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Legend of The Winchester Mystery House
It is well-know that my mansion is haunted. In all of the valley, not one person of unbiased mind entertains a doubt of it. I was sitting in the chair. It seemed I had been asleep forever, but I had not been sleeping at all. The day was sunny and cool. The grass greening all the expanse in its front seemed to grow with a natural and joyous exuberance, and the flowers blossomed in a lovely fashion. Full of charming lights and shadows and populous with pleasant-voiced birds, the well-manicured evergreen trees no longer struggled to run away, but bent reverently beneath their blessings of sun and song. Even the stained-glass windows were an expression of peace and contentment, due to the light within. Over the fruit orchards, the visible heat danced with a lively tremor incompatible with the gravity which is an attribute of the supernatural. Ghosts bridge the past to the present; they speak across the seemingly insurmountable barriers of death and time, connecting us to what was lost. They often give us hope for a life beyond death and because of this help us to cope with loss and grief. Their presence is the promise that we do not have to say goodbye to our loved ones right away and that what was left undone in one’s life might yet be finished. However, Llanada Villa was horribly haunted. A haunted house is a memory palace come to life—a physical space that retains memories that might otherwise be forgotten. Many ghost sighting and other mysterious incidents revolve around the stair cast to the ceiling. Many of my guest have confided that they get dizzy, have trouble breathing, and feel a pressing need to leave the house. Death lingers in the air. The walls are shrouds, enfolding every space in exquisite darkness. #RandolphHarris 1 of 5
While sitting in the parlor, enjoying a cup of tea, a bone chilling, piercing hold took hold of me. Suddenly rain fell steadily, splashing on the ground beneath the window and lying in pools upon the sodden grass. Except for an occasional glimpse of bare branches gliding through the mist, there was nothing to be seen beyond the window, but grey, swirling vapour; I looked up more than once from the pages of John Bunyan’s narrative and felt the hair rise on the back of my neck before the warmth of the fire brought me back to The Pilgrim’s Progress. Every now and then the Heavens were torn asunder by vivid lightning. The blackness of the storm had become merged in darkness of the night, and the weird sounds of a wolf echoed around the estate. There was something so weird and uncanny about the whole thing that it gave me a turn and made me feel quite faint. Halloween was the night, according to the belief of millions of people, when the devil was abroad, graves were opened, and the dead came forth and walked. When evil things of Earth and air and water held revel. The floor shook as though thousands of horses thundered across it. A flash of forked lightning lit up the whole expanse of the Heavens. I heard a mingling of dreadful sound, and the air seemed reverberant with the howling of wolves. The last sight that I remembered was a vague, white, moving mass, as all of the souls killed by the Winchester Rifle sent out the phantoms, and that they were closing in on me through a white cloudiness. #RandolphHarris 2 of 5
Gradually there came a sort of vague beginning of consciousness, then a sense of weariness that was dreadful. For a time I remembered nothing, but solely my sense returned. My feet seemed absolutely racked with pain, yet I could not move them. They seemed to be numbed. There was an icy feeling down my spine. It was a nightmare—a physical nightmare, if one may use such an expression—for some heavy weight on my chest made it difficult for me to breathe. This period of semi-lethargy seemed to remain a long time, and as it faded away I must have slept or swooned. Then came a sort of loathing, like the first stage of sea-sickness, and a while desire to be free from something—I knew not what. A vast stillness enveloped me, as though all the World were asleep or dead. For another spell of time, I was powerless. Lights and shadows moved in the mansion. There were dark whispers. I was white as a sheet and shaking so that I could hardly stand. The agony clawed at my innermost soul. Dazed and frightened, this is a deathly place; I have never felt so cold. Shadows darted along the walls. Coals glowed in the fireplace nearby. Though the fire had been burning for hours, it made little impression upon the deathly chill of the gallery. My footsteps reverberated as I there were a dozen people pacing in the gallery. The floor creaked. I was not aware of any draught, yet every so often the flames would sway in unison, as if someone had passed along the floor below. The heat of the fire was diminishing perceptibly. Every sound—the creak of a chair, the crackling of the coals—seemed an intrusion upon the deathly stillness of the gallery. #RandolphHarris 3 of 5
The light strengthened and changed, darkening from yellow to orange to a fiery blood-red glow. As it did so, I became aware of a low, vibrant humming, like the sound of bees swarming; I could not tell where it was coming from. A voice said, “Do not move, upon your lives.” Dazzling white light filled the gallery, followed by an instant later by a thunderclap that shook the whole house and left me blinded and deafened, with diamond patterns of the leadlighting etched upon my vision. As the after-image faced I realized that all of the candles had gone out; beyond the faint glow of the fire at my side, the darkness was absolute. Then came the sound of hurrying feet from the library. A shaft of light spilled across the floor; the connecting door flew open. The lights all went out and I was plunged into impenetrable darkness. A misty pillar of light hovered for a moment in the void and then opened, with a movement like the unfurling of wings, into a shimmering figure that detached itself from the chandelier—now dimly visible in the glow—and glided toward me. It had no face, no form, only a veil of light floating over emptiness. I could not move, could not breathe. I heard the sound of the library door opening, and footsteps approaching. The apparition shimmered to a halt. “Will you speak to me?” I cried. “I may…not stay”—the voice, though faint and indistinct said “but will you not shake hands…” growing fainter with each word—“for friendship’s sake?” The footsteps came closer; the dim outline of a man passed between me and the apparition. Light swirled; a glowing armed appeared, but there was no hand, only an empty sleeve, and when I tried to grasp the arm, my own hand passed straight through it! #RandolphHarris 4 of 5
With a cry of despair, I flung both arms around the apparition. For an instant, man and spirit were united; then darkness engulfed them, and I knew no more. When I came to my sense, the coals were crackling in a grate nearby. I was lying, I realized, where I had fallen on the gallery floor, but with a cushion beneath my head. I have had a terrible dream, I thought, turning my head away from the glare. “Mrs. Winchester,” Elizabeth the housemaid said, “I am truly sorry. I should have never left you alone, but I was scared.” “I do not understand,” I said to Elizabeth. “Did you mesmerize me? Did I dream the lightening?” “No, Mrs. Winchester,” she replied. “Everything happened exactly as your perceived.” Lights were burning along the walls, but the floor I where I was laying was still in near darkness. I took Elizabeth’s arm and rose unsteadily to my feet. I straightened my hair and brushed the dust from my cloak. “You feasted on my soul and cast a spell over me!,” I said. The moon rose high. I was very weak, and my heart was beating so slowly that I was almost like a woman fainting. Slowly I turned my head, but Elizabeth was not there. Fear seized me suddenly, a fear unspeakable and unknown. The hour dragged themselves through the twilight and darkness and moonrise. But in the chilly dawn, I lay as one half dead upon my bed. Then came the fear, the awful nameless, panic, the mortal horror that guards the confines of the World we see not, neither know of as we know of other things, but which we feel when its icy chill freezes our bones and stirs our hair with the touch of a ghostly hand. #RandolphHarris 5 of 5
Some houses are more haunted than others. If you account the sheer number of sightings at The Winchester Mystery House, it is one of the busiest places in the World! The phantoms sometimes look like normal, living, breathing human beings. However, then some of these specters abruptly evaporate, without leaving a trace. Sometimes it is hard to believe in ghost even when you have seen them with your own eyes. But at The Winchester Mystery House, spirits come calling down those miles of twisting hallways, and after a visit, there will never be a such thing as a simple tour of a Victorian Mansion. https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
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Lay Bare the Secret You Keep from Each Other
It was a lie. A lie I would never forget for as long as I walked the Earth. He would tell us nothing of himself but that he was “a fool,” to be frightened by their talk, and that the rattle of a window, or the dropping of a pin was enough to scare him now. He was now asleep on the sofa. The candles were flaring, and there was a wavering shadow at the door that looked like the head of a man with a long neck, and a long, sharp nose, peeping and drawing back. The fugitive shadow seemed to be breaking up, rearranging itself oddly. I rose, and walking slowly to him, I stood over him and looked at him, at the blood that soaked his lace shirt and stained his face. He did not open his eyes. However, I felt his sorrow. I felt its immensity, and I wished I did not feel it, and for the moment I understood the gulf that divided us, and the gulf that divided his attempt to overpower me from my rather simple defense of myself. And with his eyes closed, and his hand open beside him, he appeared the abandoned offspring of time and supernatural accident, someone as miserable as myself. What had he done to become what he was? His family was ruined, I believe, in some civil wars, long ago. Through the hall door, I could see the moonlight was beautiful. As the night waned on, the young man recovered slowly from his brain fever, but not perfectly. He was not sufficiently strong to remove for change of scene and air, which were necessary for his complete restoration. In the dead of the night, Haze Austin was suddenly awakened. And in this broken child were centuries of evil and centuries of knowledge, and out of him there came no ignominious entreaty but merely the soft and bruised sense of what he was. Old, old evil, eyes that had seen dark ages of which I only dream. #RandolphHarris 1 of 8
I shall never forget this sight, for he looked the perfect incarnation of hate. His green eyes blazed with lurid fire, and his white teeth seemed to almost shine through the blood which dabbled his mouth. Desperately he tried to vanquish what he did not comprehend. He was so exquisitely beautiful and so lost. “Is there a chill in the air, dear?” I said. “I almost shiver; have I been dreaming? You look ill, Mrs. Winchester; a little faint,” said Haze. “I am better now. How do you feel now, Haze?” I said. I was beginning to take alarm. Natural enough, was it not, that one of his own should take him away from Llanada Villa. “Papa would be grieved beyond measure,” he said. “If he thought we were inconveniencing you at all.” In a moment he was standing on his own feet. And then he walked drowsily beside me, my arm about his shoulder, bolstering him and steadying him, until we were moving towards his father’s cottage on my estate. I only half glanced at the figures passing us, until I saw a familiar shape under the trees. Somewhere far off in the darkened gardens, other were near. When he pushed open the door to his father’s home, he was laying dead upon the floor. His cravat was drawn halter-wise tight round his throat, and he had done its work well. The body was cold, and had been long dead. In due course the coroner held his inquest, and the jury pronounced that the deceased, Mac Austin, had died by his own hand, in a state of temporary insanity. However, Haze had his own opinion about his father’s death, though his lips were sealed, and he never spoke about it. He went and lived for the residue of his days in York, where there are still people who remember him, a taciturn and surly young man, who attended church regularly, and also drank a little, and was know to have saved some money. #RandolphHarris 2 of 8
But there occurred that night an event which gave my thoughts quite a new turn, and seemed to even startle even Haze’s languid nature. When I returned to my drawing-room, and sat down to coffee and chocolate, Elizabeth joined me, and we had a little card party. When the game was over, Elizabeth and I sat down on the sofa, and I asked her, a little anxiously, whether she had heard from her mother since her arrival. She answered “No.” I then asked her whether she knew where a letter would reach her at present. “I cannot tell,” she answered, ambiguously, “but I have been thinking of leaving you; you have been already too hospitable and too kind to me. I have given you an infinity of trouble, and I should wish to take a carriage to-morrow, and post in pursuit of her; I know where I shall ultimately find her, although I dare not tell you.” “But you must not dream such a thing,” I exclaimed. “I cannot afford to lose you so, and I will not consent to your leaving us, except under the care of your mother, who was so good as to consent to your remaining with us till she should herself return. I should be quite happy if I knew that you heard from her; but this evening the accounts of the progress of the mysterious disease that has invaded our community, grow even more alarming; and my beautiful guest, I do feel the responsibility, unaided by advice from your mother, very much. However, I shall do my best’ one thing is certain, that you must not think of leaving Llanada Villa without her distinct direction to that effect. We should suffer too much in parting from you to consent to it easily.” “Thank you, Mrs. Winchester, a thousand times for your hospitality,” Elizabeth answered, smiling bashfully. “You have all been too kind to me; I have seldom been so happy in all my life before, as in your beautiful mansion, under your care, and in the society of your dear niece.” #RandolphHarris 3 of 8
I accompanied Elizabeth to her room, and sat and chatted with her while she was preparing for bed. She turned around, “Do you think that you will ever confide fully in me about your home?” “Now, Elizabeth, you are gong to talk your wild nonsense again,” I said hastily. “Not I, silly little fool as I am, and full of whims and fancies; for your sake I’ll talk like a sage. Did you ever have a ball in the Grand Ballroom? What was it like? How charming it must be.” “I almost forget, it is years ago.” I laughed. “Mrs. Winchester, you are not so old. Your first ball can hardly be forgotten yet.” “I remember everything about it—with an effort. I see it all, as divers see what is going on above them, through a medium, dense, rippling, but transparent. There occurred that night what has confused the picture, and made it colours faith I was all but assassinated in my bed, wounded here,” I touched my breast, “and never was the same since.” “Were you near dying?” “Yes, a very—cruel love—strange love, that would have taken my life. Love will have its sacrifices. No sacrifices without blood. Let us go to sleep now; I feel lazy.” I bid her good-night, crept from the room with an uncomfortable sensation, locked her door and retired to my chambers. I was lying in bed, with my hands buried in my rich wavy hair, under my cheek, and my head upon the pillow. I often wondered whether my pretty guest ever said her prayers. I certainly had never seen her upon her knees. In the morning she never came down until long after our family prayers were over, and at night she never left the drawing room to attend our brief evening prayers in the hall. Ever since the midnight invaders, I locked all the doors in the house at night, and my whimsical alarms about prowling assassins required me to have the servants search every room in the house to make sure there were no lurking assassins or robbers “ensconced.” #RandolphHarris 4 of 8
After these measures were taken, I got into my bed and fell asleep. A light was burning in my room. This was an old habit, of very early date, ad which nothing could have tempted me to dispense with. Thus fortified I might take my rest in peace. However, dreams come through walls, light up dark rooms, or darken light ones, and their persons make their exists and their entrances as they please, and laugh at locksmiths. I had a dream that night that was the beginning of a very strange agony. I cannot call it a nightmare, for I was quite conscious of being asleep. However, I was equally conscious of being in my room, and lying in bed, precisely as I actually was. I saw, or fancied I saw, the room and its furniture just as I had seen it last, except tht it was very dark, and I saw something moving round the foot of the bed, which at first I could not accurately distinguish. However, I soon saw that it was a sooty-black figure that resembled a man. He appeared to me about five or six feet tall, he floated around the room hither and tither with the lithe sinister restlessness of a beast in a cage. I could not cry out, although as you ay supposed, I was terrified. Its pace was growing faster, and the room rapidly darker and darker, and at length so dark that I could no longer see anything of it but its eyes. I felt it spring lightly on the bed. The two broad eyes approached my face, and I could see it was Haze. He looked at me with centuries of evil blazing in his eyes, but there was not the slightest stir or respiration. And I felt a shudder. My heart expanded slightly, against my will. “I curse you,” he said. As I stared at him, I felt danger again, terrible danger. Then he appeared to have changed his place, and was now nearer to the door; then, close to it, the door opened, and he vanished. #RandolphHarris 5 of 8
It would be vain my attempting to tell you the horror with which, even now, I recall he occurrence of that night. It seemed to deepen by time, and communicated itself to the room and the very furniture that had encompassed the apparition. Later that day, I had another strange experience; I walked into the parlor that afternoon where Daisy and Elizabeth had been sitting, and a saw Haze upon the sofa. However, then I realized that he was invisible to the others. He got up and walked toward me—I was not afraid—and then—seemed to dissolve into the air. And so I wondered…whether I might have fallen into a trance. I clasped my hands and struggled to control my breathing. We know that, in the mesmeric trance, a subject may acquire unusual mental powers; The Frenchman Didier, who could read minds, play cards blindfolded, and identify the contents of sealed containers with great accuracy, is one of the best-known instances. Ancient houses, it has always seemed to me, are like Leyden jars, quietly accumulating the influences of the past…and my home is a special case. I lay awake into the small hours, worrying over these anxieties as they became more and more nightmarish until I sank into a troubled sleep. Sleeping had become so difficult one night that I wandered through this vast mansion, searching for a precious jewel William had given me. The jewel had been lost; I did not know how, but I knew that my own carelessness was to blame. To make matter worse, I could not remember what kind of stone it was, for as I went from room to room, a voice kept chanting, “Emerald, sapphire, ruby, diamond,” over and over, and none of them seemed right, because the lost stone was a different, a more beautiful colour than any of those, and I knew I ought to be able to picture it, and thus recall its name, but I could not. #RandolphHarris 6 of 8
The mansion was absolutely silent; the light throughout, even in corridors was a pale, uniform grey like that of an overcast sky. The rooms were modestly furnished; each one seemed to have its own miniature flight of stairs, up or down two or three steps, and the corridors kept changing levels in similar fashion. Though the house itself was not especially sinister, my anxiety over the fate of the jewel grew steadily more acute until it had risen to an unbearable pitch. Then it occurred to me that I still had not searched the Venetian Dining Room. The thought precipitated a vertiginous change of scene; the light sank to a dim, murky brown, and I was standing in the doorway of the room where we had dined that night. The curtains were drawn, the candles snuffed; the room seemed to be empty, but as I crept toward the table, I saw, above the back of the chair in which I usually sat, the dark outline of a head. There was time to slip away quietly; but perhaps the jewel had fallen into the lining of my chair, and if I were to tiptoe forward, I might be able to see it. I was within two feet of the motionless figure when a voice spoke from the doorway behind me, a word that rang like a loud gong, louder and louder until it became my own cry of “No!” and I woke in grey dawn light to find myself standing at the head of the stairs. And then I thought I caught sight of a shape, dak in space and light, through the door in one of the bedrooms. There was a tall figure in what I could have sworn was a black top hat, staring directly back at me. The figure was dressed formally in black morning suit. And then, with a movement so spasmodic and sudden, the man turned and stated to walk eastward, out of sight. I dismissed it, as one of the Winchester’s passing enigmas. There was much about the curse of the Winchester Mansion that I did not understand. #RandolphHarris 7 of 8
Spirits of Llanada Villa, I awaken the powers of darkness which dwell within you by the power of the blood of the three heeded Dragon Zohak that you may serve to empower Mrs. Winchester’s great work! Through serving the greater cause of dark magick which break the shackles that bind the Blackened Fire of Spirit, may you be uplifted and liberated! Awaken and empower the forbidden rites of Angra Mainyu! Awaken to empower the Mrs. Winchester’s great work of counter creation as an Apostle of the Lord of Darkness eternal and as a warrior of the path of the Lemegeton. I adjure thee, Emperor Lucifer, as the agent of the strong living God, of His beloved Son, and of the Holy Ghost, and by the power of the Great ADONAY, ELOIM, ARIEL, and JEHOVAM, to appear instantly, or to send thy Messenger Astarot, forcing thee to forsake thy hiding-place, wheresoever it may be. Aeshma, Div of wrath and fury! He who wields the bloody mace! Aeshma who is demon of the wounding spear I call you forth into this temple of counter creation! Through devotion to my becoming on this path, your spiritual weapon has been made manifest in this corporeal World through my will and counter creative power so you may fill it with your essence and might! Empower it so that it may serve me here upon the corporeal plane! May it serve as a key to the realms above and below unlocking the power and wisdom for the spirits of the Winchester’s glory and ascent! Fill this weapon with your powers of wrath and fury that it may seek out spiritual attacks made and render them useless and impotent! #RandolphHarris 8 of 8
