Many people do not know enough to be prudent in their career expectations and hobbies, therefore they attempt the impossible—and achieve it, generation after generation. This is primarily because their minds are fascinating, for it looks on old things and ideas with new eyes. When it comes to eternity, we go towards something that is not yet, and we come from something that is no more. We are what we are by what we came from. We have a beginning as we have an end. There was a time that was not our time. We hear of it from those who are more mature than we; we read about it in history books; we try to envision the unimaginable billions of years in which neither we nor anyone was who could tell us of them. It is hard for us to imagine our being-no-more. It is equally difficult to imagine our being-not-yet. However, we usually do not care about our not yet being, about the indefinite time before our birth in which we were not. We think: now we are; this is our time—and we do not want to lose it. We are not concerned about what occurred before our beginning. We ask about life after death, yet seldom do we ask about our being before birth. However, is it possible to do one without the other? The fourth gospel does not think so. When it speaks of the eternity of the Christ, it does not only point to his return, but also to his coming from eternity. “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.” #RandolphHarris 1 of 19

God comes from another dimension than that in which the past occurred. Those to whom he speaks misunderstand him because they think of the historical past. They believe that he makes himself hundreds of years old and they rightly take offense at this absurdity. Yet he does not say, “I was” before Abraham; but he says, “I am” before Abraham was. He speaks of his beginning out of eternity. And this is the beginning of everything that is—not the uncounted billions of years—but the eternal as the ultimate point in our past. The mystery of the past from which we come is that it is and is not in every moment of our lives. It is, insofar as we are what the past has made of us. In every cell of our body, in every trait of our face, in every movement of our soul, our past is the present. Few periods knew more about the continuous working of the past in the present than ours. We know about the influence of childhood experiences on our character. We know about the scars left by events in early years. We have rediscovered what the Greek tragedians and the Jewish prophets knew, that the past is present in us, both as a curse and as a blessing. For “past” always means both a curse and a blessing, not only for individuals, but also for nations and even continents. #RandolphHarris 2 of 19

History lives from the past, from its heritage. The glory of the European nations is their long, inexhaustibly rich tradition. However, the blessings of this tradition are mixed with curses resulting from early splits into separated nations whose bloody struggles have filled century after century and brought European again and again to the edge of self-destruction. Great are the blessings this nation has received in the course of its short history. However, from earliest days, elements have been at work that have been and will remain a curse for many years to come. I could refer, for instance, to racial consciousness, not only within the nation itself, but also in its dealings with races and nations outside its own boundaries. “The American way of life” is a blessing that comes from the past; but it is also a curse, threatening the future. Is there a way of getting rid of such curses that threaten the life of nations and continents, and, more and more, of humankind as a whole? Can we banish elements of our past into the past so that they lose their power over the present? In human’s individual life this is certainly possible. One has rightly said that the strength of a character is dependent on the amount of things that one has thrown into the past. #RandolphHarris 3 of 19

In spite of the power one’s past holds over one, a human can separate oneself from it, throw it out of the present into the past in which it is condemned to remain ineffective—at least for a time. It may return and conquer the present and destroy the person, but this is not necessarily so. We are not inescapably victims of our past. We can make the past remain nothing but the past. The act in which we do this has been called repentance. Genuine repentance is not the feelings of sorrow about wrong actions, but it is the act of the whole person in which one separates oneself from the elements of one’s being, discarding them into the past as something that no longer has any power over the present. Can a nation do the same thing? Can a nation or other social group have genuine repentance? Can it separate itself from curses of the past? On this possibility rests the hope of a nation. The history of Israel and the history of the church show that it is possible and they also show that it is rare and extremely painful. Nobody knows whether it will happen to his nation. However, we know that its future depends on the way it will deal with its past, and whether it can discard into the past elements which are a curse! In each human life a struggle is going on about the past. Blessings battle with curses. Often we do not recognize what are blessings and what are curses. #RandolphHarris 4 of 19

Today, in the light of the discover of our unconscious strivings, we are more inclined to see curses than blessings in our past. The remembrance of our parents, which in the Old Testament is so inseparably connected with their blessing, is now much more connected with the curse they have unconsciously and against their will brought upon us. Many of those who suffer under mental afflictions see their past, especially their childhood, only as the source of curses. We know how often this is true. However, we should not forget that we would not be able to live and to face the future, if there were not blessings that support us and which come from the same source as the curses. A pathetic struggle over their past is going on almost without interruption in many beings in our time. Because no medical healing can change the past, no medical therapy can holistically can solve this conflict. Only a blessing that is possessed above the conflict of blessing and curse can heal. It is the blessings that changes what seems to be unchangeable—the past. It cannot change the facts; what has happened has happened and remains so in all eternity! However, the meaning of the facts can be changed by the eternal, and the name of this change is the experience of “forgiveness.” If the meaning of the past is changed by forgiveness, its influence on the future is also changed. The character of curse is taken away from it. It becomes a blessing by the transforming power of forgiveness. #RandolphHarris 5 of 19

