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Be Thou a Spirit of Health or Goblin Damned?
The Heaven was full of fiery shapes, Mrs. Winchester was terribly shocked by the death of her month-old baby girl; in fact, it can be well believed she never fully recovered and this surely influenced some of her eccentricities. Added to this loss was the death of her husband, William Wirt Winchester, 15 years later from Tuberculosis. On arrival in San Jose, Mrs. Winchester started remodeling the newly purchased, unfinished eight-room farm house. She found that the planning kept her grief-disturbed mind occupied and she became thoroughly enthused. Financial problems were certainly no deterrent; in the late 1880s, Mrs. Winchester brought a fortune of $20,000,000.00 ($523,635,294.12 in 2021 dollars) with her and had an average income of $1,000 ($26,181.76 in 2021 dollars) a day. Just how such precise amounts came to be public knowledge is unknown. In the period, 1881 to 1889, the dividends from her 777 shares of stock in the Winchester Company gave her an annual average income of $43,335.00 ($1,134,586.77 in 2021 dollars). It must be quickly added that upon the death of her mother-in-law in 1897, Mrs. Winchester’s holdings were increased to 2777 shares. Her lack of architectural training gave her little concern. Every morning she made the rounds with her ever patient foreman inspecting the latest progress. Some days Mrs. Winchester sketched plans on the spot using a saw-horse drawing table and any handy material, often brown wrapping paper (and used both sides). From the foreman came no argument; he had no problem of interpretation. #RandolphHarris 1 of 13
One afternoon in the mansion, a variety of circumstance concurred to being about the dreadful scene through which I was that night to pass. In the first place, I was literally overpowered with fatigue, and longing for sleep; in the next place, the effect of this extreme exhaustion upon my nerves resembled that of a narcotic, and rendered me less susceptible than, perhaps I should in any other condition have been, of the exciting fears which had become habitual to me. Then again, a little bit of the window was open, a pleasant freshness pervaded the room, and, to crown all, the cheerful sun of day was making the room quite pleasant. What was to prevent my enjoying an hour’s nap here? The whole air was resonant with the cheerful hum of life, and the broad matter-of-fact light of day filled every corner. I yielded—stifling my qualms—to the almost overpower temptation; and merely throwing off my coat, and loosening my cravat, I lay down, limiting myself to half-an-hour’s doze in the unwonted enjoyment of a feather bed, a coverlet, and a bolster. It was horribly insidious; and the demon, no doubt, marked my infatuated preparations. Dolt that I was, I fancied, with my mind and body worn out for want of sleep, and an arrear of a full week’s rest to my credit, that such measure as half-an-hour’s sleep, in such a situation, was possible. My sleep was death-like, long, and dreamless. Without a start of fearful sensation of any kind, I waked gently, but completely. It was, as you have good reason to remember, long past midnight—I believe, about two o’clock. When sleep has been deep and long enough to satisfy nature, thoroughly, one often wakens in this way, suddenly, tranquilly, and completely. #RandolphHarris 2 of 13
There was a figure seated in that lumbering, old sofa-chair, near the fireplace Its back was rather towards me, but I could not be mistaken; it turned slowly round, and merciful heavens! there was the stony face, with its infernal lineaments of malignity and despair, gloating on me. There was now no doubt as to its consciousness of my presence, and the hellish malice with which it was animated, for it arose, and drew close to the bedside. There was a rope about its neck, and the other end, coiled up, it held stiffly in its hand. My good angel nerved me for this horrible crisis. I remained for some seconds transfixed by the gaze of this tremendous phantom. He came close to the bed, and appeared on the point of mounting upon it. The next instant I was upon the floor at the far side, and in a moment more was, I do not know how, upon the lobby. However, the spell was not broken; the valley of the shadow of death was not yet traversed. The abhorred phantom was before me there; it was standing near the banisters, stooping a little, and with one end of the rope round its own neck, was poising a noose at the other, as if to throw over mine; and while engaged in this baleful pantomime, it wore a smile so sensual, so unspeakably dreadful, that my senses were nearly overpowered. I saw and remember nothing more, until I found myself in the maid’s room. I had a wonderful escape—there is no disputing that—an escape for which, while I live, I shall bless the mercy of Heaven. #RandolphHarris 3 of 13
No one can conceive or imagine what it is for flesh and blood to stand in the presence of such a thing, but one who has had the terrific experience. A shadow has passed over me—a chill has crossed my blood and marrow, and I will never be the same again—never, never! Our handmaid, a mature girl of two-and-fifty, as I have said, stayed her hand, and by little and little drew near to me, with open mouth, her brows contracted over her little, bready black eyes, till stealing a glance over her shoulder now and then, she established herself close behind us. During the relation, she had made various earnest comments, in an undertone; but these and her ejaculations, for the sake of brevity and simplicity, I have omitted in my narration. “It is often I heard tell of it,” she said, “but I never believed it rightly till now—though, indeed, why should I not? Does not my mother, down there in the lane, know quare stories, God bless us, beyant telling about it? But you ought not to have slept in the back bedroom. She was loath to le me be going in and out from that room even in the time, let alone for any Christian to spend the night in it; for sure she says it was his own bedroom.” “Whose own bedroom?” I asked, in a breath. “Why, his—the ould Judge’s—Judge John Conduit’s, to be sure, God rest his sowl”; and she looked fearfully round. “Amen!” I muttered. “But did he die there?” “Die there! No, not quite there,” she said. “Shure, was not it over bannisters he hung himself, the ould sinner, God be merciful to us all? and was not it in the alcove they found the handles of the skipping rope cut off, and the knife where he was settling the cord, God bless us, to hang himself with? #RandolphHarris 4 of 13
“It was his housekeeper’s daughter owned the rope, my mother told me, and the child never throve after, and used to be starting up out of her sleep, and screeching in the night time, wid dhrames and frights that cum an her; and they said how it was the speerit of the ould Judge that was tormentin’ her; and she used to be roaring and yelling out to hould back the big ould fellow with the crooked neck; and then she’d screech ‘Oh, the master! the master! he’s stampin’ at me, and beckoning to me! Mother, darling, don’t let me go!’ And so the poor crathure died at last, and the doctors said was marasmus, for it was all they could say.” “How long ago was all this?” I asked. “Oh, then, how would I know?” she answered. “But it must be a wondherful long time ago, for the housekeep was an ould woman, with a pipe in her mouth, and not a tooth left, and better nor eighty years ould when my mother was first married; and they said she was a rale buxom, fine-dressed woman when the ould Judge come to his end; an’, indeed, my mother’s not far from eighty years ould herself this day; and what made it worse for the unnatural ould villain, God rest his soul, to frighten the little girl out of the World the way he did, was what was mostly thought and believed by every one. My mother says the poor little crathure was his own child; for he was by all accounts an ould villain every way, an’ the hangin’ est judge that ever was known.” “From what you said about the danger of sleeping in that bedroom,” said I, “I suppose there were stories about the ghost having appeared there to others.” “Well, there was things said—quare things, surely,” she answered, as it seemed, with some reluctance. #RandolphHarris 5 of 13
“And why would not there? Sure was it not up in that same room he slept for more than twenty years? and was it not in the alcove he got the rope ready that done his own business at last, the way he done many a better man’s in his lifetime?—and was not the body lying in the same bed after death, and put in the coffin there, too, and carried out to his grave from it in St. Joseph’s Cathedral Basilica, after the coroner was done? But there was quare stories—my mother has them all—about how one Archbishop Patrick William Riordan got into trouble on the head of it. Some years later he died of pneumonia at the 1000 Fulton Street Mansion in San Francisco, California.” “And what did they say of this Archbishop Riordan?” I asked. “Oh, for that matther, it’s soon told,” she answered. And she certainly did relate a very strange story, which so piqued my curiosity, that I took occasion to visit the ancient lady, her mother, from whom I learned many very curious particulars. Indeed, I am tempted to tell the tale, but my fingers are weary, and I must defer it. But if you wish to hear it another time, I shall do my best. When I had heard the strange tale I have not told you, I put one or two further questions to her about the alleged spectral visitations, to which the house had, ever since the death of the wicked old Judge, been subjected. “No one ever Mrs. Winchester myself telling how the children used to be lifted up in the bed at night, she could not see by what mains; and how they were starting and screeching every hour, just all as one as the housekeeper’s little girl that died till at last one night poor Chadwick had a dhrop in him, the way he used now and again; and what do you think in the middle of the night he thought he heard a noise on the stairs, and being in liquor, nothing less id do him but out he must go himself to see what was wrong. #RandolphHarris 6 of 13
“Well, after that, all she ever heard of him was himself sayin’, ‘Oh, God!’ and a tumble that shook the very house; and there, sure enough, eh was laying on the lower stair, under the lobby, with his neck smashed double undher him, where he was flung over the banisters.” Then the handmaiden added—“I’ll go down the lane, and send up Hansen Solomon to pack up the rest of the taythings, and bring all the things across to your new lodgings.” And so we all sallied out together, each of us breathing more freely, I have no doubt, as we crossed that ill-omened threshold for the last time. Now, I may add thus much, in compliance with the immemorial usage of the Winchester legacy, which see the hero not only through one’s adventures, bur fairly out of the World. You must have perceived that what the flesh, blood, and bone hero of romance proper is to the regular compounder of legends, this ancient Victorian mansion of brick, wood, glass, and mortar is to the humble recorder of this true tale. Gods have different properties, due to different antecedents. The definitive book on gods and their qualities has yet to be written. Mrs. Winchester built the door to nowhere for the gods to enter. However, a human being has the key—the big key. The all-important key. The long-lost secret key that lets a human talk to the gods, command them, bring them down to Earth. Solomon’s key. A man gets that key, he be stronger than the gods. You do not want to mess with that key stuff. #RandolphHarris 7 of 13
Remember that persons skeptical of witchcraft did not doubt the practice of it, but only whether or not it worked, or worked through spiritual means. Thus the skeptic John Webster, in his Displaying of Supposed Witchcraft, was willing to concede that there were witches and devils who “have power to perform strange things.” However, he spent his twelfth chapter on the question “whether they do not bring the to pass by mere natural means.” What was at issues here was the reality of the spiritual World, the “invisible World,” as Dr. Mather called it. The controversy over witchcraft, therefore, raised theological issues fundamental to the seventeenth-century Christian. “We shall come to have no Christ but a light within, and no Heaven but a frame of Mind,” said Dr. Mather, if the materialists—the Saducees—should succeed in destroying the belief in an invisible World. Whatever one’s own belief, or lack of it, one has to admit that he was right. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries scientific materialism was to triumph, and the pious were to find that all the concreteness had left their religion, leaving nothing behind but a “light within” and a “frame of mind.” Conceive, then, of Dr. Mather’s excitement. At a time which he recognized to be a crisis in the history of religious belief he had discovered a clear case of witchcraft which he thought could not possibly be explained on material grounds. He made it the central matter of his Memorable Providences (1689), a book which he hoped might once and for all confute materialism and reestablish Christianity on the firm foundation of a real and concrete spiritual World. #RandolphHarris 8 of 13
The book met with considerable success. Richard Baxter, one of the most distinguished English Puritans, wrote a laudatory preface to the first London edition, and in Baxter’s own Certainty of the World of Spirits (1691) he spoke of it as the ultimate proof of the existence of a spiritual World. Any doubter, he said, “that will read…Mr. Cotton Mather’s book of the witchcrafts in New England may see enough to any incredulity that pretendeth to be rational.” The four or so cases we have reviewed over the past few weeks confirm in detail what we have seen to be true in general. Accusations of witchcraft were continual among common people, so continual that Dr. Cotton Mather took time in his “Discourse” to warn his congregation sharply against them “Take heed that you do not wrongfully accuse any other person of this horrid and monstrous evil…What more dirty reproach than that of witchcraft can there be? Yet it is most readily cast upon worthy persons when there is hardly a shadow of any reason for it. An ill look or a cross word will make a witch with many people who may on more ground be counted so themselves. There has been a fearful deal of injury done in this way in this town to the good name of the most credible persons in it. Persons of more goodness and esteem than any of their calumnious abusers have been defamed for witches about this country—a country full of lies.” However, the charges of irresponsible accusers were checked by the responsibility of the community’s leaders, the ministers and magistrates. They had been reluctant to act in Mrs. Hibbins’ case. #RandolphHarris 9 of 13
At Groton, Mr. Willard’s investigation had been so careful that two accusations of witchcraft were retracted and the case never brought to court, on the ground that it was possession rather than witchcraft. At Hartford a confessor and her husband had been hanged and at Boston a confessor, but in both instances, although more persons were accused, the individual case did not develop into a witch hunt. There were other individual convictions, but they were outnumbered by the acquittals. For example, the records of the Court of Assistants show that in 1662 Eunice Cole of Hampton was found not guilty as indicated, although there was “just ground of vehement suspicion.” In 1666 John Godfrey of Salem was discharged as not legally guilty, although there were again grounds for suspicion. (Mr. Godfrey seems to have been a thorough reprobate; at various times he was convicted of stealing, swearing, drunkenness, and suborning witnesses.) In 1637 Anna Edmunds was acquitted and her accusers order to pay charges. In 1675 Mary Parsons of Northampton was found not guilty, in 1681 Mary Hale of Boston, and in 1683 Mary Webster of Hadley. Also in 1683 James Fuller of Springfield, who had confessed but then retracted his confession, was found not guilty but was whipped and fined for “his wicked and pernicious willful lying and continuance in it until now, putting the country to so great a change.” #RandolphHarris 10 of 13
In All the American colonies during the seventeenth century there were fewer than fifty executions for witchcraft, and excluding Salem there were fewer than thirty. This is a genuinely exemplary record, considerably superior to Europe for intelligence and restraint. Before the Glover case a part of this restraint may have proceeded from the New Englander’s conviction that he belonged to a chosen people. God, many thought, would not permit Satan to afflict the elect. The Devil might appear among “the wigwams of Indians, where the pagan Powaws often raise their masters in the shapes of bear and snakes and fires,” but there would be a few demonic terrors in the New Jerusalem. This belief was shattered by the events of 1688. Goodwife Glover had demonstrated clearly that witchcraft did exist in Massachusetts, and witchcraft of the most serious and dangerous sort. The Devil was abroad in Zion, seeking whom he might devour. When the Devil broke forth again, at Salem Village in 1692, he was not immediately recognized. “When these calamities first began,” wrote the Reverend Samuel Parris, “which was in my own family, the affliction was several weeks before such hellish operations as witchcraft were suspected. A quack doctor, who called himself William Griggs, moved into my family home, and catastrophe ultimately befell it. He filled the parlour widow with bottle of indescribable horrors preserved in brandy, and the fairly new concept in the American colonies called the newspaper with the usual grandiloquent and mendacious mix of local social and culture news. #RandolphHarris 11 of 13
“This gentleman among his virtues did not reckon sobriety, and one night, being overcome with much wine, he set fire to his bed curtains, partially burned himself, and totally consumed the hose. It was afterwards rebuilt, and for a time an undertaker established himself in the premises. I fear some young persons, through vain curiosity to know their future condition, have tampered with the Devil’s tools so far that hereby one door was opened to Satan to play those pranks, Anno 1692. I knew one of the afflicted persons who (as I was credibly informed) did try with an egg and a glass to find her future husband’s calling [id est, occupation], till there came up a coffin, that is, a specter in likeness of a coffin. And she was afterward followed with diabolical molestation to her death, and so died a single person—a just warning to others to take heed of handling the Devil’s weapons lest they get a wound thereby. Another, I was called to pray with, being under sore fits and vexations of Satan. And upon examination I found that she had tried the same charm, and after her confession of it and manifestation of repentance for it, and our praters to God for her, she was speedily released from those bonds of Satan.” As human beings, we interact with the environment around us and affect it through our bodies as extensions of our minds. However, the thing is, we are never satisfied with the simplistic nature of these interactions. We are aware of limitations of our human nature and that has always been a driving force for us as a race to look for other ways to affect our environment in a more impactful way. #RandolphHarris 12 of 13
Witchcraft is another way, a “tool” if you will, to impact the environment in a way so unique that simple, everyday folk like us cannot wrap our minds around it. It surpasses the wonders of mechanics as there is no external connection, the power of witchcraft extends from an internal World, bypassing the need to learn complex machinery or spend years labouring over physics and math textbooks. Alongside the innovation we traditionally ascribe to the Victorian period, was an older, persistent belief in the supernatural. Although the laws against witchcraft had been repealed in 1736, folklore continued to be active and potent force in everyday life. Many people believe that supernatural forces are what compelled Mrs. Winchester, at a cost of $5,000,000.00 ($171, 188, 461.51 in 2021 dollars) alone spent on materials to build the Winchester mansion with 10,000 windows, nine kitchens, and 47 fireplaces built of rosewood, cherry, mahogany, Italian marble, oak, teak, and pipestone; all hand carved, and no two alike. Construction went on for 38 years. At one point the mansion was as high as nine stories, had 200 rooms, and was 50,000 square feet. Once an enterprising young realtor leaked the rumor to Mrs. Winchester’s servants that across the road (now Stevens Creek Chevrolet) an investor was planning to build an Inn. “Saloon” was the word in those says. Mrs. Winchester quickly purchased the property at an exorbitant figure. Of course this was a false alarm but it brought her holdings to 160 acres. In the book of life, blessing, peace, and ample sustenance, may we, together with all Thy people, the house of America, be remembered and inscribed before Thee for a happy life and for peace. Blessed art Thou, O Lord who establishest peace. #RandolphHarris 13 of 13
A 160-room mansion built to appease the spirits who died at the hands of the Winchester Rifle 👻 🗝 winchestermysteryhouse.com
It is Difficult for an Education in Which the Hearts is Involved to Remain Forever Lost!
