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The Devil Loveth No Salt in His Meat!
Every night in the year, four of us sat in the parlous of the Winchester Mansion. This particular night, there was a thin, bright moonshine: it was bitter cold, windy, and frosty; the town had not yet awakened, but an indefinable stir already preluded the noise and business of the day. The ghouls had come later than usual, and they seemed more than usually eager to be gone. They wished, and declared their wish, that their blood might be the last innocent blood shed. They prayed that God would discover the witchcraft were among us. They forgave their accusers. The fervency of the spirits were very affecting and drew tears from many. Affecting and melting to the hearts of some considerable spectators. They prayed earnestly for pardon for all other sin and for an interest in the precious blood of our dear Redeemer, and seemed to be very sincere, upright, and sensible of their circumstances. One of the ghouls said, “I have been put to death, and my grandfather suffered, and all his estate seized because of my own vile and wretched heart, confessed several things contrary to my conscience and knowledge, though to the wounding of my own soul—the Lord pardon me for it. But oh! the terrors of a wounded conscience, who can bear? Blessed be the Lord; He would not let me go in my sins, but in mercy I hope so my soul would not suffer me to keep it in any longer, but I was forced to confess the truth. Gunshots in the hills and the echo of that awful hellspawn voice in my head. I was sought after by a sorcerer, which resulted in fatal mishaps for those sorcerers because they caught me in the wrong mood, and I turned into a lethal weapon. Dear Mrs. Winchester, let me beg your prayers to the Lord on my behalf, and please send us a joyful and happy meeting in Heaven.” #RandolphHarris 1 of 13
Mrs. Winchester replied, “But the Lord He know it is, if it be possible, that no more innocent blood be shed, which undoubtedly cannot be avoided in the way and course you go in. I question not but your honours do to the utmost of your powers in the discovery and detecting of witchcraft and witches, and shall not be guilty of innocent blood for the World.” A horrible sense of blackness and the treachery of fate seized hold upon the soul of the unhappy student and the other ghouls. “My God! she cried, “but what have I done? and when did I begin?” Nothing could be explained any further because we realized that we had long since ceased to pay attention to anything said by the suspect. Our minds and hearts were so filled with the hideous torments of the afflicted and the frightful tales of the confessors that we were quite unable to absorb anything else. The student was violent, and it was said that she had beaten to death a former teacher and other students in the classroom before she and her accomplices were shot dead by a Winchester model 1866. They were much addicted to sorcery in the said town, and there were forty men in it that could raise the Devil as well as any astrologer. Time had little changed this small town. It stood then, as now, upon a crossroad, out of call of human habitations, and buried fathom deep in the foliage of six thousand cedar trees. The cries of the sheep upon the neighbouring hills, the streamlets upon either hand, one loudly singing among pebbles, the other dripping furtively from pond to pond, the stir of the wind in mountainous old flowering chestnuts, and once in seven days the voice of the bell and old tunes of the precentor, were the only sounds that disturbed the silence around the rural Winchester Mansion. #RandolphHarris 2 of 13
The Resurrection Man was not to be deterred by any of the sanctities of customary piety. It was part of his trade to despise and desecrate the scrolls and trumpets of old tombs found on the estate, the paths worn by the feet of legions of spirits and mourners, and the offerings and the inscriptions of bereaved affection. To rustic neighbourhoods, where love is more than commonly tenacious, and where some bonds of blood or fellowship unite the entire society of a parish, the body-snatcher, far from being repelled by natural respect, was attracted by the ease and safety of the task. To bodies that had been laid in Earth, in joyful expectation of a far different awakening, there came that hasty, lamp-Iit, terror-haunted resurrection that often happened at the Winchester Mansion, which was fully of uneasy ghosts. It was pitch dark; and we had just raised a few souls from the dead. Their bodies awaited them in the basement. Here and there a white gate or a white stone in the wall guided them for a short space across the night; but for the most part it was at a foot pace, and almost groping, that they picked their way through the resonant blackness to their solemn and isolated destination. In the basement the last glimmer failed them, and it became necessary to kindle a match and reillumine one of the lanterns of the gig. Thus, under the dripping pipes, and environed by huge and moving shadows, they reached the scene of their unhallowed labours. However, the devil, imagining that he had found the right moment for taking possession of one of these resurrected bodies. A creeping chill began to possess my soul. It grew upon my mind that some unnatural miracle had been accomplished, that some nameless change had befallen one of the dead bodies, and in fear of their unholy burden wolves were outside the mansion howling. #RandolphHarris 3 of 13
The curse of evil had come into one of the bodies, and the evil malediction spread into his parts with a strange kind of screaming sound that made me turn pale with fear. He then rose to his feet, proclaiming he was the Devil and that he would take these other resurrected bodies with him to the underworld and speak with the dead. Mrs. Winchester said, “I rebuke you, Satan!” The Devil laughed and said he was not at all afraid of us. “You insult me with these testimonies as if you were Divine Oracles!” he said. Then departed in a black cloud of smoke with the resurrected bodies. How often I have read in books written by Jesuits that Martin Luther was a wizard, and that he did himself confess that he had familiarity with Satan! The Holy Son of God himself was reputed a magician, and one that had familiarity with the greatest of Devils. The blaspheming Pharisees said, “He casts out the Devils through the Prince of Devils,” reports Matthew 9.34. There is then not the best saint on Earth, man or woman, that can assure themselves that the Devil shall not cast such an imputation upon them. At the time when Luther died all the possessed people in the Netherlands were quiet. The Devils in them said the reason was because Luther had been a great friend of theirs, and they owed him that respect as to go far as Germany to attend his funeral. But the Father of Lies is never to be believed. He will utter twenty great truths to make way for one lie; he will accuse twenty people of witchcraft if he can but thereby bring one innocent person into trouble. However, it is better that ten suspected witches should escape than one innocent person should be condemned. The Devil makes his witched to dream strange things of themselves and others which are not so. #RandolphHarris 4 of 13
The Greek philosopher Pythagoras of Samos, who invented the Pythagorean theorem, a^2+ b^2 = c^2, also lead seances in approximately 540 BC, using something like a Quija board. Grim reapers are purely psychic entities, with power over time and perception. They can change the way a human sees one’s surroundings, and change their own appearance, usually to ease the transition from life into death. If it is by virtue of some contract with the Devil that witches have the power to do such things, it is hard to conceive how they can be bid to do them without being too much concerned in that Hellish covenant. We ought not to practice witchcraft to discover witches. The Devil have of late accused some eminent persons. It is an awful thing which the Lord had done [id est, permitted] to convince some among us of their error. To take away the life of anyone merely because a specter or Devil in a bewitched or possessed person does accuse them will bring the guilt of innocent blood on the land where such a thing shall be done. What does such an evidence amount unto more than this: either such an one did afflict such an one, or the Devil in one’s likeness, or one’s eyes were bewitched. The natural way for a living person to see a reaper is as a wraith-like figure wearing tattered winding sheets or burial cloth. Black dogs are also buried in the foundations of churches to guard and protect the gates between here and the afterlife. What will be the issue of these troubles God only knows. I am afraid that ages will not wear off that reproach and those stains which these things will leave behind them upon our lands. It is possible that bewitched and possessed person are afflicted by the Devil, but without agency of witches. Yes, there are witches, and there have been since the beginning of the World. Their craft is performed with the Devil’s assistance. #RandolphHarris 5 of 13
During one evening at the mansion, Mrs. Winchester invited the maid in for a séance. She chanted, “By the virtue of the holy resurrection and the torments of the damned, I conjure and exorcise thee, spirit of Malphas, thirty-ninth Spirit, to answer my liege demands, being obedient unto these sacred ceremonies, on pain of everlasting torment and distress. Arise, arise, arise, I charge and command thee.” A black man appeared, I do not think he was human. His skin was black as midnight and I could not see his eyes, teeth, or any other features. He was just black and in the shape of a man. He offered her a book to sign. The book was supposed to contain witches’ pacts, and he told her that is she touched it, it would cure her of the hauntings. In all, Mrs. Winchester was tempted from three boos. The third she demanded that they let her read before she think of signing it. The man refused. In general the book seemed a journal of the chief things acted or designed a their great witch-meetings, not without some circumstances that carried an odd resemblance of the Koran. It has in it the methods to be used in seducing of people unto the service of the Devil, and the names of them that had been seduced, with terms which they were to serve. It particularly surprised some in the room, on the even of May 13, 1888, to overhear her, in the book then opened unto her, spelling a word that was in Latin. The letters she recited was “Quadragesima.” Mrs. Winchester conversed at length with the spirit(s) who visited her, and the voices were “big, low, thick,” as they had been reported to be in European witchcraft accounts. #RandolphHarris 6 of 13
We saw flames arise from the cauldron on the table, and the room smelled of brimstone. The spirit of a bird appears. It attacked the maid and the next morning, she was found tied to the tree top. She was excessively sore when we brought her down from the tree. There were blisters raised upon her. To cure the soreness which last night’s fiery trail gave to her, we were forces sometimes to apply oil commonly used for the cure of scads. And yet (like other witch-wounds) in a day or two all would be well again. Only the marks of some wounds thus given her, she will probably carry to her grave. I may add that once they thrust an hot iron down her throat, which though it were to us invisible, yet we saw he skin fetched off her tongue and lips. Indeed, her sufferings were so severe that Mrs. Winchester thought the rapid healing of her wounds was part of a design to keep her in continual torment. She was, Mrs. Winchester wrote, “wounded with a thousand pains all over, and cured immediately that the pains of these wounds might be repeated.” One of the maid’s symptom occurred when her hallucinations were peopled by specters bring her a little cup that had a whitish liquor in it (unto us wholly invisible), which they would pour down her throat, holding her jaws wide open, in spite of all [her] shriekings and strivings. We saw her swallow this poison, though we saw not the poison, and immediately she would swell prodigiously and be just like one poisoned with a dose of rats-bane [arsenic trioxide]. After these potions she was capable ordinarily to beg of us that we would he her to some salad-oil, upon the taking whereof the swelling would in a little while abate. Sometimes our laying our hands on the mouth of the maid, when she perceived the specters forcing their poisons into her mouth, did keep her from taking of them in. #RandolphHarris 7 of 13
The maid, Agnus, was unable to hear prayer or religious instruction directly. However, not only did she hear the spectral Christmas dance, but several times Agnus had her arms cruelly scratched and pins thrust into her flesh by Fiends while they were molesting her. Several persons did sometimes actually lay their hands upon these Fiend. The wretches were palpable while they were not visible, and several of our people though they saw nothing, yet felt a substance that seemed like a dog. And though they were not fanciful they died away [id est, fainted] at the fright. And at this time, Mrs. Winchester believed much of this unchristian practice was the result of someone delivering curses. A curse delivered by a woman, Margaret Rhodes Crocker, known to have dabbled in witchcraft, although again it is not absolutely certain that she practiced malefic witchcraft. It was upon the Lord’s Day, the 8th of September, in the year 1889, that Margaret Crocker, after some hours of previous disturbance in the Old St. Mary’s Cathedral, fell into odd fits, which caused her friends to carry her home, where her fits in a few hours grew into a figure that satisfied the spectators of their being preternatural. Some of the neighbours were forward enough to suspect the rise of this mischief in an house hard-by, where lived a miserable woman who had been formerly imprisoned on the suspicion of witchcraft, and who had frequently cured very painful hurts by muttering over them certain charms, which I shall not endanger the poisoning of my reader by repeating. This woman had, Mary Frances Sherwood Hopkins Searless, the evening before Margret fell into her calamities, very bitterly treated her and threatened her. #RandolphHarris 8 of 13
However, the hazard of hurting a poor woman that might be innocent, notwithstanding surmises that might have been more strongly grounded than those, caused the pious people in the vicinity to try whether incessant supplication to God alone might not procure a quicker and safer ease to the afflicted than hasty prosecution of any supposed criminal. Mary Francis was assaulted by eight cruel specters, whereof she imagined that she knew three or four, but the rest came still with their faces covered, so that she could never have a distinguishing view of the countenance of those who she thought she knew. She was very careful of my reiterated charges to forbear blazing the names, lest any good person should come to suffer any blast of reputation through the cunning malice of the great Accuser. Nevertheless, she having since privately named them to myself, I will venture to say this of them, that they are a sort of wretches who for these many years have gone under as violent presumptions of witchcraft as perhaps any creatures yet living upon Earth, although I am far from thinking that the visions of this young woman were evidence enough to prove them so. Margaret Crocker’s hallucinations were somewhat varied. She saw not only spectral witches and the “Black Man….their master” who was often seen in abandoned mansions, where he resisted new residents, but also a “White Spirit” who she took to be an Angel. Such a figure had also been seen at the Winchester and in several Oakland witchcraft cases, such as at the Ellen Kenna Mansion, Emma Bray’s Mansion, and at Alexander Dunsmuir’s mansion. The white spirit comforted and advised Margaret during her attack. Among other things, the Angel told her that Oliver Winchester was her spiritual father. #RandolphHarris 9 of 13
The Angel had always maintained the Devils might appear in the shape of an innocent person. Mrs. Winchester cried for the Lord, as for the deliverance of these women from the malice of Hell, for the deliverance of the powers of Hell has now seized upon all of them. And that the whole plot of the Devil to reproach her poor maid, Angus, be defeated by the Lord Jesus Christ. During a séance Mrs. Winchester was told that one of the several beings that was haunting her and these other grand estates was a Rakshasa. A being reincarnated from evil human beings. They are a type of demon. Rakshasa have the power to change their shape at will and appear as animals, as monsters, or in the case of female demons, as beautiful women. They also have magical powers, including invisibility. They are cannibalistic, and particularly target anything religious or holy. In addition to human flesh they, they will eat spoiled food. Their finger nails are poisonous. They are most powerful in the evening, particularly during the dark person of a new moon, but are dispelled by the rising sun. They especially detest sacrifices and prayer. Most powerful among them is their kind, the 10-headed Ravana. Many believe him to be Satan. Margaret had the common inability of afflicted persons to hear religious words, especially, in her case, the words of prayer. She had a full catalog of physical symptoms. She would be strangely distorted in her joins an thrown into such extravagant convulsions as were astonishing unto the spectators in general. She would be cruelly pinched with invisible hands very often in a day, and the black and blue marks of the pinches became immediately visible unto the standers by. She was also afflicted with pins, both real ones found about her person and spectral ones. The psychosomatic skin lesions would in a few minutes ordinarily be cured. #RandolphHarris 10 of 13
As with Mary Frances, her specters burnt her with spectral brimstone, and she would be so bitterly scorched with the unseen sulphur thrown upon her that very sensible blisters would be raised upon her skin. Like Angus, Margaret was forced to swallow spectral poison. She would sometimes have her jaws forcibly pulled open, whereupon something invisible would be poured down her throat. We all saw her swallow, and yet we all saw her try as she could that she might not swallow. She would cry out “as of scalding brimstone poured into her” and would be so monstrously inflamed that it would have broken a heart of stone to have seen her agonies. The spectators would testify also that the Crocker Mansion often reeked “so hot of brimstone that we were scarce able to endure it.” And one of the occasion “the standers by plainly saw something of that odd liquor itself on the outside of her neck.” There was a spectral powder thrown into her eyes, and “one time some of this powder was fallen actually visible upon her cheek, from whence the people in the room wiped it with their handkerchiefs.” Mrs. Winchester was also afflicted by spirits. “We once thought we perceived something stir upon her pillow at a little distance from her, whereupon one present [the Butler Clayton] laying his hand there, he to his horror apprehended that he felt, though none could see it, a living creature not altogether unlike a vampire bat, which nimbly escaped from him. And there were diverse other persons who were thrown into a great consternation by feeling, as they judged, at others times the same invisible animal.” #RandolphHarris 11 of 13
However, the most starling phenomenon in Mrs. Winchester’s case was levitation. “Once,” said Clayton, “her tormentors puled her up to the ceiling of the chamber and held her there before a very numerous company of spectators, who found it as much as they could all do to pull her down again.” Clayton obtained signed confirmations of this and other instances of levitation: “I do testify that I have seen Mrs. Winchester in her hauntings from the invisible World lifted up from her bed, wholly by an invisible force, a great way towards the top of the room where she lay. In her being so lifted she had no assistance from any use of her own arms or hands or any other part of her body, not so much as her heels touching her bed or resting on any support whatsoever. And I have seen her thus lifted when not only a strong person hath thrown his whole weight across her to pull her down, but several other persons have endeavoured with all their might to hinger her from being so raised up, which I suppose that several others will testify as well as myself when called unto it. Witness my hand,” Clayton Straus. “We can also testify that we have several times seen Mrs. Winchester so lifted up from her bed as that she had no use of her own limbs to help her up, but it was the declared apprehension of us, as well as others that saw it, impossible for any hands but some of the invisible World to life her.” Henry Brown, Frank Drew, Phillip Goodwin. “We whose names are underwritten do testify that one evening when we were in the chamber where Mrs. Winchester then lay in her haunting, we observed her to be by an invisible force lifted up from the bed whereon she lay, so as to touch the garret floor, while yet neither her feet nor any other parent of her body rested either on the bed or any other support, but were also by the same force lifted up from all that was under her, and all this for a considerable while. #RandolphHarris 12 of 13
“We judged it several minutes, and it was as much as several of us could do with all our strength to pull her down. All which happened when there was not only we two in the chamber, but we supposed ten or a dozen more whose names we have forgotten.” W. R. Leigh and Spenser T. Olin. These accounts could not be the power of suggestion because these people were not just bystanders. They believed that they witnessed levitation, and they were engaging in violent physical activity, trying to bring her body back to the bed. Such activity would, ordinarily, break the power of suggestion. And levitation has been so frequently reported, from so many times and places (from the 5th century to the 21st century), that one cannot be at all sure there is a satisfactory explanation for it, particularly since so many witnesses insisted that no part of Mrs. Winchester’s body was touching the bed. However, whatever the explanation for these symptoms, Mrs. Winchester and her estate are truly a mystery. However, it is also noted the other prominent Queen Anne Victorian Mansions and other built during the Victorian times experienced afflictions. Witchcraft is one of the most hidden works of darkness. Although some people and some estates were more haunted than others, the Bay Area, during Victorian Times, had its full share of obscurity. All publications on witchcraft and supernatural events have been forbidden by these prominent families at the time. Their desire was to quail tempers, and use wisdom to relax fear, while upholding their honour, integrity, and reverence for the Victorian era. “All things are possible to one that believeth,” reports Mark 9.23. Who that beareth it upon one shall not dread one’s enemies, to be overcome, nor with no manner of poison be hurt, nor in no need misfortune, nor with no thunder one shall be smitten nor lightning, no in no fire be burnt suddenly, nor in no water be drowned. Nor one shall not die without shrift, nor with thieves to be take. Also one shall have no wrong neither of Lord or Lady. This be in the names of God and Christ. #RandolphHarris 13 of 13
Winchester Mystery House
Winchester Mystery House will be going dark this weekend for All Hallows’ Eve, but we will be back to haunt you Thursday, September 30th! Purchase your tickets for next weekend early and let the ghoul times roll 👻
See link in bio for ticket info 🎟 winchestermysteryhouse.com
How I Overcame Anger, Selfishness, and Doubt!
Everyone wants peace and is willing to sweat a little for it; but not everyone cares to pay the ultimate price for the ultimate peace. “The Moses and Aaron fell facedown in front of the whole Israelite assembly gathered there. Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh, who were among those who had explored the land, tore their clothes and said to the entire Israelite assembly, ‘The land we passed through and explored is exceedingly good. If the LORD is pleased with us, He will lead us into that land, a land flowing with milk and honey, and will give it to us. Only do not rebel against the land, because we will swallow them up. Their protection is gone, but the LORD is with us. Do not be afraid of them.’ However, the whole assembly talked about stoning them. Then the glory of the LORD appeared at the Tent of Meeting to all the Israelites. The LORD said to Moses, ‘How long will these people treat me with contempt? How long will they refuse to believe in me, in spite of all the miraculous signs I have performed among them? I will strike the down with a plague and destroy them, but I will make you into a nation greater and stronger than they.’ Moses said to the LORD, “Then the Egyptians will hear about it! By your power you brought these people up from among them. And they will tell the inhabitants of this land about it. They have already heard that you, O LORD, are with these people and that you, O LORD, have been seen face to face, that your cloud stays over them, and that you go before them in a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. If you put these people to death all at one time, the nations who have heard this report about you will say, ‘The Lord was not able to bring these people into the land He promised them on oath; so he slaughtered them in the desert.’ #RandolphHarris 1 of 18
“Now may the Lord’s strength be displayed, just as you have declared: ‘The LORD is slow to anger, abounding in love and forgiving sin and rebellion. Yet He does not leave the guilty unpunished; He punished the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation.’ In accordance with your great love, forgive the sin of these people, just as you have pardoned them from the time they left Egypt until now.” The LORD replied, “I have forgiven them, as you asked. Nevertheless, as surely as I live and as surely as the glory of the LORD fills the whole Earth, not one of the men who saw my glory and the miraculous signs I performed in Egypt and in the desert but who disobeyed me and tested me ten times—not one of them will ever see the land I promised on oath to their forefathers. No one who has treated me with contempt will ever see it. However, because my servant Caleb has a different spirit and follows me wholeheartedly, I will bring him into the land he went to, and his descendants will inherit it. Since the Amalekites and Canaanites are living in the valleys, turn back tomorrow and set out toward the desert along the route to the Red Sea,” reports Numbers 14.5-25. This is a truly inspirational story. Where does God’s peace dwell? In the humble and gentle of heart; that is how His Matthew remembered God (11.29). Where does your peace reside? In deep patience. Hear God’s voice, follow His advice, and you will enjoy much peace. “If anyone is in Christ, one is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come,” reports 2 Corinthians 5.17. Fulfill your God given destiny. Be the person God wants you to be. Believe in bigger and better thing, and expect the supernatural favour of God. #RandolphHarris 2 of 18
Develop a mentality of, “If there is a will, there is a way.” Everything counts. Do not be careless. Watch every word. Guard every step. All of which means, do not jump to conclusions about what others say or do. Stick to God’s monastic rule. And the result? You will discover that your rage erupts rarely, and when it does, does little damage. That does not mean you will not be thumped and thwacked from time to time—that is the way it is in the present life, but in the next? Ahhh, well! However, do not think you have found True Peace just because you find no hubbub in your heart! Do not think everything is good jus because you do no bump into the Devil on your daily rounds! Do not think you have arrived at monastic perfection just because your fellow Devouts have stopped annoying you to death! Do not think you are ready for sainthood just because you have had some fleeting moments of devotion and sweetness! Why all these “do nots”? Because in all of these behaviours I cannot for the life of godliness discover a true admirer of virtue! However, your best days are ahead of you. God wants to do more than you can even ask or think, so do not be satisfied with past glories, and do not get stuck in the rut of past failures. Begin believing for bigger and better things. If you do not think your dreams will ever come to pass, they will never. If you do not think you have what it takes to rise up and set that new standard, it is not going to happen. The barrier is in your mind. “The weapons we fight with are not weapons of the World. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. And we will be ready to punish every act of disobedience, once your obedience is complete,” reports 2 Corinthians 10.4-6. #RandolphHarris 3 of 18
And although many of us is doing so well, we wish God would tell poor souls like us just what spiritual progress and human perfection consists in? It is a wrong thinking pattern that keeps us imprisoned in defeat. And that is why it is so important that we think optimistic thoughts of hope, faith, and success. Reject the lies that tell you success is not in your future. After all, if God is for you, no one can be against you. Let go of the limitations and let your mind focus on fresh, beneficial attitudes of faith. By focusing on things that are of righteousness and success, you will change your life and the lives of your descendants. Your offspring will go further than people ever once believed, and it will because you were willing to walk by faith and not by sight, setting a new standard, and leading the future generations. The obstacle is in your mind. However, because of some people’s disobedience and lack of faith, they wander around in the wilderness, going around the same paths, time after time, not making any progress. How sad! Therefore, offer yourself from the bottom of your heart to the Divine Will. Do not seek out your own will, whether antsy or elephantine, in time or in eternity. For God has prepared a place of great abundance, a place of great freedom for His people. Do these, and nothing will ruffle your calm. And continue to give thanks, in prosperous times as well as desperate ones. Be stout of heart and long in hope. That way, when interior consolation vanished, your heart and soul can sustain a heavier load. Do not feel you have to justify yourself all the time; especially do not ask why you, of all people, should have to suffer all these things. Do justify God, in all your many moves and moods, and do praise God as holy. #RandolphHarris 4 of 18
Then if your praise God, stay in faith, act righteously, and have a spirit of perseverance, you will walk the straight and narrow to the Land of Peace and Honey, where Hope and Doubt are no more; where, as Job put it to his Maker (33.26), you and I will be well met, finally, face to face, in dulci jubilo. But that is then, and this is now. In the unlikely event that you do arrive at complete contempt of self while there is still a breath in your, know that the peace of soul accompanying it is about as good as it gets, according to the Psalmist (72.7), at least on this side of the Final Veil. However, some people have been beaten down by their oppressors for so long—mistreated, used, abused, and taken advantage of—now, even though God wants a better life for each of them, they cannot conceive it. Rather than moving forward with an attitude of faith, expecting good things, they insist on going around with a poor, defeated mentality. Around and around they go, focusing on their problems, always complaining, fretting about the obstacles standing between them and their destiny. Yet, as we understand the Lord, He wants us to strive for perfection because He never relaxes His grip on the Celestial. Why? because in His daily round God has to step smartly around and through the many and varied dumpings and dumplings of the World without so much as soiling His sandal. And He has to do it as if He had not a care in the World, and not at the pace of a slug, but in the sprightly manner of a person with a free and bright mind. How? By allowing no creaturely affection to cling to His soul. There, God will jolt us out of our complacency. He will say to us, “You have stayed long enough at the mountain,” reports Deuteronomy 1.6. Therefore we cannot keep going in circles, doing the same thing year after year, and expect things to change. #RandolphHarris 5 of 18
It is time to move on, to let go of past hurts, pains, or failures. It is time for increase, promotion, and favour. It is time to believe for the extraordinary and supernatural. Father, I do not want to be counted among the doubters; I am a believer. I trust You to lead me in the right direction as I break through the barriers of my past. Thank You, Father, that You have good things in store, not just for me, but for my entire family! I beseech You, Most Pious God of mine, preserver me from the care of this life lest I trip myself up; lest I be seized by the many necessities of the body; lest I seize up from too much pleasure; lest I become depressed by the universal obstacles of the soul, broken on the wheel of trouble. I am not talking about the clumsy imperfections that Worldly Vanity often causes, but about those miseries that result from the Primal Malediction of Mortality. These latter seriously affect the soul; that is to say, they weigh it down and slow it down. The result is that one has not had the strength to enter into the freedom of the spirit as often as one desired. O my God, Ineffable Sweetness, as far as I am concerned, turn bitter every carnal consolation that drags me from the love of Eternals. Why? Its allure is evil. It affects my intuition. It draws me to a delectable good of the present. Do not let it conquer me, my God, do no let the flesh and blood conquer me! Do not let the World and its brief glory deceive me! Do not let the Devil and his cleverness, his bag of tricks, overwhelm me! Please grant me the fortitude of resisting, the patience for enduring, the constancy of preserving. Please grant for all the consolations of the World the discreet yet manly cologne of Your spirit, and in place of carnal love, please flood me with the love of Your name. #RandolphHarris 6 of 18
Just count them—food, drink, clothing, and the other innumerable articles that keep the body going—all these are necessary, or so they say, but they are also insufferable to the fervent spirit; so said the Great Bernard in his First Sermon for Septtaugesima. Grant that I may use as little of this excess baggage of the soul as possible; that is to say, do not let me spend all my time on baggage management to the detriment of daily prayer. Truly, I would like to ditch all these extras, but I cannot. Nature has its minimal claims, and it would be unwise to meddle with them. However, to rummage about in the things that dither the soul? Holy Law prohibits that. Why? Because the flesh has this sudden capacity of overpowering the soul with its fragrance. Because of all these, I beg You, O Lord, let Your hand direct me and protect me lest something catastrophic happen. Is Christianity beneficial or hazardous to your mental health? “Do not be anxious about your life,” reports Matthew 6.25. Consider Francis, the popular son of a wealthy textile merchant family who is known for his flashy dressing and his enthusiastic partying. After hearing a vice, which he believes to be that of God, Francis undergoes a religious transformation, forsakes partying, gives away his possessions, and even sells some of his father’s textiles, giving away the money. His father responds by confining the youth to he house and beating him to bring him to his senses, but Francis is unrepentant. Exasperated, the irate father takes Francis to court, which orders Francis to repay his father. In protest, Francis gives back everything his parents have given him, even the clothes off his back, and walks out of the court naked. He forms a religious sect whose members sleep in abandoned churches, possess nothing, and are not above begging for their food. Never does he return to a normal social life. #RandolphHarris 7 of 18
For Francis (to whom we will shortly return), is religion beneficial or hazardous to mental health? For you and me, is religious devotion good or bad for mental health? Our culture offers us, at the extremes, two sharply contrasting answers. Some televangelist have suggested that with sufficient faith, prayer, and positive thinking we can get Jesus to lift our burdens, to exorcise the demonic within us, to heal our emotional agonies, even to bless us with prosperity. Religious paperbacks have offered hopeful testimonies of how one can get God to give us happy homes, robust love lives, inner peace, or liberation from depression. In Christian inspirational magazines one can find ads for things such as the “Christian weight-loss plan,” which promises results superior to those of non-Christian weight-loss plans. Diametrically opposed to those who say that faith is the key to inner healing are those who say that religion erodes mental health or even that religion is a sickness—an “obsessional neurosis,” said Dr. Freud. Religion is said to promote neurotic guilt, repression of feelings for pleasures of the flesh, and suppression of negative emotions. Religion also impedes efforts to relieve human misery by teaching that people deserve their fate, that to believe that misfortune and suffering are divine judgments on sinners legitimates the blaming the depressed, the miserable, and the angry for their feelings. Who is right? Is religion more often beneficial or hazardous to mental health? Let us approach this question first scientifically, by looking at research on religion and mental health, and then theoretically, by reflecting on the likely emotional consequences of being a Christian disciple. #RandolphHarris 8 of 18
Are there any links between people’s religiosity and their mental health? This question has no simple answer, because the answer depends on what we mean by religiosity (orthodoxy? Church attendance? Strength of religious feeling?) and what we mean by mental health (positive self-esteem? absence of mental illness? happiness?). Across many studies reported in the Oxford University Press Handbook of Religions and Health, religious beliefs and practices have, in more studies than not, been associated not only with greater self-reported happiness, but also with greater hope and optimism; greater purpose and meaning; higher self-esteem; better coping with bereavement; less loneliness; less depression; fewer suicides; less anxiety; less drug and alcohol abuse; less delinquency and crimes; and greater marital stability. A word of caution is in order: these studies merely establish a correlation between religion and mental health. It is a familiar lesson, but true: correlation does not indicate the direction of cause and effect. One’s mental health may affect one’s religion (some religious cults have been a haven for disturbed people). Or religiosity and mental health may be jointly influenced by underlying factors, such as one’s socioeconomic, or educational status. Will a real Christian ever act crazy? Indeed yes. If Christ’s followers march to the sound of a different drummer in what they regard as a crazed World, they may, at times, seem a little crazy. So it was with St. Francis of Assisi, founder of the Franciscan order and a thirteenth-century missionary and religious pioneer. Francis dared to be different, to renounce his family’s materialism, to value higher things, and to suffer rejection for doing so. #RandolphHarris 9 of 18