There are not always blessings and curses in the past. There is also emptiness in it. We remember experiences that, at the time, were seemingly filled with an abundant content. Now we remember them, and their abundance has vanished, their ecstasy is gone, their fullness has turned into a void. Pleasures, successes, vanities have this character. We do not feel them as curses; we do not feel them as blessings. They have been swallowed by the past. They did not contribute to the eternal. Let us ask ourselves how little in our lives escapes this judgment. How do we recognize a feeling rule? We do so by inspecting how we assess our feelings, how other people assess our emotional display, and by sanctions issuing from ourselves and from them. Different social groups probably have special ways in which they recognize feeling rules and give rule reminders, and the rules themselves probably vary from group to group. On the whole, I would guess that women and some religious people tend to cultivate the habit of suppressing their own feelings more than men. In general, our culture invites women, more than men, to focus on feeling rather than action; it typically invites particular religious denominations to have an inner dialogue with God, without benefit of church, sacrament, or confessions as an intermediary structure; and it invites those in middle-class occupations to manage feeling in service jobs. To extent that it does these things, the very ways in which we acknowledge feeling rules reflect where we stand on the social landscape. #RandolphHarris 6 of 19

Indeed, the amount of interest people have in feeling rules and emotion work may tend to follow these social lines. How do we recognize a rule reminder? We can experience it as a private mumbling to ourselves, the voice of a watchful chorus standing to the side of the main stage on which we act and feel. We may also believe that there should not be a feeling rule in a given instance. One father, for example, reported: “When Jeffery was little, and squalled interminably one morning—I felt like sending him back to be with no breakfast. I was horrified at my thoughts. However, I told myself, it is all right to feel the thoughts. It is just bad to act on them when they are not in accordance with proper behavior.” We also receive rule reminders from others who ask us to account for what we feel. A friend might ask, “Why do you feel depressed? You have just won the prize you have always wanted.” Such friends are generally silent when we feel as they expect us to, when events visibly explain our feeling. A call for account implies that emotional conventions are not in order and must be brought up to consciousness for repair—or, at least in the case of weak conventions, for a checkup. A wink or ironic tone of voice may change the spirit of a rule reminder. Such gestures add a meta-statement: “That is the feeling, all right, but we are disregarding it, are we not?” We are reminded of the rule by being asked to disregard it. #RandolphHarris 7 of 19

We also know feeling rules by the way others react to what they think we are feeling. These external reactions or “claims”—both as they are intended and as they are interpreted—vary in directness or strength. Some claims are both direct and strong: “You should be ashamed of yourself.” “When we agreed to an open marriage, you have no right to feel so jealous.” “Considering all I have done for you, you ought to be grateful.” Other claims may be presented in the guise of questions, as in “Are you not just thrilled about Jillian’s news?” Such a question may actually be meant and understood as a claim, a statement of what another expects. Such questions as “Hey, is this not fantastic music?” “Or is not this an incredible holiday party?” remind us of what the World expects of the heart. Rule reminders also appear disguised as statements about what we supposedly do feel, as in “You are just as pleased as punch, I know you are.” If others take him or her for granted, a detached person may be extremely irritated—it makes the individual feel he or she is being stepped on. As a rule one prefers to work, sleep, eat alone. In distinct contrast to the compliant type one dislikes sharing any experience—the other person might disturb one. Even when one listens to music, walks or talks with others, one’s real enjoyment only comes later, in retrospect. #RandolphHarris 8 of 19

Self-sufficiency and privacy both serve one’s most outstanding need, the need for utter independence. One considers one’s independence a thing of beneficial value. And it undoubtedly has a value of sorts. For no matter what one’s deficiencies, the detached person is certainly no conforming automation. One’s refusal blindly to concur, together with one’s aloofness from competitive struggle, does give one a certain integrity. The fallacy here is that one looks upon independence as an end in itself and ignores the fact that its value depends ultimately upon what one does with it. One’s independence, like the whole phenomenon of detachment of which it is a part, has a negative orientation; it is aimed at not being influenced, coerced, tied, obligated. Like any other neurotic trend, the need for independence is compulsive and indiscriminate. It manifests itself in a hypersensitivity to everything in any way resembling coercion, influence, obligation, and so on. The degree of sensitivity is a good gauge of the intensity of the detachment. What is felt as constraint varies with the individual. Physical pressure from such things as collars, neckties, girdles, shoes may so be felt. Any obstruction of view may arouse the feeling of being hemmed in; to be in a tunnel or mine may produce anxiety. Sensitivity in this direction is not the full explanation of claustrophobia, but it is at any rate its background. #RandolphHarris 9 of 19

