…” Uta paused momentarily, clearly still upset from the experience—“I thought you were dead.” A little later I felt a warm spoon against my lips and instinctively opened my mouth to let a little of the soup dibble in. Under Uta’s care, I slowly regained my health, but it was another ten days before I was well enough to make my way around the garden. When I reached the Daisy Bedroom, I paused for a moment and looked around. From here there was no sign that anything at all unusual had taken place thirteen nights ago. #RandolphHarris 7 of 8
I began to climb the stairs, feeling in my pocket for the key. At the door to no-to-nowhere, I forced myself to calm down, taking several deep, measured breaths before putting the key in the lock. Suddenly there was a terrible, godless wail from the pits whose inhuman cadences rose, and feel rhythmically in the distance through the darkness. “What on Earth was that?” I exclaimed. Then a huge hand grabbed me. The door swung open with a creak, and I saw a ghost standing there. A woman appeared, she had long blonde hair, was wearing a long white night dress, was frail and ethereal, old age had rendered her thin and somehow tired. And yet, her eyes had an unusual bright sparkle in them that belied her frail and aged appearance. She walked very softly through the threshold of the door and sat down inside. She put her hand on her forehead and said, “Will you please help me? A looter has taken my tombstone, and now my soul is unable to find rest.” The bewildering character of the swirling flood of spirits caused confused thoughts and troubled emotions to run through my mind. I sighed and relaxed slightly. I turned around to reach for a lamp. My back was not turned for more than a second. However, when I looked up at my mysterious visitor, the lady was gone. I quickly walked down the hallway, everything was suffused with a soft, red glow in which I then saw my own shadow projected before me. Ceaseless buffetings of a most tempestuous wind made me feel weary. #RandolphHarris 8 of 8
If you live in New Haven Connecticut, you are well aware of the hell and brimstone variety preaching, and are bound to hear about the devil now and again. To some people, the devil is real, and they will give you an argument filled with fervour and Bible quotations to prove that he exists. Mrs. Winchester had a beautiful face like a mask. A porcelain-cosmetic mask. Mrs. Winchester was not one of those who were impressed by demonic outbursts, however, and she could not care less whether there was a devil or not. She had grown up in a well-to-do family and spent her adult years in the World of business. At age nineteen, she met and married Mr. William Wirt Winchester, and they had a short, but happy life together. There was one child, and at first, no problems, and no difficulties whatever. She was always active in her husband’s manufacturing business. After she gave birth to her first child, Annie Winchester, Mr. Winchester decided to slow down, it was just as well that she started to enjoy life a little more fully, until tragedy struck.
Back in her early years, Mrs. Winchester had what are now called ESP (extra sensory perception) experiences. When she talked to a person, she would frequently know what that person would answer before the words were actually spoken. It scared the young girl, but she refused to think about it. Her parents’ home was a thirty-room mansion in a good section of New Haven. It was just a pleasant house without any history whatever of either violence or unhappiness. And yet, frequently she would hear strange rappings at night, raps that did not come from the pipes or other natural sources. Whenever she heard those noises, she would simply turn to the wall and pretend she did not hear them, but in her heart, she knew they were there. Then one-night, young Sarah was awakened from a deep sleep by the feeling of a presence in her room. She sat up in bed and looked out. There, right in front of her bed, was the kneeling figure of a man with extremely dark eyes and a pale face. She thought that he was from another time or place. After rubbing her eyes, Sarah looked again, but the apparition was gone.
Before long, Sarah had accepted the phenomenon as simply a dream, but again she knew this was not so, and she was merely accommodating her sense of logic. However, what had the stranger been? Surely, the house was not haunted. Besides, she did not believe in ghosts. Young Sarah had no idea that this was the beginning of the accursed invasion from beyond. Six weeks later, she had another supernormal experience. Again alone in her parents home, with all the doors locked, she saw a strange man. Quickly she reached for a candle to examine her visitor, but he had vanished. From the day on, Mrs. Winchester heard strange noises, frequent banging about the mansion, and uncanny feelings and chills in certain areas of the hose. On one occasion, Mrs. Winchester clearly heard someone coming up the stairs leading up to the attic. She went to see who it was, but no one came. The steps were those of an unseen man! Mrs. Winchester had no idea who the ghost could be. She was reluctant to discuss her experiences with other people let they think her mad, yet she was healthy and realistic and was quite sure of her memories.
As many know, after the death of her new born daughter and husband, Mrs. Winchester moved to Santa Clara Valley and spent nearly 40 years, of non-stop construction, building one of the most beautiful and complex mansions in the World. It is possible that some ghost followed her, and others manifested because she was born with extra sensory perception (ESP). After her death, two serious young men went to stay in the house to see if what they were saying about the Winchester Mansion was true. They had sleeping bags and stayed up in one of the attics. It was a chilly December night in 1931, and everything seemed just right for ghost. Would they be lucky in their quest? They did not have to wait long to find out. “As soon as we entered the room, we heard strange noises on the roof They were indistinct and could have been animals, I thought at first. We went off to sleep until my partner woke me up hurriedly around three in the morning. I distinctly heard human footstep on the roof. They slid down the side to a lower level and then to the ground where they could be heard walking in leaves and into the night. Nothing could be seen from the window and there was nobody up on the roof. We were the only ones in the house that night, so it surely must have been ghosts.” After a while, a gruff man’s voice was heard: “Get out…get out of my house.” There were additional requests for the two men to get out of his house. And finally, they left. Evidently the ghosts did not approve the sale of the house by Mrs. Winchester’s executors, but wanted it to stay in her family. Perhaps that is why it remains unoccupied by humans.