And so it was with Jesus and some of his early followers. They knew negative emotions—righteous anger in response to injustice, anxiety when confronted by danger, grief in the face of death. They willingly experienced humiliation, even death, as the price for not adjusting to their culture. For the heroes of the Bible, good adjustment—thinking well of oneself and feeling optimistic about the World—was not the aim of life. Adjusting (or conforming) to a sick society may itself be a sick response. Christ’s followers are offered the way of the cross, something that many who serve in war- and disease-ravaged lands know all too well. It is ironic that popular religion should promise its followers serenity and success when the Bible itself depicts its people as so imperfect. The heroes of the faith experienced more tribulation than triumph. In the Old Testament, Noah becomes a drunken fool, David commits homicide out of lust, and Jacob is a blasphemous, polygamous, ungrateful cheat. Likewise, in the New Testament we find the afflicted Paul struggling constantly to resist what he ought not to be doing and to do the good that he ought to be. Moreover, one doubts that any of the disciples could have offered persuasive testimonies of “how I overcome anger, selfishness, and doubt.” Peter loses his temper, is prejudiced against the Gentiles, and denies Christ. After almost three years with Jesus, Andrew cannot conceive of a miracle with loaves and fishes. The proud and prejudiced Nathaniel is skeptical that anything good could come out of Nazareth. Unless Jesus would “show us the Father,” Philip refuses to believe that Jesus and God are one. James and John, the sons of Zebedee, crave the highest-status positions for themselves in the kingdom. Thomas doubts Christ’s resurrection and is skeptical of Jesus’s promise to prepare a place in the Father’s house. #RandolphHarris 10 of 18
Simon the Zealot, Bartholomew, Matthew, and Jude cannot manage so much as to say awake during Jesus’ agony before his betrayal. The Bible makes no pretensions about the perfections of its people. Nor does it need to, for its hope rests not in the power of human faith but in the steadfast love of God. As the experience of Job reminds us, God’s people are not promised an Earthly haven from misery. Recent evidence indicates that people active in faith communities have longer life expectancies than others. Yet no matter how much faith we have, nor how many faith healers we visit, our mortality rate will still be 100 percent. It is easy to be tempted to the illusion that the child of God will be accorded special protection from the capricious forces of the natural World or a special immunity from the vindictive passions of angry humans. Any such faith is bound to suffer disillusionment. Better to root our faith in the hard truth than in temporarily comforting fantasies. If Christianity is untrue, then what honest person would want to believe it, however comforting it might be? And if it is true, even if it were not immediately comforting, what honest person would want to disbelieve it? Among the capricious forces of the natural World are oppressive environments (in which, at times, it is perfectly natural to feel depressed), biochemical and neurological deficits (for which schizophrenia may be a natural outcome), and genetic predispositions to respond maladaptively to stressful circumstances. Faced with psychological disorders such as depression and schizophrenia, Christians had therefore best respond not with simplistic snap judgments (as Job’s friends did in response to his misery) but with compassion and understanding. #RandolphHarris 11 of 18
We should all do well to keep in mind the Christian psychologist Glenn Weaver’s documentation of the spiritual pilgrimage of a devout Christian woman suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. After a life of regular attendance at church services, where she was well known as a gentle Christian with deep concern for her fellow Christians, she began to develop telltale symptoms of increasing forgetfulness. She struggled with the problem in the way that many people do, but she was fighting a losing battle. She found that she could no longer remember the names of those she wanted to pray for, and her letters became verbose and lost much of their content. This is turn made her increasingly anxious; and anxiety led on to depression and the classic textbook description of Alzheimer’s disease, and more. She was also deeply troubled about her relationship with God. She felt that she was personally responsible for falling away from a former close walk with God, and that she was deserting her friends through her lack of friendship and prayers. She concluded that because of her lack of faith, God was setting her aside because she was no longer fit for His service. Eventually she lost all interest in her daily devotions and prayers. With neural changes there are psychological consequences, and these in turn affect spiritual awareness. Such is the unity of the human person, and we should never forget this. For some, a Christian response to such suffering may mean doing or supporting research. For others, it means entering a helpful profession as a clinician, counselor, or social worker. For many more it simply means being loving, caring, and patient. Although Christian faith does not promise escape from the stresses and woes of life, it can help us walk through the valley of deepest darkness. It does so first by offering us an identity—a knowledge of who we are, of our ultimate values, of our mission in life. #RandolphHarris 12 of 18
Many patients, in the second half of life, are all struggling to find a religious outlook on life. More recent questionnaire studies confirm that adults who have a strong sense of purpose in life experience greater-well-being, live with less dread of death, and are less likely to abuse alcohol and other drugs. Second, religious communities offer social support in times of stress. Recent research indicates that people who are upheld by close relationships are less vulnerable to illness and premature death than are those who bear their stresses alone. When we are faced with a threat, caring friends can help us evaluate the problem, restore our self-esteem, reduce our anxiety, and confide our painful feelings—all of which can be good medicine. This helps explain the longer than average lives among those who in faith communities feel “blessed by the ties that bind.” Furthermore, religious experience has the potential to be therapeutic—at times by providing peak experiences of joy, peace, and enlightenment, but more often by reassuring us that, come what may, we are loved. Researcher have found that people’s God-concepts are linked with their self-concepts: those who view God as stern and punitive tend to have low self-images; those who view God as loving and accepting tend to express higher self-esteem. And that leads us to the experience of grace. We expect them to tell of a risen life which is purely “spiritual” in the negative sense of that word: that is, we use the word “spiritual” to mean not what it is but what it is not. We mean a life without space, without history, without environment, with no sensuous elements in it. We also, in our heart of hearts, tend to slur over the risen manhood of Jesus, to conceive Him, after death, simply returning into Deity, so that the Resurrection would be no more than the reversal or undoing of the Incarnation. #RandolphHarris 13 of 18
That being so, all refences to the risen body make us uneasy: they raise awkward questions. For as long as we hold the negatively spiritual view, we have not really been believing in that body at all. We have thought (whether we acknowledged it or not) that the body was not objective: that it was an appearance sent by God to assure the disciples of truths otherwise incommunicable. However, what truths? If the truth is that after death there comes a negatively spiritual life, an eternity of mystical experience, what more misleading way of communicating it could possibly be found than the appearance of a human form which eats broiled fish? Again, on such a view, the body would really be a hallucination. And any theory of hallucination breaks down on the fact (and if it is invention it is the oddest invention that ever entered the mind of humans) that on three separate occasions this hallucination was not immediately recognized as Jesus (Luke xxiv. 13-31; John xx. 15, xxi. 4). Even granting that God sent a holy hallucination to teach truths already widely believed without it, and far more easily taught by other methods, and certain to be completely obscured by this, might we not at leas hope that He would get the face of the hallucination right? Is He who made all faces such a bungler that He cannot even work up a recognizable likeness of the Man who was Himself? It is at this point that awe and trembling fall upon us as we read the records. If the story is false, it is at least a much stranger story than we expected, something for which philosophical “religion,” psychical research, and popular superstition have alike failed to prepare us. If the story is true, then a wholly new mode of being has arisen in the Universe. The body, which lives in that new mode is like, and yet unlike, the body His friends knew before the execution. It is differently related to space and probably to time, but by no means cut off from all relation to them. #RandolphHarris 14 of 18
The body is so related to mater, as we know it, that it can be touched, though at first it had better not be touched. It has also a history before it which is in view from the first moment of the Resurrection; it is presently going to become different or go somewhere else. That is why the story of the Ascension cannot be separated from that of the Resurrection. All the accounts suggest that the appearances of the Risen Body came to an end; some describe an abrupt end about six weeks after the death. And they describe this abrupt end in a way which presents greater difficulties to the modern mind than any other part of the Scripture. For here, surely, we get the implication of all those primitive crudities to which I have said that Christians are not committed: the vertical ascent like a balloon, the local Heaven, the decorated chair to the right of the Father’s throne. “He was caught up into the sky (ouranos),” says St. Mark’s Gospel, “and sat down at the right hand of God.” “He was lifted up,” says the author of Acts, “and a cloud cut Him off from their sight.” It is true that if we wish to get rid of these embarrassing passages, we have the means to do so. The Marcan one probably formed no part of the earliest text of St. Mark’s Gospel: and you may add that the Ascension, though constantly implied throughout the New Testament, is described only in these two places. Can we then simply drop the Ascension story? The answer is that we can do so only if we regard the Resurrection appearances as those of a ghost or hallucination. For a phantom can just fade away; but an objective entity must go somewhere—something must happen to it. And if the Risen Body were not objective, then all of us (Christian or not) must invent some explanation for the disappearance of the corpse. #RandolphHarris 15 of 18
And all Christians must explain why God sent or permitted a “vision” or “ghost” whose behaviour seems almost exclusively directed to convincing the disciples that it was not a vision or a ghost but really a corporeal being. If it were a vision, then it was the most systematically deceptive and lying vision on record. However, if it were real, then something happened to it after it ceased to appear. You cannot take away the Ascension without putting something else in its place. Rich diversity of family forms will not come into being without pain and anguish. For any change in family structure also forces change in the roles we live. Every society, through its institutions, creates its own architecture of roles or social expectations. The corporation and trade union between them more or less defined what was expected of workers and bosses. Schools fixed the respective roles of teachers and pupils. And the Second Wave family allocated the roles of breadwinner, housekeeper, and child. As the nuclear family goes critical, so to speak, the roles associated with it begin to shiver and crack—with excruciating personal impact. From the day that Betty Friedan’s bombshell book, The Feminine Mystique, launched the modern feminist movement in many nations, we have seen a painful struggle to redefine the roles of humans in terms appropriate to a postnuclear-family future. The expectations and the behaviour of both genders have shifted with respects to jobs, legal and financial rights, household responsibilities, and even performance dealing with pleasures of the flesh. “Now,” write Peter Knobler, editor of Crawdaddy, a rock music magazine, “a guy’s got to contend with women breaking all the rules…Many regulations need breaking,” he adds, “but that does not make it much easier.” #RandolphHarris 16 of 18
Roles are shaken by the battle over ending a pregnancy, for instance, as women insist that they—not politicians, not priests, not doctors or even husbands—have a right to control their bodies. Gender roles are further blurred as homosexuals demand and win “gay rights.” Even the role of the child in society is changing. Suddenly advocates spring up to lobby for a Children’s Bill of Rights. Courts are swamped by cases involving role redefinition, as alternatives to the nuclear family multiply and gain acceptability. Do unmarried spouses have to share their property after they break up? Can a couple legally pay a woman to bear a child for them by artificial insemination? (Costa Rican courts have said no—but for how long?) Can a lesbian be a “good mother” and retain custody of her child after a divorce? (An American court say yes.) What is meant by being a good parent? Nothing underlines the changing role structure more than the lawsuit filed in Boulder, Colorado USA, by an angry twenty-four-year-old named Tom Hansen. Parents can make mistakes, Mr. Hansen’s lawyer argued, but they must be held legally—and financially—responsible for the result. Thus Mr. Hansen’s court action claimed $350,000 in damages on an unprecedented legal ground: parental malpractice. It is one of the most important items of business for the government to prevent extreme inequality of fortunes, not by appropriating treasures from their owners, but by denying everyone the means of acquiring them, and not by building hospitals for the poor but by protecting citizens from becoming poor. Humans unequally distributed over the territory and crowded into one place whole other areas are underpopulated; arts of pleasure and pure industry favored over useful and demanding crafts; agriculture sacrificed to commerce; the publican made necessary by the bad administration of state funds. #RandolphHarris 17 of 18
Finally, venality pushed to such excess that esteem is measure in gold coins and the virtues themselves are sold for money: such are the most readily apparent causes of opulence and poverty, of the substitution of private interest for public interests, of the mutual hatred of citizens of their indifference to the common cause, of the corruption of the people, and of the enfeebling of all of governmental power. Such, as a consequence, are the ills that are difficult to treat once they make themselves felt, but which a wise administration ought to prevent in order to maintain, along with good mores, respect for the laws, love of the country and the vitality of the general will. However, all these precautions will be insufficient without going further still. A country cannot subsist without liberty, nor can liberty without virtue, nor can virtue without citizens. You will have everything if you train citizens; without this you will merely have wicked slaves, beginning with the leaders of the state. However, training citizens is not to be accomplished in one day, and turning them into adults requires that they be taught as children. Cover my Earth mother four times with many flowers. Let the Heavens be covered with the banked-up clouds. Let the Earth be covered with fog; cover the Earth with rains. Great waters, rain, cover the Earth. Lightning cover the Earth. Let thunder be heard over the Earth; let thunder be heard; let thunder be heard over the six regions of the Earth. Save the Earth from the curse, our cattle from sterility, our threshing-floor from the locust, our corn from fire, our substance from catastrophe, our feed from destruction. Please guard the olives from falling, and save the wheat from the grasshopper. Please protect our granaries from the worm, our vines from the caterpillar, the vineyard from the cankerworm, the autumn-fruit from blight. O protect our produce from the devouring locust, our souls from terror, our plenty from the winged-locust. Please keep our flocks from ravaging disease, our fruits from the blasting wind. Please shield our sheep from the plague, our harvest from ruin, our abundance from leanness. Please save the barley from mildew, the field’s increase from the palmer-worm. O do Thou save us, we beseech Thee. #RandolphHarris 18 of 18
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New Creation—A New Chapter in Cosmic History Has Opened!
Do not go poking your nose into the virtues that may be found in the lives of your fellow Devout. And do not sniff about the laundry of their vices. Why? Because your path is in the opposite direction. “Just follow Me.” That was the Evangelist John’s answer, as it was Jesus’ before him (21.22). If one person is a such-and-such or another person says one thing but does another, what business is it of yours? You do not need to be responsible for yourself; that is how Paul put it to the Romans (14.12). And that, believe me, is more than you can handle. Beyond that, you quickly get out of your depth. And before you smack me in the face with that mullet, let me assure you God knows everyone and God see everything that happens under the sun; that is what the Preacher wrote about Him (1.14). Each person God knows inside and out, that is to say, what one thinks, what one wants, and where one is heading; that is how God’s John described Him (2.25). And that includes you. “Truly, truly, I say to you, one who believes in Me, the works that I do, one will do also; and greater works than these one will do; because I go to the Father,” reports John 14.12. So what can God do for you? Everything, if you putt it all into His hands. God wants each generation to go further than the previous generation. He wants each generation to be more blessed, to experience more of His love, goodness, and His influence in the World. He does not want you to stay where you are. What can you do for yourself? Keep the peace. That is to say, forgive the agitator one’s agitation; one stirs the pot against you, but one cannot bring it to a boil. Eventually one will find oneself in a broth of one’s own juices. One cannot deceive God. #RandolphHarris 1 of 17
God did not desire one generation to shine, and then the next generation to fade into obscurity. God wants each generation to increase. “These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates. When the LORD your God brings you into the land He swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to give you—a land with large, flourishing cities you did not build, houses filled with all kinds of good things you did not provide, wells you did not dig, and vineyards and olive groves you did not plant—then when you eat and are satisfied, be careful that you do no forget the LORD, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. Fear the LORD your God, serve Him only and take your oaths in His name. Do not follow other gods, the gods of the peoples around you; for the LORD your God, who is among you, is a jealous God and His anger will burn against you, and He will destroy you from the face of the land. Do not test the LORD your God as you did at Massah. Be sure to keep the commands of the LORD your God and the stipulations and decrees He has given you. Do what is right and good in the LORD’s sight, so that it may go well with your and you may go well with you and your may go in and take over the god land that the LORD promised on oath to your forefathers, thrusting out all your enemies before you, as the LORD said. #RandolphHarris 2 of 17
“In the future, when your son asks you, ‘What is the meaning of the stipulations, decrees and laws the LORD our God has commanded you?’ tell him: ‘We were slaves of Pharaoh in Egypt, but the LORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand. Before our eyes the LORD sent miraculous signs and wonders—great and terrible—upon Egypt and Pharaoh and his whole household. However, He brought us out from there to bring us in and give us the land that He promised on oath to our forefathers. The LORD commanded us to obey all these decrees and to fear the LORD our God, so that we might always prosper and be kept alive, as is the case today. And if we are careful to obey all this law before the LORD our God, as He has commanded us, that will be our righteousness,” reports Deuteronomy 6.5-25. Some things are not worth worrying about. Swanning about in a sphere of influence. Being on a first-name basis with Worldly notables. Dispensing tokens of affection to every outstretched hand. Why? Because these activities, harmless as they may seem, do have a tendency to distract the soul and clutter the heart. I speak God’s words of wisdom and reveal God’s hidden thoughts to you, my beloved friend, but on one condition only. You must keep a weather eye open for His coming and leave the door of your heart unlocked; that is one of God’s instructions in the Last Book of His New Testament (3.20). That is to say, be on the lookout, pray while you watch, and think humble thoughts. You, too, can be so much more than your predecessors, passing on a legacy of Godly attitudes, blessings, and success to your children. Do not ever get satisfied with where you are. #RandolphHarris 3 of 17
Maybe you come from a family that is not affluent. Or perhaps you come from a family with riches untold. Regardless, you can experience more than the generation preceding you. The adult has—nobody. Indeed one may have friends, a wife, a certain amount of social security, yet even so the possibility of defending oneself and of acquiring what one needs is very fragile. Even if your life and full of hardship, lack and limitation, oppression, poor health, do not pass these negative attitudes down to your children. Break the cycle and change your expectations. Trust and believe that God can make the impossible possible. Thank You, Father, that I am part of a family with a future; no longer will I be limited by my past, but I will trust You today to do things in and through my life that are even greater than the wonderful things You have done previously. The procession of the Word in God is called generation. In proof whereof we must observe that generation has twofold meaning: one common to everything subject to generation and corruption; in which sense generation is nothing but change from non-existence to existence. In another sense it is proper and belongs to living things; in which sense it signifies the origin of a living being from a conjoined living principle; and this is properly called birth. Not everything of that kind, however, is called begotten; but, strictly speaking, only what proceeds by way of similitude. Hence a hair has not the aspect of generation and sonship, but only that has which proceeds by way of a similitude. Nor will any likeness suffice; for a worm which is generated from animals has not the aspect of generation and sonship, although it has a generic similitude; for this kind of generation requires that there should be a procession by ways of similitude in he same specific nature; as human proceeds from a human, and a horse from a horse. #RandolphHarris 4 of 17
So in living things, which proceed from potential to actual life, such as humans and animals, generation includes both of these kinds of generation. However, if there is a being whose life does not proceed from potentiality to act, procession (if found in such a being) excludes entirely the first kind of generation; whereas it may have that kind of generation which belongs to living things. So in this manner the procession of the Word in God is generation; for He proceeds by way of intelligible action, which is a vital operation:—from a conjoined principle (as above described):—byway of similitude, inasmuch as the concept of the intellect is a likeness of the object conceived:—and exists in the same nature, because in God the act of understanding and His existence are the same, as shown above. Hence the procession of the Word in God is called generation; and the Word Himself proceeding is called the Son. The act of human understanding in ourselves is not the substance itself of the intellect; hence the word which proceeds within us by intelligible operation is not of the same nature as the source whence it proceeds; so the idea of generation cannot be properly and fully applied to it. However, the divine act of intelligence is the very substance itself of the one who understands. The Word proceeding therefore proceeds as subsisting in the same nature; and so is properly called begotten, and Son. Hence Scripture employs terms which denote generation of living things in order to signify the procession of the divine Wisdom, namely, conception and birth; as is declared in the person of the divine Wisdom. “The depths were not as ye, and I was already conceived; before the hills, I was brought forth,” reports Proverbs 8.24. In our way of understanding we use the word “conception” in order to signify that in the word of our intellect is found the likeness of the thing understood, although there be no identity of nature. #RandolphHarris 5 of 17
Not everything derived from another has existence in another subject; otherwise we could not say that the whole substance of created beings comes from God, since there is no subject that could receive the whole substance. So, then, what is generated in God receives its existence from the generator, not as though that existence were received into matter or into a subject (which would conflict with the divine self-subsistence); but when we speak of His existence as received, we mean that He Who proceeds receives divine existence are contained both the Word intelligibly proceeding and the principle of the Word, with whatever belongs to His perfection. The Resurrection was not regarded simply or chiefly as evidence for the immortality of the soul. It is, of course, often so regarded today: I have heard a man maintain that “the importance of the Resurrection is that it proves survival.” Such a view cannot at any point be reconciled with the language of the New Testament. On such a view Christ would simply have done what all humans do when they die: the only novelty would have been that in Hs case we were allowed to see it happening. However, there is not in Scripture the faintest suggestion that the Resurrection was new evidence for something that had in fact been always happening. The New Testament writers speak of as if Christ’s achievement in rising from he dead was the first event of its kind in the whole history of the Universe. He is the “first fruits,” the “pioneer of life.” He has forced open a door that has been locked since the death of the first man. He has met, fought, and beaten the King of Death. Everything is different because He has done so. This is the beginning of the New Creation: a new chapter in cosmic history opened. #RandolphHarris 6 of 17
I do not mean, of course, that the writers of the New Testament disbelieved in “survival.” On the contrary they believed in it so readily that Jesus on more than one occasion has to assure them that He was not a ghost. From he earliest times the Jewish people, like many other nations, had believed that humans possessed a “soul” or Nephesh separable from the body, which went at death into the shadowy World called Sheol: a land of forgetfulness and imbecility where none called upon God any more, a land half unreal and melancholy like the Hades of the Greeks or the Niflheim of the Norsemen. From it shades could return and appear to the living, as Samuel’s shade had done at the command of the Witch of Endor. In much more recent times there had arisen a more cheerful belief that the righteous passed at death to “Heaven.” Both doctrines are doctrines of “the immortality of the soul” as a Greek or modern Englishman understands it: and both are quite irrelevant to the story of the Resurrection. The writers look upon this event as an absolutely novelty. Quite clearly they do no think they have been haunted by ghost from Sheol, nor even that they have had a vision of a “soul” in “Heaven.” It must be clearly understood that if the Psychical Researchers succeeded in proving “survival” and showed that the Resurrection was an instance of it, they would not be supporting the Christian faith but refuting it. If that were all that had happened to the original “gospel” would have been untrue. What the apostles claimed to have seen did not corroborate, nor exclude, and had indeed nothing to do with, either the doctrine of “Heaven” or the doctrine of Sheol. Insofar as it corroborated anything it corroborated a third Jewish believe which is quite distinct from both these. #RandolphHarris 7 of 17
This third doctrine taught in “the day of God” peace would be restored and World dominion given to America under a righteous King: and that when this happened the righteous dead, or some of them, would come back to Earth—not as floating wraiths but as solid humans who cast shadows in the sunlight and made a noise when they tramped the floors. “Awake and sing, ye that dwell in the dust,” said Isaiah, “And the Earth shall cast out the dead,” (xxvi. 19). What the apostles thought they had seen was, if not that, at any rate a lonely first instance of that: the first movement of a great wheel beginning to turn in the direction opposite to that which all humans hitherto had observed. Of all the ideas entertained by humans by death it is this one, and this one only, which the story of the Resurrection tends to confirm. If the story is true, then it is this Hebrew myth of resurrection which begot it. If the story is true, then the hint and anticipation of the truth is to be found not in popular ideas about ghosts nor in eastern doctrines of re-incarnation nor in philosophical speculations about the immortality of the soul, but exclusively in the Hebrew prophecies of the return, the restoration, the great reversal. Immortality simply as immortality is irrelevant to the Christian claim. There are, I allow, certain respects in which the risen Christ resembles the “ghost” of popular tradition. Like a ghost He “appears” and “disappears”; locked doors are no obstacle to Him. On the other hand He Himself vigorously asserts that He is corporeal (Luke xxiv. 39-40) and eats broiled fish. It is at this point that the modern reader becomes uncomfortable. He becomes more uncomfortable still at the words, “Don’t touch me; I have not yet gone up to the Father” (John xx. 17). For the voices and apparitions, we are, in some measure, prepared. #RandolphHarris 8 of 17
However, what is this that must not be touched? What is all this about going “up” to the Father? Is He not already “with the Father” in the only sense that matter? What can “with the Father” in he only sense that matters? What can “going up” be except a metaphor for that? And if so, why has He “not yet” gone? These discomforts arise because the story the “apostles” actually had to tell begins at this point to conflict with the story we expect and are determined beforehand to read into their narrative. It seems that the sentiment of humanity evaporates and weakens in being extended over the entire World, and that we cannot be affected by the calamities in America or Japan the way we are by those of a European people. Interest and commiseration must somehow be limited and restrained to be active. For since this inclination in us can be useful only to hose with whom we have to live, it is a good thing that the humanity concentrated among citizens takes on a new force through the habit of seeing each other and through the common interest that unites them. It is certain that the greatest miracles of virtue have been produced by the love of the country. In joining together the force of self-love and all the beauty of virtue, this sweet and lively sentiment takes on an energy that, without disfiguring it, makes it the most heroic of all the passions. This is the passion that produced so many immortal actions whose radiance dazzles our feeble eyes, and so many great humans whose ancient virtues were thought to be fables once the love of country because the object of derision. We should not find this surprising. The ecstasies of tender hearts appear utterly fanciful to anyone who has not felt them. #RandolphHarris 9 of 17
And the love of country, a hundred times more ardent and delightful than that of a mistress, likewise cannot be conceived except by being felt. However, it is easy to observe, in all the hearts it inflames and in all the actions it inspires, that fiery and sublime ardor which the purest virtue is lacking when it is separated from the love of country. Let us dare to compare Socrates oneself to Cato. The one was more a philosopher; the other more a citizen. Athens was already lost, and Socrates had no other country but the whole World. Cato always carried his country in the bottom of his heart. He lived only for it and could not outlive it. The virtue of Socrates is that of the wisest of men. However, compared with Caesar and Pompey, Cato seems like a god among mortals. One teaches a few individuals, combats the sophist and dies for the truth. The other defends the state, liberty and the laws against the conquerors of the World, and finally leaves the Earth when he no longer sees as country to serve. A worthy student of Socrates would be the most virtuous of his contemporaries. A worthy imitator of Cato would be the greatest. The virtue of the first would constitute his happiness; the second would seek one’s happiness in that of others. We ought to be taught by the one and led by the other, and that alone would decide our preference. For a people consisting of wise humans never been produced; however, it is not impossible to make a people happy. Do we want people to be virtuous? Let us begin then by making them love their country. However, how can they love it, if their country means nothing more to them than it does to people who are not native to their lands, allotting to them only what it cannot refuse to anyone? #RandolphHarris 10 of 17
It would be worse still if they did not enjoy even civil welfare, and if their goods, their life or liberty were at the discretion of powerful humans, without it being possible or permitted for them to dare to invoke the laws. In such circumstances, subjected to the duties of the civil state without enjoying even the rights of the state of nature and without being able to use their strength to defend themselves, they would as a result be in the worst condition in which free humans can find themselves, and the word “country” could have only an odious or ridiculous meaning for them. There is no point to believing that one can strike or cut off an arm without pain being transmitted to the head. And it is no more believable that the general will would permit a member of the state, whoever one might be, to injure or destroy another member than that the fingers of a human in one’s right mind would put out one’s eyes. Individual welfare is so closely linked to the public confederation that, were it not for the attention one should pay to human frailty, this convention would be dissolved by right if just one citizen were to perish who could have been saved, if jus one citizen were wrongly held in prison, and if a single litigation were to be lost because of an obvious injustice. For when these fundamental conventions are violated, it is no longer apparent what right or what interest could maintain the populace in the social union, unless it is restrained by force alone, which bring about this dissolution of the civil state. In effect, is it not the commitment of the body of the nation to provide for the maintenance of the humblest of its members with as much care as for that of all others? #RandolphHarris 11 of 17
And is the welfare of a citizen any less the common cause than the welfare of the entire state? If someone were to tell us that it is good that one person should perish for all, I would admire this saying when it comes from the lips of a worthy and virtuous patriot who dedicates oneself willingly and out of duty to die for the welfare of one’s country. However, if this means that the government is permitted to sacrifice an innocent person for the welfare of the multitude, I hold this maxim to be one of the most despicable that tyrant has ever invented, the most false that one might propose, the most dangerous one might accept, and the most directly opposed to the fundamental laws of society. For far from it being the case that one individual should die for all, all have committed their goods and their lives in defense of each of them, so that individual weakness would always be protected by public force, and each member by the entire state. After conjuring up an image of the attrition of the people, one after another, press the partisans of this maxim to explain better what they mean by body of the state, and you will see that eventually they will reduce it to a small number of human who are not the people, but the officers of the people, and who, having obliged themselves by a personal oath to perish for its welfare, maintain they prove by this that it is the people’s place to die for them. Does anyone want to find examples of the protection that the state owes its members, and of the respect it owes their persons? These examples are to be found only among the World’s most illustrious and courageous nations, and it is exclusively among free peoples where one knows what a human is worth. #RandolphHarris 12 of 17
It is commonly known how great was the perplexity in which the whole republic in Sparta found itself, when there arose the question of punishing a guilty citizen. In Macedonia, a human life was such an important matter that, in all his grandeur, Alexander, that powerful monarch, would not have dared to put to death in cold blood a Macedonian criminal unless the accused had appeared to defend oneself before one’s fellow citizens and had been condemned by them. However, the Romans were preeminent among all the peoples of the Earth for the government’s deference toward private individuals and for its scrupulous attention to respecting the inviolable rights of all the members of the state. Nothing was as sacred as the life of the simple citizens. There needed to be no less than the assembly of the entire people in order to condemn one of them. Neither the senate itself nor the consuls, in all their majesty, had the right to do this. And among the most powerful people in the World the crime and punishment of a citizen was a public affliction. It also appeared so harsh to shed blood for any crime whatever, that by the Lex Porcia the death penalty converted to exile for all those who wished to outlive the loss of so sweet a country. Everything in Rome and in the armies betokened that love of a fellow citizen for one another, and that respect for whoever had the honor to bear it. That hat of a citizen free from slavery, the civic crown of one who had saved the life of another: these were things that were viewed with the greatest pleasure in the midst of the celebrations of their military triumphs. And it is worth noting that of the crowns with which in time of war one honors noble actions, only the civic crown and that of victors were made of grass and leaves, all the rest being made of gold. #RandolphHarris 13 of 17