If possible, long-term obligations are avoided: to sign a contract, to sign a lease for more than a year, to marry are difficult. Marriage for the detached person is of course a precarious proposition in any event because of the human intimacy involved—although a need for protection or a belief that the partner will completely fit in with one’s own peculiarities may mitigate the risk. Frequently there is an onset of panic before the consummation of marriage. Time in its inexorableness is for the most part felt as coercion; the habit of being just five minutes late on the job may be restored to in order to maintain an illusion of freedom. Timetables constitute a threat; detached patients will enjoy the story of the man who refused to look at a timetable and went to the station whenever it happened to suit him, preferring to wait there for the next train. Other persons’ expecting him to do certain things or behave in a certain way makes him uneasy and rebellious, regardless of whether such expectations are actually expressed or merely assumed to exist. For example, one may ordinarily like to give presents, but will forget about birthday and Christmas presents because these are expected of one. To conform with accepted rules of behavior or traditional sets of values is repellent to one. One will conform outwardly in order to avoid friction, but in one’s own mind one stubbornly rejects all conventional rules and standards. #RandolphHarris 10 of 19

Finally, advice is felt as domination and meets with resistance even when it coincides with one’s own wishes. Resistance in this case may also be linked with a conscious or unconscious wish to frustrate others. The need to feel superior, although common to all neuroses, must be stressed here because of its intrinsic association with detachment. The expressions “ivory tower” and “splendid isolation” are evidence that even in common parlance, detachment and superiority are almost invariably linked. Probably nobody can stand isolation without either being particularly strong and resourceful or feeling uniquely significant. This is corroborated by clinical experience. When the detached person’s feeling of superiority is temporarily shattered, whether by a concrete failure or an increase of inner conflicts, one will be unable to stand solitude and may reach out frantically for affection and protection. Vacillations of this kind often appear in one’s life history. In one’s tends or early twenties one may have had a few rather lukewarm friendships, but lived on the whole a fairly isolated life, feeling comparatively at ease. One would weave fantasies of a future wen one would accomplish exceptional things. However, later these dreams were shipwrecked on the rocks of reality. Though in high school one had had undisputed claim to first place, in college one ran up against serious competition and recoiled from it. One’s first attempts at love relationships failed. Or one realized as one grew older that one’s dreams were not materializing. #RandolphHarris 11 of 19

Aloofness then became unbearable and one was consumed by a compulsive drive for human intimacy, for pleasures of the flesh, for marriage. If only he were loved, one was willing to submit to any indignity. When such a person comes for analytical treatment, one’s detachment, though still pronounced and obvious, cannot be tackled. All one wants at first is help to find love in one form or another. Only when one feels considerably stronger does one discover with immense relief that one would much rather “live alone and like it.” The impression is that one has merely reverted to one’s former detachment. However, it is a matter of being now for the first time on solid enough ground to admit—even to oneself—that isolation is what one wants. This would be the appropriate time to work on detachment. However, for those living the good life, one of the characteristics of the process is that it involves an increasing tendency to live fully in each moment. This is a thought which can easily be misunderstood, and which is perhaps somewhat vague in my own thinking. Let me try to explain what I mean. I believe it would be evident that for the person who was fully open to one’s new experience, completely without defensiveness, each moment would be new. The complex configuration of inner and outer stimuli which exists in this moment has never existed before in just this fashion. Consequently such a person would realize that “What I will be in the next moment, and what I will do, grows out of that moment, and cannot be predicted in advance either by me or by others.” Not infrequently find clients expressing exactly this sort of feeling. #RandolphHarris 12 of 19

One way of expressing the fluidity which is present in such existential living is to say that the self and personality emerge from experience, rather than experience being translated or twisted to fit preconceived self-structure. It means that one becomes a participant in and an observer of the ongoing process of organismic experience, rather than being in control of it. Such living in the moment means an absence of rigidity, of tight organization, of the imposition of structure on experience. It means instead of a maximum of adaptability, a discovery of structure in experience, a flowing, changing organization of self and personality. It is this tendency toward existential living which appears to me very evident in people who are involved in the process of the good life. One might almost say that it is the most essential quality of it. It involved discovering the structure of experience in the process of living the experience. Most of us, on the other hand, bring a preformed structure and evaluation to our experience and never relinquish it, but cram and twist the experience to fit our preconceptions, annoyed at the fluid qualities which make it so unruly in fitting our carefully constructed pigeonholes. To open one’s spirit to what is going on now, and to discover in that present process whatever structure it appears to have—this to me is one of the qualities of the good like, the mature life, as I see clients approach it. #RandolphHarris 13 of 19

The human self is no mysterious in any sense not equally applicable to every other thing that exists. To understand anything, of course, some intelligent attention and methodical inquiry is required. What is not mysterious also may not be obvious. And some subject matters are more difficult to penetrate than others. However, God has created all things in such a way that they are inherently intelligible. They have parts, these parts have properties, which in turn make possible relationships between the parts to form larger wholes, which in turn have properties that makes possible relationships between larger wholes, that form still larger wholes, and so on. This basic structure of created reality applies to everything from an atom or grain of salt to the solar system or the galaxy, from a thought or a feeling to a whole person or a social unit. Ultimately, of course, the very existence of anything is mysterious in the sense that it rests on the mystery of God. What explains everything else, God himself, must be, in important sense, unexplainable—though not necessarily completely unknowable. However, as to what the human being is, it is simply a whole of a certain kind, consisting of parts with properties and functions that give rise to the properties and functions of whole persons. These, in turn, make possible the relationships persons have to the natural and social Worlds and—beyond all these, if they are fully alive as spiritual beings—to the kingdom of God. That is what makes up human nature. #RandolphHarris 14 of 19