Trying to sneak a pitch past him is like trying to sneak the sunrise past a rooster. Three hundred and fifty years ago, give or take a half-century, an explosion was heard that sent concussive shock waves racing across the Earth, demolishing ancient societies and creating a wholly new civilization. This explosion was, of course, the industrial revolution. And the giant tidal force it set loose on the World—the Second Wave—collided with all the institutions of the past and changed the way of life of millions. During the long millennia when First Wave civilization reigned supreme, the planet’s population could have been divided into two categories—the “primitive” and the “civilized.” The so-called primitive peoples, living in small bands and tribes and subsisting by gathering, hunting, or fishing, were those who had been passed over by the agricultural revolution. The “civilized” World, by contrast, was precisely that part of the planet on which most people worked the soil. For wherever agriculture arose, civilization took root. From China and India to Benin and Mexico, in Greece and Rome, civilizations rose and fell, fought and fused in endless, colourful admixture. However, beneath their differences lay fundamental similarities. In all of them, land was the basis of economy, life, culture, family structure, and politics. In each community, life was organized around the village. Each of which, life was a simple division of labour prevailed and a few clearly defined castes and classes arose: a nobility, a priesthood, warriors, helots, slaves, or serfs. For all of these people, power was rigidly authoritarian. #RandolphHarris 1 of 28
In all of these cases, birth determined one’s position in life. And for any one of these people, the economy was decentralized, so that each community produced most of its own necessities. There were exceptions—nothing is simple in history There were commercial cultures whose sailors crossed the seas, and highly centralized kingdoms organized around giant irrigation systems. However, despite such differences, we are justified in seeing all these seemingly distinctive civilizations as special cases of a single phenomenon: agricultural civilization—the civilization spread by the First Wave. During is dominance there were occasional hints of things to come. There were embryonic mass-production factories in ancient Greece and Rome. Oil was drilled on one of the Greek islands in 400 B.C, and in Burma in A.D. 100. Vast bureaucracies flourished in Babylonia and Egypt. Great urban metropolises grew up in Asia and South America. There was money and exchange. Trade routes crisscrossed the deserts, ocean, and mountains from Cathy to Calais. Corporations and incipient nations existed. There was even, in ancient Alexandria, a startling forerunner of the steam engine. Yet nowhere was there anything that might remotely have been termed an industrial civilization. These glimpses of the future, so to speak, were mere oddities in history, scattered through different places and periods. They never were brought together into a coherent system, nor could they have been. Until 1650-1750, therefore, we can speak of a First Wave. #RandolphHarris 2 of 28
Despite patches of primitivism and hints of the industrial future, agricultural civilization dominated the planet and seemed destined to do so forever. This was the World in which the industrial revolution erupted, launching the Second Wave and creating a strange, powerful, feverishly energetic countercivilization. Industrialism was more than smokestacks and assembly lines. It was a rich, many-sided social system that touched every aspect of human life and attacked every feature of the First Wave past. It produced the great Willow Run factory outside Detroit, but it also put the tractor on the farm, the typewriter in the office, the refrigerator in the kitchen. It produced the daily newspaper and the cinema, the subway and the DC-3. It gave us cubism and twelve-tone music. It gave up Bauhaus buildings and Barcelona chairs, sit-down strikes, vitamin pills, and lengthened life spans. It universalized the wristwatch and the ballot box. More important, it linked all these things together—assembled them, like a machine—to form the most powerful, cohesive, and expansive social system the World had ever known: Second Wave civilization. As the Second Wave moved across various societies it touched off a bloody, protracted war between the defenders of the agricultural past and the partisans of the industrial future. The forces of First and Second Wave collided head-on, brushing aside, often decimating, the “primitive” peoples encountered along the way. #RandolphHarris 3 of 28
In the United States of America, this collision began with the arrival of the Europeans bent on establishing an agricultural, First Wave civilization. A white agricultural tide pushed relentlessly westward, dispossessing the Indian, depositing farms and agricultural villages father and father toward the Pacific. However, hard on the heels of the farmers came the earliest industrializers as well, agents of the second Wave future. Factories and cities began to spring up in New England and the mid-Atlantic states. By the middle of the nineteenth century, the Northeast had a rapidly growing industrial sector producing firearms, watches, farm implements, textiles, sewing machines, and other goods, while the rest of the continent was still ruled by agricultural interests. Economic and social tensions between First Wave and Second Wave forces grew in intensity until 1861, when they broke into armed violence. The Civil War was not fought exclusively, as it seemed to many, over the moral issue of slavery or such narrow economic issues as tariffs. It was fought over a much larger question: would the rich new continent be ruled by farmers or industrializers, by the forces of the First Wave or the Second? Would the future American society be basically agricultural or industrial? When the Northern armies won, the die was cast. The industrialization of the United States of America was assured. From that time on, in economics, in politics, in social and culture life, agriculture was in retreat, industry ascendant. The First Wave ebbed as the Second came thundering in. #RandolphHarris 4 of 28
The same collision of civilizations erupted elsewhere as well. In Japan the Meiji Restoration, beginning in 1868, replayed in unmistakably Japanese terms the same struggle between agricultural past and industrial future. The abolition of feudalism by 1876, the rebellion of the Satasuma clan in 1877, the adoption of Western-style constitution in 1889, were all reflections of the collision of the First and Second Waves in Japan—steps on the road to Japan’s emergence as a premier industrial power. In Russia, too, the same collision between First and Second Wave forces erupted. The 1917 revolution was Russia’s version of the American Civil War. It was fought not primarily, as it seemed, over communism but once again over the issue of industrialization. When the Bolsheviks wiped out the last lingering vestiges of serfdom and feudal monarchy, they pushed agriculture into the background and consciously accelerated industrialism. They became the party of the Second Wave. In country after country, the same clash between First Wave and Second Wave interests broke out, leading to political crisis and upheavals, to strikes, uprisings, coup d’etat, and wars. By the mid-twentieth century, however, the forces of the First Wave were broken and the Second Wave civilization reigned over the Earth. #RandolphHarris 5 of 28
Today an industrial belt girdles the globe between the twenty-fifth and sixty-fifth parallels in the Northern Hemisphere. In North America, and much of the other developed nations, some 80 percent of the population lives an industrial way of life. Despite dizzying differences of language, culture, history, and politics—differences so deep that wars are fought over them—all these Second Wave societies share common features. Indeed, beneath the well-known differences lies a hidden bedrock of similarity. And to understand today’s colliding waves of change we must be able to identify clearly the parallel structures of all industrial nations—the hidden framework of Second Wave civilization. For it is this industrial framework itself that is not being shattered. And you, MAGNIFICENT AND MOST HONOURED LORDS, you upright and worthy magistrates of free people, permit me to offer you in particular my compliments and my respects. If there is a rank in the World suited to conferring honour on those who hold it, it is without doubt the one that is given by talents and virtue, that of which you have made yourselves worthy, and to which your fellow citizens have raised you. Their own merit adds still a new luster to yours. And I that find you, who were chosen by humans capable of governing others in order that they themselves may be governed, are as much above other magistrates as a free people; and above all that one which you have the honour of leading, is, by its enlightenment and reason, above the populace of other states. #RandolphHarris 6 of 28
May I be permitted to cite an example of which better records ought to remain, and which will always be near to my heart. I never call to mind without the sweetest emotion the memory of the virtuous citizen to whom I owe my being, and who often spoke to me in my childhood of the respect that was owed you. I sill see him living from the work of his hands, and nourishing his soul on the most sublime truths. I see Tacitus, Plutarch and Grotius mingled with the instruments of his craft before him. I see at this side a beloved son receiving with too little profit the tender instruction of the best of fathers. However, if the aberrations of foolish youth made me forget such wise lessons for a time, I have the happiness to sense at last that whatever the inclination one may have toward vice, it is difficult for an education in which the heart is involved to remain forever lost. Such, MADNIFICENT AND MOST HONOURED LORDS, are the citizens and even the simple inhabitants born in the state you govern. Such are those educated and sensible human concerning whom, under than name of workers and people, such base and false ideas are entertained in other nations. My father, I gladly acknowledge, was in no way distinguished among his fellow citizens; he was only what they all are; and such as he was, there was no country where his company would not have been sought after, cultivated, and profitably too, by the most upright humans. It does not behoove me, nor, thank Heaven, is it necessary to speak to you oft the regard which humans of that stamp can expect from you: your equals by education as well as by the rights of the nature and of birth; your inferiors by their will and by the preference they owe your merit, which they have granted to it, and for which you in tern owe them some sort of gratitude. #RandolphHarris 7 of 28
It is with intense satisfaction that I learn how much, in your dealings with them, you temper with gentleness and cooperativeness the gravity suited to the ministers of law; how much you repay them in esteem and attention for the obedience and respect they owe you; conduct full of justice and wisdom, suited to putting at a greater and greater distance the memory of unhappy events which must be forgotten so as never to see them again; conduct all the more judicious because this equitable and generous people makes a pleasure out of its duty, because it naturally loves to honour you, and because those who are most zealous in upholding their rights are the ones who are most inclined to respect yours. It should not be surprising that the leaders of a civil society love its glory and happiness; but, unfortunately for the tranquility of humans, that those who consider themselves as the magistrates, or rather as the masters, of a more holy and more subline homeland manifest some love for the Earthly homeland which nourishes them. How sweet it is for me to be able to make such a rare exception in our favour, and to place in the rank of our best citizens those zealous trustees of the sacred dogmas authorized by the laws, those venerable pastors of souls, whose lively and sweet eloquence the better instills the maxims of the Gospel into people’s hearts as they themselves always begin by practicing them. Everyone knows the success with which the great art preaching is cultivated in Geneva. #RandolphHarris 8 of 28
However, since people are too accustomed to seeing things said in one way and done in another, few of them know the extent to which the spirit of Christianity, the saintliness of mores, severity to oneself and gentleness to others reign in the body of our ministers. Perhaps it behooves only the city of Geneva to provide the edifying example of such a perfect union between a society of theologians and men of letters. It is in large part upon their wisdom and their acknowledged moderation and upon their zeal for the prosperity of the state that I base my hopes for its eternal tranquility. And I note, with a pleasure mixed with amazement and respect, how much they abhour the atrocious maxims of those sacred and barbarous humans of whom history provides more than one example, and who, in order to uphold the alleged rights of God—that is to say, their own interests—were all the less sparing of human blood because they hoped their own would always be respected. Could I forget hat precious half of the republic which produces the happiness of the other and whose gentleness and wisdom maintain peace and good mores? Amiable and virtuous women and citizens, it will always be the fate of your gender o govern ours. Happy it is when your chase power, exercised only within the conjugal union, makes itself felt only for the glory of the state and the public happiness! Thus it was that in Sparta women were in command, and thus it is that you deserve to be in command in American. #RandolphHarris 9 of 28
What barbarous man could resist the voice of honour and reason in the mouth of an affectionate wife? And who would not despise vain luxury on seeing your simple and modest attire, which, from the luster it derives from you, seems the most favourable to beauty? It is for your to maintain always, by your amiable and innocent dominion and by your insinuating wit, the love of laws in the state and concord among the citizens to reunite, by happy marriages, divided families; and above all, to correct, by the persuasive sweetness of your lessons and by the modest graces of your conversation, those extravagances which our young people come to acquire in other countries, whence, instead of the many useful things they could profit from, they bring back, with a childish manner and ridiculous airs adopted among fallen women, nothing more than an admiration for who knows what pretended grandeurs, frivolous compensations for servitude, which will never be worth as much as august liberty. Therefore always be what you are, the chaste guardians of mores and the gentle bonds of peace; and continue to assert on every occasion the rights of the heart and of nature for the benefit of duty and virtue. I flatter myself that events will not prove me wrong in basing upon such guarantees hope for the general happiness of the citizens and for the glory of the republic. #RandolphHarris 10 of 28
I admit that with all these advantages it will not shine with brilliance which dazzles most eyes; and the childish and fatal taste for this is the deadliest enemy of happiness and liberty. Let a dissolute youth go elsewhere in search of easy pleasures and lengthy repentances. Let the alleged men of tastes admire someplace else the grandeur of palaces, the beauty of carriages, the sumptuous furnishings, he pomp of spectacles, and all the refinements of softness and luxury. In American we will find only men; but such a sight has a value of its own, and those who seek it are well worth the admirers of the rest. May you all, MAGNIFICENT, MOST HONOURED AND AOVEREIGN LORDS, deign to receive with the same goodness the respectful testimonies of the interest I take in your common prosperity. If I were unfortunate enough to be guilty of some indiscreet rapture in this lively effusion of my heart, I beg you to pardon it as the tender affection of a true patriot, and to the ardent and legitimate zeal of man who envisage no greater happiness for oneself than that of seeing all of you happy. With the most profound respect, I am MAGNIFICENT, MOST HONOURED AND SOVEREIGN LORDS, you most humble and most obedient servant and fellow citizen. The Angels had wondered at the glorious plan of redemption. They watched to see how the people of God would receive His Son, clothed in the garb of humanity. Angels came to the land of the chosen people. Other nations were dealing in fables and worshipping false gods. To the land where the glory of God had been revealed, and the light of prophecy had shone, the Angels came. #RandolphHarris 11 of 28
They came to unseen America, to the appointed expositor of the Sacred Oracles, and the ministers of God’s house. Christ’s arrival had been announced. Already the forerunner was born, His mission attested by miracle and prophecy. The tidings of His birth and the wonderful significance of His mission had been spread abroad. And American was preparing to welcome her Redeemer. With amazement the Heavenly messengers beheld the excitement that the people whom God had called to communicate to the World the light of sacred truth. The American nation had been preserved as a witness that Christ was to be born of the seed of Abraham and of David’s line. The priests and teacher rehearsed their sacred prayers, and performed important rites of worship to honour the Lord, and prepare for the revelation of the Messiah. Hearts were Heavenly enthralled and were blessed by the joy that thrilled all Heaven. Everyone has the experience of doing, few of being. Yet that is the most precious, most important of all life’s experiences. This is the experience which makes the fully mature human happiest. It is usually short but its next advent will always be eagerly awaited. It is often isolated by long intervals of prosaic commonplace living, but they only serve to give it even greater value by contrast. The inner need of humans is forever demanding this experience, for it is Heaven. Whether it is born out of appreciation of beauty or an infinite humiliation of the ego, or out of some totally difference occasion, this awareness of the Overself’s presence is essential to the completion and fulfilment of human life. #RandolphHarris 12 of 28
To enter Heaven is to enter into fulfilment of our Earthly life’s unearthly purpose. And that is, simply, to become aware of the Overself. This holy awareness brings such joy with it hat we then know why the true saints and the real ascetics were able to disdain all other joys. The contrast is too disproportionate. Nothing that the World offers to tempt us can be put on the same level. One will find that somewhere within there is a holy presence not oneself, a sublime power not one’s own. One will understand then that no one is truly alive who has not made this discovery. The glimpse of Heaven lies at the core of religion, the precious gem which each devotee must find for oneself underneath all the sermons, chantings, rituals, prayers, and observances of one’s creed. A stillness which is simply the absence of noise but which is rich, fruitful, and uplifting in beauty and refinement of its presence—this is the best. No good fortune that comes one’s way will ever after be counted so great as the good fortune which one now feels to be one’s in the realization of the Overself. Would but the desert of the Fountain yield One glimpse—if dimly, yet indeed revealed, to which the fainting traveler might spring. Another significance of the glimpse is that of initiation. We cannot know God in the fullness of His consciousness but we can know the link which we have with God. If you mist, call it the soul, or if you prefer the Overself, but catch a glimpse of this link to be reborn. #RandolphHarris 13 of 28