Thus is was that Rome was virtuous and became the mistress of the World. Ambitious leaders! A shepherd governs one’s dogs and one’s flocks, and one is but the humblest of humans. If it is a fine thing to command, it is when those who obey us can honour us. Therefore respect your fellow citizens and you will make yourselves respectable. Respect liberty and your power will increase daily. Never go beyond your rights, and eventually they will be limitless. Let the homeland, therefore, show itself as the common mother of all citizens. Let the advantages they enjoy in their homeland endear it to them. Let the government leave them a large enough part of the public administration so that they can feel that they are at home. And let the laws be in their sight merely the guarantees of the common liberty. These rights, fine as they are, belong to all humans. However, without appearing to attack them directly, the bad will of the leaders easily reduces their effect to nothing. The law that is abused at the same time serves the powerful as an offensive weapon and as a shield against the weak, and the pretext of the public good is always the most dangerous scourge of the people. What is most necessary and perhaps the most difficult in the government is rigorous integrity in dispensing justice to all and especially in protecting the poor against the tyranny of the rich. The greatest evil is already done when there are poor people to defend and rich ones to keep in check. It is only at intermediate levels of wealth that the full force of the laws is exerted. Laws are equally powerless against the treasures of the rich and against the wretched state of the poor. The first eludes them; the second escapes them. The one breaks the webbing and the other slips through. #RandolphHarris 14 of 17
Beyond this, one can easily imagine the work-at-home household becoming something radically different: an “electronic expanded family.” Perhaps the most common family form in First Wave societies was the so-called extended family, which brought several generations together under the same roof. There were also “expanded families” which, in addition to the core members, included an unrelated orphan or two, an apprentice or additional farm hand, or others. One can likewise picture the work-at-home family of tomorrow inviting an outsider or two to join it—for example, a colleague from the husband’s or wife’s firm, or perhaps a customer or supplier engaged in related work, or, for that matter, a neighbour’s child who want to learn the trade. One can foresee the legal incorporation of such a family as a small business under special laws designed to foster the commune-cum-corporation or the cooperative. For many the household would become an electronic expanded family. It is true that most of he communes formed in the 1960’s and 1970’s fell rapidly apart, seeming to suggest that communes, as such, are inherently unstable in high-technology societies. A closer look reveals, however, that the ones that disintegrated most rapidly were those organized primarily for psychological purposes—to promote interpersonal sensitivity, to combat loneliness, to provide intimacy, or the like. Most had no economic base and saw themselves as utopian experiments. The communes that have succeeded over time—and some have—are, by contrast, those that have had a clear external mission, an economic base, and a practical, rather than purely utopian, outlook. #RandolphHarris 15 of 17
An external mission welds a group together. It may, indeed, provide the necessary economic base. If this external mission is to design a new product, to handle the “electronic paperwork” for a hospital, to do the data processing for an insurance company department, to set up the scheduling for a commuter airline, to prepare catalogs, or to operate a technical information service, the electronic commune of tomorrow may, in fact, turn out to be a quite workable and stable family form. Moreover, since such electronic expanded families would not be designed as a rebuke to everyone else’s lifestyle or for demonstration purposes but rather as an integral part of the main wiring of the economic system, the chances for their survival would be sharply improved. Indeed, we may find expanded households linking up to form networks. Such networks of expanded families could supply some needed business or social service, cooperating to market their work or setting up their own version of a trade association to represent them. Internally, they might or might not share pleasures of the flesh across marriage lines. They might or might not be heterosexual. They might be childless or child-ful. In brief, what we see is the possible resurrection of the expanded family. Today some 6 percent of American adults live in ordinary extended families. One might easily imagine a doubling or tripling of this number in the next generation, with some unis expanding to include outsiders. This would be no trivial even but a movement involving millions in the United States of America alone. For community life, for patterns of love and marriage, for the reconstitution of friendship networks, for the economy and the consumer marketplace, as well as for our psyches and personality structure, the rise of the electronic expanded family would be momentous. #RandolphHarris 16 of 17
This new vision of the extended family is not presented here as inevitable, not as better or worse than some other type of family, but simply as one example of the many new family forms likely to find viable niches in the complex social ecology of tomorrow. Sometimes I go about pitying myself while I am carried by the wind across the sky. It is the wind that gave them life. It is the wind that comes out of our mouths now that gives us life. When this ceases to blow we die. In the skin at the tips of our fingers we see the trail of the wind; it shows us the wind blew when our ancestors were created. O Lord and Redeemer, beside Thee there is none to save. Thou art mighty and redeemest. I was brought low, but Thou didst save me. O God of salvation who deliverest and savest, save Thy supplicants, save them that hope in Thee. Sustain thy lambs; increase the Earth’s riches. Cause to flourish and save each shrub, and condemn not the Earth to infertility, but sweeten and save its fruits. Urge on the rain-mists that they discharge their showers, and hold not back the clouds. Thou who openest Thine hand to sustain Thy creatures, satisfy the thirsty with water. Save them that call on Thee at morn, yea, do Thou save them. Save Thy whole-hearted servants, yea, save them, we beseech Thee. O save human and beast; save one who is flesh, sprit and soul; sinew, bone and skin; form and image of wondrous frame; beauty akin, alas, to vanity, and like the beasts that perish; radiance and glorious stature. Renew the face of the Earth and cause trees to sprout from the arid soil. Bless the vine-press and the corn, vineyards and sycamores upon he fair-bounded Earth. Please grant that the reviving rains send forth their fragrance to make fertile the Earth, to nurture the green herbs, to foster the pleasant fruits, and to strengthen the bubs. Send rain upon the tender shoots, and let cool waters flow, supplementing with the latter rain. Sustain the World which Thou hast founded, yea, save our Earth, suspended in space. #RandolphHarris 17 of 17
Cresleigh Homes
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The Door to Nowhere—The Curse of Evil Has Come into His Body!
Some people do not believe in ghost. For that matter, some people do not believe in anything. There are persons who even affect incredulity concerning the “Door to Nowhere,” at the Winchester mansion. They said that it did not stand wide open—that it was not a gateway to the Spirit World and that they could have shut it; that the whole affair was a delusion; that they are sure it must have been a conspiracy; that they are doubtful whether there is such a place as the Winchester mansion on the face of the Earth; that the first time they are in California they will look it up. Perhaps, before going further, I ought to premise there was a time when I did not believe in ghosts either. If you had asked me one summer’s morning years ago when you met me on the Golden Gate Bridge if I held such appearances to be probable or possible, you would have received an empathic “No” for answer. However, at this rate, the story of the Door to Nowhere will never be told; so we will, with your permission, plunge into it immediately. I was interested in why this “Door to Nowhere” in the Winchester mansion would not keep shut? They say the place is haunted. What nonsense. There was one thing I can truly say about our office, we were never serious in it. I fancy that is the case in most offices nowadays; at all events, it was the case in ours. We were always chaffing each other, playing practical jokes, telling stupid stories, scamping our work, looking at the clock, counting the weeks to next Christmas, counting the hours to Saturday. For all that we were earnest in our desire to have our salaries raised, and unanimous in the opinion no fellows ever before received such wretched pay. #RandolphHarris 1 of 17
I had $75,000 a year, which I was aware did not half provide for what I ate at home. My mother and sisters left me in no doubt on the point, and when new clothes were wanted I always hated to mention the fact to my poor worried father. We had been better off once, I believe, though I never remember the time. My father owned a small property in the country. I wanted money badly—I must say I never had sixpence in the World of my own—and I thought if I could earn two sovereigns I might buy some trifles I needed for myself, and present my father with a new Ultimate Driving Machine. Then I recalled the amount of the rent was being asked for the Winchester mansion; then I decided gladly this would be a great place to stay if only the ghost turned out of possession. I decided I should like to try to whether, I could not solve the mystery. I was accustomed to lonely houses, and I would not feel at all nervous; I did not believe in ghost, and as for burglars, I was not afraid of them. I was told to just try it out first. To stay in the house for a week; if as tht end of that time I could keep the door shut, locked, bolted, or nailed up, to telegraphy the Winchester Repeating Arms Company, and they would actually pay me to stay there. To me, this sounded like a great bargain. If I lay the ghost, or find out the ghost, I think I ought to have enough money to buy a small house for myself. However, I could not have said what frightened me about this endeavour. A week after I moved into the Queen Anne mansion, Mr. van Buuren from the Winchester Repeating Arms Company came to visit me. He wanted to speak to me about the mansion. I heard a sound of irritation in his voice. “The Winchester Mansion!” he said; “and what have you got to say about the Winchester Mansion?” #RandolphHarris 2 of 17
“That is what I wanted to tell you, Mr. van Buuren,” I answered, and a dead hush seem to fall over the office as I spoke. The silence seemed to attract his attention, for he looked sternly at the clerks, who were not using a pen or moving a finger. “Come this way, then,” he said abruptly; and next minute I was in his private office. “Now, what is it?” he asked, flinging himself into a chair, and addressing me, who stood hat in hand beside the great table in the middle of the room. I began—I will say he was a patient listener—at the very beginning, and told my story straight through. I concealed nothing. I enlarged on nothing. A discharged clerk I stood before him, and in the capacity of a discharged clerk I said what I had to say. He heard me to the end, the he sat silent, thinking. At last he spoke. “You have heard a great deal of conversation about the Winchester, I suppose,” he remarked. “No, sir; I have heard nothing expect what I have told you.” “And why do you desire to strive to solve such a mystery?” “If there is any money to be made, I should like to make it, sir.” “How old are you?” “Two-and-twenty last January.” He laughed—he lay back in his chair and laughed—and I laughed myself, though ruefully. We went on talking for a long time after that; he asked me all about my father and my early life, and how we lived and the people we knew; and, in fact, put more questions than I can well remember. “It seems a crazy thing to do,” he said at las; “and yet I feel disposed to trust you. The house is standing perfectly empty. I cannot live it in, and I cannot get rid of it; all my own furniture I have removed, and there is nothing in the place except a few old-fashioned articles belonging to Mrs. Winchester. The place is a loss to me. It is of no use trying to let it, and thus, in fact, matters are at a deadlock. #RandolphHarris 3 of 17
“You will not be able to find out anything, I know, because, of course, other have tried to solve the mystery ere now; still, if you like to try you may. I will make this bargain with you. If you like to go down, I will pay your reasonable expenses for a fortnight; and if you do any good for me, I will give you a $1,000,000 note for yourself. Of course I must be satisfied that what you have told me is true and that you are what your represent. Do you know anybody in the city who would speak for you?” I could think of no one but my uncle. I hinted to Mr. van Buuren he was no grand enough or rich enough, perhaps, but I knew nobody else to whom I could refer him. “What?!” he said, “Greg Ryan, of Lakeview Street. He does business with us. If he will go bail for your good behaviour I shan’t want any further guarantee. Come along.” And to my intense amazement, he rose, put on his hat, walked me across the outer office and along the pavements till we came to Lakeview Street. “Do you know this youth, Mr. Ryan?” he said, standing in front of my uncle’s desk, and laying a hand on my shoulder. “Of course I do, Mr. van Burren,” answered my uncle, a little apprehensively; for, as he told me afterwards, he could not imagine what mischief I have been up to. “He is my nephew.” “And what is your opinion of him—do you think he is a young fellow I may safely trust?” My uncle smiled, and answered, “That depends on what you wish to trust him with.” “A long column of addition, for instance.” “It would be safer to give that task to somebody else.” “Oh, uncle!” I remonstrated; for I had really striven to conquer my natural antipathy to figures—worked hard, and every bit of it against the collar. My uncle got off his stool, and said, standing with his back to the empty fire-grate: “Tell me what you wish the boy to do, Mr. van Buuren, and I will tell you whether he will suit your purpose of not. I know him, I believe, better than he knows himself.” #RandolphHarris 4 of 17
In an easy, affable way, for so rich a man, Mr. van Buuren took possession of the vacant stool, and nursing his right leg over his left knee, answered: “He wants to go and shut the “Door to Nowhere” at the Winchester Mansion for me. Do you think he can do that? My uncle looked steadily back at the speaker, and said, “I thought, Mr. van Buuren, I was quite settled no one could shut it?” Mr. van Buuren shifted a little uneasily on his seat, and replied: “I did not set your nephew the task he fancies he would like to undertake.” “Have nothing to do with it, Justin, advised my uncle, shortly. “You do not believe in ghost do you, Mr. Ryan?” asked Mr. van Burren, with a slight sneer. “Do you not, Mr. van Buuren?” retorted my uncle. There was a pause—an uncomfortable pause—during the course of which I felt the million dollar note, which in imagination, I had really spent, trembling in the scale. I was not afraid. For one million dollars, or half the money, I would have faced all the inhabitants of spirit land. I longed to tell them so; but something in the way those two men looked at each other stayed my tongue. “If you ask me the question here in the heart of the city, Mr. Ryan,” said Mr. van Buuren, at length, slowly and carefully, “I answer ‘No’; but if you were to put me on a dark night at the Winchester, I should beg time to consider. I do not believe in supernatural phenomena myself, and yet—the ‘Door to Nowhere’ at the Winchester is as much beyond my comprehension as the ebbing and flowing of the sea.” “And you cannot live at the Winchester?” remarked my uncle. “I cannot live at the Winchester, and what is more, I cannot get anyone else to live at the Winchester.” “And you want to get rid of your lease?” “I want so much to get rid of my lease that I told Tuck I would give him a handsome sum if he could induce anyone to solve the mystery. Is there any other information you desire, Mr. Ryan? Because if there is, you have only to ask and have. I feel I am not here in a prosaic office in the city of Santa Clara, but in the Palace of Truth.” #RandolphHarris 5 of 17
My uncle took no notice of the implied compliment. When company is good it needs nothing else. If a man is habitually honest in his speech and in his thoughts, he desires no recognition of the fact. “I do not think so,” he answered; “it is for the boy to say what he will do. If he be advised by me he will stick to his ordinary work in his employers’ office, and leave ghost-hunting and spirit-laying alone.” Mr. van Buuren shot a rapid glance in my direction, a glance which implying a secret understanding, might have influenced my uncle could I have stooped to deceive my uncle. “I cannot stick to my work there any longer,” I said. “I got my marching orders today.” “What had you been doing, Justin? Asked my uncle. “I wanted one million to go and lay the ghost!” I answered, so dejectedly, that both Mr. van Buuren and my uncle broke out laughing. “One Million dollars!” cried my uncle, almost between laughing and crying. “Why, Justin boy, I had rather, poor man though I am, have given thee one million dollars than thou should’st go ghost-hunting or ghost-laying.” When he was very much in earnest my uncle went back to thee and thou his native dialect. I liked the vulgarism, as my mother called it, and I knew my aunt loved to hear him use the caressing words to her. He had risen, not quite from the ranks it is true, but if ever a gentleman came ready born into the World it was Greg Ryan, upon whom at our home everyone seemed to look down. “What will you do, you man?” asked Mr. van Buuren; “you hear what your uncle says, “Give up the enterprise,” and what I say; I do not want either to bribe or force your inclinations.” “I will go, sir,” I answered quite steadily. “I am not afraid, and I should like to show you—” I stopped. I had been going to say, “I should like to show you I am not sure a fool as you all take me for,” but I felt such an address would be too familiar, and refrained. #RandolphHarris 6 of 17
When I got to the Lodge, I showed Mr. van Buuren’s letter to the woman, and received the key. “You are not going to stop up at the Winchester alone, are you, sir? she asked. “Yes, I am,” I answered, uncompromisingly, so uncompromisingly that she said no more. The avenue led straight to the mansion; it was uphill all the way, and bordered by rows of the most magnificent limes I ever beheld. A light iron fence divided the avenue from the park, and between the trunks of the trees I could see the deer browsing and cattle grazing. Ever and anon there came likewise to my ear the sound of a sheep-bell. It was a long avenue, but at length I stood in front of the mansion—a square, solid-looking, Victorian mansion, four stories high, with several towers and a steeply pitched roof, beautiful stained-glass windows and statues, a basement; a flight of steps up to the principal entrance; several windows to the right of the door, several to the left of the door; the whole mansion flanked and backed with trees; all the curtains closed, a dead silence brooding over the place; the sun westering behind the great trees studding the park. I took all this in as I approached, and afterwards as I stood for a moment under then ample porch; then remembering he business which has brought me so far, I fitted the great key in the lock, turned the handle, and entered the Winchester Mansion. For a minute—stepping out of the bright sunlight—the place looked to me so dark that I could scarcely distinguish the objects by which I was surrounded; but my eyes soon grew accustomed to the comparative darkness, and I found I was in an immense hall, lighted from the roof; a magnificent old oak staircase conducted to the upper rooms. #RandolphHarris 7 of 17
The floor was of white marble. There were two fireplaces, fitted with dogs for burning wood; around the walls hung pictures, antlers, and horn, and in odd niches and corners stood groups of statues, and the figure of men in complete suits of armour. To look at the place outside, no one would have expected to find such a hall. I stood lost in amazement and admiration, and then I began to glance more particularly around. Mr. van Buuren has not given me any instructions by which to identify the ghostly chamber—which I concluded would most probably be found on the first floor. I knew nothing of the story connected with it—if there were a story. I was perfectly unencumbered of the mystery. I had not the faintest idea in which apartment it resided. Well, I should discover that, no doubt, for myself ere long. I looked around me—doors—doors—doors. I have never before seen so many doors together all at once. Two of them stood open—one wide, the other slightly ajar. “I will just shut them as a beginning,” I thought, “before I go upstairs.” The doors were of oak, heavy, well-fitting furnished with good locks and sound handles. After I had closed I tried them. Yes, they were quite secure. I ascended the great staircase feeling curiously like an intruder, paced the corridors, entered the many bed chambers—some quite bare of furniture, others containing articles of an ancient fashion, and no doubt of considerable value—chairs, antique dressing-tables, curious wardrobes, and such like. For the most part the doors were closed, and I shut those that stood open before making my way into the attics. I was greatly delighted with the attics. The window lighted them did not, as a rule, overlook the front of the Manion, but commanded wide views over wood, and valley, and meadow. Leaning out of one, I could see, that to the right of the mansion the ground, thickly planted, shelved down to a stream, which came out into the daylight a little distance beyond the plantation, and meandered through the deer part. #RandolphHarris 8 of 17
At the back of the mansion the windows looked out on nothing save a dense wood and a portion of the stable-yard, whilst on the side nearest the point from whence I had come there were spreading gardens surrounded by thick yew hedges, and kitchen-gardens protected by high walls; and further on a farmyard, where I could perceive cows and oxen, and, further still, luxuriant meadows, and fields glad with waying and fruit orchards. “What a beautiful place!” I said. “van Buuren must have been a duffer to leave it.” And then I thought what a great ramshackle house it was for anyone to be in all alone. Getting heated with my long walk, I suppose, made me feel chilly, for I shivered as I drew my head in from the last dormer window, and prepared to go down stairs again. In the attics, as in the other parts of the house I had as yet explored, I closed the doors, when there were keys locking them; when there were not, trying them, and in all cases, leaving the securely fastened. When I reached the ground floor the evening was drawing on apace, and I felt that if I wanted to explore the whole house before dusk I must hurry my proceedings. “I will take the kitchens next,” I decided, and so made my way to a wilderness of domestic offices lying to the rear of the great hall. Stone passages, great kitchens, an immense servants’-hall, larders, pantries, coal-cellars, beer-cellars, laundries, brewhouses, housekeeper’s room—it was not of any use lingering over these details. The mystery that trouble Mr. van Buuren could scarcely lodge amongst cinders and empty bottles, and there did not seem much else left in this part of the building. I would go through the living-rooms, and then decide as to the apartments I should occupy myself. The evening shadows were drawing on apace, so I hurried back into the hall, feeling it was a weird position to be there all alone with those ghostly hollow figures of men in armour, and the statues on which the moon’s beams must fall so coldly. #RandolphHarris 9 of 17
I would just look through the lower apartments and then kindle a fire. I had seen quantities of wood in a cupboard close at hand, and felt that beside a blazing hearth, and after a good cup of tea, I should not feel the solitary sensation which was oppressing me. The sun had sunk below the horizon by this time, for to reach the Winchester I had been obliged to travel by cross lines of railway, and wait besides for such trains as condescended to carry third-class passengers; but here was still light enough in the hall to see all object distinctly. With my own eyes I saw that one of the doors I had shut with my own hands was standing wide! I turned to the door on the other side of the hall. It was as I had left it—closed. This, then, was the room—this with the open door. For a second I stood appalled; I think I was fairly frighted. That did not last long, however. There lay the work I had desired to undertake, the foe I had offered to fight; so without mor ado I shut the door and tried it. “Now I will walk to the end of the hall and see what happens,” I considered. I did so. I walked to the foot of the grand staircase and back again, and looked. The door stood wide open. I went into the room, after just a spasm of irresolution—went in and pulled up the blinds: a good-sized room, twenty by twenty (I knew because I paced it afterwards), lighted by two long windows. The floor, of polished oak, was partially covered with a Turkey carpet. There were two recesses beside the fireplace, one fitted up as a bookcase, the other with an old and elaborately carved cabinet. I was astonished also to find a bedstead in an apartment so little retired from the traffic of the house; and there were also some chairs of an obsolete make, covered, so far as I could make out, with faded tapestry. Beside the bedstead, which stood against the wall opposite to the door I had as yet met with the interior of the house. #RandolphHarris 10 of 17
It was a dreary, gloomy room: the dark panelled walls; the black, shining floor; the windows high from the ground; the antique furniture; the dull four-poster bedstead, with dingy velvet curtains; the gaping chimney; the silk counterpane that looked like a pall. “Any crime might have been committed in which a room,” I thought pettishly; and then I looked at the door critically. Someone had been at the trouble of fitting bolts upon it, for when I passed out I not merely shut the door securely, but bolted it as well. “I will go and get some wood, and then look at it again,” I soliloquized. When I came back it stood wide open once more. “Stay open, then!” I cried in a fury. “I will not trouble myself any more with you tonight!” Almost as I spoke the words, there came a ring at the front door. Echoing through the desolate house, the peal in the then states of my nerves startled me beyond expression. It was only the man who had agreed to bring over my traps. I bade him lay them down in the hall, and while looking out some small silver, asked where the nearest-post-office was to be found. Not far from the Winchester Estate’s Park gates, he said; if I wanted any letter sent, he would drop it in the box for me; the mail-cart picked up the bag at ten o’clock. I had nothing ready to post then, and told him so. Perhaps the money I gave was more than he expected, or perhaps the dreariness of my position impressed him as it had impressed me, for he paused with his hand on the lock, and asked: “Are you going to stop here all alone, master?” “All alone, I answered, with such cheerfulness as was possible under the circumstances.” “That is the room, you know,” he said, nodding in the direction of the open door, and dropping his voice to a whisper. “Yes, I know,” I replied. “What, you have been trying to shut it already, have you? Well, you are a game one!” And with this complimentary if not very respectful comment he hastened out of the house. Evidently he had no intention of proffering his services towards the solution of the mystery. #RandolphHarris 11 of 17
I cast one glance at the door—it stood wide open. Through the windows I had left bare to the night, moonlight was beginning to stream cold and silvery. “Look here, Justin,” I said, all of a sudden; “life is not child’s play, as uncle truly remarks. That door is just the trouble you have now to face, and you must face it! However, for that door you would never have been here. I hope you are not going to turn coward the very first night. Courage!—that is your enemy—conquer it.” “I will try,” my other self answered back. “I can but try. I can but faith.” The moon’s beams were streaming down upon the mansion; I could see every statue, every square of marble, every piece of armour. For all the World it seemed to me like something in a dream; but I was tired and sleepy, and decided I would not trouble about fire or food, or the open door, till the next morning: I would go to sleep. However, I felt like an army of Devil’s was horribly broke in upon this place which is the center, and after a sort, the first-born of our Californian settlements. If a ghost was responsible for the hanging of nineteen people in this mansion, what was responsible for the burning of nine hundred people? What more likely time would the “Door to Nowhere” open up and let our arch-enemy, the Devil, choose a time for his attack? I spent the forenoon considering that door. I looked at it from within and from without. It was on the second floor and opened up to a two story drop outside of the house. What would possess someone to build a door like this, unless they had some knowledge of it being a portal? I eyed it critically. I tried whether there was any reason why it should fly open, and I found that so long as I remained on the threshold it remained closed; if I walked even so far away as the opposite side of the mansion, it swung wide. #RandolphHarris 12 of 17
Do what I would, it burst from latch and bolt. I could not lock it because there was no key. I was baffled. Then I stumbled upon a note which read: “One that shall use, practise, or exercise any invocation or conjuration of any evil or wicked spirit, or consult, convenient with, entertain or employ, feed or reward any evil or wicked spirit, to or for any intent or purpose; or take up any dead man, woman, or child, out of his, her, or their grave, or any other place, where the dead body resteth; or the skin, bone, or other part of any dead person, to be employed or used in any manner of witchcraft, sorcery, charm or enchantment; or shall use, practise, or exercise any witchcraft, enchantment, charm, or sorcery, whereby any person shall be killed, destroyed, wasted, consumed, pined, or lamed in his or her body, or any part thereof: such offenders duly and lawfully convicted and attained, shall suffer death.” Then it dawned of me. Perhaps the mansion has been attraction people who are into the occult and they are the nearly 920 people who have been burned alive or hanged. And that is why the house cannot find renters, it consumes them all. Perhaps this is something like the Atonement of Christ. How God gave His one and only Son to pay the wages of sin man had created, this mansion is consuming souls of those who practise the occult to atone for the death of those killed by the Winchester rifle. The afflicted state of our poor neighbours that are now suffering by molestations from the invisible World, we apprehended so deplorable that we think their condition calls for the utmost help of all persons in their several capacities. We cannot but with all thankfulness acknowledge the success which the merciful God has given unto the sedulous and assiduous endeavours of our honorable rulers to detect the abominable witchcrafts which have been committed in the country, humbly praying that the discovery of these mysterious and mischievous wickedness may be perfected. #RandolphHarris 13 of 17
We judge that in the prosecution of these, and all such witchcrafts, there is need of a very critical and exquisite caution, leas by too much credulity for things received only upon the Devil’s authority there be a door opened for a long train of miserable consequences, and Satan get an advantage over us, for we should not be ignorant of his devices. After all, it was this mansion people could not live in—his door that would not keep shut; and it seemed to me these were facts he might dislike being forced upon the attention of the public. What had I seen? What did I think of the matter? Very honestly I did not know what to say. The door certainly would not remain shut, and there seemed no human agency to account for its persistent opening; but then, on the other hand, ghost generally did no tamper with fire arms, and my rifle, though not loaded, had been tampered with—I was sure of that. Mr. van Buuren later disclosed to me his theory that open door: “This is the room my uncle was murdered in, they say the door will never remain shut till the murderer is discovered.” “Murdered!” I did not like the word at all; it made me feel chill and uncomfortable. “Yes—he was murdered sitting in his chair, and the assassin has never been discovered. At first many persons inclined to the belief that I killed him; indeed, may are of that opinion still. “But you did not, sir—there is not a word of truth in that story, is there?” He laid his hand on my shoulder as he said: “No, my lad; not a word. I loved the old man tenderly. Even when he disinherited me for the sake of his young wife, I was worry, but not angry; and when he sent for me and assured me he had resolved to repair a wrong, I tried to induce him to leave the lady a handsome sum in addition to her jointure. “If you do not, people may think she has not been the source of happiness you expected,” I added. “Thank you, Reuban,” he said. “You are a goof fella; we will talk further about this tomorrow.” And then he bade me goodnight. #RandolphHarris 14 of 17
“Before morning broke—it was in the about one hundred years ago—the household was arounds by a fearful scream. It was his death-cry. He had been stabbed from behind in the neck. He was seated in his chair writing—writing a letter in Latin. Part of it said, ‘Exorcizo te, immundissime spiritus, omnis incursion adversarii, omne phanatasma, omnis leigo, in nominee Domini nostri Jesu Christi eradicare, et effugare ab hoc plasmate Dei.’ The rest of the letter was torn. His solicitor came forward and said he had signed a will leaving all his personalty to me—he was very rich—unconditionally, only three days previously.” Mr. van Buuren went away, and I stayed in the house. I never left it all day. I did not go into the garden, or the stable-yard, or the shrubbery, or anywhere; I devoted myself solely and exclusively to that door. If I shut it once, I shut it a hundred times, and always with the same result. Do what I would, it swung wide. Never, however, when I was looking at it. So long as I could endure to remain, it stayed shut—the instant I turned back, it stood open. Though feeling convinced that no human agency did or could keep the door open, I was certain that some living person had means of access to the house which I could not discover. This was made apparent in trifles which might well have escaped unnoticed had several or even two people occupied the mansion. In the dead of the night a noise, resembling the clashing of iron, was frequently heard, which, if you listened more attentively, sound like the rattling of chains, distant at first, but approaching nearer by degrees: immediately afterward a spectre appeared in the form of an old man, of extremely emaciated and squalid appearance, with a long beard and dischevelled hair, rattling the chains on his feet and hands. The distressed occupants meanwhile passed their wakeful nights under the most dreadful terrors imaginable. This, as it broke their rest, ruined their health, and brought on distempers, their terrors grew upon them, and death ensued. #RandolphHarris 15 of 17
Even in the daytime, though the spirit did not appear, yet the impression remained so strong upon their imaginations that it still seemed before their eyes, and kept them in perpetual alarm. Consequently the mansion was at length deserted, as being deemed absolutely uninhabitable; so that it was now entirely abandoned to the ghost of the Winchester rifle. That night, I prepared to retire. However, I was open to the vain terrors of imaginary noises and spirits. The first part of the night passed in entire silence, as usual; at length a clanking of iron and rattling of chains was heard: however, I neither lifted up my eyes, nor got out of bed, but in order to keep calm, I pretended the sound was something else. The noise increased and advanced nearer, until it seemed at the door, and at last in my chamber. I looked up, saw, and recognized the ghost exactly as it has been described to me: it stood before me, beckoning with a finger, like a person calls another. I immediately arouse, and, candle in hand, followed it. The ghost slowly stalked along as if encumbered with its chains, and, turning into the area of the house where the “Door to Nowhere, was and suddenly vanished. What an idiot I have been! If I wanted to solve the mystery of the open door, or course I must keep watch in the room itself. The door would not stay wide unless there was a reason for it. When I walked into the room, it was deadly cold, and the scene was horrible. The door was wide open. A party of ghosts were assembled with, and were feasting on the flesh of corpses. I was astonished by this hideous banquet. As soon as I could safely escape, I stole back into my bed. I was rather crossed at being disturbed. The next day word on—the long, dreary day; evening approached—the night shadows closed over the Winchester mansion. The moon would not rise for a couple hours more. Everything was still as death. The house had never before seemed to me so silent and so deserted. #RandolphHarris 16 of 17
I took a candle, and went up to my accustomed room, moving about for a time as though preparing for bed; then I extinguished the candle, softly open the door, turned the key, and put it in my pocket, slipped softly downstairs, across the hall, through the open dor. Then I knew I had been afraid, for I felt a thrill of terror as in the dark I stepped over the threshold. I paused and listened—there was not a sound—the night was still and sultry, as though a storm were brewing. Not a leaf seemed moving. Noiselessly I made my way to the other side of the room. There was an old-fashioned easy-chair between the bookshelves and the bed; I sat down in it, shrouded by the heavy curtains. The hours passed—where ever hours so long? The moon rose, came and looked in at the windows, and then sailed away to the west; but not sound, no, not even the cry of a bird. I seemed to myself a mere collection of nerves. Every part of my body appeared twitching. It was agony to remain still; the desire to move became a form of torture. The locked door opened—so suddenly, so silently, that I barely had time to draw back behind the curtain, before I saw a woman in the room. A slight, lithe woman, not a lady, clad in all black—not a bit of white about her. What on Earth could she want? Then she fell on me with her nails and teeth, and tore at my throat, she was as strong as twenty devils. I felt something like a red-hot iron enter my neck. She opened a vein and sucked by blood, and I could but rush from the room before I fell senseless on the marble pavement of the hall. When the post man came that morning, finding no one stirring, he looked through one of the long windows that flanked the door; then he ran to the farmyard and called for help. “There is something wrong inside,” he cried. “That young gentleman is lying on the floor in a blood of blood.” To this day, the “Door to Nowhere” is still a mystery. #RandolphHarris 17 of 17
Winchester Mystery House
24 Hours till opening night of All Hallows’ Eve and our caretakers are working non stop to put the finishing touches on the show! Be here for the opening weekend! Tickets are still available. A 160-room mansion built to appease the spirits who died at the hands of the Winchester Rifle 👻
All Hallows’ Eve:
🎟️ Link in bio. 🗝 winchestermysteryhouse.com
When the Dead are Raised, it is a Miracle of Reversal!