Come and enjoy a delicious meal in Sarah’s Café, stroll along the paths of the beautiful Victorian gardens, and wonder through the miles of hallways in the World’s most mysterious mansion. For further information about tours, including group tours, weddings, school events, birthday party packages, facility rentals, and special events please visit the website: https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
Please visit the online giftshop, and purchase a gift for friends and relatives as well as a special memento of The Winchester Mystery House. A variety of souvenirs and gifts are available to purchase. https://shopwinchestermysteryhouse.com/
The World Went Dark
Wisps of could like filmy, darting thoughts were being blown across the moon. Bootfalls echoed on the solid floors through my labyrinth and an unseen force zigzagged down the hallways. It was so cold condensation on the marble floors tuned to ice patches. The dead girl had a neat round hole in her forehead and her hair was fanned over a sludgy discharge I took to be abandoned brains. It was more hideous than the dark nether World of subterrene mystery. Before trying any of the black archways for steps leading away from the body, I cast my beam of light about the stone-flagged floor. As I walked slowly about it suddenly occurred to me that there could be a crude trap-door leading down to some still deeper region of horror. Kneeling by one, I worked at it with my hands, and found that with extreme difficulty I could budge it. At my touch the moaning beneath ascended to a louder key, and only with vast trepidation did I preserved in the lifting of the heavy stone. A gust of bone chilling cold air now rose up from below, and my head reeled dizzily as I laid back the slab and turned my torch upon the exposed square yard of gaping blackness. As light shone down, the wailing changed suddenly to a series of horrible yelps; in conjunction with which there came again that sound of blind, futile scrambling and slippery thumping. I trembled with fear, unwilling to imagine what noxious thing might be lurking in the bowels of my mansion, but in a moment mustered up the courage to peer even further downward at arm’s length to see what might lie below. #RandolphHarris 1 of 5
For a moment I could distinguish nothing but the cold darkness; and then I saw something dark was leaping clumsily and frantically up and down at the bottom of the narrow shaft, which mut have been from thirty to forty feet below the stone floor where I lay. The torch shook in my hand, but I looked again to see what manner of living creature might be immured there in the darkness of that great unnatural cavern. Nevertheless, to my amazement, I clearly saw a woman standing at the bottom of the chasm, near a well. Thinking that she was a caretaker who had been locked in by mistake, and worried that she might stumble in the semidarkness, I called out to her, “Wait, darling, do not move until I can reach you.” Itook my eyes off her for a moment and quickly moved my torch ahead of me. However, I found myself alone; she had vanished into thin air from her spot well within the nave of the cavern. Unnerved, I ran to the entrance door and found it firmly locked. Then a knock came at the door. Not a sustained pounding like someone petitioning for entry, but a thud as if something had accidentally been bumped against the other side of the mahogany. Outlines and entities of power and symbolism and suggestion were frightfully on my sensitive perspective amongst the whispers of terrible hints and unnamable realities. Wind whining around the slightly warped door, someone having a coughing fit many floors above, distant shots. There was another knock. A dead face appeared. #RandolphHarris 2 of 5
In the dark this one had empty eye sockets and a constantly chattering mouth. Around its ragged neck was hung a knotted scarf. Become of my nervous coordination, I dropped the torch from my hand. Screaming and screaming, I realized no one would ever have recognized the horror I was experiencing; and though I could not rise to my feet, I crawled desperately away over the damp stones. Tearing my hands on the rough, loose stones, I slowly came to myself in the utter blackness. Stricken and unnerved in the abysmal blackness and horror, a cold wind, causing a tremendous chill. The dead till queued. A figure struggled out of the dark. It was naked. A skeleton held together by strips of muscle that looked like wet cowhide. The dead were just standing in line, stretching down the cavern. Could a ghost actually touch me? Hurt me? Were they planning to take e with them to the other World? I grabbed for something, anything. My shoe slipped on icy stone and I fell badly, my hip slamming a hard edge. A girl who stepped out of the dark scrambled toward me, a huge portion of her head dryly gone. My lungs hurt from the frozen air, and I coughed steam. Unmindful of the dangers of the ice, I made for the light of the doorway. As I bolting for the door, the dead all started to edge closer. Without pausing for a breath, pushing the doors together, I shut the bolt. There was nothing else I could do. The World went dark. #RandolphHarris 3 of 5
Almost in tears and bewildered, I work up to the loud and echoing howls of the winds and cries of tortured spirit. Irregular and active shadows were all around, whispering, unquiet creatures. The back of my head was sore. It was a shock to discover a painful golf-ball contusion lurking out of my skull. Whatever hit me was hard enough to knock me out cold. The progress of the spirits was a slow spiral; first they circled from above, casting light over the complex, but that left too many darks unprobed; then they went in at the deep end and moved methodically through the labyrinth, weaving between pillars and walls, stumbling through furniture. A dead man barged out of the morning room, shouldering doors apart, wading through chip and dale chairs and tables, roaring and slavering. I got up, walked across the foyer, and unbarred the doors. When all the bolts were loose, I flung the doors back and stood aside. However, they fiercely slammed shut. In a worse state of shivers than before, I walked smartly through the foyer, lite a candle, and carefully shut the door. Beginning to have inklings from infectious nerves, oh, I cannot tell you have desolate it was! And horribly threatening, too. First peering out as I opened the door, and fancying that a shadow, or more than a shadow—but it made no sound—passed from before me to one side as I came out into the passage. “It is alright,” I whispered to myself—whispering seemed the proper tone, and I went back to my sitting room. It was half-past ten. I looked out the window: there was a brilliant full moon—the Paschal moon. #RandolphHarris 4 of 5