The glimpse gives one a journey to a land flowing not with milk and honey, but with goodness and beauty, with peace and wisdom. It is the best moment of one’s life. When a human’s consciousness is turned upside-down by a glimpse, when one thought most substantial is revealed as least so, when one’s values are reversed the Good takes on a new definition, one writes that day down as one’s spiritual birthday. What better thing can one find than the divine Overself! That would be the decisive moment of one’s entire bodily existence, as establishing oneself permanently in its fullness and finality would be the grandest sequel. There is no higher happiness than this discovery of the real human. Joseph Smith knew that if his important work of translating was to be finished, he must have a capable scribe who could spend hours at a time at the job of writing. As usual when he needed guidance, Joseph prayed that such a person might be found. Meanwhile, back in Palmyra, a schoolteacher named Oliver Cowdery had come to live in the Smith home. Oliver, who was about Joseph’s age, had not been in the family of Joseph’s parent long before they told him the strange story of the golden plates and the Angel visits. Oliver liked the Smiths and believed the story. Oliver also prayed. He wanted to help in great new work. In his heart he began to feel that his place was beside Joseph. Because he felt so strongly that he could be helpful, he went to Pennsylvania in April, 1829. Upon hi arrival at the home of Joseph and Emma, Oliver told them why he had come. Joseph was not surprised because he knew God had sent this young man in answer to his prayer for help. #RandolphHarris 14 of 28
Joseph and Oliver became friends immediately. They trusted each other because each felt that God had told him, even before they met, that they would work together. Joseph had not had much opportunity to go to school to learn from books, and he was to appreciate the help of schoolteacher Oliver, who had excellent schooling, was a great reader, and a fine writer. Soon after the meeting of these two young men, the Lord Jesus Christ, spoke to them saying: “A great and marvelous work is about to come forth unto the children of men: behold, I am God, and give heed unto my word. Keep my commandments, and seek to bring forth and establish the cause of America. Seek not for riches but for wisdom; and, behold, the mysteries of God shall be unfolded unto you, and then shall you be made rich. Behold, one that hath eternal life is rich. If you desire, you shall be the means of doing much good in this generation. Say nothing but repentance unto this generation: keep my commandments, and assist to bring forth my work…and you shall be blessed. Behold, thou knowest that that thou hast inquired of me, and I did enlighten thy mind; and now I tell thee these things, that thou mayest know that thou hast been enlightened by the spirit of truth. Yea, I tell thee, that thou mayest know that there is none else save God, that knowest thy thoughts and the intents of thy heart. I tell thee these things as a witness unto thee, that the words of the work which thou hast been writing is true. Treasure up these words in thy heart. Be faithful and diligent in keeping the commandments of God, and I will encircle thee in he arms of my love. #RandolphHarris 15 of 28
“I say unto you, as I said unto my disciples, Where two or three are gathered together in my name, as touching one thing, behold, there will I be in the midst of them; even so am I in the midst of you. Fear not to do good, my sons, for whatsoever ye sow, that shall ye also reap: therefore, if ye sow good, ye shall also reap good for your reward. Therefore fear not, little flock, do good. Look unto me in every thought, doubt not, fear not. Be faithful; keep my commandments, and ye shall inherit the Kingdom of Heaven. Amen.” Two days after their meeting, Oliver began to write as Joseph translated. They worked hour after hour, day after day, happy in their new-found friendship and the work which bound them together. Oliver describes this work in these words: “These were days never to be forgotten—to sit under the sound of a vice dictated by the inspiration of Heaven. Day after day I continued to write as he translated with the Urim and Thummim.” Sometimes as they worked, on the translation they came to things they did not understand. They prayed for explanations. It was on such an occasion that the Lord explained to them how they might know the answers to many of their problems and receive the knowledge by the Holy Spirit. The Lord said: “Verily I say unto you, that assuredly as the Lord liveth, who is your God and your Redeemer, even so sure shall you receive a knowledge of whatsoever things you shall ask in faith, with an honest heart, believing that you shall receive. Yea, behold, I will tell you in your mind and in your heart by Holy Ghost, which shall come upon you, and which shall dwell in your heart. Now, behold, this is the spirit of revelation. #RandolphHarris 16 of 28
“Behold, you have not understood; you have supposed that I would give it unto you, wen you took no thoughts, save it was to ask me; but, behold, I say unto you, that you mut study it out in your mind. Then you must ask me if it be right, and if it is right, I will cause that your bosom shall burn within you; therefore, you shall fell that it is right. However, if it be not right, you shall have no such feelings, but you shall have a stupor of thought, that shall cause you to forget the thing which is wrong.” The Lord provided this means whereby Joseph and Oliver, and all the people, might know by His Holy Spirit the truth of all things. We must look upon these glimpses as sacred one. And this is so even if they rise of themselves in our best moments. For in these times we, and especially the younger ones among us, need wider definitions of such matters. These moments, when spiritual presence is distinctly felt, may be rare or frequent, misunderstood or recognized, but they are moments of blessing. And this is true even if they open the door only slightly and let in merely a ray of light. In these moments of a glimpse, one discovers the very real presence of the Overself. They provide one with a joy, an amiability, which disarms the negative side of one’s character and brings forward the beneficial side. These are precious moments; they cannot be too highly valued. And though they must pass, some communication with them is always possible through memory. #RandolphHarris 17 of 28
Remember this truth: The Old Testament is God’s will concealed, and the New Testament is God’s will revealed—every word is equally anointed, relevant, and eternally true. The glimpse is of supreme worth morally, helping to free one, bestowing goodwill and humility, uplifting one’s ideals however fleetingly. Instead of being an escape from life, as some sceptics unwisely think, they are its fulfilment. Although life is really like a dream, some phases of the dream are more worthwhile than others—those which bring the Glimpse, for instance. It is far better than being ignorant to know what is read in books or heard at lectures on this topic, but far better than both of these is to feel vividly the Overself’s presence and reality, to know the truth of It with complete certainty. No better fortune can come to a human than one’s serene inward well-being and this certitude of universal truth. We must have Good Conscience and live a Virtuous Life! Why? Because a lot of us spend more time studying hard than living well. That is such a mistake! All that does is produce a tree that bears in fruit, except perhaps the odd pear or single peace. Plowing vices under and planting virtues in their place—that is hard work. Harder even than the grunt and the grind of the great philosophical issues. However, if the priestly scholar had already done that hard and serious work in one’s own life, one would find it easier now dealing with those Devouts traipsing about in sandals and self-actualizes processing around in ermines. #RandolphHarris 18 of 28
With the certain advent of that Final Event, the question o be posed is not whether we read the right books, but whether we did the good deeds; not whether we said the right things, but whether we made the right choices. Tell me now, where are those celebrity professors who taught you when they were at the height of their careers and you were starting out? They are dead and gone. You occupy their chairs of learning now, and now you are spending their stipends. Doctors they once were; now they are only dodoes, and you can hardly remember their names. How soon the glory of the Worlds set, wrote John in his first letter to an early group of Christians (2.17)! Would that the professors’ lives had matched their doctrinal teachings! Yet they fell short. If they had it to do over again, I suppose they would have studied longer and read till their eyes turned red. However, that would have done the little good. That is what Paul had in mind when he wrote to the Romans (1.21). How many of the professors have perished because they followed the unreliable wisdom of the World! Because they gave scant attention to the service of God. They had their choices, though. They picked greatness rather than humility, and as a result logicked themselves right out of their own holy syllogisms. However, when the sun finally sets, there will be other, happier people. The truly great? Those who did not make a lot of themselves; they gathered honours as their due, but they did not display their trophies in the window. The truly prudent? If it is what would keep them on the path to God, those who gave the World its due; they would not mind sweeping up after elephants, as St. Paul put it so Earthily to the Philippians (3.8). #RandolphHarris 19 of 28
The truly educated? Those who engaged God’s will and disengaged their own in one and the same transaction. Does no death mean that the body comes to exist by itself, separated from the soul, and that the soul exists by herself, separated from the body? What is death but that? For the Hebrew, a human is a unity, and that unity is the body as a complex of parts, drawing their life and activity from a breath-soul, which has no existence apart from the body. What is our essential nature? Are we a dualism of body and soul, as Socrates and Plato believed, or a psychophysical unity, as H. Wheeler Robinson suggests is the Old Testament view? Take a little survey of Christian laypeople, and you will surely find most people agreeing with Plato: we are made up of two realities, body and soul. Or so most of us have been taught since childhood. One book of Christian doctrine for children explains: Maybe you have been to a funeral. You have seen the dead body. That is buried in the ground. However, the inside part of you, the part that thinks and feels, that is the part that lives forever. This is the part of us that would go to hell. Christians talk and sing a lot about souls. It has seemed natural to appear to our possession of a soul as “proof” that we are alive. The belief that we possess a soul has been the foundation of our dignity and out view of the sacredness of human life. For many, talk about the soul has been a way of thinking about our “divine image.” #RandolphHarris 20 of 28
Not surprisingly, anyone who seems to question one of our most treasured beliefs will face strong challenges, and quite properly be put under close scrutiny. That has happened in the past, of course, with other Christian beliefs. We all remember the sustained action to the views of Copernicus and Galileo, which displaced our Earth from the center of the Universe. How much more of a reaction, then, might we expect to anyone seeming to question our possession of a soul as the hallmark of our being made “in the image of God”? If, as the Old Testament scholar Derek Kidner suggests, “the telescope of Galileo did more to interpret Psalm 96 verse 10 than the pen of the theologian,” we need to pause and ask in what way today might the discoveries of the neuropsychologists and evolutionary psychologists do more to interpret biblical references to the soul than the comments of philosophical theologians? The distinguished Nobel laureate Francis Crick wrote, “In spite of differences among religions, there is broad agreement on at least one point: People have soul, in the literal and not merely the metaphorical sense.” Keith Ward, Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford, begs to differ: “In the Christian tradition, like the Jewish and Muslim, the soul is not a substantial entity which exists without and before the body, and is better off without the body.” Instead, Dr. Ward contends, the Christian tradition proclaims an essential unity of body and soul. Indeed, as Socrates’ discourse on death hints, the idea of an immortal soul separable from the body arises not from the Christian Bible but from Greek thought. #RandolphHarris 21 of 28
In the end, Plato records that Socrates lived his own teaching by drinking the poison hemlock in the serene conviction that his immortal soul would now find release from its bodily prison. For Socrates and Plato, bodily death was a welcome liberation. Indeed, it was actually not dying. This Greek belief of separate body and soul has permeated Christian tradition quite thoroughly. When Origen, a third-century platonic philosopher, became the father of theology, he built into Christian doctrine Plato’s idea of the soul. In the early fifth century, Augustine thought Plato’s to be the most brilliant of all philosophers. And in the sixteenth century, John Calvin, who was heavily influenced by both Plato and Augustine, declared that Plato alone “rightly affirmed” the immortal soul that “lies hidden in humans separate from the body.” It has been one of the tasks of twenty-first century biblical scholarship to disentangle the biblical images of human nature from those of Greek philosophy. Discerning the biblical picture of the person is no simple matter, for the Bible is actually not one book but a library of sixty-six books, written over some fifteen hundred years, in three languages, and under varying historical circumstances. Not surprisingly, then, the meanings of the same words within the Hebrew Old Testament and within the Greek New Testament may shift. Fresh scholarship has modified earlier views. Today we recognize that the long-standing and pervasive view that presented a dichotomy between Hebrew thought (affirming some form of monism) and Greek thought (affirming some dualism) is a caricature. #RandolphHarris 22 of 28
Greek thought was more caried on the nature of the soul than a reading focused solely on Plato would suggest. There was no single concept of the soul among the Greeks, and the body-soul relationship was described variously among philosophers and physicians in the Hellenistic period. It was a belief cluster, not a single view. Recognizing these varied views within Hellenistic Judaism is not seen by biblical scholars as being directly relevant to understanding the cultural narrative within which anthropology is described in the New Testament. It is increasingly recognized that it was Israel’s Scriptures that were the most potent influence on New Testament writers. Thus readings of New Testament anthropology must take Old Testament monism as their point of departure. One mistake is to interpret the everyday language of the Christian Bible and The Book of Mormon and The Doctrine and Covenants as modern, scientific statements. When the writer of Ecclesiastes (1.5) noted, “The sun rises and the sun goes down,” the church of Galileo’s day understood this to be a scriptural proclamation of a stationary Earth encircled by the sun. Because the writers of Genesis (1.16) described the moon as a “light to rule the night,” the church also could not accept Galileo’s conclusion that the moon shone by reflected light; when Galileo invited them to look through his telescope and see the shadows of the craters for themselves, they declined and dismissed his observations as delusions of the devil. It is similarly possible to misinterpret the Bible’s human images. It is important to remember the Bible is written for all people all times. #RandolphHarris 23 of 28
As such, the Bible does not intend to offer a precise psychology, and certainly not one in the language of the early twenty-first century. Moreover, the Christian Holy Bible(s) is a book for living, not a book of science. It is not biographical. It is about the acts of God in the lives of people throughout history. Bearing these cautions in mind, what general understand of human nature emerge from the library of Scriptures? Let us consider some conclusions reached by scholars who have devoted their lives to exploring the whole of Scripture, in more depth during our next few lectures. Predestination presupposes election in the order of reason; and election presupposes love. The reason of this is that predestination is a part of providence. Now providence, as also prudence, is the plan existing in the intellect directing the orderings of some things towards an end. However, nothing is direct towards an end unless the will for that end already exists. Whence the predestination of some to eternal salvation presupposes, in the order of reason, that God wills their salvation; and to this belong both election and love:–love, inasmuch as He wills them this particular god of eternal salvation; since to love is to wish well to anyone:—election, inasmuch as He wills this good to some in preference to others; since He reprobates some. Election and love, however, are differently ordered in God, and in ourselves: because in us the will in loving does not cause good, but we are incited to love by the goo which already exits; and therefore we choose someone to love, and so election in us precedes love. #RandolphHarris 24 of 28
In God, however, it is the reverse. For His will, by which in loving He wishes good to someone, is the cause of that good possessed by some in preferences to others. Thus it is clear that love precedes election in the order of reason, and election precedes predestination. Whence all the predestinate are objects of election and love. If the communication of the divine goodness in general be considered, God communicates His goodness without election; inasmuch as there is nothing which does not in some way share in His goodness. However, if we consider the communication of this or that particular good, He does not allow it without election; since He gives certain goods to some humans, which He does not give to others. Thus in the conferring of grace and glory election is implied. When the will of the person choosing is incited to make a choice by the good already pre-existing in the object chosen, the choice must needs be of those things which already exist, as happens in our choice. In God it is otherwise. This, as St. Augustin says (De Verb. Ap. Serm. 11): “Those are chosen by God, who do not exist; yet He does not err in His choice.” God wills all humans to be saved by His antecedent will, which is to will not simply but relatively; and not by His consequent will which is to will simply. I part out thrusting branches and come in beneath the blessed and the blessing trees. Though I am silent, there is singing around me. Though my vision is clouded, there is clarity around me. Though I am heavy, there is the flight of Angels around me. #RandolphHarris 25 of 28