And the subject of our study in approaching human life—the unit of analysis for our study—is the whole person in its social and spiritual context. The six aspects, thought, feeling, choice, body, social context, and soul, are distinct ranges of abilities, or things all human beings can and must do: We can and must feel, think, choose, act, and be acted upon though our body. We must enter or lack personal relations and integrate each of these aspects of our being with all the others. This latter task is the work of the soul, as already noted, which is the deepest level of unity (or disunity) in a person’s life and the most inclusive object of redemption. Each aspect of dimension of the person will be a source of weakness or strength to the whole person, depending upon the condition it is in, and the condition it is in will depend, finally, upon the heart. A person who is prepared and capable of responding to the situations of life in ways that are good and right is a person whose soul is in order, under the direction of a well-kept heart, in turn under the direction of God. If we keep in mind what each dimension of the human being does, we can better see what this means. We live in what may be the most intellectual period in Western history and we must have passion—indeed hearts on fire for the things of God. However, that passion must resist with intensity anti-intellectualism. #RandolphHarris 15 of 19

Yet, being cerebral is not all that matters, as humans we must have the ability to think and interpret information because there is more to consider than just the surface and obvious material when dealing with the psychology of living beings. We are having a revival of feelings, and many people are also seeking the knowledge of God. It was necessary for human’s salvation that there should be a knowledge revealed by God besides philosophical science built up by human reason. Because humans are directed to God, as to an end that surpasses the grasp of one’s reason: “The eye hath not seen, O God, besides Thee, what things Thou hast prepared for them that wait for Thee,” reports Isiah 66.4. However, the end must first be known by beings who are to direct their thoughts and actions to the end. Hence it was necessary for the salvation of humans that certain truths which exceed human reason should be made known to one by divine revelation. Even as regards those truths about God which human reason could have discovered, it was necessary that humans should be taught by a divine revelation; because the truth about God such as reason could discover, would only be known by a few, and that after a long time, and with the admixture of many errors. Whereas human’s whole salvation, which is in God, depends upon the knowledge of this truth. #RandolphHarris 16 of 19

Therefore, in order that the salvation of beings might be brought about more fitly and more surely, it was necessary that they should be taught divine truths by divine revelation. It was therefore necessary that besides philosophical science built up by reason, there should be a sacred since learned through revelation. Although those things which are beyond human’s knowledge may not be sought for by human’s through their reason, nevertheless, once they are revealed by God, they must be accepted by faith. Hence the sacred text continues, “For many things are shown to thee above the understanding of humans,” reports Ecclesiasticus 3.25. We beseech Thee, O Lord, to enlighten Thy people, and always set their hearts on fire with brightness of Thy glory; that they may both unceasingly acknowledge their Saviour, and truly apprehend their Lord, Who with Thee we may be given the power and general direction in life with specific warnings, and become better informed about the Quest, about its nature and goal, and about ourselves. Almighty and everlasting God, the Brightness of faithful souls, Who has consecrated this solemnity by he first-fruits of the chosen Gentiles; fill the World with Thy glory, and shew Thyself by the radiance of Thy light to the nations that are subject unto Thee; through Jesus Christ our Lord. #RandolphHarris 17 of 19

We beseech Thee, O Lord, mercifully to correct our wanderings, and by the guiding radiance of Thy compassion to bring us to the salutary vision of Thy truth, through Jesus Christ our Lord. O God, Who through Thine Only-begotten Son Jesus Christ our Lord hast endowed the regenerating waters with the grace which halloweth unto eternal salvation; and didst Thyself come upon Him by Thy Spirit, in the descent of the mysterious Dove on His heard; grant, we beseech Thee, that there may come upon Thy whole Church a blessing which may keep us all continually safe, may unceasingly bless all classes of Thy servants, may direct the course of those who follow Thee, and open the door of the Heavenly kingdom to all who are waiting to enter; through Jesus Christ our Lord. “And I know, O Lord, that thou hast all power, and can do whatsoever thou wilt for the benefit of humans; therefore touch these stones, O Lord, with thy finger, and prepare them that they may shine forth in darkness; and they shall shine forth unto us in the vessels which we have prepared, that we may have light while we shall cross the sea. Behold, O Lord, thou canst do this. We know that thou art able to show forth great power, which looks small unto the understanding of humans,” reports Ether 3.4-5. Sciences are differentiated according to the various means through which knowledge is obtained. #RandolphHarris 18 of 19