When you are driving, your behaviour at intersections is controlled by the red or green light. In a similar fashion, many of the stimuli we encounter each day act like stop or go signals that guide behaviour. To state the idea more formally, stimuli that consistently precede a rewarded response tend to influence when and where the response will occur. This effect is called stimulus control. A discriminative stimulus that most drivers are familiar with is a police car on the freeway. This stimulus is a clear signal that a specific set of reinforcement contingencies applies. As you have probably observed, the presence of a police car brings about rapid reductions in driving speed, lane changes, tailgating, and in Los Angeles, California, gun battles. Another familiar example is the beep on telephone answering machines. The beep is a signal that speaking will pay off (your message will be recorded). Most of us are well conditioned to “wait for the beep” before talking. One cannot express the principle more adequately than through the sentence of the Gospels “And the truth shall make you free,” reports John 8.32. Indeed, the idea that the truth saves and heals is an old insight which the great Masters of Living have proclaimed—nobody perhaps with such radicalism and clarity as Jesus Christ. If one does not want to remain in a state of craving which necessarily causing suffer, illusion (ignorance) is, together with hate and greed, one of the evils of which humans must rid themselves. The greedy person cannot be a free person and cannot be a happy human. #RandolphHarris 1 of 17
Greed humans are slaves of things which rule them. The process of waking up from illusions is the condition of freedom and of liberation from suffering which greed necessarily produces. Disillusion (Ent-tauschung) is a condition for leading a life which comes closet to the fully development of humans, to the model of human nature. The human being who is carried away by irrational drives (“passive affects”) is necessarily one who has inadequate idea about oneself and the World—that is to say, one who lives with illusions. Those who are guided by reason are the ones who have ceased to be seduced by their senses and follow the two “active affects,” reason and courage. Those who have faith in Jesus Christ are those whom truth is the condition for salvation. The works of Christ was not primarily that of showing a picture of how the good society would look, but was relentless gospel of showing humans how to build a good society. One must love God in order to change circumstances which require sin. Truth refers not only to what one believes to be the truth, but the way to the truth les in insight into one’s own mental structure and thereby in “de-repression.” We are all so blinded and upset by self-love that everyone imagines one has a just right to exalt oneself, and to undervalue all others in comparison to self. If God has bestowed on us any excellent gift, we imagine it to be our own achievement, and we swell and even burst with pride. It is widely believed that most of us suffer the “I am not OK—you are OK” problem of low self-esteem, the problem that the comedian Groucho Marx had in mind when he declared, “I would not want to belong to any club that would accept me as a member.” #RandolphHarris 2 of 17
The humanistic psychologist Carl Rogers asserted this low self-image problem when objecting to the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr’s idea that original sin is self-love, pretension, and pride. No, said Dr. Rogers: people’s problems arise because “they despise themselves, regard themselves as worthless and unlovable.” A half century after the Niebuhr-Rogers exchange, the self-image issues remains alive. Ironically, many Christian preachers and writers are echoing the teachings of humanistic psychology by telling us that the fundamental human problem is low self-esteem. Meanwhile, research psychologists have been amassing new findings concerning the pervasiveness of pride. Indeed, it is the older theologians such as Niebuhr, not the humanistic psychologists and their Christian popularizers, who seem best to have anticipated a phenomenon uncovered by recent research. As the writer William Saroyan put it, “Every human is a good human in a bad World—as one oneself knows.” Researchers debate the sources of this self-serving bias phenomenon but agree that various streams of data merge to confirm its pervasiveness. Consider: Accepting more responsibility for success than failure, for good deeds than bad. Time and again, experimenters have found that people readily accept credit when told they have succeeded (attributing the success to their ability and effort), yet they attribute failure to external factors such as bad luck or the problem’s inherent “impossibility.” These self-serving attributions have been observed not only in laboratory situations, but also with athletes (after victory or defeat), students (after high or low exam grades), drivers (after accidents), and married people (among whom conflict often derives from perceiving oneself as contributing more and benefitting less than is fair). The self-concept research Anthony Greenwald summarizes: “People experience life through a self-centered filter.” #RandolphHarris 3 of 17
Favourable biased self-ratings: Can we all be better than average? In virtually any area that is both subjective and socially desirable, most people see themselves as beer than average. Most businesspeople see themselves as more ethical than the average business person. Most community residents see themselves as less prejudiced than their neigbhours. Most people see themselves as more intelligent and as healthier than most other person. When the College Board asked high school seniors to compare themselves with others their own ages, 60 percent reported themselves better than average in athletic ability, and only 6 percent below average. In leadership ability, 70 percent rated themselves above average, 2 percent below average. In ability to get along with others, zero percent of the 829,000 students who responded rated themselves below average, while 60 percent saw themselves in the top 10 percent and 25 percent put themselves in the top 1 percent. If Elizabeth Barrett Browning were still writing she would perhaps rhapsodize, “How do I love me? Let me count the ways.” The Barnum Effect. “There is a sucker born every minute,” said the showman P.T. Barnum. A number of experiments have given us a psychological version of the maxim. The procedure is simple: people are shown statements such as those in horoscope books (“You have a strong need for other people to like you and for them to admire you…While you have some personality weaknesses, you are generally able to compensate for them….At times you are extroverted, affable, sociable, while at other times you are introverted, wary, and reserved”). If told that the description is designed specifically for them on the basis of their psychological tests or astrological data, people usually say the description is remarkably accurate, especially when it is favourable. Negative assessments are judged less valid than flattering ones. “The Arch-Flatterer,” noted Plutarch, “is a man’s self.” #RandolphHarris 4 of 17
A turn at last, my Long-winded if Lofty-minded Friend. I go lost somewhere in Your rhetoric. Now tell me if I have You right. Roll Your thunderous judgments over me, O Lord! Shiver my timbers with fear and trembling! Scarify my soul! I stand astounded, as the words of Job come tumbling into my mind. “The Heavens are no clean in Your sight” (15.15). Bu “if You found depravity among the Angels” (4.18) and You did not spare them, what will become of me? “They have fallen like the stars from the Heavens,” wrote John in Revelations (6.13). I have read all those passages in Second Peer (2.4), Job (4.18), Revelation (6.13), Psalm (78.25), and Luke (15.16). In them the Angels, some of the best and brightest who lauded You to the highest, fell to the lowest. And so it is, then that some of the Notables of our land who used to receive the Bread of Angels have fallen afoul of You, O Lord. Now they delight in the swill of he swell-fed, if forbidden, pig. If that is what happened to them, what do I, a simple man of dust, a collector of garbage, have to look forward to? No sanctity, O Lord, if You withdraw Your hand. No wisdom, O Lord, if you stop governing the Universe. No fortitude, O Lord, if You stop conserving. No chastity, O Lord, if You do not protect it. No self-control, O Lord, if Your sacred vigilance is absent; the Psalmist knew that the Lord guarded the city, not the sentinels (127.1). “Leave us behind, O Lord, and we will be swamped and die”—the Disciples shouted that to You when the storm rose, or so Matthew report (8.25). Stay with us, and we rise to he surface and live. We are up and down, but we are confirmed through You. Hot, we grow cool. Cold, we grow warm. Yes, You are our fuel, our fervour, forever. Here are a few somethings about nothings; that is to say, a few thoughts of my own. #RandolphHarris 5 of 17
Toad I must be, O Lord, and toad I must remain. Why? Because I toed the mark and failed. Of course, I could have toadied up to You, Lord God of all amphibians, but even in this I failed. Think it nothing when something good is associated with my name! O Lord, I cannot sound the depths of Your profoundest judgments, as the Psalmist called them (36.6). Lured by the deep, I dove. All I could see was nothing, and worse than nothing, and worse than nothing. My God, You are the Inconsiderable Consideration, the Impassable Archipelago! In traversing Your vastness, I leave not a trace or wake! What can I do to prevent my pride from being discovered? Where can I discover the confidence I thought I had? Your judgments have sopped up all this idiotic gloriation of mine, leaving not a stain behind. What does all the Flesh in the World amount to in Your sigh, O Lord? That is the sort of question the Great Paul asked the First Corinthians (1.29). Not a great deal, I should think. As the Prophet Isaiah asked it, “Can the pot glory more than the potter who made it?” (29.16). I think not, but what precisely does this mean? I think I can give some examples of the pot and the potter from my own monastic experience. A Devout wants to be one’s own chief praiser and appraiser, but why, when one’s heart has already been verified by God? A devout is toasted by the whole World for all of one’s wonderful qualities, but why, when one has already been credentialed by Truth herself? A Devout is moved to tears by a choir of voices chanting one’s praises, but why, when one is already confirmed one’s hope in God? These silly Devouts who speak such nonsense, take a close look at them; they are nothing to write home about. Their verbiage fails even as their voices fade. However, “the truth of the Lord,” as the Psalmist has sung, “remains in tune for ever and ever” (117.2). #RandolphHarris 6 of 17
Whether one thinks that one has strayed by chance into this starry World or believes that God’s grace has fallen upon one, one feels its beauty and peace. The encounter with Overself may be hushed and gentle or thrilling and dramatic. However, it will certainly be absorbing. In that beautiful mood, one is wafted upward because one’s mind turns away from the Earth, is interests and desires which ordinarily hold one down. The glimpse is unquestionably a sort of spell put upon the mind encircling the self, benign and healing and protective. It imparts a feeling of well-being. How inadequate are constructed sentences to tell anyone the total wonder of a glimpse, of the I’s department and the Overself’s arrival! The peace descends, the cares are gone, the fears are shed, the avid desires enfeebled. The experience of liberation yields a peace which lifts one into a detachment from the World never felt before, untouched by sights, persons, incidents, which hitherto produced repulsions, irritations, or rage. Joy glows quietly on the face of one who is experiencing a glimpse. The experience will flood one’s whole day with sun. One will experience a profound sense of release, a joyous exaltation of feeling, and a lofty soaring of thought. It would not be wrong o use a word from gustatory experience and describe these moments as delicious. It is almost entirely an intense and internal experience. The glimpse carries either a quiet intellectual rapture with it or a seething emotional one. In such a benignant mood, it is easy to forgive one’s enemies their vile conduct or to look at faithless friend n a kindlier light. It lifts the egoistic out of their egoism for a while, the fearful out of their fears. When we turn inwards, we turn in the direction of complete composure. It is the first streak of sunrise on one’s inner life. The discovery of the soul’s truth carries with it an excitement which only those who spend their lives seeking it know. #RandolphHarris 7 of 17
The glimpses have various qualities—religious, aesthetic, perceptive, and so on. In such moments of intimacy with the Overself, as we let go of our pettiness, we feel enlarged. It gives one, for short while, an equanimity which one does not have at other times. One’s heart is filled with the sense of this Presence and, for the few or many minutes this lasts, one is a changed person. Some persons get their first glimpse by surprise, quite unexpectedly, and from then begins their quest. However, others get it during the onward course of their quest, while searching or waiting for it, and hopefully expectant of it. When the mind moves inward from everyday consciousness to mystical being, the benedictory change is both ennobling and sublime. During these short glimpses no anxiety and uncertainty can affect one. It is but a pause in the constant oscillation of life, a stilling of the ego’s pursuits. However, first a hush of peace, a soundless calm descends; the struggle of distress and fierce impatience ends; mute music soothes my breast—unuttered harmony that I could never dream till Earth was lost to me. Then dawns the invisible, the Unseen its truth reveals; my outward sense is gone, my inward essence feels—its wings are almost free, its home, its harbour found; measuring the gulf it stoops and dares the final bound! In these hushed moments a happiness steals over one, a glory is felt all around him. This is one’s real being. One sought for it, prayed to it, and communed with it in the past as if it were something other than, and apart from, oneself. Now one knows that it was oneself, that there is no need for one to do any of these things. All one needs is to recognize what one is and to realize it at every moment. The miracles of Healing, to which we turn next, are now in a peculiar position. Humans are ready to admit that many of them happened, but are inclined to deny that they were miraculous. #RandolphHarris 8 of 17
The symptoms of very many diseases can be aped by hysteria, and hysteria can often be cured by “suggestion.” It could, no doubt, be argued that such suggestion is a spiritual power, and therefore (if you like) a supernatural power, and that all instances of “faith healing” are therefore miracles. However, in our terminology they would be miraculous only in the same sense in which every instance of human reason is miraculous: and what we are now looking for is miracles other than that. My own view is that it would be unreasonable to ask a person who has not yet embraced Christianity in its entirety to allow that all the healings mentioned in the Gospels were miracles—that is, that they go beyond the possibilities of human “suggestion.” It is for the doctors to decide as regards each particular case—supposing that the narratives are sufficiently detailed to allow even probable diagnosis. We have here a good example to what was said in the past. So far from belief in miracles depending upon ignorance of natural law, we are here finding for ourselves that ignorance of law makes miracle unascertainable. Without deciding in detail which of the healings must (apart from acceptance of the Christian faith) be regarded as miraculous, we can however indicate the kind of miracle involved. Its character can easily be obscured by the somewhat magical view which many people still take of ordinary and medical healing. There is a sense in which no doctor ever heals. The doctors themselves would be the first to admit this. The magic is not in the medicine but in the patient’s body—in the vis medicatrix naturae, the recuperative or self-corrective energy of Nature. What the treatment does is to simulate Natural functions or to remove what hinders them. We speak for convenience of the doctor, or the dressing, healing a cut. #RandolphHarris 9 of 17
However, in another sense every cut heals itself: no cut can be healed in a corpse. That same mysterious force which we call gravitational when it steers the planets and biochemical when it heals a live body, is the efficient cause of all recoveries. And that energy proceeds from God in the first instance. All who are cured are cured by Him, not merely in the sense that His providence provides them with medical assistance and wholesome environments, but also in the sense that their very tissues are repaired by the far-descended energy which following from Him, energizes the whole system of Nature. However, one He did it visibly to the sick in Palestine, a Man meeting with men. What in its general operations we refer to laws of Nature or once referred to Apollo or Aesculapius thus reveals itself. The Power that always was behind all healings puts on a face and hands. Hence, of course, the apparent chanciness of the miracles. It is idle to complain that He heals those whom He happens to meet, not those whom He does not. To be a man means to be in one place and not in another. The World which would now know Him as present everywhere was saved by His becoming local. Christ’s single miracle of Destruction, the withering of the fig-tree, has proved troublesome to some people, but we think its significance is plain enough. The miracle is an acted parable, a symbol of God’s sentence on all that is “fruitless” and specially, no doubt, on the official Judaism of that age. That is its moral significance. As a miracle, it again does in focus, repeats small and close, what God does constantly and throughout Nature. We have seen in the past how God, twisting Satan’s weapon out of his hand, had become, since the Fall, the God even of human death. However, much more, and perhaps ever since the creation, He has been the God of the death of organisms. #RandolphHarris 10 of 17
In both cases, though in somewhat different ways, He is the God of death because He is the God of Life: the God of human death because through it increase of life now comes—the God of merely organic death because death is part of the very mode by which organic life spreads itself out in Time and yet remains new. A forest a thousand years deep is still collectively alive because some trees are dying and others are growing up. His human face, turned with negation in its eyes upon that one fig-tree, did once what His unincarnate action does to all trees. No tree died that year in Palestine, or any year anywhere, except because God did—or rather ceased to do—something to it. All the Miracles which we have considered so far are Miracles of the Old Creation. In all of them we see the Divine Man focusing for us what the God of Nature has already done on a larger scale. In our next class, the Miracles of Dominion over the Inorganic, we find some that are of the Old Creation and some that are of the New. When Christ stills the storm, He does what God has done before. God made Nature such that here would be both storms and calms: in that way all storms (except those that are still going on at this moment) have been stilled by God. If you have once accepted the Grand Miracle, it is unphilosophical to reject the stilling of the storm. There is really no difficulty about adapting the weather conditions of the rest of the World to this one miraculous calm. I myself can still a storm in a room by shutting the window. Nature must make the best she can of it. And to do her justice she makes no trouble at all. The whole system, far from being thrown out gear (which is what some nervous people seem to think a miracle would do) digests the new situation as easily as an elephant digest a drop of water. She is, said before, an accomplished hostess. However, when Christs walks on the water, we have a miracle of the New Creation. #RandolphHarris 11 of 17
God had not made the Old Nature, the World before the Incarnation, of such a kind that water would support a human body. This miracle is the foretaste of a Nature that is sill in the future. The New Creation is just breaking in. For a moment, it looks as if it were going to spread. For a moment, two men are living in that new World. St. Peter also walks on the water—a pace of two: then his trust fails him and he sinks. He is back in Old Nature. That momentary glimpse was a snowdrop of a miracle. The snowdrops show that we have turned the corner of the year. Summer is coming. However, it is a long way off and the snowdrops do not last long. The Miracles of Reversal all belong to the New Creation. When the dead are raised, it is a Miracle of Reversal. Old Nature knows nothing of this process: it involves playing backward a film that we have always seen played forwards. The one or two instances of it in the Gospels are early flowers—what we call spring flowers, because hey are prophetic although they really bloom while it is still winter. And the Miracles of Perfecting Glory, the Transfiguration, the Resurrection, and the Ascension, are even more emphatically of the New Creation. These are the true spring, or even summer, of the World’s new year. The Captain, the forerunner, is already in May or June, though His followers on Earth are still living in the forests and east winds of Old Nature—for “spring comes slowly up this way.” None of the Miracles of the New Creation can be considered apart from the Resurrection and Ascension: and that will require another essay. The healing of disease was well identified with Jesus’ work, with Aesculapian Greek sanctuaries, with Egyptian exorcism, with many a mystic throughout the Orient, and even with a number in the modern World, Eastern and Western. How, then, with such a religious background, can it be fair to deny divine inspiration to the Man who performs healing, while allowing such inspiration to the Man who only preaches? #RandolphHarris 12 of 17
Vedantic thought usually regards the siddhis—occult powers—as obstacles to attaining truth. Among them the healing of the body’s sicknesses and the mind’s disorders is included. That some persons are usually in being born with the gift of healing the sick is a historic fact. Why reject the talent or power as being unworthy of a true sage or of those who seek to become such a one? In what way is this form of serving humanity unethical, unsafe, inconsistent with the highest? Remember that Jesus started His work by an act of healing a sick person. The results of their use of healing powers cannot ordinarily be predicted, much less guaranteed, but must be left to the Higher Power. Spiritual healing is drawing much attention but the subject is involved in much confusion. Even the healers themselves hold contradictory theories about it. Some use prayer to get their cures; others deny that prayer is of any avail. Some practice mediation alone; others combine meditation with the laying-on of hands. Some deny that there is anything more than the power of suggestion behind the healings; others find in them evidence of God’s presence. Are there any spiritual laws which will scientifically explain the healings? Is the Hindu wisdom always wise? There is the warning of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras against the occult powers that might be acquired by yoga: they are to be shunned because they obstruct further advance towards the high plane. Healing is one of these listed powers. Must we accept such an attitude and reject the gift of healing, if it comes? Is good health so great an evil that disease is to be accepted dutifully? On this point a Westerner might rebel. In ancient and orthodox Hinduism, the profession of healer was regarded unfavourably, for the strange reason that it brought the healer and the sick together! #RandolphHarris 13 of 17
Sarah Pardee Winchester was known in France as a poetess. Quite late in life she became aware of certain radiations and found herself capable of healing sick people by using these radiations. Out of these experiences with people, she wrote a booklet entitled La Survie du Tuberculosis (Victory over Tuberculosis) in 1897, but it is no longer in print and has never been translated and this booklet is now one of two of the most rare and sought-after pieces of all Winchester literature. Devoted to healing work until she gave it up, saying that is exhausted her too much, she passed away in her sleep 5 September 1922. What she regarded as her major contribution to the healing art was the discovery from this experience of hers that tuberculosis has its seat “in the pithy tissues of the lungs” no matter where the infection is. She could not find a publisher for this book in France, but it was published here in Switzerland and will not, it is said, be reprinted now that she has passed. In fact, she was her own publisher. At the time of her retirement, she explained that vital energy would pass from her to the patient. It is known that some of her cures were spectacular, and even in most cases where she failed to save the life of the patient, she brought about passing without suffering. The confusion of thought concerning spiritual healing is tremendous. William Wirt Winchester asserts that the practice of falling into spiritual trance aggravated the tuberculosis which finally killed him. Yet this is the very method and practice used by some healers to heal their patients, because, they believed, it releases divine energies. What the healer does is to release, stimulate, or add energy to the sufferer’s own natural recuperative forces. The difference between healers are differences of techniques, personal fitness, and spiritual degree. #RandolphHarris 14 of 17
The power to heal the sick is a latent gift deliberately brought out by development or spontaneously released by illumination. Spiritual healing is a gift which is innate in certain individuals and very difficult to acquire by others. It may, however, exist latently, and could show itself only after a certain degree of spiritual development has been attained. Bernard of Clairvaux cured hundreds of the blind, deaf, and paralyzed during the twelfth century simply by making the sign of the cross over the affected body part. Olcott in Ceylon, eight centuries later cured dozens of cases of scorpion bite and even snake bite by making the sign of the pentagram over the part. Does this not show that the healing power may lay in the healer oneself, even more than in one’s method? There are many puzzling cases of healers, like Saint Paul in ancient times, Saint Catherine of Siena in medieval ties, and Father Matthew of Ireland in modern times, who cured the ills of many people but did not or could not cure their own. This is a paradox that is hard to resolve. All healers lose their power after a time. This is to lead them to a higher level. Doctors who can keep us well, long-lived, and capable of functioning properly are more needed than those who cure our diseases. If words have any meaning at all, Christ’s words have meant that personal sacrifice is the cost of spiritual growth. For eighteen hundred years, humans of every kind—scholars, mystics, priests, laymen, ascetics, and saints—agreed on that. Then arose a new group of cults—faith-healers—which not only gave a new meaning to those words but a directly opposite meaning. Success and prosperity, they tried to use spiritual forces solely for their own personal purposes and material benefits, instead of trying to surrender to those forces and submit to higher purposes. The denied—contrary to the experience of all religious history—that material loss and personal failure could ever be the working of such purposes. #RandolphHarris 15 of 17
Healing exists on all these different levels, which means its power comes from difference sources. However, it is believed that all healers should know their limits, their limitations, and it is feared that many of them do not simply because they are carried away by their enthusiasm. Secondly, I believe that all healers would not only be none the worse for some knowledge of anatomy and physiology and the commoner maladies, but they should even attempt to acquire some of this knowledge. Otherwise many errors, many false or exaggerated claims, are made by the healers. We are not questioning their honesty; we believe most of them are honest. However, we are questioning their lack of knowledge and fuller knowledge. On the other hand, we criticize the medical profession for failing to enter into dialogue with the healers; for if they adopted a humbler attitude towards the unorthodox healers, they would learn much to their own profit and to the improvement of their professional help. Before the healing process can come into operation, the patient must be brought into a receptive state; otherwise one will unconsciously obstruct them. Faith is the first requisite. By working a muscle group against resistance, one will build up willpower as well as muscle power. Holding the spine properly allows the flow currents of this Spirit Energy to circulate properly. The benefit of a specific exercise is to be measured by the warmth, or kundalini, it creates—not by the time it takes. Those who have seldom or never done bodily exercises may find it hard to start or, if started, to finish the complete daily period. If they gave up before sufficient time had passed to feel the benefits of the work, it would be a pity. Merely to lie down reduces the heartbeats by no less than ten each minute, thus saving this ever-working organ some of its heavy labour. #RandolphHarris 16 of 17
The simple exercise of stretching helps to counter the congestions, compressions, and adhesions which obstruct the flow of the vital force through the spina column with its sixty-two branching nerves and thus to regain energy. This truth of the need of spine-loosening movement is instinctively known by every dog and car, every lion and tiger, for they apply it immediately after awakening from sleep. The back, the legs, and even paws are bent and stretched and even rolled by them in this natural exercise. To make the spinal column flexible and serviceable for these purposes, it must be both loosened and stretched. The day we die, the wind comes down to take away our footprints. The wind makes dust to cover up the marks we left while walking. For otherwise, the things would seem as if we were still living. Therefore the wind is he who comes to blow away our footprints. I will make my supplication in this, my house of prayer. On the Fast Day I revealed my transgression. Thereon I besought Thee to save me. Hearken to the voice of my cry; arise and save me. Remember and have compassion, my Redeemer. Comfort me with Thy solaces, O living God. O Thou good God, heed my prayer. Hasten the coming of my redeemer and destroy my evil desires so that Thou condemn me not again. Hasten, O God of my salvation, to save me for eternity. Forgive the stain of my wickedness and pass by mine iniquities, and turn, I pray Thee, to save me. O my Rock, my righteous Redeemer, accept my supplication; grant me my deliverance. Almighty, my Redeemer, save me now. Shine forth to save, yea, save, I beseech Thee. One enters into a sate which is certainly not a disappearance of the ego, but rather a kind of divine fellowship of the ego with its source. There is still a center of consciousness in one, still a voice which can utter the words or hold that thought “I am I.” The ego is lost in an ocean of being, but the ego’s link with God, the Overself, still remains. #RandolphHarris 17 of 17
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Egos are Breaking Like Eggshells Against the Walls!