It is a mistake to believe that because any art of healing—whether it be a material or a spiritual one—is able to heal a particular kind of sickness once, it is consequently able to heal all similar cases of sickness by its own merits. Forces outside it have something to do with the matter. There are some cases where failure by material methods is preordained by the higher power of destiny. There are others where failure by spiritual methods is also inevitable, because the heart of the sick human being has not been touched. As elsewhere, there are limits to human effort set here by certain laws. O inscribe all the children of Thy covenant of a happy life. May all the living do homage unto Thee forever and praise Thy name in truth, O God, who art our salvation and our helps. Blessed by Thou, O Lord, Beneficent One, unto whom our thanks are due. Our God and God of our fathers, bless us with the threefold blessings written in the Torah of Moses, Thy servant, and spoken by Aaron and his sons, Thy consecrated priests: May the Lord bless thee and keep thee; so may it be His will. May the Lord make His countenance to shine upon thee and be gracious unto thee: so may it be His will. May the Lord turn His countenance unto thee and give thee peace. So may it be His will. May our voids and blanks be filled with creations of intense significance, aesthetic, spiritual, and practical. Here with the Lord may we find the roots of much imaginative endeavour. May a space feel like an invitation to bridge it. #RandolphHarris 26 of 28
May we be confident people, who can draw on a sense of competence (“I am grand—I can do it”), may find a void pleasurable and attractive: it can become filled with all kinds of Christian efforts. The gap, the emptiness, the interval, the space, seem inviting to creative Christians. We see faces in the clouds. On a larger scale, people with lonely moors, with isolated lives, who have lost their parents or have empty parents, may God fill their World with vivid people and events. Painters need their empty canvasses. Dr. Barnardo, Albert Schweitzer, and others who are creative people, see what is missing and what is needed, and set about putting it there. Two people who encounter one another may create a relationship where there has been nothing This is he more fascinating because, if the creation is to endure, here has to be an element of truth, which makes the encounter one of exploration and discover. Who can tell how much invention-creation there is in such a relationship and how much discovery-creation? It must vary from person to person. Indeed, who can insist on the difference between invention and discovery in our love and hate of each other? We are so varied in our potential qualities, and so prone to have them called into being by other people’s love and hope, or hate and coldness. Do not the old stories of cruelty and redemption tell us so? #RandolphHarris 27 of 28
Scientific invention is also a matter of filling a blank. This kind of creativity seems to some in two forms: interpolation and extrapolation. Interpolation is closest to the process of “discovering the object”: the scientist has a set of starting-points, which seem connected with a phantasied endpoint or outcome which one wishes to reach. At first tis gap can conceivably be filled wit a shifting multitude of possibly useful concepts. Some of these are eliminated when we cannot get evidence, cannot get the facts to coincide with out phantasies. Eventually, if we work hard enough and are blessed enough, the pieces fall into place and bridge the gap from phantasy to outcome in a way which can be tested further. The process of extrapolation is of a more space-loving kind—discovery rather than invention. “Surely if we sail west we will come to the Indies,” said Christopher Columbus—and landed in America! Starting from the known, the discoverer takes the next step (perhaps the next logical step) and then the next and then the next. All kinds of good things can happen when conceptual activity does not eventuate in the anticipated outcome. Creative processes happen, imaginative play, artistic endeavour, invention, discovery. They all start with the kind of mental processes called phantasy (that is, untested unconfirmed concepts). In this state of mind there are (at least during the “period of hesitation”) no clear concepts, no clear contours. Bits of “self” and of “not self” are available for potential concept-formation. #RandolphHarris 28 of 28
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And Now We Must Preserve What it Means to be American!
I have a sixth sense, not the other five. If I was not making money, they would put me away. The conflict between Second and Third Wave groupings is, in fact, the central political tension cutting through our society today. Despite what today’s parties and candidates may preach, the infighting among them amounts to little more than a dispute over who will squeeze the most advantage from what reminds of the declining industrial system. Put differently, they are engaged in a squabble for the proverbial deck chairs on a sinking Titanic. The more basic political question is who controls the age of information. While short-range political skirmishes exhaust our energy and attention, a far more profound battle is already taking place beneath the surface. On one side are the partisans of the industrial past; on the other, growing millions who recognize that the most urgent problems of the World—food, energy, arms control, population, poverty, resources, ecology, climate, the problems of the aged, the breakdown of urban community, the need for productive, rewarding work—can no longer be resolved within the framework of the current order. This conflict is the “super-struggle” for tomorrow. This confrontation between the vested interests of the Second Wave and the people of the Third Wave already runs like an electric current through the political life of every nation. Even in the undeveloped countries of the World, all the old battle lines have been forcibly redrawn by the arrival of the Third Wave. #RandolphHarris 1 of 22
The old war of agricultural, often feudal, interest against industrializing elites, either capitalists or socialist, takes on a new dimension in light of the coming development of the age of information. Now that Third Wave civilization has made it appearance, does the digital age imply liberation from neocolonialism and poverty—or does it, in fact, guarantee permanent dependency? It is only against this wide-screen background that we can begin to make sense of the headlines, to sort out our priorities, to frame sensible strategies for the control of change in our lives. As I write this, the front pages report hysteria and hostages in Mexico. In addition to being one of America’s largest trading partners, Mexico is the biggest foreign source of heroin, cocaine, and methamphetamine trafficking into the United States of America. Currently there are assassinations in America, runaway speculation in gold and stocks, friction between underrepresented groups, big increases in China’s defense budget to around $200 billion U.S dollars, which is up 6.8 percent from last year. Crosses brining in Knoxville, Tennessee by members wearing white robes to symbolize “purity” and the burning crosses to signify “the light of Christ.” There is also expected to be fuel shortages this summer because more people are expected to travel by vehicles after a year of lockdown, but 25 percent of truck drivers had to park their big rigs, and an estimated 40,000 to 60,000 were put out of the national employment pool because of prior drug or alcohol violations or failed drug tests. #RandolphHarris 2 of 22
Furthermore, as racism seems to be on a rise, more and more people are having the biggest antiracism rally in history. There is also a battle between the rich nations and the developing nations over manufacturing and trade. Waves of religious revivalism crash through Africa, Israel, Libya, Syria, and the United States of America; neofacist fanatics claim “credit” for the 2020 American Presidential election. And in a safety report filed to U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, BMW laid out the broad strokes of its plan to introduce what could become the first system on American roads to qualify as “Level 3” by Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) standards for automated driving features. These news clips, while some are good, and others are tragic, call out for integration or synthesis. Once we realize that a biter struggle is now raging between those who seek to preserve their traditional values and those who seek to supplant it, we have a powerful new key to understanding the World. More important—whether we are setting policies for a nation, strategies for a corporation, or goals for one’s own personal life—we have a new tool for changing that World. To use this tool, however, we must be able to distinguish clearly those changes that extend the old Americana from those which facilitate the arrival of the new. We must, in short, understand both the old and the new, the Second Wave industrial system into which so many Americans were born and the Third Wave civilization that many of us and our children are inhabiting. #RandolphHarris 3 of 22
The Second Wave civilization was not an accidental jumble of components, but a system with parts that interacted with each other in more or less predictable ways—and the fundamental patterns of industrial life were the same in country after country, regardless of cultural heritage or political difference. This is the civilization that today’s “reactionaries”—both “left- “and “right-wing”—are fighting to preserve. It is this World that is threatened by history’s Third Wave of civilizational change. Also, with the 100 year anniversary of the Tulsa race massacre just passing, which lead to the death of as many as 300 people, nearly 1,000 injured, leaving 35 city blocks in charred ruins—many people are demanding that something be done to repair race relations in 2021 because some people in the media and positions of authority seem intend on bringing back Jim Crow racism. Because there are so many mixed-race families and people are more accepting of other cultures, the reality of racism is sacring many people. They fear moving to new communities because they do not know if their family with become a target and be assassinated because of their colour of their skin, and they are concerned about the integrity of law enforcement to uphold the laws because there seems to be a breakdown of law and order in 2021, and many do not know where the community and those in positions of authority stand on law and order. The community does not know if they uphold the constitutional oath, or want to threaten, intimidate them or use them for target practice. #RandolphHarris 4 of 22
The first man who enclosed a plot of ground and thought of saying, “This is mine,” and found others to believe him, was the true founder of society. Having the good fortune to be born among you, how could I meditate on the equality which nature has established among people and upon the inequality they have instituted without thinking of the profound wisdom with which both, felicitously combined in this state, cooperate in the manner that most closely approximates the natural law and that is most favourable to society, to the maintenance of public order and to the happiness of private individuals? In searching for the best maxims that good sense could dictate concerning the constitution of government, I have been so struck on seeing the all in operation in your own, that even if I had not been born within your walls, I would have believed myself incapable of dispensing with offering this picture of human society to that people which, of all peoples, seems to me to be in possession of the greatest advantages, and to have best prevented its abuses. If I had had to choose my birthplace, I would have chosen a society of a size limited by the extent of human faculties, that is to say, limited by the possibility of being well governed, and where, with each being sufficient to one’s task, no one would have been forced to relegate to others the functions with which one was charged; a state where, with all private individuals being known to one another, neither the obscure maneuvers of vice nor the modesty of virtue could be hidden from the notice and the judgment of the public, and where that pleasant habit of seeing and knowing one another turned love of homeland into love of the citizens rather than into love of the land. #RandolphHarris 5 of 22
I would have wanted to be born in a country where the sovereign and the people could have but one and the same interest, so that all the movements of the machine always tended only to the common happiness. Since this could not have taken place unless the people and the sovereign were one and the same person, it follows that I would have wished to be born under a democratic government, wisely tempered. I would have wanted to live and die free, that is to say, subject to the laws in such wise that neither I nor anyone else could shake off their honourable yoke: that pleasant and salutary yoke, which the most arrogant heads bear with all the greater docility, since they are made to bear no other. I would therefore have wanted it to be impossible for anyone in the state to say that one was above the law and for anyone outside to demand that the state was obliged to give one recognition. If a single person is found who is not subject to the law, for whatever the constitution of a government may be, all the others are necessarily at one’s discretion. And if there is a national leader and a foreign leader as well, whatever the division of authority they may make, it is impossible for both of them to be strictly obeyed and for the states to be well governed. I would not have wanted to dwell in a newly constituted republic, however good its laws may be, out of fear that, with the government perhaps constituted otherwise than would be required for the moment and being unsuited to the new citizens or the citizens to the new government, the state would be subject to being overthrown and destroyed almost from is inception. #RandolphHarris 6 of 22
For liberty is like those solid and tasty foods or those full-bodied wines which are appropriate for nourishing and strengthening robust constitutions that are used to them, but which overpower, ruin, and intoxicate the weak and delicate who are not suited for them. Once peoples are accustomed to masters, they are no longer in a position to get along without them. If they try to sake off the yoke, they put all the more distance between themselves and liberty, because, in mistaking for liberty an unbridled license which is its opposite, their revolutions nearly always deliver them over to seducers who simply make their chains heavier. The Roman people itself—that model of all free peoples—was in no position to govern itself when it emerged from the oppression of the Tarquins. Debased by slavery and the ignominious labours the Tarquins had imposed on it, at first it was but a stupid rabble that needed to be managed and governed with the greatest wisdom, so that, as it gradually became accustomed to breathe the salutary air of liberty, these souls, enervated or rather brutalized under tyranny, acquired by degrees that severity of mores and that high-spirited courage which eventually made them, of all the peoples, most worthy of respect. I would therefore have sought for my homeland a happy and tranquil republic, whose antiquity was somehow lost in the dark recesses of time, which has experienced only such attacks as served to manifest and strengthen in its inhabitants courage and love of homeland, and where the citizens, long accustomed to a wise independence, were not only free but worthy of being so. #RandolphHarris 7 of 22
I would have searched for a country where the right of legislation was common to all citizens, for who can know better than they the conditions under which it suits them to live together in a single society? However, I would not have approved of plebiscities like those of the Romans where the state’s leaders and those most interested in its preservation were excluded from the deliberations on which its safety often depended, and where, by an absurd inconsistency, the magistrate were deprived of the rights enjoyed by ordinary citizens. On the contrary, I would have desired that, in order to stop he self-centered and ill-conceived projects and the dangerous innovations that finally ruined Athens, no one would have the power to propose new laws according to one’s fancy; that this right belonged exclusively to the magistrates; that even they used it with such caution that the populace, for is part, was so hesitant about giving its consent to these laws, and that their promulgation could only be done with such solemnity that before the constitution was overturned one had time to be convinced that it is above all the great antiquity of the laws that makes them holy and venerable; that the populace soon holds in contempt those laws that it sees change daily; and that in becoming accustomed to neglect old usages on the pretext of making improvements, great evils are often introduced in order to correct lesser ones. “God is wise in heart and mighty in strength. Who has hardened oneself against God and prospered?” declares Job 9.4. #RandolphHarris 8 of 22
Above all, I would have fled, as necessarily ill-governed, a republic where the people, believing it could get along without its magistrates or permit them but a precarious authority, would imprudently have held on to the administration of civil affairs and the execution of its laws. Such must have been the rude constitution of the first governments immediately emerging form the state of nature, and such too was one of the vices which ruined the republic of Athens. However, I would have chosen that republic where private individuals, being content to give sanction to the laws and to decide as a body and upon the recommendation of their leaders the most important public affairs, would establish respect tribunals, distinguish with care their various departments, annually elect the most capable and most upright of their fellow citizens to administer justice and to govern the state; and where, with the virtue of the magistrates thus bearing witness to the wisdom of the people, they would mutually honour one another. Thus if some fatal misunderstandings were ever to disturb public concord, even those periods of blindness and errors were marked by indications of moderation, reciprocal esteem, and a common respect for the laws: presages and guarantees of a sincere and perpetual reconciliation. Such, MAGNIFICENT, MOST HONOURED, AND SOVEREIGN LORDS, are the advantages that I would have sought in the homeland that I would have chosen for myself. #RandolphHarris 9 of 22
And if in addition providence had joined to it a charming location, a temperate climate, a fertile country and the most delightful appearance there is under the Heavens, to complete my happiness I would have desired only to enjoy all these goods in the bosom of that happy homeland, living peacefully in sweet society with my fellow citizens, and practicing toward them (following their own example), humanity, friendship, and all the virtues; and leaving behind me the honourable memory of a good human and a decent and virtuous patriot. If, less happy or too late grown wise, I had seen myself reduced to end an infirm and languishing career in other climates, pointlessly regretting the repose and peace of which an imprudent youth deprived me, I would at least have nourished in my soul those same sentiments I could not have used in my native country; and penetrated by a tender and disinterested affection for my distant fellow citizens, I would have addressed them from the bottom of my heart more or less along the following lines: My dear fellow citizens, or rather my brother, since the bonds of blood as well as the laws unite almost all of us, it gives me pleasure to be incapable of thinking of you without a the same time thinking of all the god things you enjoy, and of which perhaps none of you appreciates the value more deeply than I who have lost them. The more I reflect upon your political and civil situation, the less I am capable of imagining that the nature of human affairs could admit of better one. In all other governments, when it is a question of assuring the greatest good of the state, everything is always limited to imaginary projects, and at most to simple possibilities. #RandolphHarris 10 of 22