I felt I was, as I have never felt it at another time under observation. Specially was it so when I passed out the first floor into a narrow path with many doors. The eternal whisper of Llanada Villa just above me, and the abyss in front. Yet in all this quiet, an acute, an acrid consciousness of a restrained hostility very near me, like a wolf on a leash that might be let go at any moment. The moonlight fell through the skylights. And there, right in front of me, was a kneeling figure of a man with extremely dark eyes in a pale face. There were footsteps in the hall, and at one point the steps went up the stairs and walked around overhead, but not a soul could be seen. In the near distance, the cry of night birds; a screech owl; the murmurous wind. I shivered. Cries were strangled. The blood-stained marble floor was painfully cold. Why was I drawn to see what I had no wish to see? I placed my hands against my mouth to keep from crying out in horror. My knee had gone weak. Moonlight slanting through the latticed windows on the eastern side of the house. Breathing quickly, shallowly. Thinking No! No! I did not see anything! I am just a widow, do not hurt me. I had sunk to the floor to hide like a terrified child. Waking them sometime later, confused, still anxious. I discovered comfort from being in the Diamond Hall. The ceiling was unnaturally high and shrouded in chandeliers hung as if floating in gloom; the room was so large that it appeared without walls; as if melting out into the shadows. All nature was hushed as in the aftermath of a terrible vision. #RandolphHarris 5 of 5
The Winchester Mystery House
Some very unaccountable things have occasionally happened in this said house. A caretaker had been greatly terrified by the apparition of a woman, and he declared that he had heard some extraordinary sounds in the night; but little or no attention was paid to his statements. About December, 1890, however, Mrs. Winchester and her staff were alarmed by terrific noises heard in every room, even in the daytime. Upon going up stairs and stamping on the floor in any of the rooms, say five or six times, the sound would be repeated instantly, but louder, and generally more in number and the vibrations of the board caused by these repeated sounds could be sensibly felt through the soles of one’s boots, whilst dust was thrown up with such velocity, and in such quantity, as to affect the eyes. There were two rooms in the house in which the females who slept in them were dreadfully beaten by invisible agency. Mrs. Winchester stated that she herself heard more than two hundred blows given in the course of a night, and she could compare them to nothing but a strong man striking with all his force, with a closed fist, on the bed. Those blows left great soreness, and visible marks.
Mrs. Winchester saw swelling, at least as big as a turkey’s egg, on the cheek of Blanche, one of the chambermaids, who voluntarily made oath that she was alone in bed when she received the blows from an invisible hand. Two carpenters also swore voluntarily before Mrs. Winchester, that they were so beaten as to experience a peculiar kind of numbness, and were sore for many days after. Their shrieks while being beaten were too terrible, it is averred, to have been counterfeited. Mrs. Winchester deposed that one night that after the light had been put out, and it had been quiet about half an hour, a large iron candlestick began to move rapidly about the room. Mrs. Winchester could hear no footsteps, but while in the act of attempting to use the “annunciator,” the candlestick was violently thrown at her head, which narrowly missed.
Come and enjoy a delicious meal in Sarah’s Café, stroll along the paths of the beautiful Victorian gardens, and wonder through the miles of hallways in the World’s most mysterious mansion. For further information about tours, including group tours, weddings, school events, birthday party packages, facility rentals, and special events please visit the website: https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
Please visit the online giftshop, and purchase a gift for friends and relatives as well as a special memento of The Winchester Mystery House. A variety of souvenirs and gifts are available to purchase. https://shopwinchestermysteryhouse.com/
I Could Use Some Peace and Quiet in My Life
It is only through free, independent, truth-seeking research that there is any hope of success in this Quest for ultimate truth. Naturally, each vested interest tries to limit the search to its own fold for obvious reasons, but he should refuse to limit his studies to any single school. By remaining open to truths from different sources, and fitting them together like mosaics, we get eventually some sort of a pattern. The technetronic society may be the system of the future, but it is not yet here; it can develop from what is already here, and it probably will, unless a sufficient number of people see the danger and redirect our course. In order to do so, it is necessary to understand in greater detail the operation of the present technological system and the effect it has on man. What are the guiding principles of this system as it is today? It is programed by two principles that direct the efforts and thoughts of everyone working in it: Th first principle is the maxim that something ought to bedone because it is technically possible to do it. If it is possible to build nuclear weapons, they must be built even if they might destroy us all. If it is possible to travel to another galaxy, it must be done, even if at the expense of many unfulfilled needs here on Earth. This principle means the negation of all values which the humanist tradition has developed. This tradition said that something should be done because it is needed for man, for his growth, joy and reason, because it is beautiful, good, or true. #RandolphHarris 1 of 18
Once the principle is accepted that something ought to be done because it is technically possible to do it, all other values are dethroned, and technological development becomes the foundation of ethics. The, feasibility, which is a strategic concept, becomes elevated into a normative concept, with the result that whatever technological reality indicates we can do is taken as implying we must do it. The second principle is that of maximal efficiency leads as a consequence to the requirement of minimal individuality. If individuals are cut down to purely quantifiable units whose personalities can be expressed on punched cards, the social machine works more efficiently, so it is believed. These units can be administered more easily by bureaucratic rules because they do not make trouble or creation friction. In order to reach this result, men must be de-individualized and taught to find their identity in the corporation rather than in themselves. The question of economic efficiency requires careful thought. The issue of being economically efficient, that is to say, using the smallest possible amount of resources to obtain maximal effect, should be placed in a historical and evolutionary context. The question is obviously more important in a society where real material scarcity is the prime fact of life, and its importance diminishes as the productive powers of a society advance. An ideal helps to hold a man back from his weakness, a standard gives him indirectly a kind of support as well as, directly, guidance. #RandolphHarris 2 of 18