We all possess the God-given gift of moral agency—the right to make choices and the obligation to account for those choices. “That every human may act in doctrine and principle pertaining to futurity, according to the moral agency which I have given unto one, that every human may be accountable for one’s own sins in the day of judgement,” reports Doctrine and Covenants 101.78. However, there are times when punishment may be necessary to manage the behaviour of an animal, child, or even another adult. If you feel that you must punish, here are some tips to keep in mind. If you can discourage misbehaviour in other ways, do not use punishment. Make liberal use of positive reinforcement, especially praise, to encourage good behaviour. Also, try extinction first: See what happens if you ignore a problem behaviour; or shift attention to a desirable activity and then reinforce it with praise. Moral discipline is the consistent exercise of agency to choose the right because it is correct, even when it is hard. It rejects the self-absorbed life in favour of developing character worthy of respect and true greatness through Christlike service. Apply punishment during, or immediately after, misbehaviour. Of course, immediate punishment is not always possible. With older children and adults, you can bridge the delay by clearly stating what act you are punishing. If you cannot punish an animal immediately, wait for the next instance of misbehaviour. The root of the word discipline is shared by the word disciple, suggesting to the mind the fact that conformity to the example and teachings of Jesus Christ is the ideal discipline that, couple with His grace, forms a virtuous and morally excellent person. #RandolphHarris 1 of 19
Use the minimum punishment necessary to suppress misbehaviour. Often, a verbal rebuke or a scolding is enough. Avoid harsh physical punishment. (Never slap a child’s face, for instance.) Taking away privileges or other positive reinforcers (response cost) is usually best for older children and adults. Frequent punishment may lose its effectiveness, and harsh or excessive punishment has serious negative side effects. Jesus’s own moral discipline was rooted in His discipleship to the Father. To His disciples He explained, “My meat is to do the will of Him that sent me, and to finish His work,” reports John 4.34. By this same pattern, our moral discipline is rooted in loyalty and devotion to the Father and the Son. It is the gospel of Jesus Christ that provides the moral certainty upon which moral discipline rests. Be consistent. Be very clear about what you regard as misbehaviour. Punish every time the misbehaviour occurs. Do not punish for something one day and ignore it the next. If you are usually willing to give a child three chances, do not change the rule and explode without warning after a first offense. The societies in which many of us live have for more than a generation failed to foster moral discipline. They have taught that truth is relative and that everyone decides for oneself what is right. Concepts such as sin and wrong have been condemned as “value judgments.” As the Lord describes I, “Every human walketh in one’s own way, and after the image of one’s own good,” reports Doctrine and Covenants 1.16. As a consequence, self-discipline has eroded and societies are left to try to maintain order and civility by compulsion. #RandolphHarrs 2 of 19
The lack of internal control by individuals breeds external control by governments. In the World, we have been experiencing an extended and devastating economic recession. It was brought on by multiple causes, but one of the major causes was widespread dishonest and unethical conduct, particularly in the U.S. housing and financial markets. Reactions have focused on enacting more and stronger regulation. Perhaps that may dissuade some from unprincipled conduct, but others will simply get more creative in the circumvention. Therefore, expect anger from a punished person. Briefly acknowledge this anger, but be careful not to reinforce it. If you wrongfully punish someone or if you punished too severely, be willing to admit your mistake. There could never be enough rules so finely crafted as to anticipate and cover every situation, and even if there were, enforcement would be impossibly expensive and burdensome. This approach leads to diminished freedom for everyone. Punish with kindness and respect. Allow the punished person to retain self-respect. For instance, if possible, do not punish a person in front of others. A strong, trusting relationship tends to minimize behaviour problems. Ideally, others should want to behave well to get your praise, not because they fear punishment. In the end, it is only an internal moral compass in each individual that can effectively deal with the root causes as well as the symptoms of societal decay. Be sure to reinforce positive behaviours. Remember, it is much more effective to strengthen and encourage desirable behaviours than it is to punish unwanted behaviours. #RandolphHarris 3 of 19
Societies will struggle in vain to establish the common good until sin is denounced as sin and moral principle takes its place in the pantheon of civic virtues. Some torment themselves in order to acclimate the savages of various countries to their lifestyle, they have not yet been able to win over a single one of them, not even by means of Christianity; for our missionaries sometimes turn them into Christians, but never into civilized human beings. Nothing can overcome the invincible repugnance they have against appropriating our mores and living in our way. If these poor savages are as unhappy as is alleged, by what inconceivable depravity of judgment do they constantly refuse to civilize themselves in imitation of us, or learn to live happily among us. Some have frequently tried to cultivate savages; people have been eager to display our luxury, our wealth, and all our most useful and curious arts. None of this has ever excited in them anything but a stupid admiration, without the least stirring of covetousness. Economy or Oeconomy, (Moral and Political) is a word that means house and law and originally signified merely the wise and legitimate government of the household for the common good of the entire family. The meaning of this term was later extended to the government of the large family which is the state. To distinguish these two usages, in the latter case it is called general or political economy, and in the former case it is called domestic or private economy. Even if there were as much similarity between the state and the family as many authors would have us believe, it would not follow as a consequence that the rules of conduct proper to one of those societies would be suitable to the other. #RandolphHarris 4 of 19
The family and the government differ too much in size to be capable of being administered in the same fashion. Moreover, there will always be an extreme difference between domestic government, where the father can see everything for himself, and civil government, where the leader sees hardly anything unless through someone else’s eyes. For things to become equal in this regard, the talents, force and all the faculties of the father would have to increase in proportion to the size of his family, that of an ordinary man, what the size of his empire is to that of the private individual’s patrimony. However, how could the government of the state be similar to that of the family, whose basis is so different? Wit the father being physically stronger than his children, paternal power is reasonably said to be established by nature for as long as his help is needed by them. In the large family all of whose members are naturally equal, political authority, purely arbitrary as far as its establishment is conceived, can be founded only upon conventions, and the magistrate can command others only by virtue of the laws. The duties of the father are dictated to him by natural feelings, and in a manner that seldom allows him to be disobedient. Leaders have no such similar rule and are not really bound to the people except in regard to what they have promised to do for them and which the people can rightfully demand they carry out. Another even more important difference is that, since everything children have they receive from their father, it is obvious that all property rights belong to or emanate from him. It is quite the contrary in the case of the large family, where the general administration is established merely to assure private property, which is antecedent to it. #RandolphHarris 5 of 19
The chief purpose of the entire household’s labours is to maintain and increase the father’s patrimony, so that he can someday disperse it among his children without reducing them to poverty. On the other hand, the wealth of the public treasure is merely a means—often very much misunderstood—of maintaining private individuals in peace and prosperity. In a word, the small family is destined to die off and to be dissolved someday into many other families; on the other hand, the large family was made to last forever in the same condition, whereas not only is it enough that that large family maintains itself, it is easily proved that any increase does it more harm than good. For several reasons derived from the nature of things, in the family it is the father who should command. First, the authority of the father and mother ought not be equal; on the contrary, there must be a single government and when there are differences of opinion there must be a single dominant voice which decides. Second, however slight we regard the limitations that are peculiar to a wife, since they always occasion a period of inactivity for her, this is a sufficient reason for excluding her from this primacy. For when the balance is perfectly equal, a straw is enough to tip the scales. Moreover, a husband should oversee his wife’s conduct, for it is important to him to be assured that the children he is forced to recognize and nurture belong to no one but himself. The wife, who has nothing like this to fear, does not have the same right over her husband. Third, children ought to obey their father—initially out of necessity, later out of gratitude. After having their needs met by him for half their lives, they ought to devote the other half to seeing his needs. #RandolphHarris 6 of 19
Fourth, as far as domestic servants are concerned, they too owe him their services in exchange for the livelihood he provides them, unless they cancel their arrangement once it ceases to be to their advantage. I say nothing here of slavery, since it is contrary to nature and no right can authorize it. None of this is to be found in political society. Far from the leader’s having a natural interest in the happiness of private individuals, it is not uncommon for him to seek his own happiness in the misery of others. If the magistracy is hereditary, often it is a child that is in command of humans. If it is elective, a thousand insolvencies make themselves to be felt in the elections. In either case one loses all the advantages of paternity. Were you to have but one leader, you are at the discretion of a master who has no reason to love you. Were you to have several, you must endure both their tyranny and their disagreements. In short, abuses are inevitable and their consequences devastating in every society where the public interest and the laws have no natural force, and are constantly attacked by the personal interest and passions of the ruler and the members. Although the functions of the father of a family and those of a chief magistrate ought to tend toward the same goal, their paths are so different, their duty and rights so unlike, that one cannot confound them without forming false ideas about the fundamental laws of society and without falling into errors that are fatal to the human race. In effect, though nature’s voice is the best advice a good father could listen to in the fulfillment of his duty, for the magistrate it is merely a false guide which works constantly to divert him from his duties and which sooner or later leads to his downfall or to that of the state, unless he is restrained by the most sublime virtue. #RandolphHarris 7 of 19
The only precaution necessary to the father of a family is that he protect himself from depravity and prevent his natural inclinations from becoming corrupt, whereas it is these very inclinations that corrupt the magistrate. To act properly, the former need only consult his heart; the latter becomes a traitor as soon as he listens to his. Even his own reason ought to be suspect to him, and the only rule he should follow is the public reason, which is the law. Thus nature has made a multitude of good fathers of families, but it doubtful that, since the beginning of the World, human wisdom has ever produced ten men capable of governing their peers. It follows from all I have just put forward that one has good reason to distinguish public from private economy and that, since the state has nothing in common with the family except the obligation their respective leaders bear to render each of the happy, the same rules of conduct could not be suitable to both. In discussing what is not occurring in the suburbs, it is necessary to occasionally take a glance back at the central city since comparisons between the two highlight the changes in later. As has been detailed previously, the downtowns of American urban areas came into their glory during the first half of the twentieth century as the retail trade and business locations of choice. Downtown was where all the major department stores were located. As of 1950, Chicago’s Loop contained not only the huge Marshal Field store but also, a block away, Carson, Pirie, Scott. In addition, there were other large department stores of Mandels, Sears, and The Fair. All of these department stores occupied multistoried buildings. Field alone occupied a fully city block, with an additional five-story Men’s Building annex across the street. #RandolphHarris 8 of 19
Additionally, the downtown was filled with scores of restaurants and coffee shops catering both to business people and housewives who dressed up to make an event out of shopping downtown. Certainly, if one were interested in serious shopping in Chicago—or New York, or Philadelphia, or Boston, or Washington, or Detroit, or Minneapolis, or Omaha, or Dallas, or Seattle, or San Francisco—one went downtown, usually by public transit. As we approach the turn of the century, the above description reads like something from another time and place. Across America, downtown and peripheral suburban areas have switched identities. The old pattern has been turned inside out. Concentrated and centralized cities have been supplanted by dispersed and polynucleated suburban malls and office parks. Downtowns that once were dominant in retail trade find themselves struggling not for dominance, but for survival. Numerous cities such as Baltimore, Detroit, Sacramento, and Omaha no longer even have a single downtown department store. The dispute as to the comparative economic strength of downtown or peripheral suburban locations as centers for the purchase of consumer goods is over. Downtowns lost the competition. Central business districts now account for less than half of all sales in personal and household items, and yearly this share decreases. Downtowns, with some exceptions, such as part of Manhattan and North Michigan Avenue in Chicago, are no longer prime locations for major new retailing activities. Some of us who love the old downtowns whish this were not so. #RandolphHarris 9 of 19
Along with downtown Chambers of Commerce, some would like to see new retailers occupy the buildings abandoned by the large department stores. Unfortunately, this is not going to occur. Central-city festival marketplaces provide wonderful urban vitality and a means of attracting tourists, but they are not where someone goes to buy shoes, a business suit, or a DVD player. For the foreseeable future, large-scale retailing ventures will have suburban post offices. New office space is also most likely to be suburban. Deconcentration is the cotemporary reality. However, as growth has gone from city to outside the city, there is a belief that the general quality of suburban life is decreasing. While applauding increases in employment and greater shopping alternatives, suburbanites feel frustration over traffic congestion, environmental degradation, crime, and crowded schools. Often these problems are attributed to a too-rapid pace of community growth. The question of limiting, or even halting, growth is one that is being debated in high-growth areas, such as the west coast. The concern first arose in high growth areas, such as Orange Country, in Southern California; now, as Californians out-migrate to Oregon, Washington state, Texas, Nevada, Atlanta, Arizona, or New Mexico, the concern about too-rapid growth has become a political issue in these localities. Local concerns over rapid growth fly in the face of the long-standing American creed that bigger is better. City boosters, as a matter of course, bragged that their community was better than their neighbour’s because it was growing faster. Not to grow was somehow un-American. Now that is changing and there are increasing calls for growth controls. At one time, the governor of Hawaii stirred up considerable controversy when he called for Hawaii to slow its exploding population by banning in-migration. #RandolphHarris 10 of 19
Research indicates that suburban residents have strong concerns about current and future growth. Studying the response of citizens in Orange County, California, it was found that over half of the residents surveyed cited environmental reasons such as traffic congestion and environmental deterioration as reasons for limiting growth. Economic reasons, such as maintaining property values and avoiding government spending and taxes, were listed by approximately a third of the respondents. While there is documented widespread support for slow-growth or growth-limit policies, there is little public support for no-growth policies, except for in Malibu, California which eventually lost their request. Suburban residents desire local officials and policy makers to put limits on population and economic expansion rather than to halt development. Both no growth and unrestricted growth are opposed by most suburbanites. However, desiring controlled growth and accomplishing it are not the same things. Research indicates that municipal zoning and other techniques to control growth have only a modest effect. Organizations favouring growth limits, such as the Sierra Club, generally argue that uncontrolled growth will continue to destroy what remains our physical and cultural environment. Thus, the indiscriminate gobbling up of land by developers and industries has to be controlled. Opponents of such control, such as the National Association of Homebuilders, say that those already in an area have no right to infringe on what they see as the constitutional right to settle where one chooses. Other opponents, such as the National Association of the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP), are less concerned with the developers’ right to build and make profits than they are with a “pull-up-the-gangplank” mentality. #RandolphHarris 11 of 19
The NACCP fears that environmental policies such as setting minimum lot sizes and requiring municipal water and sewage hookups rather than allowing wells and septic systems will increase prices and thus exclude the less affluent. Zoning regulations allegedly have a history of being used for enforcing exclusion. The legal question of whether communities can impose growth controls was settled for the time being by the case of Petaluma, California. Located roughly 35 miles north of San Francisco and on a new freeway, the community was only 35,000 people at the time and felt it was being overwhelmed. Growth in Petaluma had reached 18 percent a year. Schools were in double session, water and sewage systems were at the maximum, and the community feared it was being swallowed by an unending number of new subdivisions. The city established a plan to limit building to 500 units a year, and developers and builder sued. By refusing to heart the case, the Supreme Court in 1976 rejected the builders’ argument that growth limits unconstitutionally restrict people’s right to live where they choose. The Supreme Court let stand the Court of Appeals ruling that the traditional local community responsibility for the public welfare was sufficiently broad to allow Petaluma to preserve its character and open spaces. Petaluma, California now has a population of 59,776. In practice the question of growth controls is moot for most suburban communities. Only a limited number of communities, almost all in environmentally attractive locations in the west and southwest, have tried to control growth. Many older suburban communities, with the exception of Old Land Park in Sacramento, California, are more likely to share the central-city problem of how to attract growth, rather than how to limit it. #RandolphHarris 12 of 19
Much more common among suburbs than growth limits is the requiring of builders to offer “proffers.” These are fees to cover some of the cost to the municipality of providing local road, school, sewer, and water services. The argument is that new residences should be assessed some of the costs associated with servicing them, and that the cost of providing services for newcomers should not be borne solely by existing taxpayers. Furthermore, it is impossible to discuss suburban issues without some discussion of crime. Obviously, one of the more common explanations one hears for the movement to the suburbs or the unwillingness to move back to the city is crime. The built-in assumption is that suburbs are relatively free of crime while cities clearly are not. Neither of these assumptions is fully accurate. Some city neighbourhoods have low crime, while some suburbs do not. However, overall suburban crime rates are only 28 percent of city rates. The popular perception also is accurate insofar as central-city crimes rates are rising faster than suburban rates. Major U.S. Central Cities are seeing crime rate increase by 40 percent from the previous year. By companions, the suburban rate was a far lower, which was an increase of 1.2 percent. No one knows for sure why urban violent crime rates accelerated so rapidly. However, the pandemic, depressed economic conditions for the poor, and shrinking job opportunities likely play a factor. Still others have suggested the increasing use of drugs, more use of more lethal weapons, family breakdown, and racial discrimination as reasons for the increase. Whatever the reason, the popular belief that cities, or at least some parts of cities, are increasingly dangerous places is, unfortunately, accurate. #RandolphHarris 13 of 19
Suburban crime rates are substantially lower than in cities, and it much less likely to be violent crime. The most frequently reported suburban crime is bicycle theft. This is a problem if your new expensive Diamondback Sync’R 29 Carbon Mountain Bike Black, XL that is stolen, but it is not equivalent to being mugged at gunpoint. By comparison, the ten richest suburbs have burglary rates only 33 percent those of the ten poorest suburbs. Affluent residential suburbs are able to restrict unwanted activities and limit undesirable and unemployed populations. Higher crime rates are also found in those suburbs that have facilities that attract criminals. An ever-decreasing minority of suburbanites actually commutes into the central city for employment or other purposes. City dwellers are increasingly likely to commute to suburbs for employment, shopping, or entertainment. Representatives who suddenly find themselves answerable to suburban voters have a tendency to move politically from being urban liberals toward being more suburban law-and-order candidates. Some think this will benefit the Republicans, but Deromcrats seeking election in the new districts have shown an ability to adjust their rhetoric to their new constituencies. Downtowns have been changing their economic function and their future is uncertain because of the pandemic and the increase of electronic cottages and business parks. However, looking at the new skyline does not suggest the image of immediate economic decline. People still head downtown for employment, but one cannot deny the clerical jobs, finance, legal services, advertising, management, medical centers, educational institutions, and government services are relocating to the suburbs. #RandolphHarris 14 of 19
During the Great Depression of the 1930’s millions of people were thrown out of work. As factory doors clanged shut against them, many plunged into extremes of despair and guilt, their egos shattered by the pink layoff slip. Eventually unemployment came to be seen in a more sensible light—not as the result of individual laziness or moral failure but of giant forces outside the individual’s control. The maldistribution of wealth, myopic investment, runaway speculation, stupid trade policies, inept government—these, not the personal weakness of laid-off workers, caused unemployment. Feelings of guilt were, in most cases, naively inappropriate. Today, once more, egos are breaking like eggshells against the walls. Now, however, the guilt is associated with the fracture of the family and the pandemic, rather than the economy. As millions of people clamber out of strewn wreckage of their marriages, break out of government-imposed house detainment they, too, suffer agonis of self-blame. And once more, much of the guilt is misplaced. When a tiny minority is involved, the crack-up of their families may reflect individual failures. However, when divorce, separation, pandemic, and other forms of familial disaster overtake millions at once in many countries, it is absurd to think the causes are purely personal. The fracture of the family today is, in fact, part of the general crisis of the age of information—the crack-up of all the institutions spawned by the Third Wave. It is part of the ground-clearing for the new socio-sphere. And it is this traumatic process, reflected in our induvial lives, that is altering the family system beyond recognition. #RandolphHarris 15 of 19
Today we are told repeatedly that “the family” is falling apar or that “the family” is our Number One Problem. It is clear that the national government should have a pro-family policy. There can be no more urgent priority. Substitute preachers, prime minister, and the pious rhetoric comes out very much the same. When they speak of “the family,” however, they typically do not mean the family in all is luxuriant variety of possible forms, but one particular type of family: the Second Wave family. What they usually have in mind is a husband-breadwinner, a wife-housekeeper, and a number of small children. While many other family types exist, it was this particular family form—he nuclear family—that Second Wave civilization idealized, made dominant, and spread around the World. This type of family became the standard, socially approved model because its structure perfectly fitted the needs of a mass-production society with widely shared values and life-styles, hierarchical, bureaucratic power, and a clear separation of home life from work life in the marketplace. Today, when the authorities urge us to “restore” the family it is this Second Wave nuclear family they usually have in mind. By thinking so narrowly they not only misdiagnose the entire problem, they reveal a childish naivete about what steps would actually be required to restore the nuclear family to its former importance. Thus the authorities frantically blame the family crisis on everything from “smut peddlers” to rock music. Some tells us that opposing abortion or wiping out sex education or resisting feminism will glue the family back together again. Or they urge courses in “family education.” #RandolphHarris 16 of 19
The chief United States government statistician on family matters wants “more effective training” to teach people how to marry more wisely, or else a “scientifically tested and appealing system for selecting a marriage partner.” What we need, say others, are more marriage counselors or even more public relations to give the family a better image! Blind to the ways in which historical waves of change influence us, they come up with well-intentioned, often inane proposals that utterly miss the target. Some persons have wonderful healing gifts, but they will need to keep the ego out of their use of these gifts if their quest is not to be obstructed. Those who are born with healing skills, probably brough over from former births, function on different levels. The commonest is that which radiates life-force and energizes the cells of the sick person. This kind of healer must first put oneself into a passive mood and then, when one feels the vibratory force of the life-force active within one, let it pass, with or without touching the patient, into the latter. The vibrations of the lifeforce are universal; they are not the healer’s own personal property. One simply possesses a skill in letting oneself be used as a channel, and it is usually concentrated in one’s hands. A healer like Saswitha, who says he is merely drawing the therapeutic power from his patient and redirecting it or returning in back to the patient, forgets that if this is so the patient oneself gets it from the cosmic forces. It is not one’s own personal property. Jesus healed the sick, cured the diseased. Why decry the feat (when others do the same) as “merely” using an occult power, and as a deviation from the highest path of attainment, becoming an obstacle to it? For this is criticism by Advaitic Vedantins. This criticism is unfair. #RandolphHarris 17 of 19
If it is right to cure one by physical means—medicine, for example—then it is right to cure one by mental means, and drawing on still deeper powers is in the same line of progression. The Advaitins grant that a physician may attain the highest truth. Is a physician like Paracelsus, using both physical and mental remedies, plus one’s own spiritual power, and therefore capable of helping more people more effectively, to be denied this possibility? The professional in other lines can often give a reasonable assurance of the efficacy of one’s own work, but the genuine spiritual healer cannot. For not only is one’s own gift involved but also both the patient’s self-made destiny and one’s evolutionary need. Apollonius tells us that Pythagoras regarded healing as “the most divine art.” Why should anyone reject the views of the Greek sage, not to speak of Jesus’ own confirmation by His works? Why should the Indian sages regard healing as a merely occult art, hence as to practice to be avoided? Why should it be right for a spiritual master to minister to diseased minds but wrong to minister to diseased bodies? To label one as white magic and the others as black magic, or to neglect and ignore the flesh in the interest of the whole-time devotion to the spirit, is unfair. Too many Indian, and a few Western, gurus and cults reject the development and use of healing power. It is, they argue, an obstruction in the spiritual path because it keeps its practitioner captive to the ego, which may even become stronger through conceit. There is the historic case of Ramakrishma. He went to his prayer shrine in his temple three times to request a healing for the throat cancer which troubled him, but each time failed to utter words. #RandolphHarris 18 of 19
The merit of argument based on increased egotism and vanity, the danger of being sicktracked from seeking the highest goal, is admitted. However, is this enough ground to ban spiritual healing completely and always? Must it be denied to all people at all times, universally, because some healers may be obstructed spiritually by its practice? The answer of common sense agreed with the example of Jesus. Blessed be the Wind! Without wind, most of the Earth would be uninhabitable. The tropics would grow so unbearably hot that nothing could live here, and the rest of the planet would freeze. Moisture, if any existed would be confined to the oceans, and all but the fringe of the great continents would be desert. There would be no erosion, no soil, and for any community that managed to evolve despite these rigors, no relief from suffocation by their own waste products. However, with the wind, Earth comes truly alive. Winds provide the circulatory and nervous systems of the planet, sharing out energy and information, distributing both warmth and awareness, making something out of nothing. All wind’s properties are borrowed. Our knowledge of it comes at secondhand, but it comes strongly. And this combination of a force that cannot be apprehended, but nevertheless has an undeniable existence, was our first experience of the spiritual. A crack in the cosmos that widened to let the tide of consciousness flow through. We are the fruits of the wind—and have been seeded, irrigated, and cultivated by its craft. Save us, we beseech Thee! For Thy sake, our God, do Thou save us. For Thy sake, our Creator, O save us. For Thy sake, our Redeemer, O save us. For Thy sake, O Thou who seekest us, save us, we beseech Thee. During these wonderful glimpses ordinary existence seems suspended. One finds a new joy deep within oneself, a new and higher meaning deep within life. If we are going to make in through this pandemic, we are going to need more than vaccine; we also need empathy. #RandolphHarris 19 of 19
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He Was Haunted By an Invisible Presence!