As for you, your happiness is complete; it remains merely to enjoy it. And to become perfectly happy you are in need of nothing more than to know how to be satisfied with being so. Your sovereignty, acquired or recovered at the point of a sword, and preserved for over two centuries by dint of valour and wisdom, is at last fully and universally recognized. Honourable treaties fix your boundaries, secure your rights and strengthen your repose. Your constitution is excellent, since it is dictated by the most sublime reason and is guaranteed by friendly powers deserving of respect. Your state is tranquil; you have neither wards nor conquerors to fear. You have no other masters but the wise laws you have made, administered by upright magistrates of your own choosing. You are neither rich enough to enervate yourself with softness and to lose in vain delights the tastes for true happiness and solid virtues, nor poor enough to need more foreign assistance than your industry procures for you. And this precious liberty, which in large nations is maintained only by exorbitant taxes, costs you almost nothing. For the happiness of is citizens and the examples of the peoples, may a republic so wisely and so happily constituted last forever! This is the only wish left for you to make, and the only precaution left for you to take. From here on, it is for you alone, not to bring about your own happiness, your ancestors having saved you the trouble, but to render I lasting by the wisdom of using it well. #RandolphHarris 11 of 22
It is upon your perpetual union, your obedience to the laws, your respect for the ministers that your preservation depends. If there remains among you the slightest germ of bitterness or distrust, hasten to destroy it as a ruinous leaven that sooner or later results in your misfortunes and the ruin of the state. I beg you all to look deep inside your hearts and to heed the secret voice of your conscience. Is there anyone among you who knows of a body that is more upright, more enlightened, more worthy of respect than that of your magistracy? Do not all its members give you the example of moderation, of simplicity of mores, of respect for the laws, and of the most sincere reconciliation? Then freely give such wise chiefs that salutary confidence that reason owes to virtue. Bear in mind that they are of your choice, that they justify it, and that the honours due to those whom you have established in dignity necessarily reflect back upon yourselves. None of you is so unenlightened as to be ignorant of the fact that where the vigour of laws and the authority of their defenders cease, there can be neither security nor freedom for anyone. What then is the point at issues among you except to do wholeheartedly and with just confidence what you should always be obliged to do by a true self-interest, by duty and for the sake of reason? May a sinful and ruinous indifference to the maintenance of the constitution never make you neglect in time of need the wise teachings of the most enlightened and most zealous among you. #RandolphHarris 12 of 22
However, may equity, moderation, and the most respectful firmness continue to regulate all your activities and display in you, to the entire Universe, the example of a proud and modest people, as jealous of its glory as of its liberty. Above all, beware (and this will be my last counsel) of ever listening to sinister interpretations and venomous speeches, whose secret motives are often more dangerous than the actions that are their object. An entire household awakens and takes warning at the first cries of a good and faithful watchdog who never barks expect at the approach of burglars. However, people hate the nuisance caused by those noisy animals that continually disturb the public repose and whose continual and ill-timed warnings are not heeded even at the moment when they are necessary. The distinction between diseases of “brain” and “mind,” between “neurological” problems and “psychological” or “psychiatric” ones, is an unfortunate cultural inheritance that permeates society and medicine. It reflects a basic ignorance of the relation between brain and mind. On 17 June 1783, the famous English author Dr. Samuel Johnson awoke around 3 A.M. and to his surprise and horror found he could not speak. To test his mind, he attempted to compose a prayer in Latin verse and succeeded. Thus reassured, he next tried to loosen his powers of speech by drinking spirits, but this only put him back to sleep. When he awoke the next morning he found that he still could not speak, yet he could write and could understand what others said. #RandolphHarris 13 of 22
What sort of disorder would disrupt speech yet allow one to think, read, write, and listen? Mr. Johnson summoned his physicians, who diagnosed a disturbance of the vocal apparatus and prescribed a treatment of blisters on each side of the throat. Sure enough, within a few days his speech began to return, leaving only a slight impediment at the time of his death late the following year. The misdiagnosis of Mr. Johnson’s doctors regarding the localization of different aspects of language in the brain was mild compared with that of their predecessors. Down the centuries philosophers and physicians have talked about the mind, the soul, and the heart and how they are related, and have produced a vast literature from which can be distilled several different pictures. Down the centuries philosophers and physicians have talked about the mind, the soul, and the heart and how they are related, and have produced a vast literature from which can be distilled several different pictures. For many centuries people debated whether the mind was located in the heart, as Aristotle argued in the fourth century B.C., or in the brain, as Hippocrates had guessed. The second-century anatomist Galen, whose views prevailed until the sixteenth century, favoured Hippocrates’ view, although he mislocated the mind in the brain’s fluid-filled ventricles. The early-nineteenth-century German physician Franz Gall recognized that various brain regions have specific functions, but he guessed wrongly what they were. #RandolphHarris 14 of 22
By 1865 a French physician, Paul Broca, reported that damage to a specific area on the left side of the brain would produce the speech difficulty that Samuel Johnson suffered (apparently as a result of a mild stroke). What is true of our understanding of the relation between brain activity and language is true of the brain-mind relation in general: every new advance in the flourishing field of neuropsychology tightens the apparent links between brain and mind. Even so specific a mental function as the ability to recognize a face has been localized to specific brain regions (principally the lower right side of the brain). In work with monkeys, neuropsychologists have detected specific cells that buzz with activity in response to a specific face or to a specific type of perceived body movement. In humans, detectable brain activity is now known to coincide with and even preceded by a fraction of a second the instant at which a person consciously decides to perform an action, such as lifting a finger. As research accumulates, the link also tightens between brain and personality. Another well-documented episode of the mid-nineteenth century further illustrates the tightness of the mind-brain link, but his time with a dramatic change in general behaviour. In 1848 a New England railroad worker, Phineas Gage, accidentally set off an explosion that sent a tamping iron through the front of his brain. Before the accident he was a reliable, upright member of society. After it, his behaviour, aspirations, ethics, and morals had all changed dramatically for the worse. And what happens in isolated cases such as Gage’s may, at times, happen to large numbers of people. #RandolphHarris 15 of 22
In the late 1800s considerable numbers of previously sane people in Edinburgh threw themselves out of windows after suffering from epidemic encephalitis or inflammation of the brain, probably due to invasion by bacteria or viruses. The Austrian physician Constantin von Economo likened the Scottish illness and a similar one in Italy to the epidemic of encephalitis lethargica or sleeping sickness that spread across the World from 1917 to 1927. Changes to the brain by damage or disease result in changes in thinking, feeling, and behaving. We now know that particular types of brain damage have predictable effects on thoughts and emotions, and that manipulating a person’s brain can manipulate the person’s mind, moods, and motives. And we are learning how abnormalities in the brain’s chemical messengers—its neurotransmitters—are involved in psychological disorders such as depression and schizophrenia. With such findings comes hope that alterations in brain chemistry (through drugs, transplants of brain tissue, or dietary changes) may alleviate emotional suffering. With everyone being required to wear a mask now in public places of business, even though stay at home orders have been lifted, many people may still be feeling disconnected with the human population. Something that Dr. Charles Darwin emphasized, and Dr. Antonio Damasio reminds us that if it is separated from its emotional foundation, “mind talk” alone can be misleading because much of recognition and communication takes pace through expression of the face. #RandolphHarris 16 of 22
If someone cannot show the feelings of the mind in the face, communication becomes extremely difficult. This happens, for example, in Moebius syndrome, in which all control of the muscle of both sides of the face and also eye movement are lost. Cognitive neuroscientists fill out the picture. They have shown that semantic jokes that make us smile are processed in centers in the brain concerned wit meanings of words. Hearing a pun of seeing someone slip on a banana peel engages different brain regions. Feelings matter, and feelings are embodied. There is certainly evidence to indicate that humans are dependent on their physical nature. There is also metaphysical evidence which reveals that the body is strongly influenced by the psyche. All diseases are not caused by soul illness. Destiny looms more largely in this matter than any physician is likely to admit, although it is equally true in the long run that humans are the arbiter of their own fate, that the real self bestows every boon or ill upon its fragmentary expression, the personality, and bestows them with a just impersonal hand. However, I must be content to leave the explanation of such a seeming paradox for another place and another time. Suffice it to hint that the past of individual humans are infinitely more extended than is apparent at first glance. #RandolphHarris 17 of 22
As one penetrates deeper and deeper into that subtle World of one’s inner being, one finds that thought, feeling, and even speech affects its condition as powerfully as outer conditions affect one’s physical being. A complete falsehood or a gross exaggeration, when conscious and deliberate, stuns or inflames the delicate psyche. A complete falsehood or a gross exaggeration, when conscious and deliberate, stuns or inflames the delicate psyche. If persisted in and made habitual, the psyche becomes diseased and falls sick. This may be followed, soon or late according to the sensitive of the human, by physical sickness. If sickness does not come, then one will be exposed to it in the form of a universal shadowing some future incarnation. Where there is no obvious transgression of the laws of bodily hygiene to account for a case of ill health, there may still be a hidden one not yet uncovered. Where there is no hidden one, the line of connection from a physical effect may be traced to a mental cause—that is, the sickness may be a psychosomatic one. Where this in turn is also not obvious, there may still be a hidden mental one. Where all these classes of cause do not exist, then the origin of the sickness must necessarily be derive from the karma of the previous reincarnation—sometimes even for a still earlier one, although that is less likely. Under the law of recompense, the very type of body with which the patient was born contains latently, and was predisposed to revel eventually, the sickness itself. #RandolphHarris 18 of 22
The cause may be any one of widely varying kinds, may even be a moral transgression in the earlier life which could not find any other way of expiation and so hard to be expiated in this way. Therefore it would be an error to believe that all cases of ill health directly arise from the transgression of physical hygienic laws. It is possible to be quite enlightened without being quite free from physical maladies. For the body’s karma does not end until the body’s life ends. Only a heroic and determined few can suddenly reverse the habits of a lifetime and adopt new ones with full benefit. For most people it is more prudent and beneficial to make change by degrees. The foods that best suit one, one alone can find out. However, one should select them from the restricted list with which philosophy will gladly provide one. Body and mind are intertwined. By experiment one may discover what agrees with one’s stomach and what not. If one notices disagreeable symptoms mentally or physically, such as dull headaches or stomach heaviness, then one should drop this item of food and observe whether there is any difference in one’s condition. If not, then it is not the food but something else that lies behind the distress. Our appetites have become perverted, our cravings for food have become morbid. We eat quantities for which the body has no actual need. The conventional dietary habits are false standards by which to live. We could quite well maintain ourselves by eating smaller amounts of rich, concentrated, and stimulating proteins, as well as of clogging starches. #RandolphHarris 19 of 22
If we forfeit our free will, are we still human? Unhappy are you who have heard about Truth only through riddles, that is to say, the figures of speech and the literary genres of the day, as the Authors of Numbers suggested so felicitously (12.8). However happy are you to whom Truth has revealed herself in all her glory. Lone, Sound Rason and Common Sense often fail us, preventing us from seeing any father than our nose. What good is a lot of piffling and trifling about the great unknows? We will never be convicted at the Final Bar because we did not solve all the mysteries of the World. Is it not great folly, then, for your to send so little time on the practical and necessary things of the soul, and yet so much time on the intellectual curiosities and travesties of our time? We do not have eyes, the dolorous Jeremiah once observed, but sometimes we just do not see (5.21). Why do the School-humans go on, so haggling about what is a species, what is a genus? And yet, when the Eternal Word whispers—and this may be Theology—you should stop and listen. That is what John says in the beginning of his Gospel (1.3). From the One Word all words flow, as the same John reminds us (8.25), and all words bespeak the One Word. Without this concept of the Eternal Word, the pupil can neither understand one entity nor distinguish among the many. All are one. All in one. When you realize all this, you can forget about Philosophy and Theology as they are taught in the University; you are already at home with God. #RandolphHarris 20 of 22
O God, as John embraced Jesus as Truth (14.6), so I embrace You as the Truth the University’s seeking! My You in turn, as You embraced the prophetic Jeremiah (31.3), embrace me as a seeker of the Truth! Endless lectures, pointless tomes, majuscule, minuscule, my poor head splits, and yet in all the babel Yours is the only voice I hear. A man harnesses the unruly affections of one’s heart and trains them to trot as one. The surer one does that, the quicker one come to understand the great and the deep. That is because they receive strong direction from the Powerful Hand above. The impure, complex, unstable spirit is pulled in a variety of directions at once and never gets any work done; but the docile, willing, and powerful spirit puts all its efforts into pulling for the honour of God, even to the degradation of blinders. How is this possible? It is the great drays of your unmortified hear that causes all the delays. Ah, to be alive on an early-June morn fording a stream barefoot, pants rolled up holding boots, pack on, sunshine, ice in the shallows, northern Rockies. Rustle and shimmer of icy creek waters stones turn underfoot, small and hard on toes, cold nose dripping, singing inside creek music, heart music, smell of sun on gravel. I pledge allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the soil of the United States of America, one ecosystem in diversity, under the Sun—with joyful interpenetration for all. Mozart died in his thirty-sixth year but he had glimpses long before. So did many other historically known humans in the Old World. #RandolphHarris 21 of 22
We shall never know how many mystical experiences took place within those medieval cloisters of those Old World ashrams but were lost to human record because those to whom they happened lacked the foresight to write them down or the will to dictate them. There are individuals scattered hither and tither who have found God. It is certain that they are types as well as individuals—therefore, it is certain that the whole race will also one day find God. Even one who is active, efficient, practical, and Worldly may also be touched by this Heavenly light: it is not reserved for the dreamers and poets, the artists and saints alone. I have known humans who have blue-printed public buildings, engineered factories, managed office personnel, filled the lowest and highest positions in a nation, who themselves had known ITS visitations, who recognize and revered it. I like to see a person proud of the place in which one lives. I like to see one live so that one’s place will be proud of one. Many people have had a mystical glimpse before the age of ten, more have done so during adolescence, still more during their mature years. Be proud to be an American and proud that the U.S Constitution is at the core of our country and its citizen. We thankfully acknowledge that Thou art the Lord our God and God of our Fathers, the God of all that lives, our Creator and Creator of the Universe. We offer blessings and thanksgiving to Thy great and holy name because Thou hast kept us in life and sustained us; so mayest Thou continue to keep us in life and sustain us. O gather our exiles into the courts of Thy holy sanctuary to observe Thy statutes, to do Thy will, and to serve Thee with a perfect heart. We give thanks unto Thee. Blessed be God to whom we are ever grateful. #RandolphHarris 22 of 22
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Seek the Virtuous Citizen Who Will Use the Social Contract to Make Virtue Reign!