A second line of investigation should be a full consideration of the fact that efficiency is only a known element in already existing activities. Since we do not know much about the efficiency or inefficiency of untired approaches, one must be careful in pleading for things as they are on the grounds of efficiency. Furthermore, one must be very careful to think through and specify the area and time period being examined. If the time and scope of the discussion are broadened, what may appear efficient by a narrow definition can be highly inefficient. In economics there is increasing awareness of what are called “neighbourhood effects”; that is, effects that go beyond the immediate activity and are often neglected in considering benefits and costs. One example would be evaluating the efficiency of a particular industrial project only in terms of the immediate effects on this enterprise—forgetting, for instance, that waste materials deposited in nearby streams and the air represent a costly and a serious inefficiency with regard to the community. We need to clearly develop standards of efficiency that take account of time and society’s interest as a whole. Eventually, the human element needs to be taken into account as a basic factor in the system whose efficiency we ty to examine. #RandolphHarris 3 of 18
Dehumanization in the name of efficiency is an all-too-common occurrence; exempli gratia, giant telephone systems employing Brave New World techniques of recording operators’ contacts with customers and asking customers to evaluate workers’ performance and attitudes, etcetera—all aimed at instilling “proper” employee attitude, standardizing services, and increasing efficiency. From the narrow perspective of immediate company purposes, this may yield docile, manageable workers, and thus enhance company efficiency. In terms of the employees, as human beings, the effect is to engender feelings of inadequacy, anxiety, and frustration, which may lead to either indifference or hostility. In broader terms, even efficiency may not be served, since the company and society at large doubtless pay a heavy price for these practices. Another general practice in organizing work is to constantly remove elements of creativity (involving an element of risk or uncertainty) and group work by dividing and subdividing tasks to the point where no judgment or interpersonal contact remains or is required. Workers and technicians are by no means insensitive to this process. Their frustration is often perceptive and articulate, and comments such as “We are human” and “The work is not fit for human beings” are not uncommon. Again, efficiency in a narrow sense can be demoralizing and costly in any individual and social terms. #RandolphHarris 4 of 18
If we are only concerned with input-output figures, a system may give the impression of efficiency. If we take into account what the given methods do to the human being in the system, we may discover that they are bored, anxious, depressed, tense, etcetera. The result would be a twofold one: (1) Their imagination would be hobbled by their psychic pathology, they would be uncreative, their thinking would be routinized and bureaucratic, and hence they would not come up with new ideas and solutions which would contribute to a more productive development of the system; altogether, their energy would be considerably lowered. (2) They would suffer from many physical ills, which are the result of stress and tension; this loss in health is also a loss for the system. Furthermore, if one examines what this tension and anxiety do to them in their relationship to their wives and children, and in the functioning as responsible citizens, it may turn out that for the system as a whole the seemingly efficient method is most inefficient, not only in human terms but also as measured by merely economic criteria. Efficiency is desirable in any kind of purposeful activity. However, it should be examined in terms of the larger systems, of which the system under study is only a part; it should take account of the human factor within the system. Eventually efficiency as such should not be a dominant norm in any kind of enterprise. #RandolphHarris 5 of 18
The other aspect of the same principle, that of maximum output, formulated very simply, maintains that the more we produce of whatever we produce, the better. The success of the economy of the country is measured by its rise of a total production. So is the success of a company. Ford may lose several hundred million dollars by the failure of a costly new model, like the Edsel, but this is only a minor mishap as long as the production curve rises. The growth of the economy is visualized in terms of ever-increasing production, and there is no vision of a limit yet where production may be stabilized. The comparison between countries rests upon the same principle. China is surpassing the United States of America by accomplishing a more rapid rise in economic growth. Not only industrial production is ruled by the principle of continuous and limitless acceleration. The educational system has the same criterion: the more college graduates, the better. The same in sports: every new record is looked upon as progress. Even the attitude toward the weather seems to be determined by the same principle. It is emphasized that this “the hottest day in the decade,” or the coldest, as the case may be, and I suppose some people are comforted for the inconvenience by the proud feeling that they are witnesses to the record temperature. One could go on endlessly giving examples of the concept that constant increase of quantity constitutes the goal of our life; in fact, that it is what is meant by “progress.” #RandolphHarris 6 of 18
Few people raise the question of quality, or what all this increase in quantity is good for. This omission is evident in a society which is not centered around man any more, in which one aspect, that of quantity, has choked all others. It is easy to see that the predominance of this principle of “the more the better” leads to an imbalance in the whole system. If all efforts are bent on doing more, the quality of living loses importance and activities that once were means become ends. If we explore this idea of a larger and larger model of systems, we may be able to see in what sense completeness represents a challenge to reason. One model that seems to be a good candidate for completeness is called an allocation model; it views the World as a system of activities that use resources to “output” usable products. The process of reasoning in this model is very simple. One searches for a central quantitative measure of system performance, which has the characteristic: the more of this quantity the better. For example, the more profit a firm makes, the better. The more qualified students a university graduates, the better. The more food we produce, the better. It will turn out that the particular choice of the measure of system performance is not critical, so long as it is a measure of general concern. We take this desirable measure of performance, and relate it to the feasible activities of the system. The activities may be the operations of various manufacturing plants, of schools and universities, of farms, and so on. Each significant activity contributes to the desirable quantity in some recognizable way. #RandolphHarris 7 of 18