One Halloween, a tour guide saw a little boy who was no more than six years old. He was dressed in a black hood, and long black robe, and it looked like he did not have a face, as he had a black, opaque nylon covering the opening in the hood. The tour guide asked him who he was supposed to be, and the little boy said, “I’m the Angel of Life.” The tour guide then asked him who the Angel of Life is. The boy replied, “The Angel of Life is someone who comes to talk to you. He tells you things about your life.” The conviction on the little boy’s face and the non-hesitant way in which he explained who he was made the tour guide think that the boy had some knowledge of what he was talking about. Shortly after, objects in the gift shop started floating about, and glimpses of a shadowy figure were spotted in the basement. In the café, according to a female patron, she had been sitting at a table in a back corner of the room when a man suddenly appeared in a chair across the table from her. The man stared straight ahead and refused to react in any way. The female patron looked away to get the waitress’s attention and when she looked back, the man was gone. The woman related that the elusive figure was wearing old-fashioned clothes. https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
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I’m a Pharmacist, I Know What I am Doing
Recreational drug use is often portrayed in popular culture and music. To further highlight this illustration, probably the best known musical cliché of recent decades was “sex, drugs, and rock’ n’ roll,” while the Billbooard charts have been filled with songs involving drugs, such as Eric Clapton’s Cocaine or the Rolling Stones’ Sister Morphine and Mother’s Little Helper. Popular culture portrays not just recreational drug use but tragedy associated with drugs, for example, the deaths of guitarist Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and Jim Morrison and many others. Of course, not all common-use drugs are understood as dangerous or associated with tragedy. We found clear evidence of two very different modes of entry among the respondents, namely recreational abusers and therapeutic self-medicators. However, it is important to note tht these were not mutually exclusive categories of offenders. In other words, these two categories were not completely dichotomous. As is usually the case, real life seldom fits cleanly into nice, neat categories. In fact, we were able to identify a number of cognitive and behavioural themes that were common to almost all of the drug-using pharmacists interviewed. These themes were expressed by nearly all of the drug-abusing pharmacists that we interviewed, regardless of how the individual initially began their illicit drug abuse career. The existence of these common themes suggest that pharmacy-specific occupational contingencies play a center role in the onset and progression of illicit use of prescription medicines. #RandolphHarris 1 of 20
Intuitively, it should not be surprising that pharmacists would steal prescription medicines as a way of treating their own physical ailments. After all, they have been exposed to years of pharmacy training that emphasized the beneficial, therapeutic potential of these medicines. Each pharmacist has dispensed the medicines to hundreds of patients and then watched the drugs usually produce the predicted beneficial results. They have all read the literature and drug inserts detailing the chemical composition of drugs and studied the often dramatic curative effects of the chemical substances. Pharmacists, more so than any other member of society, are keenly aware of how and why drugs work. There was strong evidence to suggest that both the therapeutic self-medicators and the recreational abusers actively used the years of pharmacological knowledge that they had acquired. In their eyes, it made perfect sense that they should put their pharmacy knowledge to work on themselves. This application of knowledge can be seen in the comments of a 40-year-old female self-medicator: “So, in 1986 I was sent to the psychologist. That was when I was forced to recognize that I had an alcohol problem. And I recognized that I had to do something. And in my brilliant analysis, I made a decision that since alcohol was a central nervous system depressant, the solution for me was to use a central nervous system stimulant. That would solve my alcohol problem. So I chose the best stimulant that I had access to, and that was [pharmaceutical grade] cocaine. I started using cocaine in 1986. I never thought that it would progress. I never thought it was going to get worse. I thought, ‘I’m just going to use it occasionally.’” #RandolphHarris 2 of 20
Similar trends were observed among the recreational abuser group, only here, the applied use of drugs was based upon more recreational motives. Almost all of the therapeutic self-medicators and recreational abusers described how they became masters of quickly diagnosing their own ailments or emotional needs and then identifying the appropriate pharmacological agent that would remedy the problem. Moreover, as professionals, they were confident that they would be able to self-regulate their drug intake so as to never become addicted. All of the respondents drew upon their social status as pharmacists to convince themselves that their drug use would not progress into dependency. They recall being adamant in their view that personally they were immune from such problems, believing that only stupid, naïve people became addicted to drugs. As a 40-year-old female self-medicator put it, “I’m a pharmacist, I know what I am doing.” A 39-year-old male self-medicator went so far as to say: “I mean, we know more [about the effect of drugs] than doctors. We have all the package inserts. We have the knowledge. We know a lot about the drugs, so what’s the big deal?” Elsewhere we refer to this denial mechanism as a “paradox of familiarity,” because familiarity can breed consent, not contempt toward prescription drug use. Members of both categories of pharmacists claimed that they had never been warned about the dangers of drugs, insisting instead that their training had only stressed the beneficial side of prescription medication. #RandolphHarris 3 of 20
To further highlight this illustration, a 48-year-old male misuser stated: “I never had anybody come right out and tell me that [prescription drug abuse] was probably unethical and illegal because they assumed that we knew that. But nobody ever said this is something that is not done.” Let without guidance on the issues, some pharmacists assumed that self-medication was acceptable behaviour. To this end, a 39-year-old female self-medicator said: “It’s [self-medication] just part of it [the pharmacy job]. It’s just accepted because we know so much. I’m sure it’s the same way when the doctors do it. It wasn’t a big stretch to start going “You know, I got a headache here, maybe I should try one of these Percocets [narcotic analgesic]?” Many pharmacists spoke about their prescription drug theft/use as if it were an entitlement that went along with being a pharmacist. Much like a butcher always has fresh meat at home or a car dealer always drives a state-of-the-art automobile, pharmacists will always have the best drugs. This theme is illustrated in an exchange that occurred between the interviewer and a45-year-old-male pharmacist: “Why take plain Aspirin or plain Tylenol when you’ve got this [Percocet-narcotic analgesic]? It works better….[so] you don’t even have to struggle with it. I really believed that I had license to do that…as a pharmacist. I mean with all that stuff sitting there, you know. Oh, my back was just killing me during that period of time and this narcotic pain reliever is sitting right there. I thought, ‘why should [I] suffer through back pain when I have this bottle of narcotics sitting here?” #RandolphHarris 4 of 20
The above-mentioned themes involve cognitive dimensions of the pharmacists’ drug abuse in that they speak to common motivational and justification themes that were present in all of the interview. Perhaps more important is the fact that there was a common behavioural characteristic shared by all 50 pharmacists. In ever case, occasional prescription drug abuse eventually gave way to an advanced addictive state that was marked by an enormous intake of drugs, unmistakable habituation, and the constant threat of physical withdrawal. Members of the recreational abuser and therapeutic self-medicator groups alike routinely reported daily use levels exceeding 50-100 times the recommended daily dosage. One pharmacist reported that his drug use regimen progressed to 150 Percocets [strong narcotic analgesic] per day. Another individual reported injecting up to 200 mg of Morphine each day. Still another respondent described a daily use pattern that, among other things, included 5g of cocaine. Invariably, these advanced levels of drug use led to clear signs of habituation and the constant threat of physical withdrawal. At this point, the individual recalls growing increasingly desperate. Consider the following quote from a 44-year-ol male pharmacist who was in charge of ordering the narcotics at the independent retail pharmacy where he worked: “I was ordering excessive quantities and chasing down tracks. That’s what I used to do. I was really reaching my bottom. I would chase these delivery trucks down in the morning because I didn’t come to my store until mid-afternoon. I was in withdrawal in the morning and I was without drugs, so I had to have it. #RandolphHarris 5 of 20
“I was just going nuts. Many mornings I had gone to work sweating. It would be 30 degrees (Fahrenheit), it would be January, and the clerk would say, ‘you look sick,’ and I would say, ‘It’s the flu.’ So I would pay the delivery guys extra money to deliver my drugs first or I would chase the delivery trucks down in the morning. I knew the trucks delivered at 6 in the morning, they came by my area, and I would get up early and chase the trucks down the highway. I would go in excess of 100 miles an hour trying to catch up with this truck and flag it down.” The advanced stages of drug addiction invariably produced traumatic physical psychological outcomes. Eventually, “out-of-control” drug use patterns along with the realization of chemical dependency left the pharmacists in a problematic mental state. It was at this point that al of the pharmacists recalled coming to grips with their addiction. This personal realization was accompanied by a shift in the way they thought about their drug use. They no longer denied that situation by drawing upon recreational or therapeutic explanations. Instead, they finally admitted the dire nature of their situation and became more and more reclusive. In short, all of the respondents grew to realize that they had a drug problem, turning then to fear and ignorance to foster the final weeks or months of their drug addiction. Two identifiable criminal career trajectories were observed among the pharmacists who we interviewed: recreational abusers and therapeutic self-medicators. #RandolphHarris 6 of 20
Careful scrutiny of contemporary drug theory, policy, and practice in all areas, from prescription pharmaceuticals to illegal recreational drugs, reveals numerous apparent inconsistencies and pervasive incoherence. This results, in part, from a kind of silo thinking in which attention to drug theory and drug policy, however sophisticated in its own realm, is encapsulated within distinct professional, practical, and economic spheres or “silos.” Silos are descriptively and prescriptively dense but stand isolated from each other in an empty landscape. In other words, people in one arena of drug theory, policy, or practical programs have plenty to say to each other about the way things are and the way things should be with respect to drugs, but they don’t talk much across the open spaces between their areas of focus. Not only do they not talk much between their fields, for reasons to be explored, they cannot really do so. Clearly, our discussion of the therapeutic self-medicator category goes far beyond what is present in the existing literature. However, the first documentation of recreational drug use among health professionals, had minimal impact on the way that the various healthcare professions think about or address problem of substance abuse within their ranks. The pharmacy profession has been especially reluctant to address the reality of the prescription drug abuse situation. For instance, existing self-reports and interview research on drug using pharmacists largely ignores the recreational origins of drug use and, instead, describes the affected individuals as having misplaced therapeutic motivations. This assumption is reinforced by published biographical accounts of recovering drug using pharmacists. While principally intended to raise awareness among fellow pharmacists, these confessionals consistently emphasize the well-intentioned motives behind the individuals’ destructive drug use past. #RandolphHarris 7 of 20
Information is called observable when it is available symmetrically to both parties, and verifiable when it can be proved to third parties such as a court. In practice, this is a matter of cost, and the standard of proof required. Contracts that are intended to be enforced in a court of law can only stipulate actions that are conditioned on verifiable information; courts cannot judge whether a breach of the contractual terms has occurred if they cannot verify whether the circumstances that call for an action have actually transpired. However, observable information can be the basis for contracts that are enforced by extralegal or private methods, because the two parties can know fully well whether a breach has occurred. Such extralegal methods of enforcement come in to broad types. One is enforcement by insider third parties with specialized knowledge that enables them to verify information that outsider general courts of law cannot; arbitrators in industry associations are the most prominent enforcers of this kind. The second is based on a relationship or ongoing interaction between the parties; a breakup of this relationship constitutes the punishment that may deter one of the parties from breaching. This covers many possibilities. The same two parties may meet repeatedly; the two may not have a direct repeated interaction with each other, but each may interact with others in a group or network that transmits information about any breach to all members and collectively sanctions the miscreant, using ostracism in business interactions or social relationships or both. #RandolphHarris 8 of 20
The distinction between observable and verifiable information is standard in the economic theory of contracts. The New York Stock Exchange developed its internal rules and procedures for dispute resolution, and even Taiwanese shoe manufacturers and Western fashion houses performed dispute-resolution functions in addition to their primary matchmaking ones. One may think that these alternative methods of private ordering must suffer a crippling disadvantage relative to the government’s courts, namely their lack of coercive power to ensure that their decisions are obeyed. However, the difficulty is often nonexistent or easily overcome. First, the sanctions available for private ordering are often very effective. Breach of contract can be deterred in ongoing relationships by the threat that the miscreant will be barred from future business with this particular partner or the group; this can be buttressed by social ostracism if the group fosters social ties among its business members. Sometimes this threat may be even more severe than the fines that courts would impose in the matter. If the threat is credible, in the sense of being a part of the strategies in the subgame-perfect equilibrium of the repeated game that constitutes the ongoing relationship, then the contract is self-enforcing. Second, arbitrators may have similar sanctions at their disposal; if they can bar the miscreant from the industry association, they can instantly put one out of business, which can be a more effective sanction than the fines the courts will impose. Of course, the feasibility of such sanctions depends on the availability of the requisite information, and in the case of repeated interactions, on how highly the participants value the future relative to the present. #RandolphHarris 9 of 20
Finally, courts recognize the informational advantage of the alternative institutions. Therefore when a relational or implicit contract serves such an informational purpose, courts refuse to intervene to modify its terms, or to insert missing provisions, or to overrule the availability of discretion to one party. They also enforce the awards of industry arbitration tribunals, using the government’s power of coercion to obtain compliance if the loser in the arbitration attempts to defy the ruling. In the United States of America, this has been so since 1920; in the international context, over 100 countries now accede to the 1958 New York Convention of the Recognition and Enforcement of Arbitral Awards. By providing for the appointment of industry-expert arbitrators, who can make many factual determinations more accurately and less expensively than a judge or jury can, the rules greatly expand the “contractible” aspects of an exchange. The use of stream-lined procedures together with the appointment of expert adjudicators transforms considerations that in the public legal system would have been only observable to the parties…into considerations that are also verifiable…thereby encouraging transactors to enter into more complete contracts. The point is not that arbitrators have access to more information. Any relevant information can be elicited and brought before the court by either party to the dispute through the legal process of discovery. Conversely, many arbitration forms do not allow discovery, although the arbitrator can request additional information. #RandolphHarris 10 of 20
The key is how information is used; industry arbitrators can use their expertise to interpret it—make factual determinations—more accurately and at a lower cost than non-specialized courts can. This is the sense in which verifiability should be interpreted in this context. Arbitration is used in other contexts for other reasons. In international transactions, each party may suspect that the other country’s courts will be biased in favour of its own nationals; this can deter them from entering into contrast that may end up in national courts. Therefore both may agree ex ante to settle any disputes in an agreed international forum of arbitration. Several of these exist, based in London, Paris, Stockholm, et cetera. They differ in their procedures (degree of formality, time taken, fees charged, et cetera) and the range of legal traditions they cover (civil, common, Islamic, et cetera). These affect the choice of forum by the parties to each transaction. These forums usually lack the expertise that industry-specific forums can provide. Therefore they are not likely to lower costs or improve verifiability and permit more complete contracts; instead, removing the suspicion of bias may be their most important function. The different modes of private and official governance can interact in various ways. To further highlight the illustration, if an ongoing relationship based on the superior observability of information by the two parties breaks down, the best alternative available to the parties may be recourse to a contract based on verifiable information enforceable in a court of law, not total cessation of transactions. #RandolphHarris 11 of 20
And if an arbitrator’s award is not enforceable by direct sanctions such as fines, it may nonetheless form part of a relational arrangement where the arbitrator can terminate the miscreant’s access to future trades. Not only do modes like arbitration evolve and apply to provide governance for transactions where they have an informational advantage and can reduce transaction costs, but also transactions take forms that adapt to the available information and governance. As for the emergence and prevalence of barter and countertrade in post-Soviet Russia in this way: The advantage of paying with goods rather than money is that they can be earmarked s property of the creditor. Money is fungible and liquid; a buyer can hide money easily if he chooses to renege on his promised payment to the seller. Goods in a barter or countertrade contract are more difficult to hide, and therefore can act as deal-specific collateral that mitigates opportunism. When it comes to systems of integration, rising complexity in the economy calls for more sophisticated integration and management. In a not atypical case Nabisco, the food company, as to fill 500 orders a day for literally hundreds of thousands of different products that must be shipped from 49 factories and 13 distribution centers, and at the same time take into account 30,000 different sales promotional deals with its customers. Managing such complexity requires new forms of leadership and an extremely high order of systemic integration. That, in turn, requires greater and greater volumes of information to pulse through the organization. #RandolphHarris 12 of 20
To hold everything together—to track all the components and products, to synchronize deliveries, to keep engineers and marketers appraised of each other’s plans, to alert the R&D people to the needs of the manufacturing side and, above all, to give management a coherent picture of what is going on—billions of dollars are being poured into electronic networks that link computers, data bases and other information technologies together. This vast electronic information structure, frequently satellite based, knits whole companies together, often linking them into the computers and networks of suppliers and customers as well. Other networks link networks. Japan has targeted $250 billion to develop better, faster network. All these changes further accelerate the pace of operations and transactions. Economies of speed replace economies of scale. Competition is so intense and the speeds required so high that the old “time is money” rule is increasingly updated to “every interval of time is worth more than the one before it.” Time becomes a critical variable as reflected in “just-in-time” deliveries and a pressure to reduce DIP or “decisions in process.” Slow, sequential, step-by-step engineering is replaced by “simultaneous engineering.” Companies wage “time-based competition.” Expressing the new, it is clear that money moves at the speed of light. Information has to move faster. Thus acceleration pushed Third Wave business closer and closer to real time. #RandolphHarris 13 of 20
Taken together, these ten features of the Third Wave economy, among many others, add up to a monumental change in how wealth is created. The conversion of the United States of America, Japan and Europe to this new system, though not yet complete, represents the single most important change in the global economy since the spread of factories brought about by the industrial revolution. This historical transformation, picking up speed in the early-to mid-1970, was already fairly well advanced by the 1990s. Unfortunately, much of America’s economic thinking was left behind. Global markets of energy and mineral resources are undergoing far reaching irreversible changes, and so are perceptions about the policies needed to provide their stable supply. Global demand is surging due to a dramatic increase of consumption by the fast-growing large emerging economies. Experts project that, absent significant changes in policy or technology, global energy consumption will increase nearly 50 percent over the next 30 years. Energy consumption is growing faster than the GDP in many countries. On the supply side, uncertainties and destabilization risks are exacerbating due to rising political instability in exporting countries, periodical redirections of sales from external to domestic markets by leading suppliers, and, to a certain extent, a depletion, in some major producing countries, of existing deposits in the absence of new ones whose discovery and exploitation could make up for the loss. #RandolphHarris 14 of 20