We all wear masks, illusions of what we want people to see. But when we hide our true selves from the people we love, what price do we pay for that deception? In America if someone’s wife looks like a new woman, she probably is, so do not ask personal questions or talk about family. Noble acts and momentous events happen in the same way and produce the same impression as the ordinary facts. Significant intuitionist elements enter into determining the good, and in a teleological theory these are bound to affect the right. The classical utilitarian tries to avoid this consequence by the doctrine of hedonism, but to no avail. We cannot, however, stop here; we must find a constructive solution to the problem of choice which hedonism seeks to answer. Thus we are faced once again with the questions: if there is no single end that determines the appropriate pattern of aims, how is a rational plan of life actually to be identified? Now the answer to this question has already been given: a rational plan is one that would be chosen with deliberative rationality as defined by the full theory of the good. It remains to make sure that, within the context of a contract doctrine, this answer is perfectly satisfactory and that the problems which beset hedonism do not arise. A moral personality is characterized by two capacities: one for a conception of the good, the other for a sense of justice. When realized, the first is expressed by a rational plan of life, the second by a regulative desire to act upon certain principles of right. Thus a moral person is a subject with ends one has chosen, and one’s fundamental preference is for conditions that enable one to frame a mode of life that expressed one’s nature as a free and equal rational being as fully as circumstances permit. #RandolphHarris 1 of 23
Now the unity of the person is manifest in the coherence of one’s plan, this unity being founded on the higher-order desire to follow, in ways consistent with one’s sense of right and justice, the principles of rational choice. Of course, a person shapes one’s aims not all at once but only gradually; but in ways that justice allows, one is able to formulate and to follow a plan of life and thereby to fashion one’s own unity. The distinctive feature of a dominant-end conception is how it supposed the self’s unity is achieved. Thus in a hedonism the self becomes one by trying to maximize the sum of pleasurable experiences within its psychic boundaries. A rational self must establish its unity in this manner. Since pleasure is the dominant end, the individual is indifferent to all aspects of oneself, viewing one’s natural assets of mind and body, and even one’s natural inclinations and attachments, as so many materials for obtaining pleasant experiences. Moreover, it is not by aiming at pleasure as one’s pleasure but simply as pleasure that gives unity to the self. Whether it is one’s pleasure or that of others as well which is to be advanced raises a further matter that can be put aside so long as we are dealing with one person’s good. However, once we consider the problem of social choice, the utilitarian principle in its hedonistic form is perfectly natural. For if any one individual must order one’s deliberations by seeking the dominant end of pleasure and can secure one’s rational personhood in no other way, then it seems that a number of persons in their joint efforts should strive to order their collective actions by maximizing the pleasurable experiences of the group. #RandolphHarris 2 of 23
Thus just as one saint when alone is to work for the glory of God, so the members of an association of saints are to cooperate together to do whatever is necessary for the same end. The difference between the individual and the social case is that the resources of the self, its mental and physical capacities and its emotional sensibilities and desires, are placed in a different context. In both instances these materials are in the service of the dominant end. However, depending on the other agencies available to cooperate with them, it is the pleasure of the self or of the social group that is to be maximized. Further, if the same sorts of considerations that lead to hedonism as a theory of first-person choice are applied to the theory of right, the principle of utility seems quite plausible. For let us suppose first that happiness (defined in terms of agreeable feeling) is the sole good. Then, as even intuitionists concede, it is at least a prima facie principle of right to maximize happiness. If this principle is not alone regulative, there must be some other criterion such as distribution which is to be assigned some weight. However, by reference to what dominant end of social conduct are these standards to be balanced? Since this end must exist if judgments of right are to be reasoned and not arbitrary, the principle of utility appears to specify the required goal. No other principle has the features necessary to define the ultimate end of right conduct. I believe that it is essentially this reasoning that underlies Mill’s so-called proof of utility. #RandolphHarris 3 of 23
Mill’s seems to believe that if he can establish that happiness is the sole good, he has shown that the principle of utility is the criterion of right. What we are given is an argument to the effect that happiness alone is good. Now nothing so far follows about the conception of right, but we can set out all the premises in the light of which Mill thought his argument a proof. Now in justice as fairness a complete reversal of perspective is brought about by the priority of right and the Kantian interpretation. To see this we have only to recall the features of the original position and the nature of the principles that are chosen. The parties regard moral personality and not the capacity for pleasure and pain as the fundamental aspect of the self. They do not know what final aims persons have, and all dominant-end conceptions are rejected. Thus it would not occur to them to acknowledge the principle of utility in its hedonistic form. There is no more reason for the parties to agree to this criterion than to maximize any other particular objective. They think of themselves as beings who can and do choose their final ends (always plural in number). Just as one person is to decide upon one’s plan of life in the light of full information (no restrictions being imposed in this case), so a plurality of persons are to settle the terms of their cooperation in a situation that gives all fair representation as moral beings. The parties’ aim in the original position is to establish just and favourable conditions for each to fashion one’s own unity. #RandolphHarris 4 of 23
Their fundamental interest in liberty and in the means to make fair use of it is the expression of their seeing themselves as primarily moral persons with an equal right to choose their mode of life. Thus they acknowledge the two principles of justice to be ranked in serial order as circumstances permit. We must now connect these remarks with the problem of the indeterminacy of choice with which we began. The main idea is that given the priority of right, the choice of our conception of the good is framed within definite limits. The principles of justice and their realization in social form define the bounds within which our deliberations take place. The essential unity of the self is already provided by the conception of right. Moreover, in a well-ordered society this unity is the same for all; everyone’s conception of the good as given by one’s rational plan is a subplan of the larger comprehensive plan that regulates the community as a social union of social unions. The many associations of varying sizes and aims, being adjusted to one another by the public conception of justice, simplify decision by offering definite ideals and forms of life that have been developed and tested by innumerable individuals, sometimes for generations. Thus in drawing up our plan of life we do not start de novo; we are not required to chose from countless possibilities without given structure of fixed contours. So while there is no algorithm for settling upon our good, no first-person procedure of choice, the priority of right and justice securely constrains these deliberations so that they become more manageable. Since the basic rights and liberties are already firmly established, our choices cannot distort our claims upon one another. #RandolphHarris 5 of 23
Now given the precedence of right and justice, the indeterminacy of the conception of the good is much less troublesome. In fact, the considerations that lead a theological theory to embrace the notion of a dominant end lose their force. First of all, the purely preferential elements in choice, while not eliminated, are nevertheless confined within the constraints of right already on hand. Since human’s claims on one another are not affected, the indeterminacy is relatively innocuous. Moreover, within the limits allowed by the principles of right, there need be no standard of correctness beyond that of deliberative rationality. If a person’s plan of life meets this criterion, and if one succeeds in carrying it out, and in doing so finds it worthwhile, there are no grounds for saying that it would have been better if one had done something else. We should not simply assume that our rational good is uniquely determined. From the standpoint of the theory of justice, this assumption is unnecessary. Secondly, we are not required to go beyond deliberative rationality in order to define a clear and workable conception of right. The principles of justice have a definite content and the argument supporting them uses only the thin account of the good and its list of primary goods. Once the conception of justice is established, the priority of rights guarantees the precedence of its principles. Thus the two considerations that make dominant-end conceptions attractive for teleological theories are both absent in the contract doctrine. Such is the effect of the reversal of justice. #RandolphHarris 6 of 23
Earlier when introducing the Kantian interpretation of justice as fairness, I mentioned that there is a sense in which the unanimity condition on the principles of justice is suited to express even the nature of a single self. Offhand this suggestion seems to be paradoxical. How can the requirement of unanimity fail to be a constraint? One reason is that the veil of ignorance insures that everyone should reason in the same way and so the condition is satisfied as a matter of course. However, a deeper explanation lies in the fact that the contract doctrines has a structure opposite to that of a utilitarian theory. In the latter each person draws up one’s rational plan without hinderance under full information, and society then proceeds to maximize the aggregate fulfillment of the plans that results. In justice as fairness, on the other hand, all agree ahead of time upon the principles by which their claims on one another are to be settled. These principles are then given absolute precedence so that they regulate social institution without question and each frames one’s plans in conformity with them. Plans that happen to be out of line must be revised. Thus the prior collective agreement sets up from the first certain fundamental structural features common to everyone’s plan. The nature of the self as a free and equal more person is the same for all, and the similarity in basic form of rational plans expresses this fact. Moreover, as shown by the notion of society as a social union of social unions, the members of a community participate in one another’s nature: we appreciate what others do as things we might have done but which they do for us, and what we do is similarly done for them. #RandolphHarris 7 of 23
Since the self is realized in the activities of many selves, relations of justice that conform to principles which would be assented to by all are best fitted to express the nature of each. Eventually then the requirements of a unanimous agreement connects up with the idea of human beings who as member of a social union seek the values of community. It may be thought that once the principles of justice are given precedence, then there is a dominant end that organizes our life after all. Yet this idea is based on a misunderstanding. To be sure the principles of justice are lexically prior to that of efficiency, and the first principle has precedence over the second. It follows that an ideal conception of the social order is set up which is to regulate the direction of change and the efforts of reform. However, it is the principles of individual duty and obligation that define the claim of this ideal upon persons and these do not make it all controlling. Furthermore, I have all along assumed that the proposed dominant end belongs to a teleological theory in which by definition the good is specified independently from the right. The role of this end is in part to make the conception of right reasonably precise. In justice as fairness there can be no dominant end in this sense, nor as we have seen is one needed for this purpose. Finally, the dominant end of a teleological theory is so defined that we can never finally achieve it and therefore the injunction to advance it always applies. #RandolphHarris 8 of 23
Recall here the earlier remarks as to why the principle of utility is not really suitable for a lexical ordering: the later criteria will never come into play, except in special cases to break ties. The principles of justice, on the other hand, represent more or less definite social aims and restrictions. Once we realize a certain structure of institutions, we are at liberty to determine and to pursue our good within the limits which its arrangements allow. In view of these reflections, the contrast between a teleological theory and the contact doctrine may be expressed in the following intuitive way: the former defines the good locally, for example, as a more or less homogeneous quality or attribute of experience, and regards it as an extensive magnitude which is to be maximized over some totality; whereas the latter moves in the opposite fashion by identifying a sequence of increasingly specific structural forms of right conduct each set within the preceding one, and in this manner working from a general framework for the whole to sharper and sharper determination of its parts. Hedonistic utilitarianism is the classical instance of the first procedure and illustrates it with compelling simplicity. Justice as fairness exemplifies the second possibility. Thus the four-stage sequence formulates an order of agreements and enactments designed to build up in several steps a hierarchical structure of principles, standards, and rules, which when consistently applied and adhered to, lead to a definite constitution for social action. #RandolphHarris 9 of 23
Now this sequence does not aim at the complete specification of conduct. Rather the idea is to approximate the boundaries, however vague, within which individuals and associations are at liberty to advance their aims and deliberative rationality has free play. Ideally the approximation should converge in the sense that with further steps the cases left unaccounted for become of less and less importance. The notion guiding the entire construction is that of the original positions and its Kantian interpretation: this notion contains within itself the elements that select which information is relevant at each stage, and generate a sequence of adjustments appropriate to the contingent conditions of the existing society. Recalling one phrase or sentence, readers often project their own wishes and anxieties into the text before them and find in it what they had placed there. One must study society through humans, and humans through society: those who will treat politic and ethics separately will never understand either. Humans are naturally good and it is by their institutions alone that they become evil. The modern World rests on contradictions that already emerged. Many Americas believe themselves to be free. They are greatly mistake; they are only free during the election of the members of Congress. Once they are elected, the populace is enslaved; it is nothing. The use of the American people makes of that freedom in the brief moments of its liberty certainly warrants its losing it. The best of good societies will always be a republic unfettered by a hereditary aristocracy. #RandolphHarris 10 of 23
Ceaselessly occupied with Rome and Athens; living, so to speak, with their great men, myself born a Citizen of a Republic, and son of a father whose patriotism was his strongest passion, I took fire from his example; I thought myself Greek or Roman; I became the personage whose life I was reading. A beneficent God has created this World with its laws and then withdrawn from it to leave virtuous humans to discover its moral rules and live according to its dictates. We must respond to the Christian theology, its moral energy, its gospel of usefulness and simplicity, its call for self-discipline and virtue, and its austerity. To be celebrated are the virtues of candour, maturity, simplicity, self-restraint, good health, reason warmed by love and love ennobled by reason. We must be kind to the young and old. It is kindness with a purpose. Children have to be educated in obedience to the Stoical doctrine that humans must live in accord with nature. The consequences of applying this maximum to the training of the young are far-reaching: the child may be father to the man, but he is the child first. The educator must closely consult the child’s capacities and use them to help one grow. Rote learning and forced reading may be nonsensical: they may only produce a child who is a parrot, not a human. However, it is better than nothing and may be the way to awaken the capacity of the human being. Only the educator who enters empathetically into the nature of the growing child’s development and the range of one’s experience can lastingly enrich one. #RandolphHarris 11 of 23
The immoral society of today is making immoral humans, incapable of reforming a culture in whose corruption they cannot help but connive. Hence they are compelled to perpetuate that which they should destroy. The one way to break this impasse is to create a new human who can, in turn, create a new society. It is an essential precondition for this work that the young must be rapidly remove from corrupting influences. If humans are born free and everywhere in chains, who but God can do the work of liberation? Once the community of sanity has been formed, it will govern itself calmly, wisely, and generously. The key element in the citizen’s activity is one’s participation in decision-making, and as a sound citizens one will cast one’s vote by listening not to one’s own selfish interests, but to one’s perception of the public weal. Of course, with the best of intentions, one may confound the two. However, then the decision of the majority—not just any majority, but the intelligent, sensible, uncorrupted majority will recall the straying minority to its duty, to it true, larger interest. The closer private will, approximate the general will, the more likely can that will realize itself in actions. We must seek the virtuous citizen, who will use the Social Contract to make virtue reign. The question for the individual has always been: Why, and whom, should I obey? It is not simply a political question or, rather, the political question is a familial question writ large. #RandolphHarris 12 of 23