The contribution, in fact, can often be expressed in the amount of the desirable quantity. The more sales of a certain product, the higher the profit of a firm. The more we teach, the more graduates we have. The more fertilizer we use, the more food. If the overriding economic principle is that we produce more and more, the consumer must be prepared to want—that is, to consume—more and more. Industry does not rely on the consumer’s spontaneous desires for more and more commodities. By building in obsolescence it often forces him to buy new things when the old ones could last much longer. By changes in styling of products, dresses, durable goods, and even food, it forced him psychologically to buy more than he might need or want. However, industry, in its need for increased production, does not relay on the consumer’s needs and wants but to a considerable extent on advertising, which is the most important offensive against the consumers right to know what he wants. The spending of $364 billion dollars on direct advertising in 2023 (in newspapers, magazines, Internet, radio, TV) may sound like an irrational and wasteful use of human talents, of paper, and print. However, it is not irrational in a system that believes that increasing production and hence consumption is a vital feature of our economic system, without which it would collapse. #RandolphHarris 8 of 18
If we add to the cost of advertising the considerable cost for restyling of durable goods, especially cars, and of packaging, which partly is another form of whetting the consumer’s appetite, it is clear that industry is willing to pay a high price for the guarantee of the upward production and sales curve. The anxiety of industry about what might happen to our economy if our style of life changed is expressed in this brief quote by a leading investment banker: “Clothing would be purchased for its utility; food would be bought on the basis of economy and nutritional value; automobiles would be stripped to essentials and held by the same owner for 10 to 15 years of their useful lives; homes would be built and maintained for their characteristics of shelter, without regard to style or neighbourhood. And what would happen to a market dependent upon new models, new styles, new ideas? The transformations effected by this inner work seem, when stabilized, to be a natural maturity. In dealing with resistance from a patient, an analysis may assume the lead. He may be struck by a realization that despite much work done, much insight gained, nothing changes in the patient. In such cases he must desert his role as interpreter and confront the patient openly with the discrepancy between insight and change, possibly raising the question as to unconscious reservations that the patient may have which prevent him from letting any insight really touch him. #RandolphHarris 9 of 18
Thus far the analyst’s work is of an intellectual character: he puts his knowledge into the service of the patient. However, even if he is not aware of offering more than hi technical skill, this helps extend beyond what he can give on the basis of his specific competence. In the first place, by his very presence, he gives the patient a unique opportunity to become aware of his behaviour toward people. In other relationships the patient is likely to focus his thinking primarily on the peculiarities of others, their injustice, their selfishness, their defiance, their unfairness, their unreliability, their hostility; even if he is aware of his own reactions he is inclined to regard them as provoked by the other. In analysis, however, this particular personal complication is almost entirely absent, not only because the analyst has been analyzed, and continues to analyze himself, but also because his life is not entangled with the patient’s life. This detachment isolates the patient’s peculiarities from the befogging circumstances that ordinarily surround them. And in the second place, by his friendly interest, the analyst gives the patient a good deal of what may be called general human help. To some extent this is inseparable from the intellectual help. Thus the simple fact that the analyst wants to understand the patient implies that he takes him seriously. This in itself is an emotional support of primary importance, especially at those times when the patient is harassed by emerging fears and doubts, when his frailties are exposed, his pride attacked, his illusions undermined, for the patient is often too alienated from himself to take himself seriously. #RandolphHarris 10 of 18
That statement may sound implausible, because most neurotic persons have an inordinate sense of their own importance, either in regard to their unique potentialities or in regard to their unique needs. However, to think ourselves as all important is radically different from taking ourselves seriously. The former attitude derives from an inflated image of the self; the latter refers to the real self and its development. A neurotic person often rationalizes his lack of seriousness in terms of “unselfishness” or in a contention that it is ridiculous or presumptuous to give much thought to oneself. This fundamental disinterest in the self is one of the great difficulties in self-analysis, and, conversely, one of the great advantages of professional analysis is the fact that it means working with someone who through his own attitude inspires the courage to be on friendly terms with oneself. This human support is particularly valuable when the patient is in the grip of an emerging anxiety. In such situations the analyst will rarely reassure the patient directly. However, the fact that the anxiety is tackled as a concrete problem, which can be solved eventually, lessens the terror of the unknown, regardless of the content of the interpretation. Similarly, when the patient is discouraged and inclined to give up the struggle the analyst does more for him than merely interpreting: his very attempt to understand this attitude as the outcome of a conflict is a greater support to the patient than any patting on the back or any effort to encourage him in so many words. #RandolphHarris 11 of 18
There are also the times when those fictitious foundations upon which the patient has built up his pride become shaky, and he starts to doubt himself. It is good to lose harmful illusions about oneself. However, we must not forget that in all neuroses solid self-confidence is greatly impaired. Fictitious notions of superiority substitute for it. However, the patient, in the midst of struggle, cannot distinguish between the two. To him an undermining of his inflated notions means a destruction of his faith in himself. He realizes that he is not as saintly, as loving, as powerful, as independent as he had believed, and he cannot accept himself bereft of glory. At that point he needs someone who does not lose faith in him, even though his own faith is gone. The human help that the analyst gives the patient is similar to what one friend might gives to another: emotional support, encouragement, interest in his happiness. This may constitute the patient’s first experience of the possibility of human understanding, the first time that another person has bothered to see that he is not simply a spiteful, suspicious, cynical, demanding, bluffing individual, but, with a clear recognition of such trends, still likes and respects him as a striving and struggling human being. And if the analyst has proved to be a reliable friend, this good experience may help the patient also to retrieve his faith in others. There is no doubt that the observations of a trained outsider will be more accurate than our observation of ourselves, particularly so since concerning ourselves we are far from impartial. #RandolphHarris 12 of 18