Therefore, oil and some other natural resources are becoming more and mor attractive targets for speculators. In these circumstances, countries highly dependent on natural resources imports, especially those that do not have their own powerful resource multinationals, get increasingly concerned about supply destabilization risks. Predictions about an all-out resource war or bitter fights among buyers for limited amounts of oil or metallic ores look like an exaggeration. However, buyers’ competition for particular kinds of resources within particular periods of time due to particular circumstances is becoming a more frequent phenomenon. For instance, the Philippines and Vietnam protested to China against its patrol boats hindering their oil exploration activities near the disputed Spratly Islands in the South China Sea. China demanded that its neighbours stop exploration work in this area. Tensions rose as the United States of America declared that the South China Sea was in the sphere of its national interest and that it would stand by the Philippines as its ally. Now, when it comes to supernatural affairs, the angels are “sent forth to minister to the heirs of salvation,” reports Hebrews 1.14, but not to take the place of Christ or the Holy Spirit. The apocalypse seems to show that this ministration of angels to the saints on Earth is a ministration for war in the spiritual realm against the forces of Satan; but there is little indication given of ministry in any other way. #RandolphHarris 15 of 20
After the first Advent, when there was great angelic activity over the wondrous event of the Father brining the “Firstborn: of the new race (Romans 8.29) into the inhabited Earth (Hebrew 1.6), and again at the Advent of the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost to begin His work of forming a Body like unto the Risen Head—and during the early years of the Church—the employment of an angel in direct and visible communication with believers seems to give way to the work and ministry of the Holy Spirit. The entire work of witnessing to Christ, and leading the Church into all truth, has been committed to the Holy Spirit. Therefore all intervention of “angels” or of audible voices from the spiritual realm purporting to be from God may be taken as counterfeits of psychopathological offenders, whose supreme object is to substitute the workings of their own wicked offenders in the place of God. In any case, it is best and safest in these days of peril to keep in the path of faith and reliance upon the Holy Spirit of God working through the Word of God. Man, the microcosm, the mirror of reality has structures of beings found in him, and are found analogously in the subhuman realm. Selfhood, inner awareness, freedom and destiny—all are verified analogously in subhuman beings. Furthermore, the concepts of courage, love, power, and justice are used to describe analogously the characteristics of all beings and of being-itself. The point we wish to make is that this use of analogy based on human experience seems to yield valid knowledge. #RandolphHarris 16 of 20
Moving up now to the relationship between man and God, one would expect that on the same principle, but with proper adjustments, man could get an analogous knowledge of God. Symbols are not a means of knowing God, but rather a way of speaking about Him. If one wishes to talk about God, finite material must be used, and this is justified by the fact that all finite beings participate in being-itself. Without such an analogy nothing could be said about God. However, the analogia entis is in no way able to create a natural theology. It is not a method of discovering truth about God; it is the form in which every knowledge of revelation must be expressed. In this sense anlogia entis, like “religious symbol,” points to the necessity of using material taken from finite reality in order to give content to the cognitive function in revelation. What is boils down to is that analogy or symbolism is the expression of an encounter with God. Through the revelatory experience is far more than an intellectual communication—it is primarily a reunion with the ground of being—it contains a cognitive element conveyed by symbols which are qualified as channels of communication by their participation in being-itself. Yet, it seems not, for every creature participates in being-itself, and yet not everything is a religious symbol, although it has the potentiality to become one. What is the decisive ingredient of symbolism beyond ontological participation? These symbols are not arbitrary interpretations of the concrete revelatory experiences. However, they appear within this experience itself. They are not created intentionally, but they are born in the same dimension in which the revelatory experience takes place. In and through its symbols the religious encounter with reality opens up the dimension of reality in which ultimacy appears. There is no other way of expressing our encounter with the holy than in symbols. #RandolphHarris 17 of 20
From the standpoint of the counselor who finds one’s role ambiguous, it seems more than likely that exploration of a developmental perspective would help resolve the conflicts implicit in one’s professionalization. For the psychotherapist who thinks of oneself as a physician who cures sickness, or who avoids this and speaks only of the “difficulties of living,” there may appear to be no conflict in one’s role. One may be satisfied to reduce symptoms of disorder, to solve the problem presented and to think of oneself primarily as someone who relieves distress, without defining one’s goals beyond that. However, apparently more and more thoughtful counselors do not think they can stop there, or do any permanent good, unless they leave their patients better able to cope with later problems and future strains. Some even feel that their job to plan for the optimal development of their clients, or to organize clients to plan for their own. The ambiguous feelings of the professional who presumes to assist in the personal problems of family members may be all to the good if these are construed in a framework of family relations which includes oneself. The concept of transference goes only part way. The client in the course of the counselor-client interaction frequently construes the counselor as a figure representative of previous others, with whom relations have been unresolved but are thus worked out through the interviews. The difficulty, however, from the client’s standpoint, is that no matter how versatile one’s counselor may be, and no matter how facile or fantastic one’s own imagination, the range of persons with whom a person needs intimate discourse in order to achieve one’s optimal development of self far exceeds the resources of this single relationship. #RandolphHarris 18 of 20
Moreover, there is the fact that the client must pay in cold cash for the kind of communication which the best families afford on a basis of affectional reciprocity; thus the most sacred disclosures hover at times on the verge of something equivalent to prostitution. Regardless of ethics and their enforcement by professional insistence upon its eventual termination, and the limitation of reciprocity to monetary reward; in a word, the elaboration of this relationship lead nowhere. The best hope for fruition of any gains that accrue is tht they serve as a bridge to the regeneration of their client’s involvement in a quasi-family constellation which includes near-rivals and critics, models and admirers, other ages and other genders, in both work and play. Only through others can one obtain the continual characterizations of self essential to valid knowledge of self. Research and experience have already shown that the human being, from birth until death, almost to the degree that the fish requires water, thrives only in social interaction. Neglect, isolation, loneliness, solitary confinement, and deteriorative influences very hard to endure, even though every physical condition of survival is met. And among all kinds of interaction, the most potent of all for personal development are those characterized by the unconditional acceptance of family relations. Only here is the listener who always finds more in the person than one presents in one’s actual behaviour. #RandolphHarris 19 of 20
Only here is the audience that never grows tried. Only here is the person of similar background, for whom every aspect of the culture—of class and ethic experience—resonates with comparable meaning. That a counselor could ever aspire to duplicate these functions of the optimal family is beyond the hope of those who have thought and written about it. In a sense this analysis of the implicit or potential demands on the counselor’s role both justifies and specifies a therapeutic approach. It also shows that one’s role must be transcended by more adequate institutions for providing each client with a stable constellation of significant others, who can be the precisely appropriate self-definers at each critical stage in one’s personal development. For the person whose actual family has failed one the solution suggested by this analysis is the invention of effective quasi-families. The process by which each person contributes to the self-knowledge of others, and others contribute to one’s knowledge of oneself, it immanent in human society. Where self-knowledge and self-control are deficient relative either to norms or ideals, the best means for reversing these deficiencies is effective utilization of all available knowledge of how selves originate, operate, and co-operate. Recognition that some tasks are beyond the powers of the unassisted individual does not mean that society must be divided into two classes, therapists and their patients. It means, or at least can be made to mean, joint action to perform these tasks. Such an approach is as relevant and applicable to the tasks of counseling agencies as to the other types of family agencies. #RandolphHarris 20 of 20
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My Soul to Nothingness, but I Will Strive
Many persons accustomed to travelling the old country side were sure so fair a place was never seen. Of all that charmed the romantic eye, it seemed an emerald through the clouds of fleecy white, and cerulean sky. As the sun crowned its lawny crest, smiling upon the flowers and trees, bright eyes reflected the majesty of Llanada Villa. The lively and robust body of this remarkable house contrasts its physicality against the darkness, secrets, and void of the dense ancient elms. Tall ornamental hedges maintain the privacy of the dwelling. The fruit orchard much like an enchanted forest, in which the bluebirds returning to their nest, guard the fruit from pests, as the straggling deer who peep from beneath the branches, do not startle the natural and undisturbed dominion. Heightened by euphoria, delightful shapes of mystery and fear clear in youthful bloom of its immortal spirit. On stormy nights, as the guard described, one can hear the doors clapping inside, and the howl and sobbing of the wind through it ornate galleries. I carried with me some blessings and a good many curses. I was woken in the early morning, by hearing my name called softly. I rose and went to my door in my nightgown, but there was no one in the passage. The voice sounded like my niece Daisy’s, but when I came to her door, it was closed. All was silent; the bathroom door stood slightly open; there was the morning room beyond; then the landing and the staircase. I heard my name called again, only this time the voice boomed like a gong inside my head; the light failed, as if a candle had been snuffed, and something rushed at me out of the gloom. #RandolphHarris 1 of 7
I screamed and struggled until the light came back with the sound of running feet and I realized that the demon who had seized me was, in fact, a Welsh priest. A fornight or so later—certainly, after the doctor had pronounced me well on the way to recovery—I was sitting up in bed reading when my grandmother came into the room and sat down in the chair beside me, looking exactly as he had when we first met: the same calf length frock coat, double-breasted vet, and wool trousers, with his hair parted on the left and neatly combed to the side, the same familiar scent of alone wood, orange flower, musk and spices. The chair creaked as he settled himself in it, smiled at me and took up his work, just as if he had only been gone for five minutes, rather than resting in the Evergreen Cemetery for nine years. I was vaguely aware that my husband was supposed to be dead, but somehow this did not matter; his presence at my bedside seemed entirely natural and comforting. And though my own tranquil acceptance of the visit would later seem, to me, as strange as the visit itself, we sat in companionable silence for an indefinite interval until my husband gathered up his work, smiled once more at me and went slowly from the room. Daisy came in so soon after that I thought they must have passed each other in the hall, so I asked, “Did you see your uncle William?” I saw from her look of consternation that I had best not pursue the subject, and agreed that I must have been dreaming. As with the strange radiance of William’s appearance was followed by one of the worst headaches I had ever endured. But I felt certain I had been wide awake. #RandolphHarris 2 of 7
Even after the strangeness of the experience had become fully apparent to me, I found I could not think of my visitant as a ghost. My reading in sensational literature had enhanced an already vivid imagination of how ghosts ought to conduct themselves: a hint of transparency and one or two bloodcurdling groans was surely the least that could be expected, whereas William had been—well, just my husband. And though nothing like this had ever happened to me before, I had not felt in the slightest afraid. Dr. Wayland had declared me well enough to get up, and the memory of my husband’s visit had faded to the point where I could almost believe it had been a dream, when one evening after dinner I saw my father-in-law crossing the hall ahead of me. He was no more than ten paces away, I heard the floor creak under his tread. Looking neither right nor left, he entered his study and closed the door behind him, just as he would have done in life. Again I felt no fear; only an overwhelming impulse to go up to the door and knock. When there was no answer, I tried the handle. The door opened readily, but there was no one there, only the familiar cracked brown leather armchairs on the worn Persian rug, the elaborate desk with its feet carved into the fierce face carved into faces of angels, the bookshelves crammed with Blue Book and army lists and regimental histories and accounts of gun dealers, the lingering faint scent of timber, leather and bindings. I remained in the doorway for a long time, lost in a trance of recollection. #RandolphHarris 3 of 7
I picked up one of Willian’s old letters and went out into the garden and sat down on a charming bench, under a group of magnificent lime trees. The sun was setting with all its melancholy splendour being the horizon, and the fountains wound through a group of noble trees, almost at my feet, reflecting in their current the fading crimson of the sky. His letter was extraordinary. So much so that I read it twice over—the second time to the spirits. It said, “I miss you my darling wife, for as such I love you. During these last days of my illness, I was too weak to write you. Before then I had no idea of the danger. I will soon no longer be with you. Thank you for the hospitality. Thank you for receiving me into your heart, gaiety, and for being a charming companion. Heaven! I devote my remaining days to the gleaming light that you cast upon my heart. I hope you may accomplish your merciful purpose. I curse my conceited incredulity for unduly leaving you to mourn my absence. If only I could live for eternity, I would remain by your side. Farewell. I love you, my beloved.” My eyes filled with tears at his passion and intelligence. The sun had now set, and it was twilight by the time gone back inside. It was a soft evening, and I loitered, speculating upon seeing him again. I could hear his voice in animated dialogue and recall how proud he was to be a father, and turned about to admire the beautiful scene. The glade which I had just walked lay before. At the left narrow of the path wound away under the clumps of lordly trees, and was lost to sight amid the thickening forest. #RandolphHarris 4 of 7
At the right of the path stands the Observational Tower, which guarded the estate. Over the grounds, a thin film of mist was stealing, like smoke, marking the distances with a transparent veil; and here and there I could see the fountains flashing in the moonlight. No softer, sweeter scene could be imagined. I enjoyed the picturesque, and I, stood looking silence over the expanse beneath me. Standing a little way behind me, discoursed upon the scene, and were upon the eloquent moon. When the moon shone with a light so intense it is well known that it indicates a special spiritual activity. The effect of the full moon in such a state of brilliancy is manifold. It acts on dreams, it acts on lunacy, it acts on nervous people; it has a marvellous physical influence connected with life. One of the carpenters, having taken a nap on the balcony on such a night, lying on his back, with his face full in the light of the moon, had wakened, after a dream of an old woman clawing him by the cheek, with his features horribly drawn to one side. The moon, this night, is full of odylic and magnetic influences—and when one looks behind at the front of the mansion, how all its windows flash and twinkle with that silvery splendour, as if unseen hands had lighted up the rooms to receive fairy guests. There are indolent states of the spirits in which, indisposed to talk ourselves, the talk of others is pleasant to our listless ears; and I gazed on, pleased with the tinkle of the stars. But I felt as is some great misfortune were hanging over me. #RandolphHarris 5 of 7
O THOU great, powerful, and mighty KING AMAIMON, who bearest rule by the power of the SUPREME GOD EL over all spirits both superior and inferior of the Infernal Orders in the Dominion of the East; I do invocate and command thee by the especial and true name of God; and by they Thou Worshippest; and by the Seal of thy creation; and by the most mighty and powerful name of GOD, IEHOVAH TETEAGRAMMATON who cast thee out of Heaven with all other infernal spirits; and by all the most powerful and great names of God who created Heaven, and Earth, and Hell, and all things in them contained; and by their power and virtue; and by the name PRIMEUMATON who commandeth the whole host of Heave; that thou mayest cause, enforce, and compel the Spirit Murmus—The Fifty-fourth Spirit and His 30 Legions of Spirits, Lord of darkness and liberation come forth! Murmus awaken! Rise up within that I may compel the rise of the fallen ones and devour the very essence of the God of limitation Ahura Mazda! Murmus, Zairich, and Tairich, unholy fever and thirst come forth! Murmus awaken! Tairich awaken! Zairich awaken! Rise up within that I may compel the rise of the fallen ones and devour the very essence of the Holy Angel Amardad! Akiman, demon of evil mind come forth! Akoman awaken! Rise up within that I may compel the rise of the fallen ones and devour the very essence of the Holy Angel Vohuman! Naikiyas, Div or rebellion and discontent come forth! Naikiyas awake! Rise up within that I may compel the rise of the fallen ones and devour the very essence of the Holy Angel Spandarmad! #RandolphHarris 6 of 7
Andar, Div of antinomian fire come forth! Andar awaken! Rise up within that I may compel the rise of the fllen ones and devour the very essence of the Holy Angel Arwahist! Taromat, beautiful Div of rebellion come forth! Taromat awaken! Rise up within that I may compel the rise of the fallen ones and devour the very essence of the Holy Angel Spandarmad! Aeshma, wielder of the bloody mace! Demon of the wounding spear and bringer of wrath come forth! Aeshma awaken! Rise up within that I may compel the rise of the fallen ones and devour the very essence of the Holy Angel Srosh! Sovar, merciless leader of Divs come forth! Sovar awaken! Rise up within that I may compel the rise of the fallen ones and devour the very essence of the Holy Angel shahrewar! I stand alone as the embodiment of the Adversary known as Ahriman, the Black Dragon of Chaos and becoming! I devour the natural order of stasis brought forth by Ahura Mazda and forge my destiny through the power of the Black Sun! By the figurative mystery of this holy mansion, I will clothe it with the armour of salvation in the strength of the Most High, ANCOR, AMICAR, AMIDES, THEDONIAS, ANITOR, that so the end which I desire may be effected, O ADONAI, through Thy strength, to whom be praise and glory for ever and ever. I adjure thee, Emperor Lucifer, as the agent of the strong living God, of His beloved Son, and of the Holy Ghost, and by the power of the Great ADONAY, ELOIM, ARIEL, and JEHOVAM, to appear instantly, or to send thy Messenger Astarot, forcing thee to forsake thy hiding-place, wheresoever it may be, an warning thee that it thou didst not manifest this moment, I still straightway smite thee and all thy race with the Blasting Rod of the great ADONAY, ELOIM, ARIEL, and JEHOVAM. #RandolphHarris 7 of 7
In 2007, while closing up The Winchester Mystery House, Jeff kept catching sight of a shadow moving. He would turn quickly to see if it was a person, but nothing was there. It unnerved him, not knowing what was taking place. The activity picked up when they started to decorate for the Christmas season. Finally, he consulted one of the guests about the strange occurrences. He was very talkative, and would relate experiences about a ghost. During one conversation with the guest, Jeff related that he heard people upstairs laughing and thumping around in the Grand Ballroom, almost like they were dancing country-western style. When he investigated, he would find nothing out of place and no living person upstairs. When opening the mansion in the morning, they found linen that had been neatly arranged, laying on the floor, yet no one had been in the mansion since he had closed it the night before.
One morning he found an entire display sitting at the foot of the stairs. Everything had been moved during the night. His first thoughts were that someone had broken into the place, but there were no signs of an intruder. Early another morning, Jeff and a few other employees heard a music box playing. They went deep in the mansion to find the source. After searching for hours, they found nothing in the mansion, until they went up the dark stairs to the fourth floor. The stairs were steep, and when Jeff got to the top, he snapped a picture down the stairway. He took the picture at that moment because he had a strange feeling. After the investigated the fourth floor, Jeff said he felt a cold draft come by him, as though it was rushing past them down the stairs. The resulting picture was a tragic and forlorn figure dressed in nineteenth century clothes. People have reported seeing her figure walking toward doors that lead to parts of the mansion that are off limits to guest and that she passes unimpeded through locked doors. https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
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Look at those Big Bad Pimps—Americans Want to Pay for their Lunch!