The question of whom should one obey is a question the child may never consciously ask, but it is lodged somewhere in one’s mind. It is a question that the slave, or the subject wholly habituated to unconditional obedience, may never seriously canvass, but it will occur to one in rebellious moments. Freedom must be given as much scope that seems reasonable. Then we can attempt to establish the respective rights of the sovereign and the citizen. However, this tension is not as a relation to be mapped, but as a paradox to be resolved. By employing the Social Contract, humans surrender all their rights without becoming slaves. To find a form of association which defends and protects with the whole common power the person and property of each associate, and in which each, uniting oneself to all, yet obeys oneself alone, and remains as free as before. We must recognize one principle that humans are good. And they can afford to exchange their natural for their civic freedom, to translate their original goodness into social action. I do not condemn all organized society, and I believe that there is one society, one yet to be constructed, that is infinitely preferable to pre-political conditions. Humans can surrender their natural freedom because, while they become subjects, they remain masters. In the god community one essentially obeys oneself. The Social Contract is certainly not without its difficulties. However, the state is never the master, always the servant. For the body to which the individual yields one’s natural rights is not the government but society—a community of beings like oneself. #RandolphHarris 13 of 23
Force does not create rights. However, the government holds the monopoly of force, and therefore is always an agent of the citizens to protect it. Although freedom is advocated, the United States of America is a country that was founded on the belief of God, and God is also a part of our government. And while we do preach religious freedom, must like restaurants do not always require people to tip, it is suggested that humans—all humans must have some religious beliefs that will make, and keep, them moral beings. This means that the sovereign of the good society must devise a purely civil profession of faith, the articles of which it belongs to the sovereign to establish, not exactly as dogmas of religion, but as sentiments of sociability, without which it is impossible to be a good citizen or faithful subject. The strict and rigid doctrines should be simple and few in number, including belief in the existence of a powerful, intelligent, beneficent deity, a life to come, the good fortune of the just and the punishment of the wicked, the sacredness of the social contract and of the laws. Whoever does not believe these strict and rigid doctrines can be banished from the state, and whoever has officially subscribed to them and then acts as if one does not believe in them should be put to death. This harsh set of propositions is not a casual or accidental addition to political thinking; it lies squarely at the heart of our commitment o virtue. The dictatorship of virtue is a strenuous and, in many ways, a dangerous ideal. #RandolphHarris 14 of 23
Has the reestablishment of the sciences and the arts served to purify or to corrupt manner and morals? As a searing emotional upheaval—this is one of the great and finest questions ever debated. There will always be humans destined to be subjugated by the opinions of their century, their country, their society. Integrity is dearer to good humans than erudition is to the studious. What then have I to fear? The enlightenment of the assembly that listen to me? I admit it; but this is owning to the composition of the discourse and not to the sentiment of the speaker. Fairminded sovereigns have never hesitated to pass judgements against themselves in disputes whose outcomes are uncertain; and the position most advantageous for a just cause is to have to defend oneself against an upright and enlightened opponent who is judge in one’s own case. To this motive which heartens me is joined another which determines me, namely that, having upheld, according to my natural light, the side of truth, whatever my success, there is a prize which I cannot fail to receive; I will find it within the depths of my heart. It is a grand and beautiful sight to see humans emerge somehow from nothing by their own efforts; dissipate, by the light of one’s reason, the shadows in which nature has enveloped one; rise above oneself; soar by means of one’s mind into the Heavenly regions; traverse, like the sun, the vast expanse of the Universe with giant steps; and, what is even grander and more difficult, return to oneself in order to study humans and know one’s nature, one’s duties, and one’s end. All of these marvels have been revived in the past few generations. #RandolphHarris 15 of 23
America has relapsed into the barbarism of the first ages. Recently, many of the peoples of this part of the World, who had lived such enlightened lives, now live in a state worse than ignorance. Sone nondescript scientific jargon, even more contemptible than ignorance, has usurped the name of knowledge, and posed a nearly invincible obstacle to its return. The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton is a 19th century story of Lily Bart, a wealthy woman who becomes impoverished, but still belongs to New York’s high society. It is a cautionary tale to be careful with your economics and with whom you love, and also maybe not to be so trusting of your family because in the end you will end up financially ruined, and die from a broken heart by death by suicide. Your prince charming, Lawrence Selden, may not come around and realizes he love you until he finds your lifeless body cold. Simon Rosedale, one who is well-off and wants you for your beauty, may never be enough, and Gus Trenor may help you pay off your “dress maker,” but he will always want to talk under your skirt and is a married man. Sometimes it is just be to be prudent and not live too lavishly, establish your own career and maybe do not set your sites on the wrong partner. Someone who can never love you until it is too late. A revolution is needed to bring humans back to common sense. The art of writing must be joined with the art of thinking—a sequence of events that may seem strange, but which perhaps are only too natural. And the chief advantage of commerce with Muses will being to be felt, namely, that of making humans more sociable by inspiring in them the desire to please one another with works worthy of their mutual approval. #RandolphHarris 16 of 23
It should not have taken the fall of the throne of Constantinople to bring Italy the debris of ancient Greece. However, if you are not careful, the failure of Congress and the President to protect the American people and their rights will bring China and the Middles East the debris of America. The Whore of Babylon, refers to both a symbolic female figure and place of evil mentioned in the Book of Revelation. “One of the seven Angels who had the seven bowls came and said to me, ‘Come, I will show you the punishment of the great prostitute, who sits on many waters. With her the kinds of the Earth were intoxicated with the wine of her adulteries.’ Then the Angel caried me away in the Spirit into a desert. There I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast that was covered with blasphemous names and had seven heads and ten horns. The woman was dressed in purple and scarlet, and was glittering with gold, precious stones, and pearls. She held a golden cup in her hand, filled with abominable things and the filth of her adulteries. This title was written on her forehead: MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF PROSTITUTES AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH. I saw that the woman was drunk with the blood of the saints, the blood of those who bore testimony to Jesus. When I saw her, I was greatly astonished. Then the Angel said to me: ‘Why are you astonished? I will explain to you the mystery of the woman and the beast she rides, which you saw, once was, now is not, and will come up out of the Abyss and go to his destruction. The inhabitants of the Earth whose names have not been written in the book of life from the creation of the World will be astonished when they see the beast, because he once was, not is not, and yet will come. #RandolphHarris 17 of 23
“‘This calls for a mind with wisdom. The seven heads are seven hills on which the woman sits. They are also seven kinds. Five have fallen, one is, the other has not yet come; but when he does come, he must remain for a little while. The beast who once was, and now is not, is an eight kind. He belongs to the seven and is going to his destruction. The ten horns you saw are ten kinds who have not yet received a kingdom, but who one hour will receive authority as kings along with the beast. They have one purpose and will give their power and authority to the beast. They will make war against the Lamb, but the Lamb will overcome them because he is Lord of lords and King of kings—and with him will be his called, chosen and faithful follows.’ Then the Angel said to me, “The waters you saw, were the prostitute its, are peoples, multitudes, nations and languages. The beast and the ten horns you saw will hate the prostitute. They will bring her to ruin and leave her naked; they will eat her flesh and burn her with fire. For God has put it into their hearts to accomplish Hi purpose by agreeing to give the best their power to rule, until God’s words are fulfilled. The woman you saw is the great city that rules over the king of the Earth,” reports Revelation 17.1-18. I think the prostitute represent the fake news media dragging the nations of the World into a third World war, for the sake of their ratings and profits and entertainment, and them even making war against Jesus Christ, and the media taking over the government. However, when people wake up and see what a disaster the media has created, they will destroy them and God will take over. #RandolphHarris 18 of 23
The reason the media has never been so powerful in the past is because people were proud to be American and voted people in office they thought would do a good job, and not just because of their gender, race, culture, religion, colour, sexual orientation, or celebrity status. The American people trusted the government and they viewed their loyalty to America as sacred as religion. However, today, people want you to be ashamed to be America, they want to put Communists in office and not Patriots, they want to strip you of your rights and guns, so they can lock you in your homes and turn you into slaves, while they tax you, make you poor and give billions of your tax dollars to other nations to make them rich. These communist also want to keep your nation insecure, start race wars and riots, and turn American against Americans and take away your rights to privacy and property. However, be sure to pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, One Nation, Under God, with Liberty and Justice for All! Be proud to be American. Be proud to display your American flag. Love thy Neighbour. And Praise God. The mind has its needs, as does the body. The needs of the latter are the foundations of society; the need of the former make it pleasant. While the government and the laws see to the safety and well-being of assembled people, the sciences, letters and the arts, less despotic and perhaps more powerful, spread garlands of flowers over the iron chains with which they are burdened, stifle in them the sense of that original liberty for which they seem to have been born, make them love their slavery, and turn them into what is called civilized people. #RandolphHarris 19 of 23
Need raised up thrones; the sciences and the arts have strengthened them. Earthly powers, love talents and protect those who cultivate them! Princes always view with pleasure the spread, among their subjects, of the tastes for pleasant arts and luxuries not resulting in the exporting of money. For, in addition to nurturing in them that pettiness of soul so appropriate to servitude, they know very well that all the needs the populace imposes on itself are so many chains which burden it. Alexander, wishing to keep the Ichthyophagi in a state of dependency, forced them to renounce fishing and to eat foods common to other peoples. And the natives of America who go totally in innocence and live off the fruit of their hunting have never been tamed. Indeed, what yoke could be imposed upon humans who need nothing? Civilized peoples, cultivate them! Happy slaves, you owe them that delicate and refined tastes on which your pride yourselves; that sweetness of character and that urbanity in mores which makes relationships among you so cordial and easy; in a word, the appearances of all the virtues without having any. By this sort of civility, all the more agreeable as it puts on fewer airs, Athens and Rome once distinguished themselves in themselves in the much vaunted days of their magnificence and splendour. By it our century and our nation will doubtlessly surpass all times and all peoples. A philosophic tone without pedantry, manners natural yet engaging, equally removed from Teutonic rusticity as from Italian pantomime. These are the fruits of the taste acquired by good schooling and perfected in social interaction. #RandolphHarris 20 of 23
If outer appearances were always the likeness of the heart’s dispositions, if decency were virtue, if our maxims served as our rules, if true philosophy were inseparable from the title of philosopher, how sweet it would be to life among us! However, so many qualities are all too rarely found in combination, and virtue seldom goes forth in such great pomp. Expensive finery can betoken a wealth man, and elegance a man of taste. The healthy and robust human is recognized by other signs. It is in the rustic clothing of the fieldworker and not underneath the gilding of the courtier that one will find bodily strength and vigour of the soul. The good human is an athlete who enjoys competing in innocence. One is contemptuous of all those vile ornaments which would impair the use of one’s strength, most of al which were invented merely to conceal some deformity. Before art had fashioned our manners and taught our passions to speak an affected language, our mores were rustic but natural, and differences in behavior heralded, at first glance, difference of character. At base, human nature was no better, but humans found their safety in the ease with which they saw through each other, and that advantage, which we no longer vale, spared them many vices. You may not have the most of everything but you can make the best of everything! God cannot bless ignorance—He blesses by spiritual intelligence. What you do not know can be harmful to you. God is present in each person’s life and this may seem unbelievable to so large a number of us. Yet it is for those of undergoing the experience certitude, not theory. #RandolphHarris 21 of 23
God is the ultimate healer of all our hurts! If we keep trying to get other humans to fix us and make us fully human or angelic—we will remain broken. Stop limiting yourself to getting blessed and believe you have been blessed. These glimpses into eternity are rare, but they are more common and frequent than is generally supposed. It is generally believed that hardly more than a few attain it, but as there are degrees of such an attainment one could say that in the lesser ones there are more successes than people generally know. We call upon the spirits of evolution, the miraculous force that inspires rock and dust to weave themselves into biology. You have stood by us for millions and billions of years—do not forsake us now. Empower us and awaken in us pure and dazzling creativity. You that can turn scales into feathers, sweater into blood, electricity into Cryptocurrency, caterpillars to butterflies, metamorphose our species, awaken in us the power that we need to survive the present crisis and evolve into more aeons of our solar journey. Awaken in us a sense of who we truly are: tiny ephemeral blossoms on the Tree of Life. Make the purposes and destiny of that three our own purpose and destiny. Fill each of us with love for our true Self, which includes all of the creature and plants and landscapes of the World. Fill us with a powerful urge for the wellbeing and continual unfolding of this Self. May we speak in all human councils on behalf of the terrestrial beings and plants and landscapes of the Earth. #RandolphHarris 22 of 23
May we shine with a pure inner passion that will spread rapidly through these leaden times. May we all awaken to our true and only nature—none other than the Nature of Gaia, this living planet Earth. We call upon the power which sustains the planets in their orbits, that wheels our Milky Way in its 200-million-year spiral, to imbue our personalities and our relationships with harmony, endurance and joy. Please fill us with a sense of immense time so that our brief, flickering lives may truly reflect the work of vast ages past and also the millions of years of evolution whose potential lies in our trebling hands. O stars, lend us your burning passion. O silence, give weight to our voice. We ask for the presence of the spirit of Gaia. Unto all generations we will declare God’s greatness, and to all eternity we will proclaim Thy holiness. Our mouth shall ever speak Thy praise, O our God, for Thou art a great and holy God and King. Blessed art Thou, O Lord, the holy God. (the holy King). Our God and God of our fathers, may there come before Thee the remembrance of our ancestors as they appeared in Thy sacred Temple in the days of yore. How deep was their love of Thee as they brought Thee their offerings each Sabbath day. We pray Thee, please grant us of the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord that lived in their hearts. May we, in their spirit of sacrificial devotion, fulfill our duty toward the rebuilding of Thy Holy Land, the fountain of our life, that we may ever be a blessing to all the peoples and beings and lifeforms of the Earth. There is a moment in most human’s lives when they are close to an understanding of the World’s real nature. #RandolphHarris 23 of 23
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The Source of those Accusations Was a Committee of Demons Who Had Infested Her!