For the astronomer and the physicist both may prove the same conclusion: that the Earth, for instance, is round: the astronomer by means of mathematics (for instance, abstracting from matter), but the physicist by means of matter itself. Hence there is no reason why those things which may be learned from philosophical science, so far as they can be known by natural reason, may not also be taught us by another science so far as they fall within revelation. Hence theology included in sacred doctrine differs in kind from that theology which is part of philosophy. Yet, let one also study the literature of mystical and philosophic culture to become better informed about the Quest, about its nature and goal, and about oneself. By comparing what is described in the books with what one has so far experienced for oneself, an aspirant may check and correct one’s course. Those who were awakened by this reading could then look elsewhere for the personal guidance they seek. Through a book help is given without involving the helper in the personal lives of the readers, but through a letter or a meeting involvement begins. One will be neither over-emotionally sentimental nor utterly selfish in one’s relations with others. One will mind one’s own business which is a celestial one. One will tend to seem absorbed and will not be understood, but rather misunderstood. One is, one must be, the least sectarian of beings, the broadest minded, the most accepting of observers. #RandolphHarris 19 of 19

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It seems to me that the soul stands, above all, for the enlightened and rational notion that human beings are improved by the acquisition of knowledge and information and that no desire should be placed in it way, for the soul stores the energy that fuels life. It opens up the windows to the World and inspires us to explore and achieve, and contribute to improving our quality of life. A belief in God can change lives for the better. Though the increasing complexity of the World, with burdensome social issues and shifting economic demands makes the work more difficult than ever before, for those like you who choose to hold steadfast in your faith and dedicates yourself to doing it well, the rewards make the journey worthwhile. You quietly get the job done, and you do it with incredible dedication, perseverance, and dignity in an environment of steadily diminishing resources and escalating criticism of humanity. Why do you keep trying? I believe the answer is very simple. You love the community. You want to help give others the best possible opportunity at life. The task of the enlightened is to balance the difficult juggling act of becoming vitally, vigorously, creatively, energetically, and inspiringly successful. One is wide enough in one’s outlook to look a contradictory ideas and things with equal calm. For they all melt in the Pure Mind. #RandolphHarris 1 of 18

It should already be obvious that sacrifice and scapegoating are taking immense areas in human relations; when we think in these terms, we already feel quickened in our thoughts and our pulse—we know we are onto something big. I have lingered on guilt, sacrifice, heroism, and immortality because they are the key concepts for the science of humans in society that is emerging in our time. And the keys works for these concepts have already been written, which is good news in the life of any aspiring science; they only rub is that the scientific community itself has not realized this good news, and so we have been painfully slow in forging an agreed science of humans. The application of the ideas of guilt and sacrifice to modern sociology has been done largely by a few beings—notably Kenneth Burke and Hugh Dalziel Duncan. Let us dwell on this critical chapter in the evolution of an authentic science of beings. One can recognize that guilt and expiation are fundamental categories of sociological explanation, and it is reasonable to propose a simple formula: guilt must be canceled in society, and it is absolved by “victimage.” So universal and regular is the dynamic that one many wonder whether human society could possibly cohere without symbolic victims which the individual members of the group share in common. We can witness the civic enactment of redemption through the sacrificial victim, as the center of human’s social motivation. #RandolphHarris 2 of 18

We are led to the central idea of victimage and redemption through Greek tragedy and Christianity; we see that this fundamentally religious notion is a basic characteristic of any social order. Again we are brought back to the idea that all culture is in essence sacred—supernatural. The miraculousness of creation is after all magnified in social life; it is contained in person and given color, form, drama. The natural mystery of birth, growth, consciousness, and death is taken over by society; and this interweaving of social form and natural terror becomes an inextricable mystification; the individual can only gape in awe and guilt. This religious guilt, then, is also a characteristic of so-called secular societies; and anyone who would lead a society must provide for some form of sacred absolution, regardless of the particular historical disguise that this absolution may wear. Otherwise society is not possible. Above all Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, and Obama understood this and acted on it. If there is one thing that the tragic wars of our time have taught us, it is that the enemy has a ritual role to play, by means of which evil is redeemed. All wars are conducted as holy wars in a double sense then—as a revelation of fate, a testing of divine favor, and as a means of purging evil from the World at the same time. This explains why we are dedicated to war precisely in its most horrifying aspects: it is a passion of human purgation. #RandolphHarris 3 of 18

Whoever is dissatisfied with oneself is always ready to revenge oneself therefore; we others will be their victims. However, the irony is that beings are always dissatisfied and guilty in small and large ways, and this is what drives them to a search for purity where all dissatisfaction can come to a head and be wiped away. Beings try to qualify for eternalization by being clean and by cleansing the World around them of the evil, the dirty; in this way they show that they are on the side of purity, even if they themselves are impure. The striving for perfection reflects being’s effort to get some human grip on one’s eligibility for immortality. And one can only know if one is good if the authorities tell one so; this is why it is so vital for one emotionally to know whether one is liked or disliked, why one will do anything the group wants in order to meet its standards of “good”: one’s eternal life depends on it. Good and bad relate to strength and weakness, to self-perpetuation, to indefinite duration. And so we can understand that all ideology is about one’s qualification for eternity; and so are all disputes about who really is dirty. The target of one’s righteous hatred is always called “dirt”; in our day the short-hairs call the long-hairs “filthy” and are called in turn “pigs.” Since everyone feels dissatisfied with oneself (dirty), victimage is a universal human need. #RandolphHarris 4 of 18