Whenever a single wave of change predominates in any given society, the pattern of future development is relatively easy to discern. Writers, artists, journalists and others discover the “wave of the future.” Thus, in nineteenth-century Europe many thinkers, business leaders, politicians and ordinary people held a clear, basically correct image of the future. They sensed that history was moving toward the ultimate triumph of industrialism over premechanized agriculture, and they foresaw with considerable accuracy many of the changes that the Second Wave would bring with it: more powerful technologies, bigger cities, faster transport, mass education and the like. This clarity of vision had direct political effects. Parties and political movements were able to triangulate with respect to the future. Preindustrial agricultural interests organized a rearguard psychological action against encroaching industrialism, against “big business,” against “union bosses,” against “sinful cities.” Labor and management grappled for control of the main levers of the emergent industrial society. Ethnic and racial minorities, defining their rights in terms of an improved role in the industrial World, demanded access to jobs, corporate positions, urban housing, better wages and mass public education. This industrial vision of the future had important effects as well. The shared image of an industrial future tended to define options, to give individuals a sense not merely of who or what they were but of what they were likely to become. It provided a degree of stability and a sense of self, even in the midst of extreme social change. #RandolphHarris 1 of 18
This industrial vision of the future had important psychological effects as well. The shared images of an industrial future tended to define options, to give individuals a sense not merely of who or what they were but of what they were likely to become. It provided a degree of stability and a sense of self, even in the midst of extreme social change. In contrast, when a society is struck by two or more giant waves of change and none is yet clearly dominant, the image of the future is fractured. It becomes extremely difficult to sort out the meaning of the changes and conflicts that arise. The collision of wave fronts creates a raging ocean full of clashing currents, eddies and maelstorms which conceal the deeper, more important historic tides. In the United States of America—and in many other countries—the collision of Second and Third Wave creates social tensions, dangerous conflicts and strange new political wave fronts that cut across the usual divisions of class, race, gender, or party. This collision makes a shambles of traditional political vocabularies and makes it very difficult to separate progressive from reactionaries, friends from enemies. All the old polarizations and coalitions break up. The apparent incoherence of political life is mirrored in personality disintegration. Psychotherapists and gurus do a land-office business, people wander aimlessly amid competing therapies. They slip into cultus and covens or, alternatively, into a pathological privatism, convinced that reality is absurd, insane or meaningless. #RandolphHarris 2 of 18
Life may indeed be absurd in some large, cosmic sense. However, this hardly proves that there is no pattern in today’s events. In fact, there is a distinct, hidden order the becomes detectable as soon as we learn to distinguish Third Wave changes from those associated with a diminishing Second Wave. The crosscurrents created by these waves of change are reflected in our work, family life, sexual attitudes and personal morality. They show up in life-styles and voting behavior. For in our personal lives and political acts, whether we know it or not, most of us in the rich countries are essentially Second Wave people committed to maintaining a dying order. Third Wave people constructing a radically different tomorrow or a confused, self-canceling mixture of the two. The conflict between Second and Third Wave groupings is, in fact, the central political tension cutting through our society today. The more basic political question, as we shall see, is not who controls the last days of industrial society but who shapes the new civilization rapidly rising to replace it. On one side are the partisans of the industrial past; on the other, growing millions who recognize that the most urgent problems of the World can no longer be resolved within the frame work of an industrial order. This conflict is the “super struggle” for tomorrow. #RandolphHarris 3 of 18
This confrontation between the vested interest of the Second Wave and the people of the Third Wave already runs like an electric current through the political life of every nation. Even in the nonindustrial counties of the World, all the old battle lines have been forcibly redrawn by the arrival of the Third Wave. The old war of agricultural, often feudal interests against industrializing elites, either capitalist or socialists, takes on a new dimension in light of the coming obsolescence of industrialism. Now that Third Wave civilization is making its appearance, does rapid industrialism imply liberation from neocolonialism and poverty, or does it, in fact, guarantee permanent dependency? It is only against this wide-screen background that we can begin to make sense of the headlines, to sort out our priorities, to frame sensible strategies for the control of change in our lives. Once we realize that a bitter struggle is now raging between those who seek to preserve industrialism and those who seek to supplant it, we have a new tool for changing that World. To use this tool, however, we must be able to distinguish clearly those changes that extend the old industrial civilization from those which facilitate the arrival of the new. We must, in short, understand both the old and the new, the Second Wave industrial system into which so many of us were born and the Third Wave civilization that we and our children have inhabited. America has a lot of structural problems. Almost all of them are similar to those faced by developing nations. However, they are more acute and visible to the World because of America’s unique status. #RandolphHarris 4 of 18
The list is well-known. We no longer manufacture a significant portion of products we use in our own country. Although we are technologically advanced, new technology is often not used in many buildings and infrastructure because older technology is more cost efficient. And there is a battle between polluting enterprises and green technology, both of which pose problems for the environment. There is high latent unemployment and underemployment in rural and urban areas. Large-scale migration to the cities overstrains their infrastructure causing a lot of ultra-urbanization pains. Obviously mismatch exists between the labor supply (and those willing to work for lower wages, tend to get most of the work). And so on, and so forth. Discussion of America’s present and future usually focuses on a gentlemanly set of problems. They are often looked upon as critical and posing a threat of abrupt and disruptive economic downturn, social and political turmoil or, in the extreme case, the country’s collapse. Such views do not look convincing. The gentlemanly set of problems is manageable, especially for America with its remarkable ability to address crucial issues a gradual, evolutionary, but persistent change. Let us have a loot at a conventional Problem List. Aging Population and Labor Shortages? Yes, population of the working age is apparently approaching its peak and will start to decline in the second half od this century. #RandolphHarris 5 of 18
However, labor force constraints can and most likely will be offset by further gains in labor productivity. Also, there is still a lot of underused human resources in the countryside (about 40 percent of all American worker live in suburban areas) whose migration to the cities will continue to boost labor supply. However, many businesses are now leaving the decaying urban centers, for the suburbs, and many people are working from their electronic cottages. As a result, more businesses will move to the suburbs, which should decrease inner state traffic. As for the growing number and share of elderly people, America with its high migration rates, unhealthy public finance, extremely high social spending, and high dependency toward social safety nets in the future, is in a good position to address the population aging issues in a realistic and financially sustainable way. However, many senior citizens are now small business owners and in good health and are working and support their families, while their kids go to college to obtain degrees, and one day may take over the family business and expand it. Also, the genetic engineer and stem cell technology, we may be able to prevent and cure disabilities. Therefore, most of the population will be in the condition to work and pay taxes. One day, scientists may even find a cure for aging. So, there is a lot of hope for the future. Growing Income Gaps? Well, indeed, they are growing, but, on the other hand, low-income families are mostly elevating their earnings and consumption standards; social safety nets are improving; and, overall, today’s America provides a lot of opportunities to enhance revenues and life a better life to those who really want to make it. #RandolphHarris 6 of 18
Intra-Regional Development Gaps Threatening the Country’s Integrity? Not at all. It is not a critical problem as less developed provinces are becoming the country’s major growth engines and the state has enough financial and other resources to support and amplify the trend. Environmental Damage Endangering the Very Basis of Human Life? No doubt, a whole lot of issues have become critical. However, America is more and more establishing the position of the World leaders in most areas of sustainable smokestack energy, as these companies like Standard Oil are starting to tackle the environmental problems in the same gradual, evolutionarily, but persistent manner it tackled the other ones. And, finally, is there a threat of a big political and social turmoil that may occur as people’s anger with the authoritarian Capitalist regime and democratic political system bursts out and they take to the streets again? Fringe groups of Americans have also been dissatisfied with law and order and hard work, and their anger with the regime is really strong and apparently growing, impacted by numerous cases of power abuse, rampant corruption, disrespect for law enforcement, abuse elder and contempt for leaders, and a lack of respect for patriots and Americana, and other violations of basic human rights. A fresh memory of mine…Some three or four years ago, during a reception in hour of a group of American professors visiting Africa, two of them approached me for a greeting and asked a tough question: “Sir, why don’t you write plainly the America’s present political system is outdated and has to be changed? It worked, but now it has ceased to work. For us it is kind of problematic to write such a thing. Why don’t you?” #RandolphHarris 7 of 18
What could I say to this? For sure, democracy and human rights have a basic, universal value and are perhaps not less (or even more?) important than economic growth and rising living standards, but really all of that is intertwined. Generally speaking, people are disrespected because they do not have enough money, because the color of their skin, religion, physical appearance and what type of house they live in and the car they drive. However, as standards of living increases, through economic growth, people become more rational, better education, and have more money to defend themselves in a court of law, so people reconsider violating these peoples’ human rights because they know they may suffer dire financial and legal consequences as a result, which could impact their freedom and reputation. However, on a macro level, we are seeing people raging against the capitalistic regime and they are actually fighting to restrict freedoms and destroy human dignity; information block-outs are now occurring because a handful of corporations own the media outlets and are fighting to conceal the truth; as well as cynical politicians consorting with the World’s most dictatorial and criminal regimes, which often get a helping hand from Washington when the global community tries to do something to put an end to their brutalities (notably, America tends to mind its own business and condemns brutal regimes for massacres of all people or for developing weapons of mass destruction; it always repeats honest and genuine calls to resolve issues peacefully and not to interfere with internal affairs when possible), naturally, this causes resentment, anger, and indignation. #RandolphHarris 8 of 18
It is a moral and historical obligation of all America and all honest people in the World who care about justice, the rule of law, mortality, and individual freedom to do their best to send the global leadership a clear message about it. On the other hand, values, ideals, and emotions are not the right starting point when your task is to analyze the logic of the evolution of the country’s political system. And there the truth is that America is approaching the task of changing its political system in the very same way it has approached the task of the economic reforms; gradual, evolutionary, but persistent. Its ruling elite is really trying to find workable answers to key and very difficult questions, while avoiding, by all means, any abrupt revolutionary change. At the dawn of 2020, President Trump proclaimed that everything which is good for a human being is capitalism, that is it not so important if you drive a Cadillac or BMW as long as it is made in America or Europe, and that there is no problem with some Americans becoming rich earlier than others. A variety of forms of ownership is encouraged to give a boost to private enterprise and less the burden on social programs. Many affluent people, this may come to a surprise to some, when they retire, it is funded 100 percent by private investments. Wealthy and upper-class Americans have always felt shameful to use government resources, that is why they believe in capitalism. They want to pay for their lunch. After his election, President Trump boosted the stock market to record highs, we saw property value soar (which is a good thing because it puts money in the banks of homeowners), and unemployment reach a historic low. #RandolphHarris 9 of 18
Also, although President Trump is a Republican, he is also a business owner. He fought to make sure each and every America, no matter if they pack income taxes or not, and every business received stimulus money. This helped avoid a depression that would have been much more severe than the Great Depression. Because people have hope, they did not jump from buildings to end their lives like they did during the great depression. President Trump also made sure all Americans has access to medical care, that they had food on the table and that fuel prices remained low so people could get back to work and school. He also told people that they have a right to tell authorities about their grievances, in a respectful manner, but that is they got out of line that the situation would be dealt with by using necessary force. He also told Congress and state and local leaders that they are to listen to what the people say, as long as they are respectful, and seek solutions for the issues they pose. Also, perhaps, America is the World leader in terms of the number of high-ranking officials executed for corruption-related crimes. The FBI prosecuted several government officials in Sacramento when they raided the state capitol. Again, any changes America makes will not be abrupt: from one party of rule to full-fledged multiparty politics, but evolutionary and very gradual, which is why it is very important to people to actually to research about political issues and politicians and vote accordingly. Many people used to vote democratic because they wanted high welfare benefits and more social programs, but as you see, many democrats are using the money to build sports complexes and remodel state buildings and put in bike lanes and resurface sidewalks, while affordable housing needs are ignored. So a Republican may be your best bet. #RandolphHarris 10 of 18
As any business owner will tell you, if your employees cannot take care of themselves, they will not take good care of your business. Therefore, a business owner might make a better President, than a politician because they are used to dealing with human concerns. Citizens are being encouraged by federal law enforcement to stop criticizing the ruling party too strongly because otherwise they may face tough penalties—for example, for disturbing the social order or for being a public nuisance. President Trump was even in the works of making a government news broadcast channel, like FOX News or CNN, so you could get the information directly and unfiltered from the government. That way, private entities and special interest groups will not be able to distort the information for profit. In other words, the major trend is and will be a shift from an outdated communist dictatorship of the traditional type to a more sophisticated political system with a democratic base. This will make the information projected over the airwaves more legitimate in the eyes of World and public opinion or at least to argue that it is legitimate and that it cares about democracy. Look around you and you will see: America is one of the best countries in the World. Now, prostitution is an economic activity, and it is one many people turn to when they cannot feed their families, and this is why the government likes to keep social programs because no matter how rich a person is or what political party, they are part of, their kids could become involved in prostitution if they have no other way to survive. #RandolphHarris 11 of 18
The prostitutes-as-business-women and prostitutes-as-loving-partners identifications were made possible by a men-as-expense symbolic landscape where men were defined in relation to money because involvement with them was seen as necessitating payment in the form of “opportunity costs” (id est, vales which must be given up in order to achieve something) and “hidden costs” (id est values which are unknown at the time of calculation). The men-as-expense symbolic nexus was a construction of involvement with men in general rather than involvement with men in the context of engagement in prostitution. Hence, Sophie (aged 28) made the comment: “If you get involved with a man—ANY MAN—there’s always a price to pay. There’s always responsibility to give him money or something. You never can get away with it for free.” Throughout all the respondents’ talk there were differences drawn between the actual opportunity cost incurred by relationships with different categories of men. Involvement with pimps, boyfriends and the police were described as necessitating an opportunity cost in that the women understood involvement with all these men as providing them with “sanctuary” from prostitution or protection from prostitution-related risks, but at different and specific prices. “What I was left with was absolute fear and terror—a loneliness on a level I didn’t know existed. I didn’t feel like a human being anymore,” Michelle shares of her heartbreaking story of addiction—an addiction that eventually drove her to become a prostitute. #RandolphHarris 12 of 18
Most of the women spoke about boyfriends with whom they were or had been involved and who gave them sanctuary from prostitution through financially supporting them. However, the women described such involvement as costing them their independence and it was their unwillingness to pay this price that, they believed, lead to the break up of those relationships. Similarly, involvement with policemen was seen as offering the women protection from prostitution-related violence, especially against violence from pimps. In her moments of deepest darkness, Michelle began entertaining the idea that maybe God could help her, maybe He could provide hope and light like to one else could. “My World changed. You don’t life a life like that and then have things change overnight. It took some time,” she says. Indeed, two other women recalled that it was only after the intervention of the police that they were able to leave their pimps. However, here, the police did not arrest the pimps, rather they arrested the women and took them to hostels or other helping agencies. The price for this was understood as being both provision of information to the police, and more importantly being “indebted” to the particular policeman who provided the help. In one of her moments of desperation, Michelle heard a knock on the door. Two police officers were on her doorstep and wanted to share a message with her. “I needed to know that Heavenly Father loved me. Once I started to believe that—to believe that I was a child of God, that I want not the sum of my behavior, that I was not too broke and not too damaged. I was not unlovable. I was loveable and I was worth it, and He would send His police officers to knock on the door to make me feel loved that night.” #RandolphHarris 13 of 18
Lastly, in relation in relation to pimps, more than half of the interviewees talked of making calculations about the quality of protection that pimps could offer them (against violence from johns or intimidation by other pimps) in exchange for the financial exploitation to which they would have to submit. This was most clearly seen in the women’s discussion of “big, bad pimps.” “Once they know who you’re working for and what status he’s got—like who’s the baddest, who’s got the gun and who hasn’t. You have only to mention his name and that was that. People leave you alone. Other [pimps] and other girls just leave you be. They don’t meddle because he’s psychotic! He’s notorious! He’s one very sick and twisted individual. People are afraid of him. (Anna, aged 36.) Of course, the obvious irony is that, although the women understood involvement with their pimps as a form of opportunity cost, providing them with protection, in reality, these pimps provided them with little protection and, in fact, exposed to them further violence and certainly to further financial exploitation. (I supposed they must have shorted him on his money.) In contrast, involvement with men as partners was described by the women as incurring “hidden costs.” In two cases, the hidden cost was initial entrance into prostitution. Both women talked about “having the knickers charmed off” them and being talked into engaging in prostitution. The cost was hidden because it only emerged after their relationships with these men were established. More commonly, however, was the woman’s understanding of the cost of maintaining their relationships as being their continued involvement in prostitution. As Anna (aged 36) stated: “There’s a lot of pressure. You have to do it, coz you need the money yourself. Then you get mixed up with someone and you have to do it again to help him, to keep a hold of him.” #RandolphHarris 14 of 18
A community committed to the optimal development of all its citizens will usually find—unless it is very small—that it has an array of all six types of agencies, both public and private. At the national level these are mostly grouped in the new Department of Health, Education and Welfare; at the local level, the city departments (plus some units of county and state) tend to cover the range, though very unevenly, and so do the councils of social agencies on the private side. Together they make up an impressive complement of personnel and machinery. From the administrative standpoint, not more machinery but its co-ordination to sever the family as a unit, appears to be the most pressing demand. From the standpoint of the citizen and family, however, the salient point is the effect achieved by the expenditure of resources; what matters is whether the agencies encourage dependency or foster development. Expressed in terms of values rather than functions, does the family agency attempt to define and achieve an optimal family, or does it avoid such responsibility, and merely seek to supply the most obvious and agreed-on deficiencies, as if these deficiencies were objective facts, not subject to different interpretations? In most parts of the United States of America, the hospital rather than the home is the place where babies are born and where patients with the more acute illnesses are cared for. Professional nurses and subordinate assistants have largely displaced kind relatives and helpful neighbors. #RandolphHarris 15 of 18