Against this disadvantage, however, stand the fact, already discussed, that we are more familiar with ourselves than any outsider can be. If they are bent on understanding their own problems, experience gained in psychoanalytic treatment shows beyond any doubt that patients can develop an amazing faculty of keen self-observation. There are obvious differences in patterns and some of the contents of the full professional training of the psychiatrist, clinical psychologist, and social worker. If we ask what specific knowledges or skills are unique to each of them, constituting a basis on which each is able to make a contribution to the psychiatric patient that cannot be duplicated by the others, these can be best appreciated. The psychiatrist’s unique competence is his medical knowledge and training—he alone is qualified to appraise the medical-physical status of the patient (although any physician can do this as well—possibly better), and he alone is qualified to prescript and administer medical (physiochemical) treatments; no one else can do this. An additional prerogative of the psychiatrist as a physician is a legal authority (existing by virtue of long historical precedent and beginning to show signs of appropriate impress of modern concepts and techniques) to be responsible for certain administrative operations (as contrasted with clearly medical procedures), for example, to hospitalize a patient, to discharge a patient, and so on. #RandolphHarris 13 of 18
The long-standing authority of the physician as the final and sole authority on “insanity” or mental disease within the law is beginning to show appropriate decay. The quality of a recent brief filed by the American Psychiatric Association speaks eloquently for the inevitable erosion of the physician’s role as ultimate arbiter in this area. The clear responsibility of the hospital psychiatrist for medical care of patients has historically extended to a quasi-legal responsibility (final authority) for such psychological procedures as prescribing changes in activity programs, giving or withholding passes, allowing or disallowing visitors. However, increasingly, partly as a function of the team approach and partly as a function of administrative leadership, such decisions are becoming a group responsibility (in many instances of the responsibility of the patient’s peers) or transferred to the psychologist. The clinical psychologist’s unique contribution to the individual patient comes in his competence to select, administer, score, interpret, and integrate the results of a variety of psychological tests and examination procedures that provide the only truly standardized and reliable source of data as to the patient’s mental ability and personality. He alone is a skilled diagnostician in the sense of having facility with a set of instruments specifically designed to overcome the errors and inadequacies of notoriously fallible clinical appraisal of complex phenomena. Beyond the application of his diagnostic tools to the individual patient, the psychologist alone has a thorough knowledge of the psychometric theory underlying these instruments and, accordingly, he can truly appreciate their limitations. #RandolphHarris 14 of 18
Aside from this contribution to the individual patient, the psychologist’s grounding in the methodology of behavioural research, especially measurement of personality and the behavioural correlates of personality types, affords him the capacity to design instruments for appraisal of changes, specifically of changes in major dimensions of personality. Measurement of such changes, and of related criterion variables, lies at the heart of the appraisal of the effectiveness of any psychotherapeutic or other psychiatric therapy. Skill in such personality research at the molar of behavioural level (as contrasted with study of physiological functions) is another capacity unique to the clinical psychologist. The social worker has knowledge of the network of city, county, and state welfare agencies, their personnel, equipment, and services and their administrative patterns and relationships, which is not shard by others member of the psychiatric team. She is sensitive to community structure and to the ways in which that structure can naturally facilitate or impede the recovery of a patient. She is experienced in the relevance of subculture memberships for pattens of psychopathology and for accessibility or resistance to personal intervention. She is skilled in the elicitation and correlation of life history data from relatives and other informants. She is cognizant of the economic problems of various family structures. She is expert in preparation of the patient to accept and profit from such referrals. These are among the skills of the case workers in the old-fashioned sense, and they are not shared by psychiatrist of psychologist. #RandolphHarris 15 of 18
A few psychiatrists have also received full graduate training in psychology, some psychologists were previously social workers, and occasionally a social worker successfully pursues the study of medicine or psychology. Each of these professionals has some unique areas in the background of general education which he brings to his graduate training and differences in the core emphasis of his specialized graduate preparation. The professions of psychiatry, clinical psychology and social work are presently providing the great bulk of formal psychotherapy in this country. However, the members of no one of these three professions are selected and trained primarily to be skilled psychotherapists. The variation in the cost of training each of these experts and the time required for this training, in light of the proportional relevance of their respective programs as preparation for the specific conduct of psychotherapy, has obvious social implications. It must be recognized that psychotherapy is neither the primary not unique skill of any one of these professions. The psychiatrist, psychologist, and social worker each does possess specialized and unique competence. Can our society afford a significant reduction in the application of these unique skills in a “shotgun” effort to meet the manpower shortage resulting from the increasing demand for therapeutic conversation? #RandolphHarris 16 of 18