 And the highest heroism is the stamping out of those who are tainted. The logic is terrifying. The psychoanalytic group of guilt, anality, and sadism is translatable in this way to the highest levels of human striving and to the age-old problem of good and evil. From which we have to conclude that humans have been the midwives of horror on this planet because this horror alone gave them peace of mind, made them “right” with the World. No wonder Nietzsche would talk about “the disease of the World called humans.” It seems perverse when we put it so blatantly, yet here is a being who needs the spectacle of death in order to pen oneself to love. As humans wound and kill their enemy in the field and slaughter their women and children in their homes, our love for each other deepens. We become comrades in arms; our hatred of each other is being purged in the sufferings of our enemy. And even more relentlessly: We need to socialize in hate and death, as well as in joy and love. We do not know how to have friends without, at the same time, creating victims whom we must wound, torture, and kill. Our love rests on hate. If we talk again and shockingly about human baseness, it is not out of cynicism; it is only to better get some kind of factual purchase on our fate. However, it is only an illusion that we have to fear; and we have to take a full look at the worst in order to begin to get rid of illusions. #RandolphHarris 5 of 18

Realism, even brutal, is not cynicism. We cannot become humane until we understand our need to visit suffering and death on others. The sociology of our time must begin in [such an] anguished awareness. From the point of view of such a sociology, the great scientific problems of our time have been the successful and grand social cohesions, especially of Hitler, Stalin, and Mao. Today we still gape in unbelief that the holocaust was possible in our civilized World, refusing to see how true it was to human’s nature and to their ambitions to transcend that nature. Hitler’s rise to power was based on one’s understanding of what people wanted and needed most of all, and so one promised them, above everything else, heroic victory over evil; and one gave them the living possibility of ridding themselves temporarily of their real guilt. As many die-hard rightists in the United States of America today realize better than anyone else, the tragedy of the lack of affordable housing and homelessness had loaded the Americans with a huge burden of unresolvable guilt and it as not been an easy truth to bare. The nation that represents victory and immortality or it has no mandate to exist. It must give tangible, straightforward victories of its credit is dissipated in the hearts of all its citizens. Yet, there is no immortality without guiltless victory. On these matters, rightists have always been a candid barometer of basic human urges. #RandolphHarris 6 of 18

It took Stalin’s purge trials to show us that the highest humanistic ideals of socialist revolutionaries also have to be played out in a religious drama of victimage and redemption—if one is t have a pure and cohesive socialists society at all. The Russians exiled religious expiation but could not exile their own human nature, and so they had to conjure up a secular caricature of religious expiation. And they are still doing it: the magician-priests who give absolution to the clean communist masses now wear the white coats of hospital psychiatrist who transform dirty dissident victims with the latest techniques of “secular” science. It is grotesque, but we are warned always to watch for the “secular equivalents” of the theological formula of victimage and redemption; the scapegoat is not a “necessary illusion of savages, children, and the masses,” but now an achievement of the most advanced socialist society. China is reliving the idea of the primitive group soul which is a sacred fount of regeneration on which the whole community can draw so long as it remains pure. If one imagines these analogies far-fetched, one see how firmly they rest on a now well-founded tradition of social and psychological analysis. Persons who have a particular stigma tend to have similar learning experiences regarding their plight, and similar changes in conception of self—a similar moral career that is both cause and effect of commitment to a similar sequence of personal adjustments. #RandolphHarris 7 of 18

One phase of this socialization process is that through which the stigmatized person learns and incorporates the standpoint of the normal, acquiring thereby the identity beliefs of the wider society and a general idea of what it would be like to possess a particular stigma. Another phase is that through which one learns that one possesses a particular stigma and, this time in detail, the consequences of possessing it. The timing and interplay of these two initial phases of the moral career from important patterns, establishing the foundation for later development, and providing a means of distinguishing among the moral careers available to the stigmatized. Four such patterns may be mentioned. One pattern involves those with an inborn stigma who become socialized into their disadvantageous situation even while they are learning and incorporating the standards against which they fall short. For example, an orphan learns that children naturally and normally have parents, even while one is learning what it means not to have any. After spending the first sixteen years of one’s life in the institution, one can still feel that one naturally knows how to be a father to his son. #RandolphHarris 8 of 18

A second pattern derives from the capacity of a family, and to a much lesser extent a local neighborhood, to constitute itself a protective capsule for its young. Within such a capsule a congenitally stigmatized child can be carefully sustained by means of information control. Self-belittling definition of one are prevented from entering the charmed circle, while broad access is given to other conceptions held in the wider society, ones that lead the encapsulated child to see oneself as a fully qualified ordinary human being, of normal identity in terms of such basic matters as age and gender. The point in the protected individual’s life when the domestic circle can no longer protect one will vary by social class, place of residence, and type of stigma, but in each case will give rise to a moral experience when it occurs. Thus, public school entrance is often reported as the occasion of stigma learning, the experience sometimes coming very precipitously on the first day of school, with taunts, teasing, ostracism, and fights. Interestingly, the more the child is disabled the more likely one is to be sent to a special school for persons of his or her kind, and the more abruptly one will have to face the view which the public at large takes of one. One will be told that one will have an easier time of it among one’s own, and this learn that the own one thought he or she possessed was the wrong one, and that this lesser own is really his or hers. #RandolphHarris 9 of 18