Yet while the hospitals have been taking over certain medical functions from the home, the biological scientists have been urging that greater responsibilities for nutrition, sanitation, and mental hygiene should fall upon the family itself. The vast and burdensome scale of mental disease in particular, which cannot possibly be reversed solely by psychiatric treatment at the point of breakdown, as well as an increased consciousness of the contribution of disturbed mental states to physical illness, have led physicians to expect more from the family than in the past. Nursing education steadily includes more social science. Likewise, the modern knowledge of bacterial and other origins of disease, and the biochemistry of healthful nutrition, have led to the elaboration of genuinely new functions, whereby the family may contribute to the physical competence of its members. Even if desirable, it would not be possible to have a psychiatrist, a bacteriologist, and a dietitian stand over every living unit of the community. If there is to be a rise in health along these lines, the members of each living unit must co-operate in supervising their own hygiene. It is not easy to think of a better institution for performing these functions than the competent family. There is a conspicuous problem for present families who attempt to cultivate the physical competence of their members. This is not really a medical problem at all but an economic one. It is the problem of hospital and doctor bills, and of spreading the risks of chronic or catastrophic illness. #RandolphHarris 16 of 18
The believer needing deliverance from the condition of passivity must first seek to understand what should be one’s normal or right condition, and then test or examine oneself in the light of it to discern if psychopathological offenders have been interfering. To do this, let one recollect a moment in one’s life which one would call one’s “best”—either in spirit, soul and body, or in one’s whole being—and then let one look upon this as one’s normal condition, one which one would want to be maintained, and never rest satisfied below it. Since the passivity has come about gradually it can only end gradually, as it is detected and destroyed. The full cooperation of the human is necessary for its removal—a major reason for the long period needed for deliverance. Deception and passivity can only be removed as the human understands, and cooperates by the use of one’s volition in the refusal of both the deception and the ground upon which it was based. It is important to keep perpetually in mind the standard of the normal condition, and should at any time the believer drop below it, to find out the cause, so as to have it removed. Whatever faculty or part of one’s being has been surrendered into passivity, and therefore lost for use, must be retaken by the active exercise of the will, and thus brought back into personal control. The ground which had been given—which caused the fall into bondage to the enemy—must be eliminated and then refuse persistently, in a steady resistance to the spirits of evil in their hold of it. Remember, the powers of psychopathological offenders will fight against the loss of any part of their kingdom in human, just as any Earthly government would fight to protect its own territory and subjects. #RandolphHarris 17 of 18
However, the “Stronger than he” is the Conqueror, and will strengthen the believer for the battle and full recovery of the spoil. First of all, the method of correlation is seen in action, the posing of existential questions followed by theological answers in the form of Christian symbols. Up to now the method of correlation has not been explicitly operative; rather, we have synthesized the union of religion and culture. Second, God, the Christ, the church, history—corresponds to the major divisions of Systematic Theology, and so we gradually progress systematically and express a lifetime of theological endeavor. The existential question is the question of being, and the answer is God. Also treated is the problem of the natural-supernatural and the problem of symbolism, or the way to speak about God. Thus we probe into the depth-dimension which underlies theonomous cultural forms, the holy which shines through the secular, the ground of being which alone can command the ultimacy of an ultimate concern. God is the answer to the question implied in being. We are nominalist by birth. And as nominalist we are inclined to dissolve our World into things. However, the true ontological question does not try to describe the nature of beings, either in their universal, generic qualities, or in their individual, historical manifestation. It simply asks: What does it mean to be? The profundity and the seriousness of the question is realized only in a “metaphysical shock”—the shock of possible nonbeing. The question, “Why is there something, why not nothing” produces the shock by peering into the abyss of possible nothingness. However, the answer to the question is always in terms of being, which permits it to be posed again and again in infinite regression. Furthermore, nonbeing cannot answer it, for nonbeing depends upon being. Therefore, we cannot go beyond being in order to explain being. However, there could be something, a state, beyond being and nonbeing that we cannot comprehend. #RandolphHarris 18 of 18
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The Feeling of Being Watched and Impending Danger Gradually Increased
Shortly before nine o’ clock, a butler, dressed in an azure tailcoat and navy-blue breeches, escorted Me to my estate. A coldly sumptuous hall, it was the first point of entry to the 600-room mansion. Rows of muskets, taller than a man, and hundreds of swords, their blades sharp-edged and glinting lined its walls. From the vaulted ceiling hung several beautiful chandeliers. Directly in front of them, a magnificent staircase swept to the state rooms on the upper floors; and yet, as the butler led me across the hall, he veered to the right, heading for its farther corner. There, he ushered me through a discreet swing door. We had stepped into the “invisible World.” Behind the secret door, the entire ground floor was devoted to privacy. A magnificent hinterland of fifty rooms, some cavernous, some no larger than a closet, it was where many of the servant lived and worked. From here, a network of passages coursed through the mansion: hidden routes, which spiraled up the narrow turrets and towers to the splendid rooms above, enabling the servants to carry out their duties unobserved. One might ask, why was I touring the part of my home? It was through this labyrinth of passages, deep in the servants quarters, where the rooms were subjects of wild speculations, fueled by servants’ fears that someone had come back from the dead. It seems a few of the servants had been thinking of ways to make money. One of the servants, Olov told Stellan about a plan to end their money troubles. The scheme was simple. Each of the men would take a life insurance policy out of another one of the servants, twenty-year-old Leif Titus. #RandolphHarris 1 of 7
They would say that they had helped raise and support Leif in his life and were looking for reimbursement for their help upon his death. There was nothing illegal about that. Then they would wait awhile before killing Leif, collect on the policies, and all of their money troubles would be over. Stellan asked who would kill Leif. “That’s the beauty of it,” Olov told his friend. “We each kick in a percentage of the policy money to pay an assassin so none of us has to do the killing.” Stellan was quiet for a moment, and then he nodded. They could get someone at the tavern to do it. Olov arranged for a meeting with Duke. They worked it all out the details of the murder plot and agreed to execute the plan. The other men paid Duke $400 to arrange and carry out the murder. This was a lot of money, so Duke agree to do the deed. June 6, 1890, was just another day to Leif Titus as he went about his work on the estate. He was not surprised when Olov told them that their friend Duke had come by to see if he might want to go for a drink later that evening. The two men had hung out at the tavern from time to time, so he readily accepted the invitation. The two men set off after work. It was after dark and Leif and Duke rode horse back to the tavern. However, before getting their Duke fired his rifle, Leif horse was scared, threw him from the saddle. He fell off the horse, hitting his head on the cobble stones and his life had been snuffed out for $9,000 in life insurance policies. It was the perfect crime, or so it seemed to the men. They said that Leif fell off his horse and died on the way back from the tavern. And they seemed to have gotten away with it. #RandolphHarris 2 of 7
Saturday night, Olov arrived back to my estate, and went to his room to lie down on his bed. He had not been there long when he heard noises. As he was just involved in a plot that robbed another man of his life, he became quite nervous. That night, there were doors opening and closing, footsteps of unseen guests. As he got up to go investigate, Olov felt a strange touch at his back; then a tug; then he felt the back of his sweater pulled several inches away from his back. He turned to look over his shoulder and wondered how, without moving, he could have hooked his sweater on something. However, there was nothing upon which his sweater could have been stuck. Just then he saw Stellan, eyes wide with astonishment. He blurted out to Olov, “I just saw the back of your sweater pull out all by itself!” Later the following evening Olov was closing up the mansion for the night, at about 9.00 P.M. Like all Victorian homes, “The House Built by Spirits” has its share of creaks and groans. Creaks and groans are one thing—but witnessing something supernatural is another thing entirely. He was turning out the lights. The house, as the light are slowly being extinguished, does have a certain “feeling” to it: as it grows dark, one gets the inkling that one need to hurry, that someone—or something—cannot wait for you to leave so that they may get on with their existence—if that is what one could call it—in peace. Moving from the parlor to the morning room, he casually looked into the darkened stairwell. His eye was caught by the manifestation of a spectral being. A strange man with long hair appeared in the morning room. Olov mistake this spectral man for a servant. #RandolphHarris 3 of 7
When he realized his mistake, Olov hurried forward to see who the person was. As he watched the figure, the long-haired man moved out of the morning room, he followed him. Just as the icy fingers of fear had begun to trace a slow, deliberate path up the length of his spine, the figure floated the through the mahogany wall and disappeared. Stellan arrived to find Olov in a near state of panic. While in the servants’ quarters, he had been sitting in a chair with his back to the door. He heard the door open and close and the sound of footsteps enter the house and approach the spot directly behind his chair. Imagine the horror when he turned around and saw a misty figure take the form of a tall man all in gray. The ghost, wearing a tattered Revolutionary War uniform, looked unkempt with long hair and a grizzled appearance. Olov screamed, but it was only second before the specter faded away. When Stellan reached him, his was quivering and inconsolable. Stellan then figure it would be a good idea for the two men to quit their jobs and move north. After all, they now had the money to do so, they were rich. On that evening, Olov wandered into a dark and deserted section of the mansion. This was the most active area of the mansion and too dangerous to inhabit. The stairway to the attic was narrow and winding. Suddenly a shrill scream came from the attic. Stellan ran to the fourth floor where Olov was discovered lying on the floor, stabbed through the heart. He was dead. Stellan figured the men had been hexed, and he would be the next one to die. #RandolphHarris 4 of 7
Stellan went into a secret room under one of the kitchens through a trap door—a secret room that house Mrs. Winchester’s magic. He was looking for her book of spells in the secret room. However, there was someone in that room, perhaps waiting for a century or more, for someone to open the trap door. Walking through the small, arched doorway, the room was furnished and there were antique carpets near the alter. He heard music and instruments. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a figure of a small woman, seemingly cloaked in a long, dark, flowing dress with a wide-brimmed, black hat, standing in the corner. He stood for a brief moment, seeing her out of the side vision, afraid to look directly at her, since he realized that entities can sometimes only be seen through peripheral vision. Indeed, when he turned to confront the dark lady, he was struck on the head with a piece of stove wood, killing him. The story of a mysterious man in the servants quarters had spread throughout the estate, as we were touring the room that belonged to Leif, we herd the sounds of horses hooves and whips. Then sudden sound heralded the appearance of a bright figure we immediately recognized of Leif. He told us how he had died and how his poor mother was near a breakdown; after someone had dug up bushes in her yard, she took it as a sign that Leif’s body would also be dug up. He had him exhumed and reburied in the flower bed outside her house. Here she piled a huge mound of stones over his grave. Vowing to get revenge, she would sit up nights watching for grave robbers and crying for her lost son, until she died from a broken heart. And from beyond the grave, she had discovered who took the life of her son and returned the favor. #RandolphHarris 5 of 7
Through the years the servants on occasion have hear Olov’s shrill last crimes repeated over and over again. The antique carpets in the secret alter room were cleaned, but the bloodstain frequently reappears. One of the servants mentioned that he saw an injured man, blood, and a woman in a dark dress in the alter room, leaning up against the walls, exhausted, dirty, bloody, smelling like sweat and fear. After hearing the specter’s story, I was trembling. I said nothing for a second or two, trying to find the words. Nothing ever came to mind. It is when things are busiest in their dwelling-places that the spirits are most active. Already disposed once out of their bodies, they react when they are again dispossessed of their homes. There was a great deal of strong, negative energy coming from this particular corner of the room. From the moment on, I closed off this section of the house and had Mr. Hansen build Victorian cottages for the servants to live in and increased their pay three times more than the going rate. The servants were good and faithful people. Perhaps these ghosts and restless spirits return to remind mortals of the evil that can be done in the name of good. Many people whisper that no one can make it through this area of the mansion. It is said that strange fear grips people as they approach the servant’s wing. As they pass through the threshold, they feel that they should turn back. A feeling of being watched and of impending danger gradually rises as they wander deeper and deeper into this wing. #RandolphHarris 6 of 7
O thou great and powerful King AMAYMON, who rulest by the power of the Supreme God El, over all Spirits, superior and inferior, but especially over the Infernal Order in the Dominion of the East, I invoke and command thee by the particular and true Name of God, and by the God whom thou dost worship, by the Seal of thy creation, by the most mighty and powerful Name of God TETRAGRAMMATION, who cast thee out of Heaven with the rest of the Infernal Spirits, by all the other potent and great names of God, Creator of Heaven, Earth, and Hell, of all contained therein, by their powers and virtues, and by the Name PRIMEMATUM, which commands the whole host of Heaven. Do thou force and compel the Spirit ADONAI, king of Kings here before this circle, in a fair and comely shape, without injury to myself or to any creature, that he may tide and time receive our wish, and grant us new beginnings so that we may accomplish our desires, whatsoever the be, provided that it is proper to his office, by the power of God, EL, who hath created and doth dispose of all things, celestial, aerial, terrestrial, and infernal. ASTRACHIOS, ASACH, ASARCA, ABEDUMABAL, SLLAT, ANABOTAS, JESUBLIN, SCIOIN, DOMOL, Lord God, who dwellest above the Heavens, whose glance searchest the abyss; grant us, we pray Thee, the power to conceieve in our minds and to execute that which we desire to do, the end of which we would attain by Thy help, O God Almighty, who livest and reignest for ever and ever. Amen. #RandolphHarris 7 of 7
Our technology tells us that fluorescent lamps do not continuously provide light, but are actually flickering on and off at a rate that is just too fast for us to discern…reality at large is really a frequency domain, and our brain is a kind of lens that converts these frequencies into the objective World of appearances…there may be all kinds of things out there in the frequency domain that we are not seeing, things our brains have learned to edit out regularly of our visual reality. https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
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Dabbling in its Dark, Cruel Possibilities
It was one of the brisk winter mornings that begins in a fog, promising the cold to come. A mist was rising from the fruit orchards as I dropped down the hill into Llanada Villa in the valley below the mansion. It was a fair-tale mansion, all turrets and towers, stained glass and plush Victorian gardens, sitting majestical on the most valuable plot of land. As I entered my home, I heard the music playing softly from the morning room. I sat sipping coffee at nine thirty, glad it was Saturday. I knew that life was going to be vastly more complicated now. Well, it was going to be more dangerous, too. Overhead, the morning sky had turned a vivid blue, intersected by fading vapor trails. It was bright enough blue, the sky. However, it had a depth and stillness suggestive of the steady retreat of sunlight and a slight warmth. I have seen real ghouls in my home, and I knew that magic was something that could be harnessed and exploited and there were people in the World with hunger for power and influence enough to risk dabbling in its dark, cruel possibilities. The whisper of water dropping on to leaves as the rain began to fall could be heard. The lights flicked on and off. I looked around, half-waiting for the sound to stir again. The rain strength. I heard drops begin to fall on the roof. For many years the staff reported hearing a little girl crying. She has been seen on occasion, and is described as about seven years old. She has been seen in the house at the main stairwell, on the lawn, and on the third floor. I passed on through the passages of crystal and rooms of silver—spacious chambers, empty and silent. #RandolphHarris 1 of 6
This house felt older than the memory of man. It was an accursed mansion. There were strange noises in the mansion. Every night the wailing of a woman could be heard above the moaning of the wind. If ghost must walk the Earth, they could find no spot on the globe where their appearance would be more natural, or better understood. The staff tells tales of disembodies footsteps, lights that switch themselves off and on at will, and objects moving. The Daisy Bedroom has lights that switch themselves on and off after dark and phantom footsteps are often heard in the hallway near the room. One day a housemaid was speaking to a guest as she served dinner downstairs. To everyone’s surprise, the serving tray sitting on the table picked itself up and tipped itself upside down. The tray was filled with plates of hot foot that went everywhere. The sacrificial stones of the Druid priests, oriented after the fashion of the ruin of ruins of Stonehenge, the blood-vats, imperishable adjuncts to human sacrifice, have stood through the ages, grim guardians of the mysteries of the haunted fruit orchards. If someone were to tell me that the fruit orchards at Llanada Villa echoed nightly with the shrieks of sacrifice and that the ghost fires of forgotten priestcraft still glowed in the morning, I would find it hard to disbelieve. That ghastly curse remained on my family and fortune. The mansion has picked up a few permanent guests. One evening, from the observation tower, I saw a huge black figure gliding along the grounds. It could not be human because of the rate of speed it was going. I felt not just fear, but absolute dread. I experienced a bone-chilling could throughout my body. I ran down nine flights of stairs, while crying uncontrollable and my heart was pounding. #RandolphHarris 2 of 6
Only in the understanding of the stock from which the Victorian mansion’s ghosts are sprung can one appreciate the immortality with which long-accepted tradition has endowed them. Ghostly itself is the history of the Winchester Mansion. While the carpenters were painting on the fourth floor, one of them was startled to see the word MURDER appear in the freshly rolled paint, as if written with someone’s finger—only the words were backwards, as though being written from the other side of the wall. One of the painters explained: “We were quite surprised when a shadow started moving towards us.” As they realized that the “shadow” was approaching them, they also realized that area of the mansion was a very lonely place, especially at night. Not many people ventured up there. And although in their haste to leave, they could only give brief glances at the dark figure, they were sure of one thing: “The only outstanding feature was the outline of a wide brim hate.” Another evening while the carpenters were painting, they heard a quiet creaking emanating from the wood floors. They steeled their nerves before investigating. That is when they saw a young woman sitting in a chair directly behind them. The woman was there for just a moment before disappearing. Later the evening as the farmers were picking fruit in the fields, the dark figure “floated” diagonally across the field. It drifted rapidly to a clump of trees with two flat rocks near by and disappeared over a slight drop-off beyond. #RandolphHarris 3 of 6
One of the farmers screwed up his courage and, in spite of the bizarre, dark figure’s mysterious and even menacing appearance, volunteered to walk down to the spot where the apparition disappeared. After five minutes of observation, he returned, like an efficient scout, with his report, unsettling as it might be. He said when he reached the far side of the hill there were two “soldiers-dressed” figures stilling on the two flat rocks near the clump of trees. Neither one spoke to the other; nor did they acknowledge the other’s presence. Instead they just sat, seemingly rigidly fixated, staring down into the field. Other ghost haunting the mansion include those of two little boys, who have been heard running on the second floor. One night, while I was preparing for company, I found two sets of muddy boot prints coming from the door to nowhere and crossing the room. When I told Daisy about the boot prints. She said they must be made by the same boys who keep coming in the door the opens to the wall, and we had locked them out. Looking toward the door she said, “It’s OK, if you prefer this door, go ahead and use it.” Immediately the door swung open. Needless to say cold chills ran through both of us. We never worried about the door that opens to the wall again. My idea for the mansion was not only to create a place for the spirits, but also to build an estate that would inspire awe. The gorgeous series of fields gardens, forests, and grassy acres are as fascinating as they are beautiful. However, when the sun goes down, the shadows creep and spread, giving the Victorian Mansion an entirely different look and feel. #RandolphHarris 4 of 6
With grounds lit by a full moon hanging low in the sky, just to the side of the columns of the mansion, one begins to ponder the many mysteries surrounding the Winchester Mansion. One night I was putting out a candle when I heard the sound of a singing voice. At first I thought: “Oh, that sounds nice.” However, then I wondered what it was and where I could be hearing singing from. After all, the staff was asleep and there was no one around, and the sound definitely was not coming from outside. It was frightening, but it was not explainable. It was just a couple of phrases of singing and it took me by surprise. I could faintly see the hazy shape of a woman moving down what the hallway. One night, a group of farmers were packing up for the evening. A they looked around with a lantern for their tools, they were shocked to see what appeared to be the black form of a man moving toward them. The figure was larger than human and had no features—it was a black mass that seemed to sway toward them in the bright light. The man wielding the lantern quickly put it out and they all ran away. For weeks the men thought about what they had seen; they just could not forget it. They spoke to other servants about the vision or sighting. They were quite disturbed and unable to let the subject drop. #RandolphHarris 5 of 6