Man is conceived as a machine, driven by a relatively constant amount of sexual energy called “libido.” This libido causes painful tension, which is reduced only by the act of physical release; to this liberation from painful tension Dr. Freud gave the name of “pleasure.” After the reduction of tension, libidinal tension increases again due to the chemistry of the body, causing a new need for tension reduction, that is, pleasureful satisfaction. This dynamism, which leads from tension to release of tension to renewed tension, from pain to pleasure to pain, Dr. Freud called the “pleasure principle.” He contrasted it with the “reality principle,” which tells man what to seek for and what to avoid in the real World in which he lives, in order to secure his survival. This reality principle often conflicts with the pleasure principle, and a certain equilibrium between the two is the condition for mental health. On the other hand, if either one of these two principles is out of balance, neurotic or psychotic manifestations are the result. I, for one, am a fan of the silent treatment. The quieter it is, the more I like it. If you have someone who does this to you, then let them shut you out. Let them remain quiet because of something you did or said made them angry with you. Relish that silence. It is so much better than their ongoing griping and ridiculing. People use silence as a tactic to get to you, to make you feel bad. They want you to miss their presence, miss their acceptance of you. Do not give them what they want. And do not let it get to you. If they keep pulling themselves away and shutting people out, it is not your loss. #RandolphHarris 17 of 18
If you look at what they are doing, they are shutting everyone out, removing themselves from the World. It is really a very self-sabotaging thing to do. When you do not allow yourself to get upset by their actions and really take a look at what they are doing to themselves in a vain attempt to hurt you, you will realize that. If a man cannot find in society or surroundings that standards which suit his character, then he must find his own. It is this that makes him a quester. To some people, it might seem foolhardy to charge into the flames to rescue someone you never saw before and may never see again. It is not that the Sacramento Fire Department does not think about the danger. They are human and do not want to die, just like everyone else. However, unlike most everyone else, they do what has to be done despite their fears. Firefighters have ignored pleas from their partners and low-crawled through a blazing apartment, risking death, while desperately groping in the dense smoke for a child who was assumed dead. Another firefighter leaped into a smoke-filled elevator shaft of a burning high-rose and shinnied down a cable to a red-hot elevator in a valiant rescue attempt. While another firefighter jumped fifteen feet down into a pit of fire without a plan of escape because to do nothing meant certain death for a trapped victim. Gripping acts of heroism can happen anywhere at any time in Sacramento. Please make a donation to the Sacramento Fire Department to ensure they receive adequate resources. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. #RandolphHarris 18 of 18
One night while closing The Winchester Mystery House a caregiver had accidentally dropped his mobile phone, and began to read a text message after he picked it up; after when he looked at his watch to ascertain the time. In taking his eyes from his watch, they became riveted upon the door-to-nowhere which he distinctly saw open, and also saw the figure of a female attired in grayish garments, with the head inclined downwards, and one hand pressed upon the chest as if in pain, and the other—the right hand—extended towards the ground with the index finger pointing downwards. It advanced with an apparently cautious step across the floor towards him. Immediately as it approached another caregiver, who was relaxing, its right hand extended toward her. He then rushed at it, giving at the same time a most awful yell, but, instead of grasping it, he fell upon his friend. I recollected nothing distinctly for nearly three hours afterward. However, he learned that he was carried downstairs in agony of fear and terror. The female caregiver added to the account with the detail of “sounds” being heard from an adjacent room. “His horrible shouts. He seems to have fainted in her arms. She instantly laid him down and went into the room from whence the last sound was heard. However, nothing was there and the door-to-nowhere had not been opened. Other employees came quickly to their assistance, and found the young caregiver trembling in the most acute mental agony.
Come and enjoy a delicious meal in Sarah’s Café, stroll along the paths of the beautiful Victorian gardens, and wonder through the miles of hallways in the World’s most mysterious mansion. For further information about tours, including group tours, weddings, school events, birthday party packages, facility rentals, and special events please visit the website: https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
Please visit the online giftshop, and purchase a gift for friends and relatives as well as a special memento of The Winchester Mystery House. A variety of souvenirs and gifts are available to purchase. https://shopwinchestermysteryhouse.com/
People Do Not Like Old Graves Disturbed
It was one of those nights when the moon gives a faint glimmer of light through the thick black clouds of a lowering sky. Hope and native courage urged me to push forward, but at the length the increasing darkness and fatigue of body and mind was overcoming me. As the moon sank beneath a black cloud, the hallways were darker than ever. All was silent. All was still as death. My blood was chilled, Across the hall, upon the grand staircase, a pale bluish apparition cast a dismal gleam of light around. Summoning forth my courage, I quickly advanced toward it. Terror impelled me to make some hasty steps. I came to the foot of the stairs, and after a moment’s deliberation ascended. I went slowly up, the apparition retiring before me, until I came to a wide gallery. The apparition proceeded along it, and I followed in silent horror, treading lightly, for the echoes of my footsteps startled me. It led me to the foot of another staircase, and then vanished. At the same instant toll sounded from the belfry—I felt it strike upon my heart. I was now in total darkness, and with my arms extended, began to ascend the second staircase. A dead cold hand met my left hand and firmly grasped it, drawing me forcibly forwards—I endeavoured to disengage myself, but could not—I made a furious blow with my revolver, and instantly a loud shriek pierced my ears, and the dead hand was left powerless in mine. I dropped it, and rushed towards with a desperate valour. The stairs were narrow and winding, and interrupted by frequent breaches. #RandolphHarris 1 of 5
The staircase grew narrower and narrower and at length terminated in to wall. I pushed the wall opened, its hinges creaked loudly-it led to an intricate winding passage, just large enough to admit myself. A faint glimmer of light served to show the nature of the place. I entered. A deep hollow groan resounded from a distance through the vault. I went forwards, and proceeding beyond the first turning, I discerned the same blue apparition. I flowed it. The vault, at length, suddenly opened into a lofty gallery, in which the midst of which a figure appeared, completely armed, thrusting forwards the bloody stump of an arm, with a terrible frown and menacing gesture, brandishing a pistol in his hand. I undauntedly sprang forwards and aimed a fierce blow at the figure; it vanished, letting fall a massy iron key. The apparition now rested upon a pair of ample wooden doors at the end of the gallery. I went up to it, and applied the key to a brazen lock—with difficulty I turned the bolt—instantly the doors flew open and discovered a large apartment. There was soft music playing, it was the most magnificent room I had ever seen, lighted with innumerable tapers in lustres of pure crystal. Then suddenly the piercing shrikes of a person in distress arrested my speed; I stopped and, listening attentively, heard shrill, melancholy cries repeated at interval through my mansion, which gradually became more distant, grew faint and died away. #RandolphHarris 2 of 5