It should be added that where the infantilely stigmatized manages to get through one’s early school years with some illusions left, the onset of dating or job-getting will often introduce the moment of truth. In some cases, merely an increased likelihood of incidental disclosure is involved. “I think the first realization of my situation, and the first intense grief resulting from this realization, came one day, very casually, when a group of us in our early teens had gone to the beach for the day. I was lying on the sand, and I guess the fellows and girls thought I was asleep. One of the fellows said, ‘I like Domenica very much, but I would never go out with a blind girl.’ I cannot think of any prejudice which so completely rejects you.” In other cases, something close to a systematic exposure is involved, as a cerebral palsy victim suggests: “With one extremely painful exception, as long as I was in the protective custody of family life or college schedules and lived without exercising my rights as an adult citizen, the forces of society were kindly and unruffling. It was after college, business school, and innumerable stretches as a volunteer worker on community projects that I was often bogged down by the medieval prejudices and superstitions of the business World. Looking for a job was like standing before a firing squad. Employers were shocked that I had the gall to apply for a job.” #RandolphHarris 10 of 18

A third pattern of socialization is illustrated by one who becomes stigmatized late in life, or learns late in life that one has always been discreditable—the first involving no radical reorganization of one’s view of one’s past, the second involving this factor. Such an individual has thoroughly learned about the normal and the stigmatized long before one must see oneself as deficient. Presumably one will have a special problem in reidentifying oneself, and a special likelihood of developing disapproval of self: “When I smelled the odor on the bus or subway before the colostomy I used to feel very annoyed. I would think that the people were awful, that they did not take a bath or that they should have gone to the bathroom before traveling. I used to think that they might have odors from what they ate. I used to be terribly annoyed; to me it seemed that they were filthy, dirty. Of course, at least opportunity I used to change my seat and if I could not it used to go against my grain. So naturally, I believed the young people feel the same way about me if I smell.” While there are certainly cases of individuals discovering only in adult life that they belong to a stigmatized tribal group or that their parents have a contagious moral blemish, the usual case here is that of physical handicaps that strike late in life. #RandolphHarris 11 of 18

“But suddenly I woke up one morning, and found that I could not stand. I had had polio, and polio was as simple as that. I was like a very young child who had been dropped into a big, black hole, and the only thing I was certain of was that I could not get out unless someone helped me. The education, the lectures, and the parental training which I had received for twenty-four years did not seem to make me the person who could do anything for me now. I was like everyone else—normal, quarrelsome, gay, full of plans, and all of a sudden something happened! Something happened and I became a stranger. I was a greater stranger to myself than to anyone. Even my dreams did not know me. They did not know what they ought to let me do—and when I went to dances or to parties in them, there was always an odd provision or limitation—bot spoken of or mentioned, but there just the same. I suddenly had the very confusing mental and emotional conflict of a lady leading a double life. It was unreal and it puzzled me, and I could not help dwelling on it.” Here the medical profession is likely to have the special job of informing the infirm who one is going to have to be. A fourth pattern is illustrated by those who are initially socialized in an alien community, whether inside or outside the geographical boundaries of the normal society, and who then must learn a second way of being that is felt by those around them to be the real and valid one. #RandolphHarris 12 of 18

It should be added that when an individual acquires a new stigmatized self late in life, the uneasiness one feels about new associates may slowly give way to uneasiness felt concerning old ones. Post-stigma acquaintances may see one simply as a faulted person; pre-stigma acquaintances, being attached to a conception of what one once was, may be unable to treat one either with formal tact or with familiar full acceptance. “My task [as a blind writer interviewing prospective clients for his literary product] was to put the men I had come to see at their ease—the reverse of the usual situation. Curiously, I found it much easier to do with me I had never met before. Perhaps this was because with strangers there was no body of reminiscences to cover before business could be gotten down to and so there was no unpleasant contrast with the present.” Regardless of which general pattern the moral career of the stigmatized individual illustrates, the phase of experience during which one learns that one possesses a stigma will be especially interesting, for at this time one is likely to be thrown into a new relationship to others who possess the stigma too. In some cases, the only contact the individual will have with one’s own is a fleeting one, but sufficient nonetheless to show one that others like oneself exist. #RandolphHarris 13 of 18

“When Tommy came to the clinic for the first time, there were two other little boys there, each with a congenital absence of an ear. When Tommy saw them, one’s right hand went slowly to one’s own defective ear, and he turned with wide eyes to his father and said, ‘There is another boy with an ear like mine.’” In the case of the individual who has recently become physically disabled, fellow-sufferers more advanced than oneself in dealing with the failing are likely to make one a special series of visits to welcome one to the club and to instruct one in how to manage oneself physically and psychically: “Almost my first awareness that there are mechanics of adjustment came to me with the comparison of two fellow patients I had at the Eye and Ear Infirmary. They used to visit me as I lay abed and I came to know them fairly well. Both had been blind for seven years. They were about the same age—a little past thirty—and both had college educations.” When we interact with other people, there is generally an authentic way, where one has been genuine in one’s transactions with people and true to one’s projects; and the counterfeit way, which seems to be the common, or all-American, way. And we can speak of the involved way—as in the case of one deeply committed to various projects—and the detached, uninvolved way. #RandolphHarris 14 of 18