The facts which I am about to relate happened to myself some sixteen or eighteen years ago, at which time I was still young enough to enjoy a life of constant travelling. There are, indeed, many less agreeable ways in which an unbeneficent parson may contrive to scorn delights and live laborious days. In remote places where strangers are scarce, his annual visit is an important evet; and though at the close of a long day’s work he would sometimes prefer the quiet of a Victorian mansion, he generally finds himself the destined guest of the rector or the squire. It rests with himself to turn these opportunities to account. If he makes himself pleasant, he forms agreeable friendships and sees Victorian home-life under one of its most attractive aspects; and sometimes, even in these days of universal common-placeness, he may have the luck to meet with an adventure. My first appointment was to Llanda Villa ; which was largely peopled with my personal friends and connections. It was, therefore, much to my annoyance that I found myself, after a could of years very pleasant work, transferred to a new teaching position. I now spent half my time in hired vehicles and lonely country inns. I had been in possession of this position for some three months or so, and winter was near at hand, when I paid my first visit of inspection to the Winchester mansion. It was a dull, raw afternoon of mid-November, growing duller and more raw as the day waned and the east wind blew keener. I found the foot path without difficulty. It led me across a barren slope divided by stone fences, with here and there a group of smaller Victorian houses and gazebos. #RandolphHarris 1 of 14
A light fog, meanwhile, was creeping up from the east, and the dusk was gathering fast. Now, to lose one’s way on such an expansive ranch and at such an hour would be disagreeable enough, and the footpath—a trodden track already half obliterated—would be indistinguishable enough in the course of another ten minutes, but the nine story look out tower, a top the mansion, stood erect as a compass guiding visitors to the bizarre and beautiful rambling mansion. Looking anxiously ahead, up to this moment, I had not met a living soul. However, then I saw a man emerging from the fog and coming along the path. As we neared each other—I advancing rapidly; he slowly—I observed that he dragged the left foot, limping as he walked. It was, however, so dark and so misty, that not till we were within half a dozen yards of each other could I see that he wore a dark suit and an Anglican felt hat, and looked something like a dissenting minister. As soon as we were within speaking distance, I addressed him. “Can you tell me, I said, about how much longer it will take to get to the Winchester mansion?” He came on, looking straight before him; taking no notice of my question; apparently not hearing it. “I beg your pardon,” I said, raising my voice; “but how much longer will it take on this path to get to the Winchester?” He had passed on without pausing; without looking at me; I could almost have believed, without seeing me! I stopped, with the words on my lips; then turned to look after—perhaps, to follow—him. But instead of following, I stood betwixted. What had become of him? #RandolphHarris 2 of 14
And what lad was that going up the path by which I had just come—that tall lad, half-running, half-walking, with a fishing-rod over his shoulder? I could have taken my oath that I had neither met nor passed him. Where then had he come from? And where was the man to whom I had spoken not three seconds ago and who, at his limping pace, could have made more than a couple of yards in the time? My stupefaction was such that I stood quite still, looking after the lad with the fishing-rod till he disappeared in the gloom under the park-palings. Was I dreaming? Darkness, meanwhile, had closed in apace, and, dreaming or not dreaming, I must push on, or find myself benighted. So I hurried forward, turning my back on the last gleam of daylight, and plunging deeper into the fog at every step. I was, however, close upon my journey’s end. The path ended at a turnstile; the turnstile opened upon a steep lane; and at the bottom of the land, down which I stumbled among stones and ruts, I came in sight of the welcome glare of a blacksmith’s forge. Here, then, was the Winchester. I found myself at the door of the Winchester mansion. When I was sitting in the cozy drawing room, I saw Mrs. Winchester, and she looked like an angel. Spreading loveliness everywhere, over all with whom she came in touch, over good and evil. When a small number of people often come together in the same room, a tradition readily develops as to where each individual has one’s place, one’s station; it becomes a kind of picture a person can unroll for oneself when one so desires, a map of the terrain. So it is also with us in the Winchester mansion—together we form a picture. We were to drink tea here this evening. #RandolphHarris 3 of 14
Mrs. Winchester strives for an air of mystery. She wants to whisper and usually does it so well that she becomes entirely mute; I make no secret of my effusions to Merriam, her niece, an estimate of how many quarts of milk it takes for one pound of butter through the medium of cream and the dialectic of the butter churn. Indeed, it is not only something any young girl can listen to without hard, but, what is far more unusual, it is a solid and fundamental and edifying conversation that is equally ennobling to the head and the heart. And is no nature magnificent and wise in what she produces, what a precious gift is butter, what a glorious accomplishment of nature and art! It is a curious picture we make together. Mrs. Winchester almost vanishes before our eyes in pure agronomy; we go into the kitchen and the cellars, up into the attic, look at the chicken and ducks, geese et cetera. This was fascinating to me. But it could just be that I was the kind of young man who became old prematurely; it is possible. I sat late over the fire, and by the time I went to bed, I had well nigh forgotten my adventure with the man who vanished so mysteriously and the boy who seemed to come from nowhere. Next morning, finding I had abundant time at my disposal. What a reinvigorating power I felt from the Winchester—not the freshness of the morning air, not the sighing of the wind, not the coolness of the sea, not the fragrance of wine, its aroma—nothing in the World has this reinvigorating power. In this way the days go by. Mrs. Winchester seemed perfect happy in her mansion. Her bedroom faced the courtyard. Sometimes she stands on the balcony for a moment, and at night she looks up at the stars, unseen by all. #RandolphHarris 4 of 14
In these nocturnal hours, I walk around like a ghost. Then I forget everything, have no plans, no reckonings, cast understanding overboard, expand and fortify my chest with deep sighs, a motion I need in order not to suffer from my systematic conduct. Others are virtuous by day, sin at night; I am dissimulation by day—at night I am sheer inspiration. When I notice it, far off on the horizon there comes a flashing intimation from a quite different World, to the astonishment of Mrs. Winchester as well as Merriam. Mrs. Winchester sees the lightning but hears nothing; Merriam hears the voice but sees nothing. However, at the same moment everything is in its quiet order; the conversation between Mrs. Winchester and me proceeds in its uniform way, like post horses in the stillness of the night the; the sad hum of the samovar accompanies it. At such moments, it can sometimes be uncomfortable in the drawing room, especially for Merriam. She has no one she can talk with or listen to. I can well understand that it must seem to Merriam as if Mrs. Winchester were bewitched, so perfectly does she move to the tempo of my rhythm. She cannot participate in this conversation either, because one of the means I have also used to outrage her is that I allow myself to treat her just like a child. It is not as if I for that reason would allow myself any liberties whatever with her, far from it. I well know the upsetting effects such things can have, and the point is that her womanliness must be able to rise up pure and beautiful again. Because of my intimate relationship with Mrs. Winchester, it is easy for me to treat her like a child who has no understanding of the World. #RandolphHarris 5 of 14
Her womanliness is not insulted thereby but merely neutralized, for the fact that she does not know market prices cannot insult her womanliness, but the supposition that this is the ultimate in life can certainly be revolting to her. With my powerful assistance on this scored, Mrs. Winchester is out doing herself. She has become almost fanatic—something she can thank me for. The only thing about me that she cannot stand is that I have no position. Now I have adopted the habit of saying whenever a vacancy in some office is mentioned: “There is a position for me,” and thereupon discuss it very gravely with her. Merriam always perceives the irony, which is precisely what I want. The butler came in with more tea. I saw that he was lame. In the moment I remembered him. He was the man I met in the fog. “I met you yesterday afternoon, Mr. Brunton,” I said, as we went into the library. “Yesterday afternoon, sir?” He repeated. “You did not seem to observe me,” I said, carelessly. “I spoke to you, in fact; but you did not reply to me.” “But—indeed, I beg your parson, sir—it must have been someone else,” said the butler. “I did not go out yesterday afternoon.” How could this be anything but a falsehood? I might have been mistaken as to the man’s face; though it was such a singular face, and I had seen it quite plainly. However, how could I be mistaken as to his lameness? Besides, that curious trailing of the right foot, as if the ankle was broken, was not an ordinary lameness. I suppose I looked incredulous, for he added, hastily. “Even if I had not been preparing dinner for inspection, sire, I should not have gone out yesterday afternoon. It was too damp and foggy. I am obliged to be careful—I have a very delicate chest.” #RandolphHarris 6 of 14
My dislike to the man increased with every word he uttered. I did not ask myself with what motive he want on heaping lie upon lie; it was enough that, to serve his own ends, whatever those ends might be, he did lie with unparalleled audacity. “We will proceed to the examination, Mr. Brunton,” I said, contemptuously. He turned, if possible, a shade paler than before, bent his head silently, and called up the cuisine in their order. Profusely apologizing, he begged leave to occupy five minutes of my valuable time. He wished, under correction, to suggest a little improvement to many the menu more festive. “Under other circumstances…” I stopped and looked round. The butler repeated my last words. “You were saying, sir—under other circumstances?” I looked around again. “I seemed to me that there was someone here,” I said; “some third person, not a moment ago.” “I beg your pardon, sir—a third person?” “I saw his shadow on the ground, between yours and mine.” The mansion faced due north, and we were standing immediately behind it, with our backs to the sun. The place was bare, and open, and high; and our shadows, sharply defined, lay stretched before our feet. “A—a shadow?” he faltered. “Impossible.” There was not a bush or a true within half a mile. There was not a could in the sky. There was nothing, absolutely nothing, that could have cast a shadow. I admitted that t was impossible, and that I must have fancied it; and so went back to the matter of the menu. “Should you see Mrs. Winchester,” I said, “you are at liberty to say that I thought it a desirable improvement.” #RandolphHarris 7 of 14
“I am much obliged to you, sir. Thank you—thank you very much,” he said, cringing at every word. “But—but I had hoped that you might perhaps use your influence”—“Look there!” I interrupted. “Is that fancy?” We were now close under the blank walls of the kitchen. On this wall, laying to the full sunlight, our shadows—mine and the butler’s—were projected. And there too—no longer between his and mine, but a little way apart, as if the intruder were standing back—there, as sharply defined as if cast by line-light on a prepared background, I again distinctly saw, though but for a moment, that third shadow. As I spoke, as I looked round, it was gone! “Did you not see it?” I asked. He shook his head. “I—I saw nothing” he said, faintly. “What was it?” His lips were white. He seemed scarcely able to stand. “But you must have seen it!” I exclaimed. “It fell just there—where that bit of ivy grows. There must be some boy hiding—it was a boy’s shadow, I am confident. “A boy’s shadow!” he echoed, looking round in a wild, frightened way. “There is no place—for a boy—to hide.” “Place or no place,” I said, angrily, “if I catch him, he shall feel the weight of my cane!” I searched backwards and forwards in every direction, the butler, with his scared face, limping at my heels; but, rough and irregular as the ground was, there was not a hole in it big enough to shelter a rabbit. “But what was it?” I said, impatiently. “An—an illusion. Begging your pardon, sir—and illusion.” He looked so like a beaten hound, so frightened, so fawning, that I felt I could with lively satisfaction have transferred the threatened caning to his own shoulders. #RandolphHarris 8 of 14
“But you saw it?” I said, impatiently. “No, sir. Upon my honour, no, sir. I saw nothing—nothing whatever.” His looks belied his words. I felt certain that he had not only seen the shadow, but that he knew more about it than he chose to tell. I was by this time really angry. To be made the object of a boyish trick, and to be hoodwinked by the connivance of the butler, was too much. It was an insult to myself and my office. I scarcely knew what I said; something short and stern at all events. Then, having said it, I turned my back upon Mr. Brunton and the mansion, and walked rapidly back to the village. As I was leaving the Winchester, it was a gloomy evening. I was standing high in the midst of a somber deer-park some six or seven miles in circumference. An avenue of palm trees, which led up to the house looked so lonely. The butler said, “If you would but be persuaded to say a day longer, a new experience awaits you. I will take you down the Winchester shaft, and show you the home of the gnomes and trolls. I am the king of Hades, and rule the under World as well as the upper. There is gold everywhere underlying this mansion. The whole place is honeycombed with shafts and galleries. One of our richest seams runs under this house, and there are upwards of forty men at work in it a quarter of a mile below our feet here every day. Another leads right away under the park, Heaven only knows how far! My father began working it five-and-twenty years ago, and we have gone on working it ever since; yet it shows no sign of failing. That is why Mrs. Winchester is rich enough to commit whatever design follies she pleases; and that is saying a good deal. #RandolphHarris 9 of 14
“But then, to be always squandering money—always building a rambling mansion—always gratifying the impulse of the moment—is that happiness? Mrs. Winchester has been experimenting for several decades; and with what result? Would you like to see?” He snatched up a lamp and led the way through a long suite of unfinished rooms, the floors of which were piled high with packing cases of all sizes and shapes, labelled with the names of various foreign ports and the addresses of foreign agents innumerable. What did they contain? Precious marbles from Italy and Greece and Asia Minor; priceless paintings by old and modern masters; antiquities from the Nile, the Tigris, and the Euphrates; enamels from Persia, porcelain from China, bronzes from Japan, strange sculptures from Peru; arms, mosaics, ivories, wood-carvings, skins, tapestries, old Italian cabinets, painted bride-chess, Etruscan terracottas; treasures of all countries, or all ages, never even unpacked since they crossed that threshold which the mistress’s foot had crossed but twice during the ten years it had taken to buy them! Should she ever open them, ever arrange them, every enjoy them? Perhaps—if she becomes weary of wandering—if she remarried—if she built a gallery to receive them. If not—well, she might found and endow a museum; or leave the things to the nation. What did it matter? Collecting was like fox-hunting; the pleasure in the pursuit, and ended with it!” Breakfast over, we went around the mansion, and saw the men working. Just as we were about to enter an underground tunnel—a tall, slender lad, with a fishing rod across his shoulder, came out rom one of the side doors of the mansion, crossed the open at field, and disappeared among the tree-trunks on the opposite side. I recognized him instantly. It was the boy whom I saw the other day, just after meeting the butler in the meadow. #RandolphHarris 10 of 14
“If the boy think he is going fishing in a fruit orchard,” I said, “he will find out his mistake.” “What boy,” asked Mr. Brunton, looking back. “That boy who crossed over yonder, a minute ago.” “Yonder!—in front of us?” “Certainly. You must have seen him?” “No I.” “You did no see him?—a tall, thin boy, in a grey suit, with a fishing-rod over his shoulder. He disappeared behind those nectarine trees.” Mr. Brunton looked at me with surprise. “You are dreaming!” he said. “No living thing—not even a rabbit—has crossed our path since we left the mansion.” “I am not in the habit of dreaming with my eyes open,” I replied, quickly. He laughed, and put his arm through mine. “Eyes or no eyes,” he said, “you are under an illusion this time!” An illusion—the very word made use of by the butler! What did it mean? Could I, in truth, no longer rely upon the testimony of my senses? A thousand half-formed apprehensions flashed across me in a moment, I remembered the illusions of Nicolini, the bookseller, and other similar cases of visual hallucination, and I asked myself if I has suddenly become afflicted in like manner. “By jove! This is a queer sight!” exclaimed Mr. Brunton. And then I found that we had emerged from the fruit orchard, and were looking down upon the bed of what yesterday was a lake. It was indeed a queer sight—an oblong, irregular basin of the blackest slime, with here and there a sullen pool, and round the margin an irregular fringe of bulrushes. At some little distance along the bank—less than quarter of a mile from where we were standing—a gaping crowd had gathered. All the foremen seemed to turn out to stare. #RandolphHarris 11 of 14
Hats were pulled off and curtsies dropped at Mr. Brunton’s approach. He, meanwhile, came up smiling, with a pleasant word for everyone. “Well,” he said, “are you looking for the lake, my friends?” “I see a log of rotten timber sticking half in and half out of the mud,” one of the men said, “and something—a long reed, apparently…by Jove! I believe it is a fishing rod!” “It is a fishin’ rod, squire,” said the blacksmith with rough earnestness; “an” if yon rotten timber bayn’t an unburied corpse, mun I never stroike hammer on anvil agin!” There was a buzz of acquiescence from the bystanders. ‘Twas an unburied corpse, such enough. Nobody doubted it. “It must have come out, whatever it is, Mr. Brunton said presently. “Five feet of mud, do you say? Then here is a sovereign apiece for the first two fellows who wade through it and bring that object to land!” It was, in truth, an unburied corpse; part of the trunk only above the surface. They tried to life it; but it had been so long under water, and was in so advanced a stage of decomposition, that to bring it to shore without a shutter was impossible. Being cross-questioned, they thought, from the slenderness of the form, that it must be the body of a boy. “There’s the poor chap’s rod, anyhow,” said the blacksmith, laying it gently down upon the turf. Mrs. Winchester was summoned and told of the news. That night she rushed to her blue séance room and demanded the spirits tell her what happened to the boy. “I invoke thee, and move thee, and stir thee up O Spirit Leraikha,” said Mrs. Winchester. “From the 30 Legions of Spirits, appear unto my eyes before the circle in the likeness of a man in and tell me what has happened to this boy!” #RandolphHarris 12 of 14
“The words Adam spoke to God, and all things of water were as blood,” replied the Spirit Leraikha. “In the names Alpha and Omega, I am the God of Secret Truth who liveth forever, the All-Powerful. It is to I, to whom all creatures are obedient and in the Extreme Justice and Anger of God that I withdrawal this veil that is before the glory of God, might; and by the creatures of living breath before the Thone whose eyes are east and west; by the fire in the fire of just Glory of Mine Throne; by the Holy ones of Heaven; and by the secret wisdom of God, I, exalted in power, has been stirred up to cast a vision of the past and make clear the present! The secrets of truth in voice and understanding comes: This is the corpse of a boy of perhaps ten and four or ten and five years of age. There was a fracture three inches long at the back of the skull, evidently fatal. This might, of course, have been an accidental injury; but when the body came to be raised from where it layeth, it was found to be pinned down by a pitchfork, the handle of which had been afterwards whittled off, so as not to show above water, a discovery tantamount to evidence of murder. The features of the victim were decomposed beyond recognition; but enough of the hair remained to show that it has been short and sandy. He had a passion for fishing and was in the habit of slipping away at school-hours, and showed himself the more cunning and obstinate more he was punished. At last there came a day when the butler tracked him to the place his rod was concealed and beat the miserable lad about the head and arms with a heavy stick. Pin through hand and blood was running out of his mouth until he fell insensible and ceased to breathe. He dragged the body among the bulrushes by the water’s edge, and there concealed it as well as he could. #RandolphHarris 13 of 14
“At night, when the neighbours and staff were in bed asleep, he stole out by starlight, taking with him a pitchfork, a coil of rope, a couple of iron-bars, and a knife. He weighted and sunk the corpse, and pinned it down by the neck with his pitchfork. He then cut away the handle of the fork; hid the fishing-rod among the reeds; and believed, as murderers always believe, that discovery was impossible. His dreadful secret had of late become intolerable. He was haunted by an invisible Presence. That Presence sat with him at table, followed him in his walks stood behind him in the mansion, and watched by his side. He never saw it; but he felt that it was always there. Sometimes he raves of a shadow on the walls of this mansion. I have now told you all that there is at present to tell.” When a community looks only for evidence of guilt and ignores or suppresses all contradictory evidence, the result is a witch hunt. Witch hunts are often used to conceal more heinous crimes. And when a witch hunt occurs, which is the very opposite of what was going on in the case of the murdered boy, the community feels itself so beset by evil that it is no longer capable of perceiving the good. The primary causes of witch hunts are clear. It is usually due to corruption, an outbreak of epidemic hysteria which usually ordinates in experiments with the occult. And the hysterical hallucinations of the afflicted persons are confirmed by some concrete evidence of actual witchcraft and by many confessions, the majority of them hysterical. A number of other explanations have been offered, but most of them are more or less unconvincing. It has been argued that the outbreak is usually due to some new religion. Typically a kind of insanity resulting from sexual repression or denying one’s true sexual nature. #RandolphHarris 14 of 14
Winchester Mystery House
It’s a beautiful day for a stroll through the gardens. Today, Winchester Mystery House marks 99 years since our lady of mystery, Sarah Winchester passed away peacefully in her bedroom of Llanda Villa. We mark her passing with the ringing of the bell 13 times as is our tradition. Thank you Sarah for creating this iconic home that we continue to share with guests from around the world.
🎟️ Link in bio.
A 160-room mansion built to appease the spirits who died at the hands of the Winchester Rifle 👻
🗝 winchestermysteryhouse.com
In a Nightmare of Supernatural Terror—Afraid to Move Hand or Foot II!