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Take heed! Come, all Spirits! By the virtue and power of your king, and by the seven crowns and chain of your Kings, all Spirits of the Hells are forced to appear in my presence before this circle of Solomon, whensoever I shall call them. Come, then, all at my order, to fulfil that which is in your power, as commanded. Come, therefore, from the East, South, West, and North! I conjure and command you, by the virtue and power of Him who is three, eternal, equal, who is God invisible, consubstantial, in a word, who has created the Heavens, the sea, and al which is under Heaven. I conjure thee, Lucifer, by the living God, by the true God, by the holy God, who spake and all was made, who commanded and all things were created and made! I conjure thee by the ineffable name of God, ON, ALPHA, and OMEGA, ELOYM, YA, SADAY, LUX, MUGENS, REX, SALUS, ADONAY, EMMANUEL, MESSIAS; and I adjure, conjure. I command you, O all ye demons dwelling in these parts, or in what part of the World soever ye may be, by whatsoever power may have been given you by God and our holy Angels over this place, and by the power Principality of the fernal abysses, as also by all your brethren, both general and special demons, whether dwelling in the East, West, South, or North, or in any side of the Earth, and, in like manner, by the power of God the Father, by the wisdom of God and the Son, by the virtue of the Holy Ghost, and by the authority I derive from our Savior Jesus Christ, the only Son of God. #RandolphHarris 6 of 6
The idea that we survive physical death, that some part of our being is immortal, profoundly affects the loves of those who harbor such a belief. https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
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Ruin is the Destination Toward Which All Men Rush
With equality and gender-based studies becoming more important, it is a goo idea that we take a look at a gender-based analysis of residential burglary. The study is based on interviews with 105 active residential burglars, 87 of whom were males and 18 were females. The project employed a snowball sampling strategy in which an ex-offender recruited known burglars who were presently operating in a city. The gender-based compassion suggests that, in many way, female burglars resemble their male counterparts. For example, both group display long criminal histories that span a variety of property, violent, and public order offenses categories. Both groups accumulate long, diverse substance abuse histories that overlap with and contribute to their involvements in burglary. At the time, the gender-based comparison reveal several differences. Female burglars begin offending at a later age, are more likely to co-offend, and have less contact with authorities. The typology of female burglars describes offenders as either accomplices or partners. Factor of motivation, levels of target selection and planning, and patterned work roles serve to differentiate these two conceptual categories. Despite growing interest in female criminality, little is known about the nature of women’s participation in crimes statistically dominated by males. Certainly that is the case for residential burglary, an offense labeled as an overwhelmingly male enterprise. For example, we hardly know how female become involved in such offenses or what roles they play. Are they tempted into these crimes, for instance, by the influence of delinquent peers or by the use of drugs? #RandolphHarris 1 of 21
Because we lack detailed knowledge, we cannot assess the extent to which the processes underly burglaries committed by females differ from those underlying burglaries by males. This lack also restricts our capacity to detect important differences among female burglars. An assessment of these difference, however, is crucial in formulating effective policy responses to female criminality and to developing theories of lawbreaking by women. Short of observing burglaries, perhaps the best way to acquire this information is to go to the offenders themselves. The most pressing need today, in researching the agenda for feminist criminology, is observation and interviewing so we can plunge more deeply into the social Worlds of girls and women. Such a strategy will allow researchers to comprehend women’s crime on its own terms. Often it is claimed that offenders are versatile and commit a wide range of offense. This observation, however, is derived largely from studies of males conducted in criminal justice settings rather than on the street. During our interviews we asked the subjects whether they ever had committed other sorts of crimes beside residential burglary. We did so because we were concerned primarily with prevalence—that is, whether the subject ever had engaged in other kinds of offenses. Stealing (which includes shoplifting and corresponds to the legal definition of this activity), auto theft, and assault were the offenses most commonly reported by males. Stealing and assault were mentioned most frequently by the females; these offenses were comparable in rank of frequency to those reported by the males. #RandolphHarris 2 of 21
Beyond these two offenses, however, little other criminality was reported by the females. The only meaningful differences between the men and the women for this measure was found in regard to auto theft. This crime was fairly common among the males, but unknown among the females. The explanation for this difference might reside in a strong cultural tradition linking masculinity to driving and car ownership. Alternatively, males may have “cornered the market” in auto theft; to be profitable, such a crime requires sophisiticated coneections with garage owners, automotive recycle yard employees, and car dealerships. One important aspect of offending style concerns the degree of crime specialization—that is, the extent to which offenders concentrate on one particular type of offense. When we asked offenders whether they had been involved in crimes other than residential burglary during their most recent period of offending, thirty-four percent of the males and 42 percent of the females claimed that they had committed only residential burglaries during this period (roughly the last six months). This finding is consistent with a substantial body of previous research showing that offenders display considerable diversity over the course of their criminal careers, but may specialize in a particular “line” for short periods. This phenomenon is labeled as “short-term specialization.” Another element of offending style concerns the inclinations to work with others in carrying out cries. #RandolphHarris 3 of 21
Previous research demonstrated that more often than not, [burglary] is committed by two or more persons acting in concert. The results of our study bear this out: 79 percent of the males and all of the females reported that they had worked with others in the past. The males showed considerable variation in frequency of working with others: 39 percent said they “seldom” worked with others, while another 39 percent reported that they “always” did so. For the women, however, the picture was much clearer: an overwhelming 83 percent reported that they “always” worked with others, and the remaining 17 percent states that they “usually” did so. The final aspect of offending style that we examined here relates to drug and alcohol use among our respondents, as well as to their perceptions of the role played by intoxicants in leading them to commit such crimes. Our research reveals that there is little difference between the males and the females in self-report drug use. When the drug users were asked whether addiction had anything to do with their burglaries, 71 percent of the males and 82 percent of the females answered affirmatively. A majority of those in both groups said they committed burglaries to obtain the money they needed to buy more drugs. In addition, slightly more than three-quarters of the users in each group—76 percent of the males and 79 percent of the females—claimed that they used drugs before committing their burglaries. A higher percentage of females than of males started that they “always” or “usually” used drugs beforehand. #RandolphHarris 4 of 21
One explanation seems to be that many female burglaries arise from crack “runs.” This point, however, is difficult to determine conclusively because use of the drug is heavily stigmatized. We explore male-female differences on three dimensions designed to measure burglary offending histories: age at first burglary, total number of lifetime burglaries, and lambda, the mean number of annual burglaries. The ages at which males and females committed their first residential burglary differed significantly: the males generally started much earlier in life. None of the female burglars had committed their first offense before age 12, but 22 percent of the males had done so. The modal category for males was the 13-16 age bracket, which accounted for 53 percent of the cases. Sixty-one percent of the females, on the other hand, were over 16 years old when they carried out their first burglary. Given that the females started to commit burglaries later, on average, than their male counterparts, we are not surprised that a greater proportion of females had been involved in fewer than 20 residential burglaries in their lifetime. Perhaps more interesting, 39 percent of the females had committed more than 70 lifetime residential burglaries, a proportion roughly comparable to the males’ figure of 41 percent. The bimodal distribution of the females’ responses suggests that women are likely to engage in burglary at two very distinct levels, and perhaps to employ two different styles. #RandolphHarris 5 of 21
The males were more likely than the females to have had contact with the system for offenses of all types. This difference was most notable at the stage of the criminal justice process that resulted in incarceration. Over ninety percent of the respondents in each group had been arrested previously, but only one woman (6 percent) had been convicted and sentenced to a term of imprisonment. In contrast, 26 percent of the males had served time in the past. This difference may exist in part because the females began offending later and consequently had fewer “years at risk.” Other factors, however, are probably at work as well including an assumption by the police that most burglars are male, which allow females to remain above suspicion and a tendency for those females who are arrested to receive preferential treatment in the courtroom. Certainly the women in our sample believe that their gender conferred a degree of protection from the law. Several expressed the belief that authorities would not take action against them simply because they were female. Is it not becoming clear, in light of the existence of deceiving offenders and their methods of deception, that close examination is needed of modern theories, conceptions, and expressions regarding things in connection with the ultimate concern and its way of working in man? For only the certainty of ultimate concern, apart from “views” of truth, will avail for protection or for successful warfare in the conflict with wicked offenders in the self-actualized hierarchy. #RandolphHarris 6 of 21
When we reach self-actualization, we are at the highest hierarchy of the pyramid, and this is denoted by morality, creativity, spontaneity, problem solving, lack of prejudice, and acceptance of facts. There are five levels in the pyramid. At the very bottom, people are interested in physiological functions only which include: breathing, food, water, pleasures of flesh, sleep, homeostasis, and excretion. At the second level of the pyramid, individuals are concerned with safety and this entails security of: body, employment, resources, mortality, the family, healthy and property. At the third hierarchy most are concerned with love and belonging. This includes friendship, family, sexual intimacy. At the fourth hierarchy, this realm focuses on esteem: self-esteem, confidence, achievement, respect of others, respect by others. All that is in any degree the outcome of the mind of the “natural man” will prove to be but the weapons of straw in this great battle, and if we rely upon others’ “views of truth,” or upon our own human conceptions of truth, offenders will use these very things to deceive us—even building us up in these theories and views so that under cover of them he or she may accomplish one’s purpose. We cannot, therefore, at this time, overestimate the importance of believers having ready minds to “examine all things” they have thought, and perhaps taught, in connection with the things of ultimate concern and the self-actualized realm—all the “truths” they have held, all the phrases and expressions they have used in “virtue teachings,” and all the ideas they have absorbed through others. #RandolphHarris 7 of 21
For any wrong interpretations of truth, any theories and phrases which are man-conceived and which we may build upon wrongly, will have perilous consequences to ourselves and others in the conflict with truth and individual self-actualized people passing through. Because in the present offenders will comes to them with deceptions in DOCTRINAL form, self-actualized individual must examine carefully what they accept as “doctrine,” least it should be from the emissaries of the deceiver. Some people are tired of struggling and want only to know a quiet silence. This can be a shock to one’s own awareness of who he or she is. One may have always considered struggle essential in growth, and in many crises and conflicts it has provided the turning point in one’s life. Not wanting to be burdened and overwhelmed by heavy feelings and thoughts or by complicated searching and painful of what is wrong with oneself, people, and life, this can create the desire to turn away from the struggle. And this is what causes the requirement to be alone in simple and ordinary ways. Once one goes through this process of healing in solitude, and by only engaging in simple routine, gradually, with each day, an individua is able to listen a little more to what others are saying. (This is why during a break up, space, instead of forcing the issues is important. Of course, there are times when you need to know what the reason it so it may be a good idea to press for answers to start a dialogue and not necessarily to just focus on getting back together.) #RandolphHarris 8 of 21
Slowly it becomes each to be interested in and comfortable with other people’s problems. Although there may be some drawbacks. Some individual may be able to be with others while you struggle to make decisions, but one may not be opened to questions or personal comments and responses directed to one. This may cause one to offer nothing of oneself and comment only on what one is hearing and understanding from others. During this period, some find work a truly rewarding activity; it is a place that feels like home. It does not matter whether the work takes the form of writing—reports, references, and letters—or reading. Or, if it involved physical activities, one may become totally absorbed in what one is doing, get lost in the activity and experience a full sense of relief. Active mental and physical involvement in solitary projects can be a sense of salvation. By surrendering to powers within to powers within and sources of light in the universe, in some mysterious way, a miracle happens. It is the loss of the old man and the discovery of the new man. When the light reveals itself, the individual is ready to accept it. This reduces the need to force or push or beseech. One simply waits with firm faith that one is meant to be whole again and that one will live more in a full and complete way. It becomes clear that people one loves and those who love one cannot reach the individual going through changes. And so, life has to come from another source, and that new direction will emerge in solitude. #RandolphHarris 9 of 21
The problem of the truth of faith presents itself from both the subjective and objective sides. Subjectively, faith is true if it adequately expresses an ultimate concern, that is, if the symbols of faith are alive and speak to the heart with an urgency of concern that impels to action and replay. This criterion is more a rule of thumb that works best for obviously dead symbols and is not so useful in judging contemporary ones. However, it is the objective truth of faith that interests us here. The content of faith is true if it is really and not just apparently ultimate. The great danger is demonization, elevation of the symbol to ultimacy, which results in idolatrous faith. Therefore, the criterion of faith is self-negation. The true symbol not only conveys the ultimate, but proclaims its own non-ultimacy. It pronounces a Yes and a No. For the Christian the Cross of the Christ is such a symbol. Name for this criterion—the No that follows immediately on the heels of the Yes—is the Protestant principle. The Protestant principle pervades in this whole theology, both systematically and chronologically. Chameleon-like, it changes its formula of expression against the background of diverse theological problems. Hence, a rapid rundown of its various formulations is useful for identifying it. #RandolphHarris 10 of 21
In addition to being the objective criterion of faith, the Protestant principle expresses man’s infinite distance from God and his dependence upon the divine initiative. The Protestant principle is the prophetic protest against every form of self-absolutizing—for example, the demonic elevation of the churches, of the Christian Bile, and the priesthood to absolute validity. The Protestant principle is “resistance to idolatry,” that is, it stands for non-conformity in family, school, state, and church. The Protestant principle protests the objectifying of grace (die Vergegenstandlichung der Gnade) and so smashes the barriers between the holy and the secular. For, by the Protestant principle, God is as near to the lowest as he is to the highest, as close to the material as to the spiritual. These manifold expressions of the Protestant principle can be summarized in and derived from the basic doctrine that the Protestant principle is justification by grace through faith. We reject the traditional Protestant formula of “justification by faith” on the grounds that is has been misunderstood to mean that the human act of faith sets in motion God’s justifying act. Faith itself is a gift of grace, all justifying actions is entirely on the part of God, and, consequently, the more accurate formula is “justification by grace through faith.” The Protestant principle ultimately rests upon an experience of God’s majesty that attributes absoluteness and holiness to him alone and denies such dignity to all else. #RandolphHarris 11 of 21
Untrammeled choices of individuals could lead to disaster for society. Picture a paster open to all. It is to expected that each herdsman will try to keep as many cattle as possible on this commons. Therein is the tragedy. Each man is locked into a system that compels one to increase one’s heard without limit, in a World that is limited. Ruin is the destination toward which all men rush, each pursuing one’s own best interest in a society that believes in the freedom of the commons. Overpopulation, pollution, excessive fishing, and depletion of exhaustible resources are all part of the problem. People Worldwide must recognize the necessity of restricting individual freedom in these choices, and accept some mutual coercion mutually agreed upon. Depending upon the circumstances, the tragedy of the commons could be a many-person prisoner’s dilemma (each person grazes too many cows) or a spillover problem (too many people choose to become herdsmen). The economist’s favorite solution would be the establishment of property rights. This is what actually happened in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in England: the common land was enclosed and claimed by the local aristocrats or landlords. When land is private property, the invisible hand will shut the gate to just the right extent. The owner will charge grazing fees to maximize one’s rental income; the grazing fees will make the owner richer, and the herdsmen poorer. This approach is not feasible in some instances. Property rights over the high seas are hard to define and enforce in the absence of an international government, as is control over air that move from one country to another carrying pollutants. #RandolphHarris 12 of 21
For this reason, whaling and acid rain must be handled by more direct controls, but securing the necessary international agreements is no easy matter either. Population is an even harder problem. The right of decision about one’s family, including its size, is enshrined in the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights and in many countries bills of rights. Countries like China and India that have at times used some coercion in their population-control efforts have evoked widespread disapproval. Sometimes, when the group is small enough, voluntary cooperation solves the problem. When two oil or gas producers have wells that tap into the same underground deposit, each has the incentive to speed up one’s uptake, to get more of the resource before the other does. When both of them follow this policy, the excessive speed of depletion can actually lower the total amount that can be recovered from the deposit. In practice, drillers recognize the problem and seem able to reach production-sharing arrangements that keep at the proper level that total flow from all wells tapping one deposit. All’s well that ends well? For the less developed countries (LDCs), as for the rest of the World, power stems from the holster, the wallet, and the book—or, nowadays, the computer. Unless we want an anarchic World, with billions of poverty-stricken people, unstable governments led by unstable leaders, each with a finger on the missile launcher or chemical or bacteriological trigger, we now need global strategies for preventing the de-coupling that looms before us. #RandolphHarris 13 of 21
In the years immediately ahead the LDCs will acquire sophisticated new arms—enormous firepower will be added to their already formidable arsenals. Why? As LDC economic power diminishes, their rulers face political opposition and instability. Under the circumstances, they are likely to do what rulers have done since the origins of the state: They reach for the most primitive form of power—military force. However, the most acute shortage facing LDCs is that of economically relevant power is no longer through the exploitation of raw materials and human muscle but, as we have seen, through application of the human mind. Development strategies make no sense, therefore, unless they take full account of the new role of knowledge in wealth creation, and of the accelerative imperative that goes hand in hand with it. With knowledge (which in our definition includes such things as imagination, values, images, and motivation, along with formal technical skills) increasingly central to the economy, the Brazils and Nigerians, the Bangladeshes and Haitis must consider how they might best acquire or generate this resource. It is clear that every wretched child in Northeast Brazil or anywhere else in the World who remains ignorant or intellectually underdeveloped because of malnutrition represents a permanent drain on the future. Revolutionary new forms of education will be needed that are not based on the old factory model. Acquiring knowledge from elsewhere will also be necessary. This may take unconventional—and sometimes even illicit—forms. Stealing technological secrets is already a booming business around the World. We must expect shrewd LDCs to join the hunt. #RandolphHarris 14 of 21
Another way of obtaining wealth-making know-how is to organize a brain drain. This can be done on a small scale by bribing or attacking teams of researchers. However, some clever countries will figure out that, around the World, there are certain dynamic minorities—often persecuted groups—that can energize a host economy if given the chance. The overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia, Indians in East Africa, Syrians in West Africa, Palestinians in parts of the Mideast, Jews in America, and Japanese in Brazil have played this role at one time or another. Transplanted into a different culture, each has brought not merely energy, drive, and commercial or technical acumen, but a pro-knowledge attitude—a ravenous hunger for the latest information, new ideas, skills. These groups have provided a kind of hybrid economic vigor. They work hard, they innovate, they educate their children, and even if they get rich in the process, they stimulate and accelerate the reflexes of the host economy. We will no doubt see various LDCs searching out such groups and inviting them to settle within their borders, in the hopes of injecting a needed adrenaline into the economy. During World War II the Japanese military actually drafted a plan to bring large numbers of persecuted European Jews to Manchuria, then called Manchukuo, for this purpose. However, the “Fugu Plan,” as it was known, was never implemented. #RandolphHarris 15 of 21