There is the personal way of the person of the being who enters into dialogue with one’s fellows; and there is the anonymous way of the one who neither knows, nor is ever known by, any single human being. All these ways are possible, and each can be viewed as a response to an invitation, a response that yields consequences for well or ill. A neurotic person, for example, may be seen as one who has chosen a rigid, encapsulated existence. It is safe, but it happens also to be suffocating. One chose to be this way, not only to feel safe, but also to hang on to the love of one’s parents or spouse. However, one pays a price for one’s choice. Of a sexually impotent person, we may say his mother invited him by word or gesture to follow the eunuchoid way. He accepted the invitations, and was rewarded with his mother’s approval. Some reward! Some price! But one must pay for everything in this World. If a person’s present being is the outcome of one’s acceptance of an invitation to be in some way, we can ask, “What do we know about invitation? Under what conditions is an invitation accepted or declined? Who extends the effective invitations? And who are the ones who respond to them?” We actually know a great deal about invitation, though the knowledge appears under other rubrics. We know a great deal about the psychology of suggestion, or persuasion, of hypnosis, and of leadership. Anything written under those headings seems to be relevant to a psychology of invitation. #RandolphHarris 15 of 18

A good psychotherapist or a good nurse, teacher, leader, or hypnotist—even a good sales person—all these are experts at extending invitations or challenges that will be accepted. An invitation to someone carries with it the implication that the other has the power to carry it out. It is a form of the attribution of power. The successful inviters invite others to change some aspects of their being. They invite a person to change one’s ways of valuing, construing, striving, behaving, or buying; and the person accepts the invitation. The therapist invites one’s pupil to abandon ignorance, one’s present ways of thinking and believing, and to expose oneself to new experiences. The leader invites or challenges one’s follower to carry out a mission that the follower never imagined one could accomplish. The hypnotist invites one’s subject to recover previously inaccessible memories, and the subject does. The nurse or doctor invited a patient to take a pill or an operation, and the patient does. Therefore, remember the teachers who see something special in you and make a connection, those who plant those cherished memories and good feelings that continue to live within you wherever you are or whatever you have become. The Spirit of God now calls his people to live from an adequate basis for character transformation, resulting in obedience to and abundance in Christ. This really is something different. #RandolphHarris 16 of 18

The present moment is not an occasion to keep on doing the same things Christians have been doing in the recent past—except now really meaning it. It is time to change our focus, individually and in our Christian groupings. If we as Christ’s people genuinely enter Christ’s Way of the Heart, individuals will find a sure path toward becoming the persons they were meant to be: thoroughly good and godly persons, yet purged of arrogance, insensitivity, and self-sufficiency. Christian assemblies will become what they have been in many periods of the past and what the World desperately calls for today: incomparable schools of life-life that is eternal in quality now, as well as unending in quantity. This is possible because the spirit and inner being of the human, as well as the process of its renovation in Christ, is an orderly realm where, even in the disorder of its brokenness, God has provided a methodical path of recovery. Grace does not rule out method, nor method grace. Grace thrives on method and method on grace. Spiritual formation in Christ is therefore not a mysterious, irrational—possibly hysterical—process: something that strikes like lightening, whenever and wherever it will, if at all. Or something that is magically conferred upon us as we dwell in the midst of curious rituals and antique practices. Spiritual experiences do not constitute spiritual formation, tough they could be a meaningful part therefor and sometimes are. #RandolphHarris 17 of 18

This, I freely admit, is contrary to a view of grace as passivity that is widely held now. However, the God-ordained order of the soul under grace must be discovered, respected, and cooperated with, if its God-intended results for spiritual growth are to be attained. Spiritual formation is something we human beings can and must undertake—as individuals and in fellowship with other apprentices of Jesus. While I is simultaneously a profound manifestation of God’s gracious action through his Word and Spirit, it is also something we are responsible for before God and can set about achieving in a sensible, systematic manner. Grant, we beseech Thee, O our God that Thy family, which has been saved by the Nativity of Thy Son our Lord Jesus Christ, may also quietly repose on Him as a perpetual Redeemer, Who with Thee gives correct teachings about the quest and necessary warnings about its pitfalls, and teaches us how to live life with proper care and respect. Almighty and everlasting God, Who by Thine Only-begotten Son hast made us to be a new creation for Thyself, preserve the works of Thy mercy, and cleanse us from all our ancient stains; that by the assistance of Thy grace we may be found in His form, in Whom in our substance dwells with Thee, through the same Jesus Christ our Lord. “We know that they are blessed, for they have gone to dwell with their God,” Alma 24.22. #RandolphHarris 18 of 18

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