Immediately after I sat down…and did see a black thing jump into the window. And it came and stood just before my face. The body of it looked like a monkey, only the feet were like a cock’s feet with claws, and the face somewhat more like a man’s than a monkey’s. And I being greatly affrighted, not being able to speak or help myself by reason of fear, I suppose, so the thing spoke to me and said, “I am a messenger sent to you. For I understand you are troubled in mind, and if you will be ruled by me you shall want for nothing in this World.” I would have cried out—would have shrieked, if every never had not been paralyzed. I could not doubt the evidence of my sense—if I could have done so the cold, unearthy horror which sicked my very soul would have borne its undeniable testimony that I had behold the impersonation of the hidden curse that rested on this dwelling. I stood there rigid and immovable, as if that blighting Medusa-glance had indeed changed me into stone. It may have been but a very few minutes—it seemed to me a cycle of painful ages, when the light of a brightly burning lamp shone before me, and I heard the cheerful sounds of the new nurse’s voice in my ears: “Come along, cook. Bless your heart, my dear! you need not be nervous; there is no occasion. Mrs. Winchester, ma’am, are you not well, ma’am? “No,” I said faintly, staggering to the woman’s outstretched hands. “Not down there—upstairs to the children.” She turned as I bade her, and supported me up the stairs and into the nursery, the cook following close at my skirts, muttering fervent prayers and chants. #RandolphHarris 1 of 13
The sight of the peacefully sleeping little ones did far more to restore me than all the essences and chafing and unlacing which the two women busily administered. I had got suddenly ill when coming upstairs was the explanation I gave, which the cook, plainly perceived, most thoroughly doubted, at least without the cause she suspected being assigned, which, even in the midst of my terror-stricken condition, I refrained from giving, I did not speak to the nurse either of what had happened, but I felt that she knew as well as if she had been by my ide all the time. However, when William returned I told him. Distressed and alarmed on my account though he was, yet he did not, as before, refuse credence to my story. “We must leave the house, William. I should die here very soon,” I said. “Yes, Sarah; of course we must leave if you have anything to distress or terrify you in his manner, though it does seem absurd to be driven out of one’s house and home by a thing of this kind. Someone’s practical joke, or a trick prompted by malice against the owner of the property in order to lessen its value. I have heard of such things often.” “William, it is nothing of the kind,” I said earnestly; “you know it is not.” “No, I do not,” said William shortly and grimly, as he opened his case of revolvers, “and I wish I did.” The night passed away quietly, to our ears at least; but next morning when William had concluded the usual morning prayers, instead of the usual move of the servants, they remained clustered at the door, Jansen with an exceedingly elongated visage standing slightly in advance of the group as a spokesman. #RandolphHarris 2 of 13
“Please, sir and ma’am, we cannot tell you what to do.” “Why, go and do your work,” retorted William, with a nervous tug at his moustache and an uneasy glance at me. Jansen shook his head slowly. “It cannot be done, sir—cannot be done, ma’am. Why, no living Christian, not to speak of humble, but respectable servants,” said Jansen with a flourish, quite unconscious of the nice distinction he had made, “could stand it any longer.” “What is the matter, pray?” said my husband. “Ghosts, sir—spirits—unclean spirits,” said Charles, in an awestruck whisper which was re-echoed in the cook’s “Lor” “a” mercy!” as she dodged back from the doorway with the housemaid holding fast to one of her ample sleeves, and the lady’s maid holding fast to the other. The New nurse, quietly dandling the baby in her arms, was alone unmoved. “What stories have you been listening to now?” said their master, what a slight laugh and a frown. “No stories, sir; but what we have seen with our eyes and understanded with our ears, and—and—comprehended with our hearts,” said Jansen, with an unsuccessful attempt at quoting Scripture. “What was it as walked the floors last night between one and two, sir? What was it as talked and shrieked and run and raced? What was it as frightened the mistress on the stairs last evening?” And the whole posse of them turned to me, triumphantly awaiting my testimony. I was feeling very ill, and looking so, I daresay, having struggled downstairs in order to prevent the servants having any additional confirmation of their surmises. “That is no affair of yours,” said William gravely; “your mistress is in delicate health, and was feeling unwell all day.” #RandolphHarris 3 of 13
“Will you allow me to speak, please, sir?” said the nurse, and, as her maser nodded assent, she turned to the frightened group with a pleasant smile. “You have no cause to be afraid, cook, or Mr. Jensen, or any of you,” said she, addressing the most important functionary first—“not in the least. I am only a servant like the rest, and here a shorter time than any one; but I think you are very foolish to unsettle yourself in a good situation and frighten yourselves. You need not think they will harm you. Fear God and do your duty, and you need not mind wandering, poor, lonely souls—-” “Lor” “a” mercy! ‘ow you talk, Mrs. Lewis!” said the coo indignantly. “I have seen them more times than one—many and many a time, Mrs. Cook; and they never harmed a hair of my head,” said the nurse, “nor they will ever harm your.” “Well, then,” said the cook, packing into the hall, followed by her satellites, “not to be made Cleopatra, nor the Virgin Mary neither, would I stay to be frighted out of my seven senses, and made into a lunatic creature like poor Linda was!” “Please to make better omelettes for luncheon, cook, than you did yesterday,” said William calmly, though he looked pale and angry enough, “and leave me to deal with the ghost—I will settle accounts with them!” The nurse turned quickly and looked earnestly at him: “I would not say that, sir—God forbid,” said she in an undertone, and the next moment was singing softly and blithely as she carried the children away to their morning bath. William and I looked at each other in silence. “I wish we have never come into this house, dear,” I said. “I wish from my heart that we never had, Sarah,” he responded; “but we must manage to stay the season out, at all events. It would be too absurd to run away like frightened hares, not to speak of the expense and trouble we have gone through expanding the mansion to four floors with a nine-story tower.” #RandolphHarris 4 of 13
“We can may get it taken off our hands with a substantial loss, perhaps,” I suggested. “See the house-agent, William.” “I have seen him, but we have one of the largest, and most expansive estates in the country. No one can afford it,” he replied. “He deeply regretted that we should have any occasion to find fault, especially after our huge investment in expanding the estate, and it is not even completed yet. The agent also said he was happy to do anything in the way of clearing up this little mystery, et cetera. Of course he was laughing at me in his sleeve.” Again, as after our previous alarms, says passed on and lengthened into weeks in undisturbed quietude. William had a good many business matters to arrange; the children looked as rosy and healthy as in their country home, from their constant walking and playing in the airy, pleasant parks. My own health was not every good; and Dr. Winchester, William’s cousin, was kindest and wisest of grave, gentlemanly doctors; so, all thing considered, we stay at the Winchester mansion we have build into a 600 room Queen Anne Victorian mansion from an 18-room farmhouse. Only on my husband’s account, I wished for any change. Something seemed to affect his health strangely, although he never complained of anything beyond the usual lassitude and want of a tone which a gay Santa Clara season might be expected to bequeath him. He was sleepless, frequently depressed, nervous, and irritable; and still he vehemently declared he was quite well, and seemed almost annoyed when I urged him to put his business aside for the present and leave town. #RandolphHarris 5 of 13
He had been induced to enter into a large “Highly Finished Arms” promotion and sales of deluxe Winchesters, and had, besides, some heavy money matters to arrange, connected with his sister’s marriage settlements, which he expected would be required about Christmas. So, all things considered, he had some cause for feeling as haggard as he did. “It will be as well for William to leave Santa Clara, Mrs. Winchester, as soon as he can, said his cousin Dr. Winchester at the close of one of his pleasant “run-in” visits. “His nerves are shaky. We men get nervous nearly as often as the ladies, though we do not confess to the fact quite so openly. A little unstrung, you know—nothing more. A few weeks in sea or mountain air will quite brace him up again.” And as I dressed for dinner that evening, I determined that if wifely entreaties, and arguments, and authority, should not fail for the first time in our wedded life, William should have the sea or mountain air without another week’s delay; and, of course I determined, likewise, to back up entreaties, arguments, and authority with the prettiest dress I could put on. I cannot tell why wives, and young wives too, will neglect their personal appearance when “only one’s husband” is present. It is unpolitic, unbecoming, and unloving; and men and husbands do not like neglect—direct or implied, be sure of that, ladies—young, middle-aged, or old. “Your brown silk, ma’am?—it is rather cold this evening for that cream-coloured grenadine,” said Agnus, rustling at my wardrobe. “No, Agnus, I will not have that brown, I am tired of it,” I replied. If so happened that it was this dress which I had worn on the three occasions when I had been terrified by the strange occurrences in this house; and I had acquired a superstition aversion for this particular robe. #RandolphHarris 6 of 13
So Agnus arrayed me in a particularly charming demi-toilette of pale yellow silk grenadine and white lace; and I felt myself to be a most amiable and affectionate little wife, as I went downstairs to await William’s return for dinner. I never sat in my pretty dressing-room alone. Truth to tell, I disliked the apartment secretly and intensely, and only for fear of troubling and displeasing George I would have shut it up from the first evening I spent in it. He was late for dinner, and I was quite shocked to see how thin and ill he looked by the gas-light; and, as soon as it was concluded, and that by the assistance of excellent coffee and a vast amount of petting, I had coaxed him into his usual smiles and good-humour, I began my petition—that he would leave town for his own sake. He listened to me in silence, and then said, “Very well, Sarah, we will go as soon as we can board up the east wing; I suppose you may come back here. “Oh! yes, I think so,” I replied, “maybe someone attracted these bad spirits and we need to let things cool off again. We shall spend Winter in New Haven, in our dear old house, William.” “Very well,” he said wearily, “though you must know, Sarah, I am not going on account of this one thing. I would hardly quit my house, indeed, because of ghostly or bodily sights or sounds.” He started up from the couch on which he was lying, flushed and excited as he always was when the subject was mentioned, his eyes gleaming as brightly as the flashing scabbard which hung on the wall before him. #RandolphHarris 7 of 13
“Certainly not, dearest,” I said soothingly. “I wish I could solve the mystery,” he pursued, more excitedly; “I would make somebody suffer for it! One’s peace destroyed, and people terrified, and servants driven away, as if one was living in the dark ages, with some cursed necromancer next door!” “Oh! well, it is some time ago now, and the servants have got over their fright. Pray, do not distress yourself about it, dear William.” “Ah, well—you do not—never mind,” he muttered; “but I mean to have tangible evidence before ever I leave this house—I have sworn it!” He was not easily roused, and I felt both surprise and alar to see him so now, and for so inadequate a cause. I had almost fancied he had forgotten the matter, as we, by tacit consent, never alluded to it. “Do not you allow yourself to be alarmed, Sarah, that is all I care about,” he went on, pacing the floor. “I have been half mad with anxiety on your account, for fear those idiotic servants should manage to startle you to death some dark evening-cowards, every one of them; but I mean to have someone to stay here and sit up—-” He paused suddenly, and listened, then stepped noiselessly to the door, and opening it, listened again intently. “William,” I whispered. He took no heed of me; but rapidly unlocking a cabinet drawer, he drew out a thirty-shooter, loaded and capped, and with his finger on the trigger stole softly to the door and into the hall, whither I followed him. Everything was silent, and the hall and stairs lamps were burning clear and high. I could hear the throbbing of my own heart as I stood there watching. #RandolphHarris 8 of 13
Suddenly we both heard heavy rapid footsteps, seemingly overhead; and then confused noises, as of struggling, and quarrelling, and sobbing, mingled in a swelling clamour which sounded now near, deafeningly near, and then far, far away; now overhead, now beside us, now beneath, undistinguishable, indescribable, and unearthly. Then the rushing footsteps came nearer and nearer. And, clenching his teeth, while his face grew rigid and white in desperate resolve, William sprang up the staircase with a bound like a tiger. It has all passed in less than half the time I have taken to relate it, and while I yet stood breathless and with straining eyes, William had nearly reached the last step when I saw him stagger backwards, the thirty-shooter raised in his hand. There was a struggle, a rushing, swooping sound, two shots fired in rapid succession, a floating cloud of white smoke, through which I saw the streaming yellow hair and steel-blue eyes flash downward, and then a shriek rang out—the dreadful cry of a man in mortal terror—a crashing fall, beneath which the house trembled to its foundations, and I saw my husband’s body stretched before the conservatory door, whither he had toppled backwards—whether dead or dying I knew not. I remember dimly hearing my own voice in agonized screams, and the terror-stricken servants hurrying from the kitchens below. I remember the kind of face of my new nurse as she bravely rushed down and dispatched someone for the doctor, and made others help her to carry the senseless figure, with blood slowly dripping from the parted lips and staining the snowy linen shirt-front in great gouts and splashes, up to the chamber, where they laid him on his bed, and I, a wretched frenzied woman, knelt beside him with the sole, ceaseless prayer that brain or lips could form—“God help me!” #RandolphHarris 9 of 13
I remember the physician’s arrival, and the grave face and low clear voice of Dr. Winchester, as he made his enquiries; and then another physician summoned, and the low frightened voices, and peering frightened faces, and the lighted candles guttering away in currents of air form opening and shutting doors, and the long hours of night, and the cold grey dawning, the heart-rendering suspense, and speechless, tearless, wordless agony, and the sun rose, gloriously cloudless, smiling in radiance, as if there was not the shadow of death over the weary World beneath his rays, and I hear the verdict—“there was scarcely a hope.” However, God was merciful to me and to him, and my darling did not die. With a fevered brain and a shattered limb he lay there for weeks—lay there with the dark portals half opened to receive him; lay there, when I could no longer watch beside him, but lay prostrate and suffering in another apartment, tended by kind relatives and friends; but at length, when the mellow sunshine, and the crisp clear air of the soft shadowy October days stole into the sick room. William was able to be dressed and sit up for an hour or two amongst the pillows of his easy-chair by the window. And there he was, longing to be gone away from London. “Sarah, darling, weak or strong I must go,” he said in his trembling uncertain voice, and with a restless longing in his faded eyes, “I shall never get better in this house.” And so a few days afterwards, accompanied by the doctor and two nurses, we went down in a pleasant swift railroad journey to our dear, beautiful, peaceful home in New Haven. #RandolphHarris 10 of 13
William never spoke of that night of horror but once, when Dr. Winchester told of the story connected with the original 18-room farmhouse we purchased, which morphed into a labyrinth of endless room, twisting and winding tunnels, and catacombs. Thirty years before we bought the farmhouse, the man who was both proprietor and tenant of the estate died, leaving his two daughters all he possessed. He had been a bad man, led a bad wild life, and died in a fit brough on by drunkenness; and these two daughters, grown to womanhood, inherited with his ill-gotten fold his evil nature. They were only half-sisters, and were believed to have been illegitimate also. The elder, a tall, masculine, strongly built woman, with masses of coarse fair hair, and bright, glitter blue eyes; and the younger, a plump, dark-haired rather pretty girl, but as treacherous, vain, and bold, as her elder sister was fierce, passionate, and cruel. They lived in this house, with only their servants, for several years after their father’s death, a life of quarrelling and bickering, jealousy, witchcraft, and heart-burnings, on various accounts. The elder strobe to tyrannize over the younger, who repaid it by deceit and crafty selfishness and black magic. At length a lover came, who the elder sister favoured; whom she loved as fiercely and rashly as such wild untamed natures do; and by fiercely and rashly as such wild untamed natures do; and by falsehood and deep-laid treachery the younger sister cast a love spell on the man and won his fickle fancy from the great, harsh-featured, haughty, passionate elder one. The elder woman soon perceived it, and there were dreadful scenes between the two sisters, when the younger taunted the elder, and the elder cursed the younger. #RandolphHarris 11 of 13
However, as fate would have it, one night and at length—there had been a fiercer encounter of words than usual, and the dark-haired girl maddened her sister by insults, and the sudden information that she intended leaving the house in the morning, to stay with a relative until her marriage, which was to take place in one week from that time—the wronged woman, demon-possessed from that moment, waited in her dressing-room, until her sister entered, and then she sprang on her and screaming and struggling, they both wrested until they reached the staircase, where the younger sister, escaping for an instant, rushed wildly down, followed by her murderess, who overpowered her in spite of her frantic struggles, and with her strong, cruel, bony hands deliberately strangled her, until she lay a disfigured palpitating corpse at her feet. She had several scars that seemed as if they had been long there, and they were done by witchcraft. The officers of justice arrested the murderess a few hours afterwards. The jailers put irons on her legs (having received such a command). [It was the curious theory that chaining the prisoner would prevent her specter from afflicting anyone.] The weight of them was about eight pounds. These irons and her other afflictions soon brought her into convulsion fits so they thought she would die that night. She died by poison self-administered on the second day of her imprisonment. What is now known as the Winchester Mansion had been shut up and silent for many a year afterwards, and when, at length, and when, at length, an enterprising landlord put it in habitable order, and found tenants for it again, he only found them to lose them. #RandolphHarris 12 of 13
Year after year passes away, its evil fame darkening with its massive masonry, for none could be found to sanctify with the sacred name and pleasures of home that dwelling blighted by an abiding curse. “I never told you, Sarah,” William said, “although I told my cousin Dr. Winchester, that from the first evening I led a haunted life in that beautiful house, and the more I struggled to disbelieve the evidence of my senses, and to keep the knowledge from you, the more unbearable it became, until I felt myself going mad. I knew I was haunted, but will that last night I had never witnessed what I dreaded day and night to see. And then, Sarah, when I fired, and I saw the devilish murderess face, with its demon eyes blazing on me, and the tall unearthly figure hurrying down to meet me, dragging the other struggling, writhing figure, with her long sinewy fingers seemingly pressed around the convulsed face, then I knew it was all over with me. If there had been a flaming furnace beside me I think I should have leaped into it to escape that awful sight.” That was over a century ago. Sarah eventually returned to the Winchester all along and made several changes to it over 38 years. It is now a 4 story, 160-room mansion, with over 25,500 square feet, sitting on four acres. It was once up to 600 rooms, likely 95,625 square with as many as 737 acres. The strange thing about witchcraft and legends is many of them are based in truth, and sometimes there are unexplainable continuity errors. Take for example An hysterical fit, from J.M. Charcot, Lectures on the Disease of the Nervous System (London, 1877). Look at the extruded tongue, reported during the seventeenth century in witchcraft cases at Gordon, Boston, Salem, and elsewhere. Notice also the legs crossed in spasm; at one time Mary Warren’s legs could not be uncrossed without breaking them. #RandolphHarris 13 of 13
Winchester Mystery House
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In a Nightmare of Supernatural Terror–Afraid to Move Hand or Foot!
The warning came too late to change that course of event. There has been time when many admitted some doubt of the validity of spectral evidence. This story I will tell to you now, as I have promised to do so, and yet I can hardly make you believe in the reluctance with which I even allow my thoughts go back to the times which I spent in my house—my first town residence after I was married. I loved so much my lovely mansion, I suppose. The wide emerald green lawns and quiet, glassy ponds and streams, bordered by luscious, blooming rhododendrons; of silent, mossy avenues, glorious with the flickering light that stole through pale green beech leaves; of rose gardens with grassy paths, jewel-sprinkled with shell-like petals of white, crimson, pink, and cream-like hues; of old-fashioned rooms with narrow, mullioned windows embowered in scarlet japonica and fragrant, starry jessamine. I supposed I possessed a deep love of them all. This was the first house we were sown in the Santa Clara, California. It was certainly a very fine house, both as o exterior and interior appearances. Large, massively built, agreeably darkened in woodwork and masonry by Time’s shading brush, in excellent repair, and the locality all that could be desire. Wide, lofty apartments, staircases, and landings; a handsome dining-room panelled in velvety dark-green “flock” and gold; a handsome drawing-room panelled in pale cream-colour and gold; airy bed-chambers and dressing-rooms—one, in particular, attached to what seemed the principal bedroom, with a vast mirror occupying the whole side of the apartment which was opposite to the door leading into the bed-chamber. #RandolphHarris 1 of 16
“What a nice dressing-room! This house is perfect and expansion will be a joy.” I exclaimed, having a weakness, I confess, for large, handsome mirrors in the rooms I inhabit—William says impertinent things about my “wishing to see as much of myself as I can.” I know I am not all, in fact, rather what he should call petite, if he wished to be polite—but that is not my reason for liking a large mirror. As I spoke the words I looked about mechanically for the house—agent’s clerk who had been sent with us—a nervous-looking little man, with a pasty complexion, and orange-colored hair meekly plastered down at each side of his face. He had been untiringly trotting up and down stairs, unlocking doors, answering questions, and keeping up a harmless soliloquy of chatter about the beauties and excellencies of the “mansiond,” as he called it, ever since he entered its doors, but now he was nowhere to be seen. “What door have you open?” I said, speaking aloud to him, for suddenly a cold blast of air swept up the wide staircase and into the dressing-room door, but not entering. His face looked wither than before, and in his accents there was an almost terrified earnestness that puzzled me. The shadows of the afternoon seemed to deepen. The aspect of the suites of rooms and long silent corridors, with their doors ajar, as if unseen inhabitants were stealthily crouching behind them, drearily impressed me with a sense of dull desolation; and it was with a sudden sensation of childish fear and loneliness that I rushed after my husband, and took his arm as he hastily descended the stairs. #RandolphHarris 2 of 16
“A spacious, handsome staircase, William” I remarked. “Yes; and a spacious, handsome price, you may be sure,” William responded. However, in this particular, he was exceedingly, and I agreeably, astonished. To our surprise, the house was rather affordable. William figured there must be a screw loose somewhere. He mentioned his opinion to the clerk in a more business-like expression, to the effect that the price seemed low, and that he trusted there was no—peculiar—eh? “Drains, gas, water, all right, sir—right as—a—a trivet, sir. However, the 18-room farmhouse is incomplete,” sad the clerk, looking over his shoulder oddly, as he spoke. “But chimneys, ventilators, roof, tiles—everything in the perfect repair and order, sir!” However, wonderful or not, the house seemed all that we could desire; the lowness of the price made it a decided bargain. I planned to expand the house, and make it even more lofty, and handsome; and in three weeks, huge furniture vanes, and a clever upholstered, had carpeted, curtained, and furnished our town mansion from garret to basement, and William and I, our two babies, a nurse, two maids, a cook, and a butler, were installed in what would become the Winchester Mansion. Dear William had been very generous—nay, almost extravagant—in his provisions for the comfort and pleasure of his wife and children; and my dressing-room and their nursery were fitted up so luxuriously and tastefully, that my feeling at the first inspection of them was that of self-gratulation on being such a fortunate woman, in having such a home, such babies, and such a husband. #RandolphHarris 3 of 16
I arrayed myself for dinner that evening quite gleefully; standing before my splendid mirror amid the bule drapery, cushions, and couches of my charming dressing-room. I put on William’s favourite dress—a bronze-brown lustrous silk, with sparkling gold ornaments: he invariably kissed me when he saw it on, stroked my brown curls and face, and called me “Mrs. Winchester”—and was still standing before the glass smiling at myself, like the happy, foolish little woman I was, when I perceived to my discomfiture that William was standing in the doorway watching my doings, and grinning very visibly under his moustache. “Do not mind me, my dear, I beg! do not me the least. However, when you have done admiring Mrs. Winchester, perhaps you will be kind enough to let me know”—then, suddenly changing his tone, he exclaimed, “Have you the window open, Sarah, this chilly evening?” “No William,” I replied, glancing at it to make sure of the fact. “Change in the weather, then,” my husband said. “Come, Sarah, there is no use in making yourself any prettier!” He had just uttered the last words when I saw him spring aside suddenly, and look around. “What is the matter?” I said—“William, dear, what is the matter?” For his face had grown quite white, and with his back against the wall, he was staring about him wildly. “I do not know—Sarah—something”—he explained in a low tone; then recovering himself, with a laugh, he cried—“I struck myself against the door, I suppose! I declare one would think I was composed of old china, or wax, or sugar candy, I hurt and stunned me so! Come, dearest.” #RandolphHarris 4 of 16
He had not struck himself, for I had been watching him going out on the lobby, and I felt an uneasy conviction that he knew he had not done so, and only spoke as he did in order to deceive or satisfy me. why? Why did I think so? As I live I cannot tell why I thought so then—I know now. We had the “babies”—as William always called them—in the dessert, after the time-honoured fashion of making olives as well as olive branches of them; and then, when the lite ones had gone to bed, we sat side by side in he summer twilight, I lazily fanning myself, William bending over me the lover-husband he was. Then came the lamps, and I played for him, and we sang duet and spent as happy an evening in our new home as a married pair could wish to spend. I cannot tell why I felt so disinclined to go upstairs that night, tired as I was, too—for we had had a long journey up from the country. However as eleven struck, I routed William out of the easy chair where he had been indulging in a preliminary doze, and, ringing for my maid went up to my dressing-room. I like gas in my dressing-room, though not in my bedroom, and the globes at either side the great mirror were a blaze of light. As I entered I caught the reflection of a woman’s figure in the depths of the glass, no my maid’s. The glimpse I had was of a tall woman, strongly built, and broad-shouldered, a quantity of light hair hanging in a disordered manner on her neck, and the profile of a white, hard, masculine face, with the keen glittering eye turned watchfully towards the door. #RandolphHarris 5 of 16
This may seem an elaborately detailed description for the momentary glance I obtained, but it is well known with what lightning rapidity the organs of vision will, in moments of terror and amazement, convey impressions to the startled brain, impression accurate and indelible. I had taken but one step on entering, the next step the figure had vanished, and the mirror reflected by my own terrified face, and the homely, cheerful one of my maid Agnus, as she stooped over the dressing-table opening a jewel case. I dropped down on the nearest chair, and, in answer to the girl’s alarmed questions, replied that I did not feel very well. I was sick and shuddering from head to foot. Suddenly it flashed across me that it was from a similar cause I had seen my husband’s face grow ghastly, and that strange, terrified look come into his eyes,–he, who had been a soldier and unflinchingly had fought amidst the dead and dying on bloody Indian battlefields, almost boy as he was then! What was it? What had he seen? Nonsense! was I going to believe I had seen a ghost? Nonsense, a thousand times over! I heard my husband’s cheery voice as he ascended the stairs, and, quite angry with myself for giving way to such folly, I threw on my dressing gown, and, snatching up the brush from Agnus, I pulled my hair down and brushed it quite savagely, until my head ached well—for punishment. If the bright morning light disperses sweet illusions formed overnight, as people say it does, it disperses gloomy ones as well. With the warmth and brightness of the unclouded summer’s sun streaming in through softly coloured blinds, brining out the velvety green of soft new carpets and lounges, the rainbow tints of glittering chandeliers, vases, and ornaments, the gilding on bright fresh wallpaper and the spotless folds of snowy window drapery, it was impossible for an instant to connect anything dark or dismal with the Winchester House. #RandolphHarris 6 of 16
Why, my dressing-room even where I had been so silly last evening, was like a woodland bower, with its deep purple-blue hangings and rose painted china flower-vases filled with bouquets from our country home. Clustering fragrant honeysuckle half-opened moss roses, drooping emerald-green fern, and masses of delicious jessamine dropping its over-blown blossoms on the white toilet cover, lace-flounced and tied with blue ribbons, as Agnus delighted to have it. “I think this such a charming room and such a charming house altogether, William!” I said; “and you have been such a dear, thoughtful old darling!” For I had perceived that the dear fellow had had his own half-length portrait hung over my writing-table. Quite a pleasant surprise for me, for I thought he intended it to be hung in the dining-room, and I delighted in having the dear pleasant brown eyes looking for a me when I was busy writing or sewing. “I am so glad you like everything, Sarah,” said he. “Why, William, do you not?” However, William had walked off whistling, and presently I heard uproarious baby-laughter, and baby-chatter, and thumping, trotting of small fat feet, as William put the tiny nursery into dire confusion by his morning game of romps with his son and heir, and red-cheeked baby-daughter. And it did seem as if I must have been dreaming or delirious, when this day and many a succeeding one passed away swiftly and pleasantly, without the slightest recurring event to remind me of my strange alarm on the night of our arrival. #RandolphHarris 7 of 16
We had been in the Winchester House about a fortnight, when one morning I received a visit from Mrs. Ellen Kenna. A very pretty, lady-like person she was, and as we had some common acquaintances we chattered away very freely and pleasantly for half-an-hour or so. As she rose to go she asked suddenly if we like the house. I replied in the affirmative rather warmly. She was opposite the light, and I saw an involuntary elevation of her eye-brows and compression of her lips that puzzled me. I fancied it was because I had spoken so enthusiastically. Yet her own manner was anything but languidly fashionable, being very cordial and decided. “Yes; it is a very nice house, roomy and well-built,” she said, after a moment’s pause; “I am so glad you like it—I live down the road in Oakland.” We took the carriage to have dinner at Bertha Hass’s mansion that for the following evening, and when we returned about three days later, in spite of a yawning remonstrate from William, I tipped off softly to have a peep at my darlings, before I went to bed. The nursey was a large, pleasant room at the end of the long corridor leading from our own apartments, and, gently turning the handle and gathering my rustling silk dress around me, I opened the door and went in. There was a night-lamp burning clearly, shining softly on the tiny cribs with the sweet flushed infant faces, the long golden-brown lashes lying in dimpled apple-bloom cheeks, the waxen hands and little rounded arms thrown above the tossed golden curls, and the Heavenly calm of the little sleeping forms and pure, peaceful breathing. #RandolphHarris 8 of 16
I wondered would any mother, no matter how cold and careless, have neglected doing what I did, as I bent over my treasures, and prayed God that His angels might keep watch over each cherub head on its little, soft, white pillow? I had looed at and kissed them, and turned to go, when I glanced toward the nurse’s bed. “Are you not well, Linda? What is the matter?” I said in an anxious whisper. She was a very respectable and trustworthy servant, as well as being, a kind, gentle creature with the little ones, and consequently highly valued by me, but her health was never very good, and she was subject to severe attacks of nervous headache and sleeplessness. She was sitting up in bed, her hands grasping the bedclothes, her face and lips ashy white, and her as big as saucers and staring wildly, as if they would start from their sockets. “Linda! Good Heavens! what is the matter?” I gasped. “Ma’am! Oh, ma’am—oh, mistress, I am dying!” We summoned a doctor and administered restoratives, and chafed the half-senseless girl’s damp, cold hands. I could imagine no cause for her sudden illness, and the others servants were very voluble in exclamations and laments. However, when the physician—a pale, kindly, grave-looking man arrived—after a moment’s examination, he demanded if she had been frightened? I replied in the negative, and was proceeding to describe to him the state in which I had found her, when I heard the housemaid and Agnus whispering energetically together. #RandolphHarris 9 of 16
The doctor was paying tribute to the dramatic affliction of the girl, when he said, “This strikes hard upon me, that you are at this very present charged with unfamiliar spirits. This is your bodily person they speak to. They say now they see these unfamiliar sprits some to your bodily person. Now what do you say to that?” Agnus said that she saw a specter leaving Linda’s body, as she was going into hideous convulsions. The fit was far too violent to be acting. This was terribly “real” and convincing. “What is it? Speak out at once my god girl!” said the doctor sternly to the housemaid; “you know something of this.” Both servants looked apprehensively at me and at William. “Speak up at once, Bethany; the girl’s life may depend on it! Tell the truth, my girl, and do not be afraid,” said her master kindly, but firmly. “I do not know nothing, sir—indeed, no ma’am, said Angus confusedly; “but—I think, ma’am—she seen the ghost, sir!” “That what!” cried William angrily. “She have, sir!” persisted Agnus eagerly, now that her confession was made. “We are all afraid, sir; but she has been worser nor the rest of us. And she says to me only this morning, ‘Agnus,’ she says, ‘if I see it, I will die!’” “What ghost, you fool?” cried William more angrily. “A pretty set you are!—great, grown men and women, afraid of some bogie story you have heard when you were gossiping with the servants on the balcony, I suppose!” “No, indeed, sir,” said Agnus; “I was not gossippin’, sir; but the parlour-maid over the way, sir Mrs. Kenna’s parlour-maid, ma’am—she told me that there was the Devil–” #RandolphHarris 10 of 16
“I thought so!” interrupted William. “You ought to be ashamed of yourselves not to have an ounce of brains among you.” “But, sir! Agnus burst out again, unheeding her master’s rather uncomplimentary phrenological verdict, “we did not mind, sir, though we was a bit frightened, until we see it, sir! The butler see it, and he ran, and cook ran.” “And you ran after them?” said William, with an indignant laugh. “I did, sir, for I saw it too—a big woman with fair hair all over her shoulders,” said Agnus, in an awestruck whisper to Harriet, who nodded her head. The doctor looked up, gravely and without a smile. The servants clustered together near the door, and muttered in undertones. William looked at me with a forced smile, which died away in an instant: “You are not so foolish as to credit any of this nonsense, Sarah?” he said. The servants all turned eagerly to hear their mistress’s opinion. I am afraid it was written in my pallid face. Was it true? Was it what I had seen? Could there be any reality in this, that here, in our pleasant, happy home, beneath the roof with out helpless little one, was a dreadful, unblessed presence—a shadowy horror; that that thing with the watchful, cruel eyes had not been a mere vision of imagination, the mere offspring of an active brain, and the unstrung nerves of an overtired frame? Is there conclusive proof that the person represented had been trafficking with the Devil? “Oh! they imagined something from the stories they heard, I dare say,” I faltered. #RandolphHarris 11 of 16
The butler shook his head solemnly: “I could swear to it, ma’am.” “And so could I ma’am!” chorused the cook and housemaid. “Hush!” said the doctor, as the nurse, roused, at length, from her stupor, lay quietly, with closed eyes, from which the tears streamed down her face. “Some one must sit up with her now,” said the doctor, looking around. “I will, sir, if my mistress allows me, said Bethany. Certainly, Bethany,” she said at once. He communicated his instructions to her and took his leave, promising to call in the morning. “Did you ever hear anything like this folly, doctor,” said William, as he shook hands with him at the head of the stairs. “Oh! yes, sir, I often hear such stories,” said the doctor quietly, as he bade us both goodnight.” William! what has frightened the girl? What has she seen?” I whispered, clasping my husband’s arm. “Sarah, go to bed, and do not be a goose,” was William’s reply. “William—I saw that thing—that woman, in my dressing-room,” I said, trembling, “and oh! think if the children were to see I and be frightened like poor Mary!” “Well, Sarah,” said my husband sharply, “if you are going to listen to ignorant servants’ superstitions and run out of your house, just as we are comfortably settled in it, on account of a foolish sickly woman fainting from hearing a ghost story—I say—it is a pity you ever came into it.” He spoke very decidedly and sternly, and yet I felt in my inmost heart that the uttered what he wished me to believe, not what he believed himself. I said no more, but went to my bedroom—not into the dreaded dressing-room—and lay awake listening and fevered with nervous anxiety until the next morning dawned. #RandolphHarris 12 of 16
The nurse was better and able to speak the next day, though extremely weak and unnerved yet. The doctor forbade much questioning, and all that could be got from her at intervals was that something had come up the staircase and ran through the corridor, that she heard struggling and scuffling outside, and then the nursey door opened and she saw a woman’s face peering in, the eyes gleaming wickedly at her, and it had the yellow hair that “belong to the ghost.” “The woman has had a bad fit of nightmare—that is all, Sarah,” said William, rattling his paper unconcernedly, when I repeated to him the story I had just heard from poor Linda’s trembling lips. It might be so; but why were they all agreed as to what they had seen? Why did they all speak of the tangled fair hair, and the wicked gleaming eyes? Was our house haunted? Was this the mysterious cause of the exceedingly moderate price of the house and land and the house-agent’s profuse civility? The nurse did not recover strength, and being worse than useless in her present weak, hysterical condition, I sent her down to her country home for change of air, and hired another temporarily in her place. The newcomer was a stout, small, cheerful woman of about forty. I liked her face the moment I saw her; for, besides its smiling, honest expression, there was a good deal of decided character in the large firm features. “You appear to be a sensible person,” I said, when giving her her first instructions in the nursey, “and I think I can rely on you. You know my nurse is leaving because of illness, and that illness was caused by her being frightened by—a ghost-story.” I paused; but the woman remained unmoved, listening to me in respectful silence. #RandolphHarris 13 of 16
“The servants downstairs have got some nonsense of the kind into their head,” I went on; “they will try to frighten you, too, and tell you they have seen—-” I could not go on. For my life I could not calmly giver her the description of that shadowy image of fear. “They cannot frighten me, ma’am, said my new nurse quietly. “I am not afraid of spirits.” I thought she spoke in jest, and smiled. “I am not indeed, ma’am,” she repeated. “I have lived where there were such things seen but they never harmed me.” “You do not mean to say you believe such nonsense?” said I, hypocritically trying to speak carelessly. “Oh yes, ma’am, I do! I could not disbelieve it,” said the nurse, opening her eyes with earnestness, “I know the story of this house, ma’am.” What story” I cried. The woman coloured and looked confused. “I beg your pardon, ma’am—I mean what people say is seen here.” “What do they say? Do not frighten me,” I said, and my voice quivered in spite of me; “I have heard nothing but what the servant said.” The nurse looked deeply concerned. “I am very stupid, ma’am; I beg your pardon for repeating such stores to you—I daresay it is only idle people’s gossip.” She went about her duties, and I went—not into my dressing-room—but down into the drawing-room, where I say by the window looking out until my husband returned. Two or three weeks more passed away. I lay down on my pet chintz-covered couch, near the window, to look at the sky and the starts. Dead silence—and the “ting, ting” of the French clock on the mantelpiece marked the half-hour after eight. #RandolphHarris 14 of 16
Dear me, how dark it was growing! this brooding storm I supposed, which had been making me feel so languid and restless. I wish it would come down and cool the air—not tonight, though. Dear me, how lonely it is. I wish William were home. Those women are talking very loudly—I wonder nurse would—here I got drowsy, and my eyes ached looking for the stars that had not come. In a few minutes I roused again, my maternal anxiety changing into indignation as I heard the women’s voices growing louder and shriller, and some doors opened and shut violently. What can nurse be thinking of? They will wake the children most certainly, and William was so long in falling asleep—quite fevers my own boy! I shall really reprover her very plainly. I never needed to do so before. What could she be thinking of? Dead silence again. Well, this was lonely; I was inclined to ring for lights, and turn on all the burners in the chandeliers by way of company. Then I remembered there were some wax matches in one of the drawers of a writing-tray just at hand, and thought I would light the gas myself instead of brining the servants down—yes—but I wanted company. It was so dark and dreary, and—and—I was afraid. Afraid to stir—afraid to look at the door! a numbing, chilling tide of icy fear ebbing through every vein—afraid to draw a breath—afraid to move hand or foot, in a nightmare of supernatural terror. At last, by a violent effort, I sprang at the bell-handle, and pulled it frantically, and as soon as I had done so, with a sudden revulsion of feeling, I felt thoroughly ashamed of my childish cowardice, although I could not have helped it, and it had overcome me as suddenly as unexpectedly. How William would have laughed at me! #RandolphHarris 15 of 16
There were those servants talking again, tramping about and banging the doors as before. Really, this was unbearable; cook must be in one of her fits of temper, and certainly had forgotten herself strangely. And, as the quarrelsome tones grew louder and louder—evidently in bitter recrimination, although I could not catch a word—my own anger rose proportionately, and, forgetting loneliness and darkness in my indignant anxiety lest my children should be waked by this most unseemly behaviour of the servants, I ran hastily out of the room and up the wide staircase. The dime light from the clouded evening sky, still further subdued by the gold and purple-stained glass of the conservatory door, streamed faintly down the steps from the first landing, and by it, just as I had ascended half way, I discovered the short, thick-sett figure of the nurse rushing down—of course, in answer to my ring, I supposed. Involuntarily I stepped aside to avoid coming in violent contact with her as she feld past. No, it was not the nurse; and the woman following her in headlong haste, sweeping by me so that the current of air from their floating dresses struck icily cold on my brow where the clammy dew of perspiration had started in great drops, was—was—-Merciful Heavens! What was that tall figure, with the coarse, disordered, yellow hair, the white face, and glittering, steel-blue eyes, that glinted fiendishly on me for one dreadful instant, and then vanished? Vanished as the pursed and pursuing figures had disappeared in the shadows of the wide, lofty hall, without sound of voice or footstep? #RandolphHarris 16 of 16
Winchester Mystery House
If you had a chance to explore areas never before seen within Sarah’s house, would you take it?