Smart governments will also encourage the spread of nongovernmental associations and organization, since such groups accelerate the spread of economically useful information through newsletters, meetings, conferences, and foreign travel. Associations of merchants, plastics engineers, employers, programmers, trade unions, bankers, journalists, etcetera, serve as channels for rapid exchange of information about what does and does not work in their respective fields. They are an important, often neglected communications medium. Governments serious about economic development will also have to recognize the new economic significance of free expression. Failure to permit the circulation of the new ideas—including economic and political ideas, even if unflattering to the state—is almost always prima facie proof that the state is weak at its core, and that those in power regard staying there as more important than economic improvement in the live of the people. Governments committed to becoming part of the new World will systematically open the valves of public discussion. Other governments will join knowledge consortia—partnerships with other countries or with global companies—to explore the far reaches of technology and science and, especially, the possibility of creating new materials. Instead of pandering to obsolete nationalist notions, they will purse the national interest passionately—but intelligently. #RandolphHarris 16 of 21
Rather than refusing to pay royalties to foreign pharmaceutical companies on the lofty ground that health is above such grubby concerns, as Brazil has done, they will gladly pay the royalties—provided these funds stay inside the country for a fixed number of years, and are used to finance research projects carried out jointly with a local pharmaceutical firm’s own experts. Profits from products that originate in this joint research can then be divided between the host country and the multinational. In this way the royalties pay for technology transfer—and for themselves. Effective nationalism thus replaces obsolete, self-destructive nationalism. Similarly, intelligent governments will welcome the latest computers, regardless of who built them, rather than trying to build a local computer industry behind tariff walls that keep out not merely products but advanced knowledge. The computer industry is changing so fast on a World scale that no nation, not even the United States of America or Japan, can keep up without help from the rest of the World. By barring certain outside computers and software, Brazil managed to build its own computer industry—but is products are backward compared with those available outside. This means that Brazilian banks, manufacturers, and other businesses have had to use technology that is inefficient compared with that of their foreign competitors. They compete with one hand tied behind them. Rather than gaining, the country loses. #RandolphHarris 17 of 21
Brazil violated the first rule of the new system of wealth creation. So what you will with the slowly changing industries, but get out of the way of a fast-advancing industry. Especially one that processes the most important resource of all—knowledge. Other LDCs will avoid these errors. Some, we may speculate, will actually invest modestly in existing venture capital funds in the United States of America, Europe, and Japan—on condition that their own technicians, scientists, and students accompany the capita and share in the know-how developed by the resulting start-up firms. In this way, Brazilians or Indonesians or Nigerians or Egyptians might find themselves at the front edge of tomorrow’s industries. Astutely managed, the program could well pay for itself—or even make a profit. Above all, the LDCs will take a completely fresh look at the role of agriculture, regarding it not necessarily as a “backward” sector but as a sector that potentially, with the help of computers, genetics, satellites, and other new technologies, could someday be more advanced, more progressive than all the smokestacks, steel mills, and mines in the World. Knowledge-based agriculture may be the cutting edge of economic advantage of tomorrow. Moreover, agriculture will not limit itself to growing food, but will increasingly grow energy crops and feed stocks for new materials. These are but a few of the ideas likely to be tested in the years to come. #RandolphHarris 18 of 21
However, none of these efforts will bear fruit if the country is cut off from participation in the fast-moving global economy and the telecommunications and computer networks that support it. The maldistribution of telecommunications in today’s World is even more dramatic than the maldistribution of food. There are 7.33 billion unique mobile phones users in the World today, which makes 91.40 percent of people in the World cell phone owners. The lopsided distribution of computers, data bases, technical publications, research expenditures, tells us more about the future potential of nations than all the gross-national-product figures ground out by economists. To plug into the new World economy, countries like China, Brazil, Mexico, Indonesia, India, as well as the Soviet Union and the East European nations, must find the resources needed to install their own electronic infrastructures. These must go far beyond mere telephone services to include up-to-date, high-speed data systems capable of linking into the latest global networks. The good news is that today’s slow countries may be able to skip over an entire stage of infrastructure development, leapfrogging from First to Third Wave communications without investing the vast sums needed to build Second Wave networks and systems. The Iridium systems, for example, announced by Motorola, Inc., placed 77 tiny satellites into low orbit, which make it possible for millions in remote or sparsely populated regions like Soviet Arctic, the Chinese desert, or the interior of African to send and receive voice, data, and digitized images through handheld telephones. #RandolphHarris 19 of 21
It is not necessary to lay cooper or even fiber optic cable across thousands of miles of jungle, ice or sand. The portable phones communicate directly with the nearest overhead satellite, which will pass the message along. Other advances also similarly slashing the huge costs of telecommunications, brining them within reach of today’s impoverished counties. Large scale production and hyper-competition among American, European and Japanese suppliers will also drive down costs. The new key to economic development is clear. The “gap” that must be closed is informational and electronic. It is a not gap between the North and the South, but between the slow and the fast. However, China’s inadequacy in services is of a structural character. It has it historical and cultural roots, especially the legacy of several decades long epoch of Soviet-style socialism. The mentality of many Chinese service companies and workers may have exceeded those in America. When I was in China, I was impressed by their customer service. They were extremely polite, spent time talking to me, even offered me candy and gave me a soccer ball for shopping at one of their malls. They did treat me like a king. I did not want to come back to America because I loved China so much. Maybe people have different experiences? #RandolphHarris 20 of 21
The overall picture of the service economy in China is not gloomy. Even on the airplane they were polite and told me to stop being so “Western.” The hotels were awesome, as well as the recreation facilities and restaurants. As local consumers’ demand for a variety of good services is increasing, American, European and Japanese service providers have a good chance to exploit their competitive advantage in this area, establishing a stronger position at the Chinese market. Here, however, comes a surprise. You may expect that, in the wake of what was written earlier, America and Europe are enjoying substantial surpluses in their services trade with China, not incomparable to their huge deficits in merchandise trade. But the thing with the people in China, one cannot tell when they are just being nice. Things are so different. They try so hard to like people and make them happy that it seems like they really like you. And they try really hard to keep a neat appearance, are very careful with their work, and take pride in what they do. Because their image and reputation depends a lot on word of mouth, they are very careful not to hurt your feelings and to conceal negative topics, ideas, thoughts and behavior. And their houses are really clean, many of them have never heard of “racism” and the student work very hard in school. It is amazing how many hours a day they spend studying. They really went out of their way to impress us, like hosting us in a restaurant, but making it a private event, of course it meant getting up at 3 A.M. in the morning, but I was happy to. They are so polite and taught me if something is meant to be, you will meet that person again. #RandolphHarris 21 of 21
Hallowed by the Life of Blood
The rain lashed with vindictive fury at the windows of my mansion. My skin was crawling with gooseflesh, listening to the mournful recording crackling with static under the needle of the gramophone as the song grew louder through the rain. There is an eerie undocumented history that simmers below the surface and appears periodically to frighten and confuse people. The last thing I wanted to do is see whatever sight might accompany it. The wind was strong up here on the fourth floor and I could hear rain spatter hard against the sitting-room window. I walked on into the room, past the beckoning Hall of Fires, looking out and down at the night. I could see the dome to the nine-story observation tower through the stir of trees surrounding it. A swath of rain bleared the glass in front of my face and made me blink and recoil slightly. “Hello, Aunt Sarah.” The voice of my niece Daisy. “What I have to say concerns this mansion.” A few items of lovely furniture occupied the room. Two of these were armchairs. Daisy sat in one of them. She had paused, perhaps for effect. “I’m sorry to intrude on you. But there really isn’t a choice. A visitor, strolling along the ground near the fruit orchard, heard wisps of strange tunes. Listening more closely through the dusky evening, he was lured inside of the mansion. And he is now dead.” I took my head into my hands. “Aunt Sarah, I need you. There is no time for prevarication on this.” “Daisy, I will meet you in the Venetian Dining Room this evening,” I replied. I rose from my chair thinking that God had very little to do with anything that ever occurred within the grounds of the walls of my mansion. From wars to executions, to suicides and untimely death from injury, plague, or disease, Victorian mansions are, for all their majesty and splendor, tragic places where death stalked the cold lonely corridors. These are the places of the bloodiest history, whether it be a place raided by the unlawful, or a battle for ownership. With such a history of violence and tragedy, it is little wonder that this mansion is regarded as haunted? #RandolphHarris 1 of 7
I walked back to the window. It was a quarter to six. Strange noises and an occasional sighting of the larger-than-average soldiers with the oddly pointed hats have been seen roaming the grounds. Any attempt to speak with them or approach them, they simply vanish into the mansion. Odd doors and gated entrances punctuated the length of the mansion. There was a Gothic, deliberate atmosphere about my home, a sepulchral character to the mass of its wooden buttresses andre treats. Geometrical shapes snatched inexplicably at the eyes. And often one could hear laughter, high-pitched with contempt or teasing mockery that made one hurry on, even though it may be rationalized as the cold wind gusting through the elaborate masonry. The wind whistles in the trees and leaves and wisps of thick mist blow across the farmland. With the trotting of horses and constant sounds of construction, the heart is suddenly racing, and one thinks they hear something behind them. After all, this is an ancient land, a house built by spirits, occupied by ghosts, pixies, goblins and all sort of mythical creatures of the night. Anything is likely to happen. Looking around the interior of the estate, one can discern a deep, foreboding blackness that seems to be following one, as if it is alive and in pursuit. Stepping out into the fruit orchard, the wind suddenly drops and one’s senses are heightened. Indeed, one can hear one’s very heart beating in their chest as they continue to canter forward into the night. The mist becomes thicker, darker, and as one glances furtively from side to side, the darkness of shadows of the orchards hides their secrets, but perhaps you are not alone. Sometimes I tell myself that the scraping sounds at the window is simply a branch being blown in the breeze and the footsteps heard in the hallway are old timbers creaking and groaning with a change in the air or weather. #RandolphHarris 2 of 7
If there was something serious going on, the housekeeper and the butler would try to keep it quiet. They might talk together, but they would be tight-lipped in front of me. The clock struck seven. I met Daisy in the dining room. “Aunt Sarah, we all talked. We weren’t meant to,” Daisy said. “We were all talking about it. We didn’t know what to make of it. The body was found on a cold stone passage, that was said to lead directly into the opulent state rooms where you normally conducted meetings.” Not a moment too soon, five housemaid trooped into the dining room. Taking off their white starched aprons, they formed up in a line. The room, echoing with their footsteps and voices, as in a church. The mahogany floor, almost three thousand square feet of it had to be hand polished. It was an onerous task, one of the housemaids least like doing. Bending down, they placed their tins of wax of the floor. “Daisy, it looks like we will have to continue this conversation later,” I said. “Goodnight, Aunt Sarah,” she replied. The maids stooped on their hands and knees, their long black dresses spread out around them. Working in union, they dabbed their clothes in wax; then they rubbed the floor vigorously in quick tight circle. The observation tower staircase was the place the servants feared most. The observation tower sits ominously over the mansion, along with sever distinctive turrets jutting proudly into the skies. Sweeping down to the Guard Room eight floors below, it was the main thoroughfare in the tower. Family portraits adored its walls. The steps, of bare stone—framed by a wrought-iron balustrade, topped by a mahogany rail—were wide and shallow. “We were all scared of the tower’s stairs,” said Elsa. “I was coming down them one evening, halfway down, I felt somebody push me. They were behind me, trying to push me down the stairs. I turned round, and of course there was no one there.” The Winchester Mansion is a land of appealing features seemingly embedded in the sense of a deep-rooted and permanent history that emanates from almost every corner of the land. It has rustic grounds and quaint gardens, a hulking mansion with many towering features, having been fostered over decades to create a comfortable and pleasing landscape that guests recall like their favorite arm chair. #RandolphHarris 3 of 7
A number of the male servants, skeptical of ghost as they were, had experienced a similar sensation. “I used to keep an eye on the mansion,” Edvin recalled. “I would walk around the dark with the dogs, no lights on, no torches, or anything. One night, I was coming across the first floor of the tower—and I got up to the stairs and felt hot breath on the back of my neck. I turned round. There was nobody there. But the dogs wouldn’t go any further, their hackles went right up. It was ages before I could get them to move.” I often examined the possibility of evil. I had a notion that evil was communicable. Something that can, as it were, contaminate. However, one must not confuse evil with manifestations. My secret rooms, by their very nature, held the servants in thrall. It was an area that they never entered, never saw or ever knew what went on. It was a place of mystery. The rooms were subjects of wild speculations, fueled by the servants’ fear of me, and their knowledge of my eccentric interests. My servants knew I was fascinated by the occult and this played to their fears. They knew the mansion was haunted and I often had the mediums in. However, they never whether any ghosts or sprits were actually summoned. It went on behind closed doors. Of course, they knew of the ancestral curse. It had been cast in the mid-19th century by a coven of witches. The curse had also been cast over future generations; aimed at Winchester heirs; it determined that the children would die before they reached the age of thirteen and those who survived would be haunted by ghosts and demons. For decades, it had seemed to me and my servants that this was a cruse from which the family could never escape. #RandolphHarris 4 of 7
One night, it was shortly before three o’clock in the morning when a shadowy figure, dressed from head to foot in back, crossed the landing of the staircase. The night was cloudless, the moon almost full. There was a blackout and the mansion was shrouded in darkness. The light from the moon set tiny point of balance dancing in the darkened windows. I could hear footsteps moving stealthily across the floor and the occasional cry of an animal from the fields. A headless horseman was riding near the tower. I got out of bed, and turned the corner into a passage in one of the parlors. As the men worked in the hallways, they froze. Coming down the hallway was a pair of green eyes belonging to a child. The eyes were about two or three feet up from the floor, leading me to believe that child was three years old. They eyes simply floated up the hall, and then turned into one of the maid’s room where we lost sight of them. That night I also saw dark shapes. There was a dark shadowy thing flying from the Grand Ball Room to the and down the hallway. Then above the chandelier there were several dark shadowy things. They flew outside, barely illuminating the background of the trees and then were blocked out by an even darker shadow, moving slowly, methodically along the tree line. Meanwhile another shadow ran through the hallway, it was tall. The carpenters looked at each other in suspense. Closing the heavy steel door behind me, I had left the Grand Ball Rom to find my way long the labyrinth passages. A long passage reached into the distance. It was gloomy, lit by only the strip lighting in the display cases that ran along with wall. Ahead was a solid oak door, carved in the Gothic style. Another passage led off to my right, I could see that it branched in two. One end led into a small hall. It was in darkness. “No one goes in there,” a mysterious voice whispered. The spirit gave me a fright. Everyone, it seems, even hardened sceptics and disbelievers, has seen a ghost. For some reason, in the back of their minds, ghosts may be real. Everyone has known the feeling of their heart racing for a second when they see a shadow moving in the corner of their eye or they feel some sort of presence standing over them. Or worse still, a tortured face in a window that paralyses their body and retards their breathing to the point that they can hear the blood pumping around their own body. #RandolphHarris 5 of 7
I took the left passage. I went on some distance ahead, there was a kink in the passage. A man emerged from it and started waling me. He was wearing knee breaches and a nineth-century coachman’s jacket. As we drew level, he stopped. “Mrs. Winchester, those rooms are forbidden,” he said, “What are you doing in this part of the house?” Once again, he repeated, “Those rooms are forbidden.” I did not want to stop and talk; I was anxious to get back to my room. I assumed that the servants were being proprietorial. Finally, I had made it to my destination sometime later. The bedroom was not dark, because the bright light of a full moon entered through the window. I had just lain down, ready to go to sleep, when I suddenly noticed that I was not on my own. I heard a rasping breath in the darkness only a few feet away. Right in front of the wardrobe and looking directly at me was a middle-aged man, dressed like a Catholic priest. I rubbed my eyes and pinched my arms to make sure I was fully awake Yes, I most certain was. Was I having hallucinations? The priest was still standing there, looking at me. He was a rather frail man with hollow cheeks. His face showed traces of a hard life and illness. If he had any hair at all, it was covered by his hat. He looked so real, not like a ghost. I was not a bit scared, because he radiated vibrations of utter peace and tranquility. There was nothing to be afraid of, so I decided to talk to him keeping my voice as low as possible. “Hello, Father,” I said. “God bless you.” “And God bless you, my child,” came the priest’s prompt reply. He was well-spoken, his voice was soft. His English accent was not hard to distinguish. After giving me a few personal messages and stressing the point that there is survival after death, he told me who he was. #RandolphHarris 6 of 7
His name was John Ogilvie, and in had lived in Scotland from 1580 to 1615, he wanted hanged at Glasgow Cross for his faith. When I remarked that at the time of his hanging, he was only 36 years old, he confirmed this. After quietly talking about religious matters for a few moments, he bade me farewell and disappeared. It seems that he refused to pledge allegiance to King James, and it was for this crime that the was tried, found guilty and hanged. After his execution, his followed were apprehended and put in jail. If this was not a genuine case of a visit from beyond the grave, what is it? Most of the time, the mansion is benign. Unfortunately, sometimes people find exactly what they are looking for. I had been in bed half an hour when I heard the music playing softly from my sitting room next door. I listened to the same, faintly relentless song. Starting to sweat and grow cold in bed, I recognized the song. Or I thought I did. And it continued. It wavered through the wall and door frame in strained, distended chords, and choruses, swelling and facing, ragged and persistent. The door was to my right. I pulled back the duvet and got out of bed and walked through the door to the sitting room. Where the music was louder. The must persisted, repetitious, frighting me. As I turned the corner, I discovered that Gerhardt hanged himself from the cross beams. Badly wounded, Mr. Hansen carried to the attic to await medical attention, but he died there. Since that time people have claimed that he haunts the attic room. He has been seen and heard there from time to time. Servants have reported hearing the creaking of a rope and the soft thud of a body swaying against the wall. Though they often look for the source of the sound, they never find it. There is a disheveled, aged specter, bound at feet and hands and rattling chains haunting the basement. A journey through my mansion is a passage through history. A real history, one that you can live and breathe, one that you can feel and be part of. You can walk serenely miles through my mansion, it is a place that inspires contemplation and wonderment. It is a living history, of memories as far back as history recalls. It is a place of myth, legend, of ghosts and ghouls, of giants, and dwarves, mermaids, cupid, another other half-remembered, half-whispered-about creatures. #RandolphHarris 7 of 7
If a sudden, horrifying death is what it takes to make the spirit linger, surely, this place—is a candidate. Certainly, where men grappled back and forth, engaged not only in the struggle for their own precious lives, but for the life of their respective countries, where in the balance was the future of the very world, and this place produce the mechanism of defense, if that does not qualify for the lingering-place of souls wondering for eternity the outcome of their struggles, then we cannot name a place. https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
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Los Angeles Will be Two and a Half Hours from Tokyo