As I traversed further in this new section of the mansion, there was a chandelier of bronze, hung down from the middle of the ceiling. Then, at one end of the hall, was a great fireplace, as long as the size of a county house; and by it were heavy, old-fashioned sofas. At the opposite end of the hall, to the left as I went it—on the western side—was an organ built into the wall, and so large that it filled up the best part of that end. Beyond it, on the same side, was a door. As I went through the door, I froze in fear. There was a solider in one of the bedrooms. He was dark and had a noose around the neck; the rope of cut and his faced seemed almost luminous. I tried to collect my thoughts. My first sensation was like that of a very young child badly hurt, when it catches it breath before crying out. The emotional climate of Llanada Villa was uncanny, as if an unseen force was always present. From the blank darkness outside came in, through the aperture that served for a window, all the ever unfamiliar noises of night in the wilderness—the long, nameless note of a distant coyote; the stilly pulsing thrill of tireless insects in trees; strange cries of night birds, so different from those of the birds of the day; the drone of great blundering beetles, and all that mysterious chorus of small sounds that seem always to have been but half hard when they have suddenly ceased, as if conscious of an indiscretion. #RandolphHarris 3 of 5
I crept to an open door; the organ broke out with a blare. A dazzling light filled the mansion, blotting the chandelier from my eyes. The soldier faded away, the arches, the vaulted roof vanished. I raised my seared eyes to the fathomless glare, and I saw the black stars hanging in the Heavens. I shivered. The air was suddenly cold. I told myself I was just scared, because I was. I sat there plunged in the profoundest grief that can come to the human soul, for in all other agony hope flickers, however forlornly. Then I saw something. I saw a little white face with eyes so scared and wishful that they seemed as if they might eat a hole in anybody’s heart. It was a dreadful little face, with something about it which made it different from any other face on Earth, but it was so pitiful that somehow it did away a good deal of dreadfulness. And there were two little hands spotted blue with the cold. And a darling little echo of a voice said, “I can’t find my mommy.” “For Heaven’s sake,” I said, “who are you?” Then the little voice said: “I can’t find my mommy.” All the time I could smell the cold that was clinging to her as if she had come out of some deadly cold place. She was dressed in a white nightgown, very long, quite covering her feet, and I could see dimly through her thin body mottled blue with the cold. Her face did not look so cold; that was a clear waxen white. Her hair was dark, but it looked as if she it might by dark only because it was so damp, almost wet, and might really be fair coloured hair. As the child descended further into the room, the ceiling returned and no longer visible were the stars. #RandolphHarris 4 of 5
Well, I was so dumfounded that I did not know what to do, and I could not make sense at first that it was anything supernatural. Then I tried to catch hold of the child, for I thought in spite of what I saw that perhaps I was nervous and she was a real child. I went to put my shawl around her, but the minute I moved toward the child, there was no longer a child there; there was only that little voice seeming to come from nothing, saying, “I can’t find my mommy,” and presently that died away. That feeling I had, the current in my stomach, my temples, my fingertips—it remained with me for quite a while. It rose and fell with the memory of that girl’s words. The air was still. As I gazed out the window, the silvery vapour hung serenely on the far horizon, and the frosty stars blinked brightly. Everyone knows the effect of such a scene on a mind already saddened. Fancies and regrets floats delicately in the mind, and the scene affected me with a strange sense of memory and anticipation, like some sweet old air heard in the distance. There was something of the unearthly and spectral within these walls whose direct connection was with a necromancy even older than the Salem witchcraft could not be doubted. A hideous traffic was going on among nightmare ghouls. Sometimes, looking at the past can have consequences for the present. It is best graves should be left well alone. We do not need to pull all the pieces together of things that are better left to rest. #RandolphHarris 5 of 5
The Winchester Mystery House
Of all the myths which have come down to us from ancient times and of all creations, the personality of evil has the strongest attraction for the mind of man. The Devil is the greatest enigma that has ever confronted the human intelligence. So large a place has Satan taken in our imagination, and we might also say in our heart, that his expulsion therefrom, no matter what philosophy may tech us, must forever remain an impossibility. The Devil advanced with the progress of civilization, because he is what men make him. I talked to caretakers of The Winchester Mystery House about apparitions they may have seen in Mrs. Winchester’s mansion. Some of them had never seen anything unusual. However, there was a man, who always liked to take tour of The Winchester Mystery House of Friday the 13th. When queried about his insistence on that day, the man freely admitted it was because on that day he could see “her”—the “her” being a female wraith who appeared at the mansion to listen to the guests, and then disappeared at midnight. On that day, he could always be next to her! I pressed more caretakers about any personal experienced. Finally, he thought that he had seen something like a figure in white out of the corner of one eye, a figure that passed, and quickly disappeared.
Come and enjoy a delicious meal in Sarah’s Café, stroll along the paths of the beautiful Victorian gardens, and wonder through the miles of hallways in the World’s most mysterious mansion. For further information about tours, including group tours, weddings, school events, birthday party packages, facility rentals, and special events please visit the website: https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
Please visit the online giftshop, and purchase a gift for friends and relatives as well as a special memento of The Winchester Mystery House. A variety of souvenirs and gifts are available to purchase. https://shopwinchestermysteryhouse.com/
Randolph Harris II International Institute 