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A 160-room mansion built to appease the spirits who died at the hands of the Winchester Rifle 👻
Some People Feel they May Be Flying Apart–We Do Not Forgive Because it Benefits Us!
My turn at last, my Loquacious if Lofty Friend. “How multitudinous are Your sweetness, O Lord, which You have hoarded for those who fear you!” That was the shout of the Psalmist (31.19), and it is my shout too. However, what are You to those who love? And to those who serve You with their whole heart? You are the sweetness of contemplation—who can describe it?—that You bestow generously on those who love You. To this point, in the most generous way possible, You have shown me the sweetness of Your charity. How do I know? You have made me into something better than I was, what I am not, and when I have strayed far afield, You found me and led me back. Hence it is that I serve You now. What is more? You have laid down the one condition, that I should love You. No big deal! I do that already. Although not very well, as You are so fond of pointing out. O Fountain of Perpetual Love! What may I say about You? How can I forget You after You kept me on Your list of friends, even after I pined away and died the spiritual death. Your response to Your servant at that unhappy time was extravagant, an act of friendship, making my every hope a mercy, and my every merit a grace. “What can I give You in return for that grace?” I ask with the Psalmist (116.12). Not everyone has received it. Not everyone has been called to leave everything behind, renounce the World, enter the monastic life. At this point—and, before You say it, O Lord, I do have a point—may I ask a stupid question? What is so great about serving You? We are already under all obligation to serve You; yes, the whole of Humankind. So pardon me if I do not think it is such a great new idea. #RandolphHarris 1 of 18
What is really great, though—and this is an argument You seemed to have missed—is that You picked a pauper and a pooper like me for You monastery and put me in the company of Your beloved self-actualized. Now that is astounding! That is astonishing! Look at all this Earthly clutter of mine! It is Yours too, as the First Book of Chronicles has it (29.14), at least according to the terms of our present agreement, and I use bits and bobs of it to serve You. However, that is the wrong end to approach it from. You serve me more than I serve You. Just take a look at Heaven and Earth. You created them for the use of Humankind. They are right here in front of our eyes, and every day they do just what You have ordered them to do. And this is just the beginning. “You have ordered the Angels to minister to Humankind,” as the Psalmist has it (91.11). Transcending all of this transcendence is Your deigning to serve Humanity and promising to give Yourself to us. All those thousands of gifts You have given me, what can I give in return? I know. I will serve You all the days of my life! Better, I will serve You just one day of my life, but I will make it a day of perfect service! Ah, my Lord and Gracious Friend, “You are worth the perfect service, and all the honour and eternal praise that go with it,” as the twenty-four elders in Revelations sang to the Spirit on the throne (4.11). As for me, poor servant that I am, I have vowed to serve You with every fiber of my being, to praise You without ever stinting. That is my wish. That is my desire. And you know what I like best? Whenever I come undone, You kindly see to my mending. #RandolphHarris 2 of 18
Great honor? To serve You! Great glory? To condemn everything else because of You. Like me, those who on the spur of the moment enlisted in Your Most Holy Service have a great grace. That is to say, we who ditched every carnal delight now discover the most delightful consolation of the Holy Spirit. We who ignored the World’s broad highways and followed Your pointy sign down the narrow dirt road, as Matthew quoted You (7.14), are having a fairly pleasant journey. How sweet is the service of the Lord! Yes, my Lordly if sometimes Leery Friend, we like to think the monastery a great and happy place, and we hope You think the same. And yes, religious service has a lot to recommend it. As You say, it does indeed promote Freedom and Holiness. And it does render Humankind equal to Angels, satisfactory to God, unwelcome to Demons, and commendable to all faithful! It is a life one can learn to love and embrace for a lifetime. A service promising the Summum Bonum. With the Gaudium Perenne to boot! In the Church, we are frequently reminded about the importance forgiving one another. We are told that we are “required to forgive all humans,” reports Doctrine and Covenants 64.10. Forgiveness is our responsibility. However, when we teach our children the principle of repentance, more is involved than saying “I am sorry.” Repentance required that we change our lives and, if possible, make amends for our mistakes. This is where the principle of restitution comes in. Restitution has always been a part of the gospel plan. We read in the law of Moses that when one has sinned against another, “one shall even restore it in the principal, and shall add the fifth part more hereto,” reports Leviticus 6.5. #RandolphHarris 3 of 18
When we make a restitution for our sins, we show our Father in Heaven that we are willing to change our lives. As parents, we can d much to instill this important principle in our family. Restitution should be made for mistakes. If we run into the back of someone else’s car, it is called an “accident.” However, the law still expects us to pay for having the other car repaired. Restitution is just one part of repentance. Repentance really involves changing our hearts and our lives and accepting the atonement of Christ. Everyone needs to know that God loved them so much that “He gave his only begotten Son,” reports John 3.16. God did that so people could repent. He paid the wages for your sins. The wages of sin is death. It is also important to understand that restitution would be of little worth without the great sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. We are so tied to the foolish idea which regards body and mind as two wholly separate and different entities, that all too many regard it as undignified to practice physical exercises in order to influence the mind. The discoveries of mentalism show how foolish is such an attitude, how much we miss in outer helps to inner attainment. Whether or not someone else provides restitution to us when we have been hurt, we should still forgive. Two types of studies inform what we know about forgiveness and mental health: studies of people with forgiving personalities, and studies that teach people how to forgive. Some research examines the mental health of people who already have unforgiving or forgiving personalities. Some people seem to harbor grudges, and some practice forgiveness across a range of hurtful experiences. #RandolphHarris 4 of 18
Unforgiving people—whether college students in research studies or clients in therapy—feel more anxious, depressed, and inferior than forgiving people. But why? Does a forgiving personality result in better mental health? Does better mental health make it easier to forgive across situations and over time? Or does adherence to faith—or even the support of family and friends—promote both a forgiving personality style and better mental health? Although we do not yet know the answers to these questions, we do know something about the effects of forgiving in response to specific hurts. In separate universities, both Robert Enright and Everett Worthington Jr. have studied the effects of teaching forgiveness. Can people learn to forgive? It seems so—for adolescents and the elderly, men and women, survivors of incest and people with everyday hurts, and people in individual and group therapy. What are the mental-health benefits? Generally, forgiveness therapies increase clients’ willingness and ability to forgive. When clients complete forgiveness therapies, they feel less grief, depression, anxiety, and anger. They also feel more self-esteem, more hope, more-optimistic attitudes toward family members and other offenders, and more desire for reconciliation. Forgiveness therapies work better than control conditions without treatment. However, forgiveness therapies do not always surpass supportive discussion therapies (both treatments can benefit mental health). Even so, people who forgive more—regardless of the type of therapy—have lower depression and anxiety, and high self-esteem. If clients feel wounded by or vengeful toward an offender—forgives therapy can both help them forgive and improve their mental health. #RandolphHarris 5 of 18
Most physical health studies have focused primarily on the health consequences of being unforgiving. In type A personalities—highly competitive, ambitious, rushed, easily angered, and hostile—hostility is the dangerous part, ratcheting up the risk of dying early from heart disease. Why? For one, hostile people are more physically reactive when they perceive interpersonal offenses (and they might even be more likely to perceive offenses in the first place). When angered, hostile people experience an exaggerated release of stress hormones, a large cholesterol dump into the blood stream, and a suppressed immune response, to name a few. On top of that, hostile people typically smoke more, overeat, and drink more alcohol—all risky for heart health. As if that were not enough, hostile people often lack social support—they are not as much fun to be around!—placing them at risk for both mental and physical problems. If hostility—an unforgiving personality style—is physically dangerous, then reducing hostility should reduce coronary problems. Indeed, type A’s who learned to manage their anger and become more forgiving also improved their cardiac health. What are some other consequences of being unforgiving or forgiving? College students in one study remembered someone from real life who had hurt them. At different points in the experiment, they focused on four different reactions to his offender: they mentally rehashed the hurt and nursed a grudge (two unforgiving responses), and they focused on the humanity of the offender and tried to genuinely forgive him or her (two forgiving responses). #RandolphHarris 6 of 18
When the students focused on unforgiving responses, their blood pressure rates, heart rates, sweat levels, brow muscle tension, and negative feelings: all were significantly higher than when the students were forgiving. By contrast, forgiving responses induced calmer feelings and physical responses. It appears that harboring unforgiveness comes at an emotional and physiological cost. By contrast, cultivating forgiveness may cut these costs and even bring some benefits, at least in the short term. The jury is out on the long-terms health effects of forgiveness. Perhaps future research will trac people over time and document long-term health outcomes. Will forgiving and unforgiving responses have long term effects on health if they are sufficiently frequent, intense, and enduring? When physiological systems stay highly aroused, they can eventually lead to physical breakdown. If forgiveness clams that arousal, it could buffer health. The challenge we now face is to help people learn not only how to forgive in the short term, but how to make forgiving a way of life. When we consistently practice the virtue of forgiving, we may see the greatest mental and physical health benefits. As Christians, we care about forgiveness and might readily embrace the beneficial messages about forgiveness and health. However, does this promising research have any potential pitfalls? Let us look at three examples. Can research prove Christian claims? Scientific research on forgiveness—and other virtues—holds value for addressing some questions (such as who is more likely to forgive, and what effects forgiveness has on feelings and physiology). #RandolphHarris 7 of 18
However, the scientific method in incapable of testing the ultimate truth claims of Christianity. Although science can illuminate the relationships among forgiveness-related thoughts, feelings, and physiology, science cannot tell us whether we ought to forgive. And whereas science can assess whether certain people judge forgiveness to be a virtue (and whether this is related to their behaviour), science cannot determine whether forgiving is virtuous. Is good behavior always good for us? It seems reasonable that something that we believe is good would also be good for us. However, this is not necessarily so. Being faithful and doing what is good does not inevitably secure good mental and physical health. People may alienate us because our beliefs are countercultural. We may suffer scorn for our faithful labours. We may feel depressed as we work with the sick and sorrowing. Sometimes discipleship has a cost. Why forgive? Some Christians have come to think that the reason they should forgive and should not hold grudges is because forgiveness is healthier. The because in that sentence is problematic. As valuable as research data are, they simply cannot serve as our ultimate motivation. Scientific data describe the way things are and help us predict what will happen in the future. However, these predictions do not always hold up. What would happen if—in future research—we discovered that forgiveness was so difficult for some people that it caused stress, negative emotion, and physical problems? Would that mean that we should stop forgiving? What would Christians do? In the best case, Christians’ motivation to forgive would be unshaken. #RandolphHarris 8 of 18
We do not forgive because it benefits us. Those benefits may be a welcome by-product. However, our motivation to forgive is rooted in God’s call to forgive, our gratitude for God’s forgiveness of us, and our desire to imitate Christ—the one who perfectly modeled forgiveness and even now perfects our efforts to practice forgiveness. Many therapists believe that some people need to go to pieces, to become totally disorganized, in order to have a chance at better organization. I think this may be true as things stand at present. Our understanding of psychotherapy is not sufficiently developed for therapists to be able to help people disintegrate just in the right area and to the right extent, and in fifty-minute packages! Nor is enough known as yet about the circumstances in which the natural healing process (vis medicatrix naturae) will work best, and how we may encourage it. There is still much to learn. What is clear, however, is that some people feel that they may be falling apart, or even flying apart. An absolutely terrifying state of mind, an unbearable agony; yet this may have already happened in infancy: the unbearable has already happened. Yet is maybe that this is a thing that may need to happen to them again before they can get to an integrated personality-structure which feels better at a fundamental level. It is also clear that they need to be held somehow during that falling-apart time. It is surely almost obvious that being held by a hospital organization or a bed or drug. In practice, however, there is still a lot that psychotherapists need to learn. A little more is known about more controlled therapeutic regressions and relaxations of integration. #RandolphHarris 9 of 18
At certain times in therapy, we may be in touch with a baby part of ourselves, and its terrible experiences, while at an adult level, too, all is confusion, disintegration, lack of connectedness, lack of context or meaning. This horrible experience is nothing new. What is new is the experience of feeling like this in the presence of someone who can take all this without losing one’s hold. At first, the adult part of us cannot hold on, never having been able to since babyhood. However, the therapist holds it, is not swallowed up by it, does not deny it but continues to be in touch both with the disintegrated adult and the disintegrated baby parts. In due course, if things go well, the adult part of us co-operates with the therapist in holding the baby and, further along in time, the therapist’s help is no longer needed. Then, the adult is able to feel the baby’s disintegration without feeling overwhelmed by it—the disintegration is integrated as part of the personality: it is not the whole. It is this that helps people get better. The facilitating environment is there to enable the maturational processes to proceed: safety, recognition, opportune reality-presentation. What else? A facilitating environment is in the end not enough. People are needed. Persons. Personal relationships between two whole persons, because one of them is still a tenuous patchwork of disintegrated and suffering adult and baby bits, even then it is important that there is a person in the relationship who is adult and whole, and that is the therapist. Like a good parent, like a good friend, the therapist is there to maintain the consoling knowledge that there are still good things, and most basically, that the good relationship has survived. “You are still you, I am still I, we are still together and sharing.” #RandolphHarris 10 of 18
“You and I are both at risk of natural disaster but the relationship is surviving.” “You may be (I may be) more confused, more lost, more inept, more of a coward, more sadistic or dirtier than you wanted to believe, but we both know it now and the relationship is still there.” “Your parent(s) may have been more confused, lost, inept, cowardly, sadistic, or dirty than you wanted to believe, but we both know it now, and the relationship is still intact.” That is what holding is. It is not easy to achieve. If analysts concentrate on either the grandiose or the wretched part of the psyche, they waste their time. Both must be accepted, both held: when they are, then parts of the personality which were previously disowned will contribute strength and solidity to the whole. Less than two centuries ago most humans were working on the land, the sea, and the forests and mines. In the cities they worked in hand-operated workshops and the cities themselves were no so large; the countryside was close at hand. They worked hard and long, using the muscles of their bodies, and so did their wives. This involuntary exercise of the muscular system, this exposure to sunshine and fresh air, this limitation to fresh and unpreserved foods, kept most of them healthy and strong even if the lack of better housing and sanitation kept short the lives of some of them. Then came the industrial revolution, when the machine and the civilization it created changed their habits of living. Now they crowd into cities, enter sedentary occupations, sit in chairs for long hours, or stand at mechanical assembly lines. Their bodies become soft, flabby, and undeveloped. Their organs of digestion function imperfectly. #RandolphHarris 11 of 18
Yet such is their hypnotized condition that these people do not realize the harm which modern ways have done them; indeed, they usually pity their ancestors! However, those who do realize it and feel uneasy in their conscience about it, need to make a constructive effort to eliminate the deterioration and the atrophy which are the price paid for straying away from Nature. There is no better way to bring the body under control than the way used to bring the mind under control—to put in under a daily routine of exercise and to have a fixed time for their repeated practice. The best time naturally to do exercise is on rising from bed, but it may not be the most convenient time. If the body is a battery and needs regular recharging (through relaxation practices), it is also a structure and needs reconditioning (through indicated exercises). Cicero’s prescription to follow the daily period of exercise with a period of rest is an excellent one. It is possible with only twelve months of regular, daily work to build up a perfect physical control. The ordinary bodily exercises can soon become tiring to middle-aged people. Moreover they take twice or treble the time needed for the simple culture of the spine, which is the most concentrated form of exercise possible. It stretches the body to the limit. It may be too much to ask students who have reached middle or old age to try all these exercises in physical betterment or follow all these instructions in physical condition. However, what they may find impossible to perform or what they may be disinclined to practice, they can still make advantageous use in the following way. #RandolphHarris 12 of 18
Let them bring such teaching to the notice of younger persons, to children in their teens and those just beyond the threshold of adulthood—for it is far easier for these younger persons to do than for older ones. The effort required is much less, the habits not so much encrusted. The body is deliberately made to exercise itself in certain attitudes and gestures. Any gesture become an attitude when it is arrested. Care of the physical organism will require attention to physical exercise as well as physical relaxation and to deep and abdominal breathing. The disuse of some muscles and the misuse of others can only lead to bodily faults. Restore he first to use, correct the second. As the new 20th century opened, antiquated Victorian social patterns were further substantially modified by a Progressive Era emphasis on the housewife as a “domestic engineer.” This was consciously advocated by Progressives and middle-road feminists to elevate household activities to the realm of skilled domestic engineering in order to provide housewives both higher status and greater personal freedom. No longer could a middle-class woman know only how to manage servants; now she was a manager responsible for the “scientific management” of the home. This meant she had to know budgeting, sanitation, and the characteristics of foods (balanced meals); she had to be an informed consumer. This emphasis on domestic science was reflected in schools and colleges, which established departments of Home Economics. The land grant colleges which had first brought professional programs such as dentistry and engineering onto campuses, were also in the forefront in establishing programs of home economics for the application of domestic science. (Following World War II, the idea of scientific management was further extended by universities into the realm of personal relations with the proliferation of courses on Marriage and Family.) #RandolphHarris 13 of 18
All the concern with domestic management was designed to increase women’s freedom by making the home role more professional and less restrictive. Mary Pattison made this explicit in her influential Principles of Domestic Engineering, where she sought to make the home more efficient by standardizing household tasks into science (May Pattison, Principles of Domestic Engineering: or What, Why, and How of a Home, Trow Press, New York, 1915). Through the use of stopwatch and charts plus several thousand questionnaires that had been distributed to Ne Jersey housewives, the efficient ways to cook clean, and sew were detailed. The titles of some of the chapters give a sense of the scope of the work. Titles of chapters include, “An Auto-Operative House,” “The Business of Purchasing,” “The Regeneration of the Kitchen,” “Personal Freedom,” “Organization of the Family,” “The Cultural Value of Housework,” “The Organization of the Consumer,” and “Housework and Democracy.” The scientific management of the home was tied to progressive idealism. According to the book’s final paragraph, “the truly progressive home is akin to democracy’s method…Domestic engineering would encourage cooperation between men and women leading to personal freedom and personal independence.” The new progressive idealism shows Democracy as a Religion, where men and women guided by God, united, shall work for its issues. “He is in glory, Who whilst He rejoices in Himself, needs not further praise,” reports Moral xxxii, 7. To be in glory, however, is the same as to be blessed. Therefore, since we enjoy God in respect to our intellect, because “vision is the whole of reward,” as Augustine says (De Civ. Dei. xxii), it would seem that beatitude is said to be in God in respect of His intellect. #RandolphHarris 14 of 18
Beatitude is perfect good of an intellect operation, by which in some sense it grasps everything. When the beatitude of every intellectual nature consists in understanding. Now in God, to be and to understand are one and the same thing; differing only in the manner of our understanding them. Beatitude must therefore be assigned to God in respect of God in respect of His intellect; as also to the blessed, who are called blessed [beati] by reason of the assimilation to His beatitude. This argument proves that beatitude belongs to God; not that beatitude pertains essentially to Him under the aspect of His essence; but rather under the aspect of His intellect. Since beatitude is good, it is the object of the will; now the object is understood as prior to the act of power. Whence in our manner of understanding, divine beatitude precedes the act of will at rest in it. This cannot be other than the act of the intellect; and thus beatitude is to be found in an act of the intellect. With both the brief Glimpse and the lasting Fulfilment comes a strong feeling of release. This refers to release from all the various kinds of limitation and restriction which have hemmed and oppressed one heretofore. Like a prisoner emerging from a gloomy cell after many years of an invalid liberated from long confinement in a hospital bed, one will feel an overwhelming sense of relief as the glimpse deepens and all cares, all burdens, fade away. There is an air of effectiveness in the experience which accompanies the glimpse, a feeling that here is real power ready for use and easy to use, in the way that the Overself directs, of course. It is like the feeling of returning to a well-beloved home after long absence, a joy whose arisal is spontaneous and unavoidable. #RandolphHarris 15 of 18
When the glimpse is at its most, one hears within one the harmony of things like a joyous song. The stillness made one feel as religious and reverential as could be, yet one remained unpraying, even unthinking. The base, the mean, the unworthy, and the low seem alien and far from one: the noble, the high, the true, and the ideal seem to become one’s own very nature. From this rare contact one draws an unspeakable peace, a divine upliftment. Too many lives have a hard grey colour about them. The glimpse changes this, for an hour or a day, and puts a delicate pastel beauty in its place. All that is negative in one’s character fades away for the time of this glimpse, as if it had never existed. For one feels that there is pure harmony at the heart of things, within the Universe’s Mind, and that one has momentarily touched it. In these enchanted moments, all life takes on the shadowlike quality of a dream. The gulf between the impersonal calm of one’s present state and the egotistical emotion of one’s earlier one, is immense. The sudden Olympian elation which the glimpse gives, the unfamiliar feeling that it is like looking through a window on an entirely different and wholly glorious World of being, the inner knowing that this is reality—these things make it a benediction. When one is in that consciousness, there is nothing either in place or time which one wants for. For one’s mind is at peace. It is a strange paradox that in this experience although a human becomes infinitely humbler—for one has to be passive to surrender, if it is to happen at all—one finds at the same time an immense dignity within oneself. #RandolphHarris 16 of 18
In these glorious moments the awareness of evil in the World faces out; by contrast the continuity of original goodness stays unbroken. The sense of well-being which comes with a glimpse spreads into the body, lights up the mind, glows in the emotions. In its enfolding peace, one will lose one’s Earthly burdens for a time; by its brooding wisdom, one will comprehend the necessity of renunciation; through its mysterious spell, one will confer grace on suffering humans. As its beauty seeps into one and affects one’s entire feeling-nature, all one’s grievances against other humans, against life itself, dissolve. All regrets for the past, complaints about the present, and grumbles over the future, pass away. Even more, all contempt or hatred for other humans passes too. The glimpse brings a feeling of enchantment. It is the opening of a secret door. The effect is a magical release from burdens and a flooding by hope. So, friends, every day do something that will not compute. Love the Lord. Love the World. Work for nothing. Take all that you have and be humble. Love someone who does not deserve it (from afar). Denounce corruption and embrace the flag. Hope to live in that free republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Praise ignorance, for what humans have not encountered one has not destroyed. Ask the questions that have no answers. Invest in the millennium. Plant redwoods. Say that your main crop is the forest that you did not plant, that you will not live to harvest. Say that the leaves are harvested when they have rotted into the mold. Call that profit. Prophesy such returns. Put your faith in the two inches of humus that will build under the trees every thousand years. Listen to carrion—put your ear close, and hear the faint chattering of the songs that are to come. #RandolphHarris 17 of 18
Expect the end of the World. Laugh. Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful though you have considered all the facts. So long as the honourable do not go cheap for power, please honourable people more than others. Ask yourself: Will his satisfy an honourable person satisfied to a bear a child? Will this disturb the sleep of a woman near to giving birth? Go with your love to the fields. Let easy in the shade. Rest your head in her lap. Swear allegiance to what is nighest your thoughts. As soon as the general and the politicos can predict the motions of your mind, lose it. Leave it as a sign to mark the false trial, the way you did not go. Be like the fox who makes more tracks than necessary, some in the wrong direction. Practice resurrection. For the sake of Thy truth, Thy covenant, Thy greatness and glory; for the sake of Thy Torah, They majesty, Thy troth and Thy fame; for the sake of Thy mercy, Thy goodness, Thy unity, Thine honour, and Thy wisdom; for the sake of Thy sovereignty, Thine eternity, Thy mystic bond with us, Thy strength and Thy splendor; for the sake of Thy righteousness, Thy holiness, Thine abundant mercies, and Thy divine presence, do Thou save us; for the sake of Thy praise, do Thou save us, we beseech Thee. O Eternal, do Thou save us. Save Thou the World’s foundation-stone, the Temple, the house of Thy choice, the threshing-floor of Ornan, the Jebusite, from whom David bought the site of the Temple, the sacred shrine, even Mount Moriah, hill of revelation and abode of Thy majesty, where once David dwelt, godliest of Lebanon, lovely height, the joy of the whole Earth, perfection of beauty, lodging-place of righteousness. #RandolphHarris 18 of 18
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Randolph Harris II International Institute 