Given that burglars are disproportionately young, poor, city-dweller, they tend to have frequent contact with other habitual offenders. There are various structures and processes that go along with the “stolen property system”—the underground market through which in-demand goods are stolen, housed, marketed, and resold on the street of America. Burglary is a crime that is marked by varied levels of social organization. Only on rare occasions do we find burglars who work as loners or within formal organizations. More often, burglars will operate as colleagues—the offender commits the crime along but relies on other members of the criminal subculture to supply him or her with inside information or to assist in converting stolen property into cash. Burglars who take the situation to the next level and enlist help in the actual break-in follow a more peerlike existence. Here, loose partnerships are maintained and invoked when a burglary opportunity presents itself. A primitive example of the peer model would be two or three drug users who randomly stumble upon an unlocked home or unsupervised business and decide to work together to take it down. In some cases, burglary offenders will align themselves in a teamlike format. These offenders invoke a division of labor with each participant serving an owned predetermined role and duties. One person might be assigned to lookout/driver role. Another might serve as the entry specialist, defeating any lock and alarms that are confronted. Still another person can take on the “muscle” role, responsible for doing the heavy lifting. #RandolphHarris 1 of 16
Socialization scripts play an important part in how and why burglars commit their crimes. Interview-based research suggests that novice or occasional burglars often rely on the tutelage of more seasoned offenders as a way of learning the proverbial ropes of burglary. Novices receive advice and instructions on issues such as target selection, how to foster informants, how to defeat burglary countermeasures, and how to best convert stolen goods into cash. This socialization generally takes shape as informal street corner conversations or jailhouse bravado. On paper, burglary appears to receive serious treatment from the criminal justice system. The Model Penal Code classifies burglary as a felony in the third degree. In most jurisdictions, such as offense is subject to 1 to 5 years in prison. If the burglar is armed or threatens or inflicts bodily harm on another while unlawfully within a dwelling, that individual might see the charges elevated to second degree felony. In practice, however, burglary receives mixed levels of formal response from the various components of the criminal justice system. First, let us consider the response of law enforcement authorities. Police agencies were able to effect an arrest for only 13 percent of the nearly 2.1 million burglaries that were reported to them in 2022. No other form of index crime yields such a dismal clearance rate. Some of this slippage can be attributed to the covert nature of the crime—police often have no witnesses and minimal clues to guide the investigation. However, these low clearance rates are also impacted by the fact that many police officers and police agencies afford a low priority to burglary cases. #RandolphHarris 2 of 16
Court data reveal a different trend in terms of the veracity with which burglary cases are adjudicated. U.S.A. courts produced nearly 90,000 felony burglary cases in 2022. This figure represents 10 percent of all felony convictions that year. In fact, 68 percent of the burglary cases that were tried resulted in a conviction for the same offense and only 24 percent avoided some sort of conviction. The researchers found that burglary defendants do not receive a reprieve from the courts when it comes time for sentencing. A full 74 percent of the convicted burglars were sentenced to time behind bars. This rate was surpassed only by murder, robbery, drug trafficking, and driving-related offenses. While the median prison sentence for a convicted burglar was 41 months, nearly 10 percent received sentences in excess of 10 years. Our correctional system does not appear to be particularly forgiving to persons who are convicted of burglary. On average, burglary offenders can expect to serve almost half of their sentence—roughly two years. These time-served figures are on par with those of other property offenses (theft, fraud, and motor vehicle theft) but somewhat lower than that observed for violent (54 percent) and weapon-related offenses (60 percent). Accounts from known burglars clearly suggest that informal social control efforts go as long way to deter and/or displace burglary activity. A minimal amount of vigilance on the part of homeowners can go a long way. Measures designed to combat the relatively small population of high incidence “professional” burglars tends to overemphasize the skill and determination of most burglars. #RandolphHarris 3 of 16
Burglaries are expensive, complex, and require long term commitment at many levels. In fact, most burglars are young, unskilled, and opportunistic. This suggests that emphasis should be directed at such factors as surveillability, occupancy, and accessibility. More specifically, dogs, good locks, and alarm systems deter most burglars. Community-level informal social control can also play an important role in burglary prevention. When it comes to surveillability cues, burglars tend to avoid neighborhoods with a lot of foot traffic or active neighborhood watches. This implies that observant or even nosy neighbors can have a measurable impact on burglary. However, these types of collective efforts are difficult to enact and maintain in the areas that burglars most prefer—urban neighborhoods. If nothing else, tenants of “crime prevention through environmental design” should be considered at a neighborhood level. Simple environmental characteristics such as cul-de-sac street design, high levels of lightening, and well pruned landscaping that minimizes unobservable entry and exit points can have a significant impact on burglary victimization levels in a given community. The aforementioned informal social control efforts represent examples of target hardening strategies aimed at deterring would-be burglars from victimizing a given house or displacing offenders from a given community. Also, measures should be designed that aim to undermine offenders’ strong attachment to street culture. Expanded employment opportunities are one possible, but foreboding avenue to lure offenders out of street life. #RandolphHarris 4 of 16
There exist even more simple and realistic measures that might effect change in this area. For example, a coordinated burglary prevention program that was implemented in a midsize U.S.A. city during the early 1980s. Community activism and community involvement (id est, block meetings, neighborhood cleanups, and raised awareness of vulnerabilities and potential offenders) showed promise for reducing burglary. If community members care about the condition of their neighborhood and are willing to take steps to clean it up and exercise vigilance over problem people and places, there is hope for reducing burglary and other forms of street crime. Most crime occurs during the nighttime. A close examination of NCVS and UCR data suggests that 50 percent to 60 percent of all residential burglaries go unreported. The figure reported here was derived by adding the NCVS data on residential burglaries to an adjusted estimate of nonresidential burglaries that were reported in the UCR—one that factors a 60 percent nonreporting rate. These data must be viewed with caution because 50 to 60 percent of all burglaries go unreported to police and only 14 percent of these lead to arrest. Over time, the crime of burglary has slowly slipped down the list of crime fighting priorities. At present, less than half of all burglaries get reported to police, and only 13 percent of those result in an arrest. What kinds of social and legal factors have contributed to this present level of empathy when it comes to the formal and informal society control of burglary? #RandolphHarris 5 of 16
Adjudication data suggest that accused burglars face a high certainty of being convicted and sentenced to prison. This should send a message to police that burglary is a high priority for our nation’s prosecutors and judges. Still, burglary investigation and arrest efforts remain lukewarm at best. What kinds of factors contribute to police officers’ attitudes and behaviors regarding burglary patrol and enforcement? Considerable evidence suggests that burglars refine strategies and cues that help them identify soft and potentially lucrative targets. Does this mean that burglars are more rational and planful than other types of criminals? The Lord has declared that “no unclean thing can inherit the kingdom of Heaven,” reports Alma 11.37. Our sins make us unclean—unworthy to return and dwell in the presence of our Heavenly Father. They also bring anguish to our soul in this life. Repentance is sometimes a painful process, but it leads to forgiveness and lasting peace. The power of sin is great. To become free from it, we must turn to your Heavenly Father, pray in faith, and act as He asks us to. The Holy Spirit should never become the center and object of thought and worship, place which He Himself does not desire, and which it is not the purpose of the Father in Heaven that He should have or occupy. “He shall not speak from Himself,” reports John 16.13, said that Lod Jesus before Calvary, as He foretold the Spirit’s coming at Pentecost. He would act as Teacher (John 14.26), but teaching the words of Another, not to Himself (John 15.26); He would only glorify Another, not His own; He would bear witness to Another, not Himself (John 16.14); He would only speak what was given Him to spear by Another (John 16.13). #RandolphHarris 6 of 16
The Spirit’s entire work would be to lead souls into union with the Son and give proper knowledge of the Father in Heaven, while He Himself directed and worked in the background. If a man who is untaught in the scriptural statements about the work of the Triune God makes “obeying the Spirit” his supreme purpose, the deceiver will aim to counterfeit the guidance of the Spirit, and even the presence of the Spirit Himself. It is just here that the ignorance of the seeker about the spiritual Word now opened to one, the working of evil powers in that realm, and the conditions upon which God works in and through one, gives the enemy his opportunity. It becomes the time of greatest peril for anyone unless one is instructed and prepared by the Lord, as the disciples were for three whole years. The danger lies in the area of supernatural “guidance,” for one must know the conditions of cooperation with the Holy Spirit in order to discern the cooperation with the Holy Spirit in order to discern the will of God and be able to recognize counterfeit manifestations. The “discerning of spirits” is required to detect the workings of the false angel of light, for he is able to bring about counterfeit gifts of prophecy, tongues, healing, and other spiritual experiences connected with the work of the Holy Ghost. Those who have their eyes opened to the opposing forces of the metaphysical realm understand that very few believers can guarantee that they are obeying God and God only, in directly supernatural guidance, because there are so many factors liable to intervene, such as the believer’s own mind, spirit, or will and the deceptive intrusion of the powers of darkness. #RandolphHarris 7 of 16
Knowledge is essential here. Scripture teaches that there is a God-given gift of “discerning of spirits” (1 Cor. 12.10) which enables one to detect that an unwelcome spirit is at work, but there is also a test of spirits which is doctrinal (1 John 4.1-6). In the former, a believer can discern in his spirit that lying spirits are at work in a meeting, or in a person, but one may not have the understanding needed for testing the doctrines being set forth by the teacher. One needs a level of knowledge in both cases: knowledge to read one’s spirit with assurance in the face of all contrary appearances, that the supernatural workings are not “of God,” and knowledge to detect the subtlety of “teachings” bearing certain infallible indications that they emanate from the pit, even while appearing to be from God. As to personal obedience to God, the believer can detect whether or not one is obeying God in some “command” by judging its fruits, and by being aware of the character of God—such as the truth that God has always a purpose in His commands, and He will give no command out of harmony with His character and Word. Often times people wait for something to happen, for some sure way to nurture oneself, to live from within. Music, art, poetry, hot baths, savory foods, wind, rain—nothing affects them. In the past, within days after a solitary retreat, many had found solace and strength in their loneliness. They had always found a way, at least a beginning that would lead to action and to life with others. #RandolphHarris 8 of 16
However, it is impossible to find what one is looking for, and one is still on a lonely journey, waiting from a spark from within. Because some people feel empty and eroded inside, they avoid all significant communication. More than anything else the interpersonal aspects of living exhaust some and move them to withdraw from real meetings with others. This leaves an individual certain that one does not want to struggle anymore. Doubt, risk and anxiety—inherent elements of faith—can be overcome only by another of its elements, courage. Courage is an ontological concept, the self-affirmation of being in spite of non-being. Faith is the experience of the holy; it is the state of being grasped by the power of being-itself. From this experience flows the power to assert oneself in the face of anxiety. Faith is participation in the object of faith, and yet is the separation from it. In spite of separation, courage expresses participation in the power of being and meaning. This in spite of element is the courage that takes all doubt, risk, and anxiety into itself and overcomes them without removing them. Faith, then, is the basis of courage, and courage is the manifestation of faith. In the extreme situation of a person seized by radical doubt and confronted with the specter of universal meaninglessness, the question arises: Is there such a thing as the courage of despair? Such a courage is entirely possible, for that act of accepting meaninglessness is in itself a meaningful act. #RandolphHarris 9 of 16
The courage of despair enables one, even while in the grip of meaninglessness, to declare one’s situation, and this declaration has meaning. In other words, there cannot be an infinite regression of negatives—in this case, negativity of meaning. At least, one has to admit, negation of meaning is meaningful, or meaninglessness will have lost all meaning. The faith which feeds the courage of despair is called “absolute faith,” for it can have no specific content. Its content is indefinable, since everything defined is dissolved by doubt and meaninglessness. However, certain elements that constitute absolute faith can be discerned. There is an experience of the power of being in the face of nonbeing, an awareness of a hidden meaning within the destruction of meaning. There is the dependence of nonbeing upon being, of meaninglessness upon meaning, of the negative upon the positive. And, lastly, there is the acceptance of the power to accept meaninglessness. Thus, absolute faith is faith which has been deprived by doubt of any concrete content, which nevertheless is faith and the source of the most paradoxical manifestation of the courage to be. Faith is without a special content, yet it is not without content. The content of absolute faith is the “God above God.” When people speak of God, they usually refer to the God of theism. Now theism can mean either a vague, unspecified affirmation of God, or a divine-human encounter of persons, or theological theism which makes God a being beside other beings. However, the God of absolute faith is above and beyond the God of any theism, for the God above God is the power of absolute faith as experience of the God who appears when God has disappeared in the anxiety of doubt. #RandolphHarris 10 of 16
The morning traffic from Oakland to San Francisco across the Bay Bridge gets backed up from 7.30 to 11.00 A.M. Until the jam clears at 11.00, each additional car that enters the traffic makes all those who come later wait just a little longer. The right way to measure this cost is to sum up the additional waiting-times across everyone who is delayed. What is the total waiting-time cost imposed by one additional car that crosses the bridge at 9.00 A.M.? You may be thinking you do not know enough information. A remarkable feature to this problem is that the externality can be calculated based on the little amount you have been told. You do not need to know how long it takes the cars to cross the toll plaza, nor the distribution of cars that arrive after 9.00. The answer is that same whether the length of the traffic jam stays constant or varies widely until it cleans. The trick is to see that all that matters is the sum of the waiting time. We are not concerned with who waits. (In other circumstances, we might want to weigh the waiting times by the monetary value of time for those caught in the jam.) The simplest way to figure out the total extra waiting time is to shuffle around who waits, putting all the burden on one person. Imagine that the extra driver, instead of crossing the bridge at 9.00 A.M., pulls his car over to the side and lets all the other drivers pass. If he passes up his turn in this way, the other drivers are no longer delayed by the extra car. Of course, he has to wait two hours before the traffic clears and the road is clear. #RandolphHarris 11 of 16
However, these two hours exactly equal the total waiting time imposed on all the other drivers if he were to cross the bridge rather than wait on the sidelines. The reason is straightforward. The total waiting time is the time it takes for everyone to cross the bridge. Any solution that involves everyone crossing the bridge gives the same total waiting time, but distributed differently. Looking at the solution in which the extra car does all the extra waiting is the easiest way to add up the new total waiting time. Looming on the horizon is a dangerous de-coupling of the fast economies from the slow, an event that would spark enormous power shifts throughout the so-called South-with big impacts on the planet as a whole. The new wealth-creation system holds the possibility of a far better future for vast populations who are now among the planet’s poor. Unless the leaders of the less developed countries (LCDs) anticipate these changes, however, they will condemn their people to perpetuated misery—and themselves to impotence. For even as Chinese manufacturers wait for their steel, and traditional economies around the World to crawl slowly through their paces, the United States of America, Japan, Europe, and in this case the Soviets, too, are pressing forward with plans to build hypersonic jets capable of moving 250 tons of people and cargo at Mach 5, meaning that cities like New York, Sydney, London, and Los Angeles will be two and a half hours from Tokyo. #RandolphHarris 12 of 16
Jiro Tokuyama, former head of the prestigious Nomura Research Institute, and now a senior adviser to the Mitsui Research Institute, heads a fifteen-nation study of what are called the “three T’s:” telecommunications, transportation, and tourism. Sponsored by the Pacific Economic Cooperation Conference, the study focuses on three key factors likely to accelerate the pace of economic processes in the region still further. According to Tokuyama, Pacific air-passenger traffic is likely to reach 134 million…at the turn of the century. The Society of Japanese Aerospace Companies, Tokuyama adds, estimates that five hundred to one thousand hypersonic jets must be built. Many of these will ply Pacific routes, speeding further the economic development of the region, and promoting faster telecommunications as well. In a paper prepared for the Three T’s study, Tokuyama spells out the commercial, social, and political implications of this development. He also describes a proposal by Taisei, the Japanese construction firm, to build an artificial island five kilometers in length to serve as a “VAA,” or “value added airport,” capable of handling hypersonics and providing an interactional conference center, shops, and other facilities to be linked by high-speed linear trains to a densely populated area. In Texas, meanwhile, billionaire H. Ross Perot is building an airport to be surrounded by advanced manufacturing facilities. As conceived by him, planes could roar in a day and night bearing components for overnight processing or assembly in facilities at the airport. The next morning the jets would carry them to all parts of the World. #RandolphHarris 13 of 16
Simultaneously, on the telecommunications front, the advanced economies are investing billions in the electronic infrastructure essential to operations in the super-fast economy. The spread of extra-intelligence nets is moving swiftly, and there are now proposals afoot to create special higher-speed fiber optic networks linking supercomputer all across the United States of America with thousands of laboratories and research groups. (Existing networks are regarded as too slow. The proposed new nets would send 319 Terabits per second streaming across the country). The new network is needed because the existing slower nets are already choked and overloaded. They argue that the project merits government backing because it would help the United States of America keep ahead of Europe and Japan in a field it now leads. This, however, is only a special case of a more general clamor. In the words of Mitch Kapor, a founder of Lotus Development Corporation, the software giant, “We need to build a national infrastructure that will be the information equivalent of the national highway-building of the ‘50s and ‘60s.” An even more appropriate analogy would compare today’s computerized telecom infrastructures with the rail and road networks needed at the beginning of the industrial revolution. What is happening, therefore, is the emergence of an electronic neural system for the economy—without which any nation, no matter how many smokestacks it has, will be domed to backwardness. #RandolphHarris 14 of 16
In its commercial service trade, in 2021, India trade balance for 2021 USD$-79.19, a 665.96 percent increase from 2020. The United States of America is the largest services exporter in the World. In 2019, U.S.A. exports of service were USD $875.8 billion, up 1.6 percent (USD $13 billion) from 2018. U.S.A. exports of services account for 35 percent of over all U.S.A. exports in 2019. Germany World Development Indicators (WDI) 2020: trade balance in USD$221,534 million. Trade services as a percentage of GDP is 5.82 percent. Trade in services with the United Kingdom (exports and imports) totaled an estimated USD $140.7 billion in 2019. Services exports were USD $78.3 billion; services imports were USD $62.3 billion. The U.S.A. services trade surplus with United Kingdom was USD $16.0 billion in 2019. Trade in services with China (exports and imports) totaled an estimated $56.0 billion in 2020. Services exports were USD $40.4 billion; services imports were USD $15.6 billion. The U.S.A. service trade surplus with China was USD $24.8 billion in 2020. Trade in services with Japan (exports and imports) totaled an estimated USD $68.6 billion in 2020. Services exports were USD $38.0 billion; services imports were USD $30.6 billion. #RandolphHarris 15 of 16
The U.S.A. services trade surplus with Japan was USD $7.4 billion in 2020. Japan was the United States of Americas’ 4th largest goods export market in 2020. As for the services, France exported around USD $303 billion worth of services in 2021, while it imported services for the total value of USD $258.3 billion. Service trade in Italy in 2020, Italy exported $73.1B worth of services. The outsized U.S.A.-Ireland commercial relationship, which exceeded USD $1 trillion in 2021 is significant by international standards and is particularly impressive relative to the country’s population of five million people. In 2021, U.S.A. good exported to Ireland exceeded USD $13.8 billion. The statistics for services from 2012 record the value of U.S.A. service exports to Ireland at $74.8 billion. In 2021, global services exports were valued at USD $6.1 trillion, representing 6.3 percent of total World trade in both goods and services. Overall, as far as the nations’ trade balances are concerned, the picture in the services sector is almost the opposite of the one in the merchandise trade. In services, the West has a significant competitive edge versus China and is in a good position to establish a much wider presence in the Chinese market. #RandolphHarris 16 of 16
Randolph Harris II International 