The infinite power of God to create is far beyond what we can grasp or understand. If the Almighty devoted so much of His Word to prophecy, it certainly benefits every believer to study it. The study of the prophetic scriptures and their fulfillment attests to the authority of the Word of God. Every soul has cost an infinite price, and how terrible is the sin of turning one soul away from Christ, so that for Him the Saviour’s love and humiliation and agony shall have been in vain. Contrary to popular opinion, New England’s record in regard to witchcraft is surprisingly good, as Governor Thomas Hutchinson pointed out in 1750: “more having been put to death in a single country in England from the first settlement until the present time.” Through most of the seventeenth century the record is really astonishing. While Europe hanged and burned literally thousands, executions in New England were few and far between. (Witches were burned on the Continent and in Scotland, where witchcraft was a heresy, but hanged in England and in New England, where it was a felony. Burning a witch seems not to have been motivated by the wish to inflict a particularly painful death; Scottish witches, for instance, were first garroted by the executioner, who then proceeded to burn the corpse and scatter its ashes. Most probably, burning was an attempt to prevent the resurrection of the body.) There are some fascinating accounts in New England that deal with cases of witchcraft before 1692, and we shall look at a few of these for they will illuminate some interesting aspects of the Salem witch trials. #RandolphHarris 1 of 21
The first is that of Mrs. Anne Hibbins. Her husband, who died in 1654, had been a man of importance: Boston merchant, a Colonial Agent, and for several years one of the Assistants. Tradition has it that she was a sister of Governor Bellingham. She was apparently quarrelsome—quarrelsome enough so that her church censured her for it—and one quarrel was her undoing. She seems to have come upon two of her neighbours talking, to have told them she knew they were talking about her, and then to have reconstructed their conversation with enough fidelity to convince the she was possessed of “preternatural” knowledge (something Mrs. Sarah Winchester used to also have the ability to do, and a reason she dismissed so many staff members for gossiping). Nonetheless, Mrs. Hibbins was brought to trail in 1655, and the jury brought her in guilty. However, the presiding magistrates refused to accept the verdict, apparently believing her innocent, and their refusal automatically threw the case into the General Court. There again she was found guilty; the governor pronounced the required sentence of death; and in 1656 she was executed. We have seen that some of the magistrates were not satisfied of her guilt, and apparently the same were true of some of the clergy. To masses of people, death was a dread mystery; beyond was uncertainty and gloom. These people were seeking for truth, and to learn them the Spirit of Inspiration was imparted. #RandolphHarris 2 of 21
A surviving letter tells us that the Reverend John Norton “once said at his own table” before the Reverend John Wilson and others that Mistress Hibbins “was hanged for a witch only for having more with than her neighbours. It was his very expression; she having, as he explained it, unhappily guessed that two of her persecutors, whom she saw talking in the street, were talking of her—which cost her her life, not withstanding all he could do to the contrary, as he himself told us.” The Hibbins case shows how slender and how circumstantial were the grounds necessary to bring an accusation of witchcraft against anyone with a reputation for malice. It also shows that the popular elements in society (the jury, and the people’s representatives in the General Court) were far more ready to believe in witchcraft than the leaders of society (the magistrates and ministers.) This latter conclusion is reinforced by the fact that before 1692 there were far more acquittals than convictions in New England; there were more people willing to charge their neighbours with witchcraft than magistrates willing to convict them. A case which took place in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1662 is known in rather more detail than that of Mrs. Hibbins. Anne Cole, “a person esteemed pious,” was taken with “strange fits.” As with the Salem girls, the fits were both violent and public. Extremely violent bodily motions she many times had, even to the hazard of her life in the apprehensions of those that saw them. #RandolphHarris 3 of 21
And very often great disturbances was given in the public worship of God by her and two other women who had also strange fits. Once in especial, on a day of prayer kept on that account, the motion and noised of the afflicted was so terrible that a godly person fainted under the appearance of it. In some of her fits strange voices came from her, voices that were clearly not her own. Such voices are now known to be a consequence of multiple personality, which is the extreme form of the hysterical fugue. However, the seventeenth-century observers of Anne Cole judged them to be the voices of demons who had entered into her, and that judgment was sensible enough in view of the fact that the voices seemed to be plotting ways in which Anne Cole might be further afflicted. Eventually, seeming to realize that they were being overheard, one of the voices announced, “‘Let us confound her language, [that] she may tell no more tales.’” For some time nothing came from her but “unintelligible mutterings”; then the conversation resumed in a Dutch accent, and this time names were mentioned, names of the witches who were responsible for these afflictions. When Anne Cole was out of her fits, she “knew nothing of those things that were spoken by her” during them, but she was understandably distressed to find she had been speaking things which, to the best of her knowledge, had never been in her mind; it was a “matter of great affliction to her.” #RandolphHarris 4 of 21
It must have been afflicting to the local magistrates as well; they now had accusations of witchcraft against several persons, but the source of these accusations was not Anne Cole; it was a committee of demons who had infested her. The magistrates investigated further, and imprisoned some (and perhaps all) of the accused on suspicion of witchcraft One of these, a “lewd, ignorant, considerably aged woman” named Rebecca Greensmith sent for the two clergymen who has taken down in writing the demonic conversation issuing from the mouth of Anne Cole. She had the transcript read to er, and then “forthwith and freely confessed those things to be true,” confirming the statement of the voiced “that she (and other persons named in the discourse) had familiarity with the Devil.” She confessed to a number of other things as well, including “that the Devil has frequent use of her body with much seeming (but indeed horrible, hellish) delight to her.” Reports of copulation with demons (including the unpleasantness of the experience) are common in the literature of Continental witchcraft, but this is one of the few known cases in New England. What is involved is apparently an erotic fit in which the woman actually goes through the motions of copulation and achieves a climax; similar fits have been observed in mental patients in the twenty-first century. Thus it appears that in the case of Anne Cole the confessor as well as the afflicted person was an hysteric. This pattern we shall see again at Salem. #RandolphHarris 5 of 21
Rebecca Greensmith was hanged in 1663. So was her husband Nathaniel, although we do not know the grounds for his conviction; according to Increase Mather he did not confess. “Most” of the other persons accused by the demonic voices “made their escape into another part of the country.” What happened to the others we do not know, but they were apparently not executed. And since at least one of those who made her escape had at first been imprisoned in suspicion of witchcraft (Judith Varlet, a relative of Governor Peter Stuyvesant of New York), it can be assumed that the authorities were reluctant to press the matter further. The evidence they had was, after all, highly suspect, coming from demonic voices on the one hand and a confessed witch on the other. (Confessors are a group of women with the power to make anyone they touch love them. This love, however, is more aptly described as a soul-destroying obsession whose objective is pleasing the Confessor in any way possible. Confessors were created by warlocks to travel Medieval lands and act as law enforcers. The Confessors could possess anyone and make them tell the truth in great detail. There were also a few male Confessors, but they became megalomanics and plunged the entire World into a dark age. As a result, after all the male Confessors were defeated and wiped out, the warlocks and female Confessors took up the tradition of killing all male Confessors shortly after birth.) In any event, after the “execution of some and escape of others” Anne Cole’s fits ceased, and did not return. #RandolphHarris 6 of 21
Twenty years later, in 1682, the Reverend John Whiting reported that “she yet remains maintaining her integrity.” This together with what the voices said, suggests that Anne Cole’s fits probably were caused by her fear of witchcraft and cured by the removal of the fear. A few other cases are remarkable for a number of reasons, one of them being the exemplary thoroughness with which the symptoms of the affiliated persons are described, which makes it possible to say without question that these were pathological cases of hysteria. The first took place in Groton, Massachusetts, in 1671-1671 and was recorded by the Reverend Samuel Willard, then minister of Groton (during the Salem trials he was a member of the Boston Clergy). On 30 October 1671, Elizabeth Knapp began to behave strangely: “In the evening, a little before she went to bed, sitting by the fire she cried out, ‘Oh! My legs!’ and clapped her hands on them; immediately, ‘Oh! My breast!’ and removed her hands thither; and forthwith, ‘Oh! I am strangled’ and put her hands on her throat.” The similarity to Janet’s twentieth-century description of the onset of a typical hysterical fit is unmistakable; it starts, he writes “with a pain or a strange sensation situated at such or such a point of the body…[It] often begins in the lower part of the abdomen [and] seems to ascend and to spread to other organs. For instance, it very often spreads to the epigastrium, to the breast, then to the throat. There it assumes rather an interesting form, which was for a very long time considered as quite characteristic of hysteria. The patient has the sensation of too big an object, as it were, a ball, rising in her throat and choking her.” #RandolphHarris 7 of 21
The chocking sensation we shall find over and over again; it is the bolus hystericus and is related to the “lump in the throat” felt by normal people in moments of extreme stress. The normal person, like the hysteric, tries to relieve it by swallowing; this is why the comic-strip artist has one’s characters say “Gulp” when they are in trouble. The choking sensations in the throat was followed by “fits in which she was violent in bodily motions, leapings, strainings and strange agitations, scarce to be held in bound by the strength of three or four; violent also in roarings and screamings.” The fits continued until 15 January 1692, the date of Willard’s writings. Several of the details he recorded are worth noting. On 15 November, “her tongue was for many hours together drawn into a semicircle up to the roof of her mouth, and not to be removed, for some tried with the fingers to do it.” On 17 December her tongue was drawn “out of her mouth most frightfully, to an extraordinary length and greatness.” Devils appeared to her, and witches; “Oh,” she cried to one of them, “you are a rouge.” On 29 November she had a particularly grotesque hallucination, when she believed a witch in the shape of a dog with a woman’s head was strangling her. The hallucinations and the woman’s sufferings were terrifyingly convincing; Willard noted that when she thought the witch was strangling her, “she did often times seem to our apprehension as of she would forthwith be strangled.” #RandolphHarris 8 of 21
Elizabeth Knapp’s case is strikingly similar to that of Ler—one of the best-known cases of J.-M. Charcot, the nineteenth-century psychologist. Her fits, he wrote, “are characterized in the first stage by epileptiform and tetaniform convulsions; after this come great gesticulations of a voluntary character, in which the patient, assuming the most frightful postures, reminds one of the attitudes which history assigns to the demoniacs…At this stage of the attack, se is a prey to delirium, and raves evidently of the events which seem to have determined her first seizures. She hurls furious invectives against imaginary individuals, crying out, “villains! robbers! brigands! fire! fire! O, the dogs! I’m bitten!”—Reminiscences, doubtless, of the emotions experienced in her youth.” When the convulsive portion of Ler—’s attack was over other symptoms usually followed, including “hallucination of vision: the patient beholds horrible animals, skeletons, and specters” and “lastly, a more or less marked permanent contracture of the tongue.” Charcot drew this contracture of the tongue; it is quite appalling. Willard was not exaggerating in calling it frightful. Elizabeth Knapp displayed still other symptoms are identifiably hysterical, including loss of speech on some occasions, and on others speaking in voices other than her own; once “she barked like a dog, and bleated like a calf.” Willard noted that her fits did not seem to do her any permanent physical damage: “She hath no ways in body or strength by all these fits, though so dreadful, but gathered flesh exceedingly, and hath her natural strength when her fits are off, for the most part.” #RandolphHarris 9 of 21
This is typical; as Janet remarks, the “hysteric patient, after howling for several hours, feels rather comfortable; she experiences, as it were, a relaxation, and declares she is out of her fits has often raised the question of whether they are genuine. Willard thought they must be, if only for their violence: “such a strength is beyond the force of dissimulation.” (It should be noted that hysterics are not always well in the intervals between their fits. Some, for instance, lose their appetites and starve themselves. It is probably such cases who are referred to in the statue of James I against witchcraft as being “wasted, consumed, pined.) On 1 November, Elizabeth Knapp named one of her neighbour as the probable cause of her afflictions. The accused woman was sent for, and entered the house while the afflicted girl was in a fit. Her eyes were closed, as they usually were in her fits, yet she could distinguish this neighbour’s touch from all others, “though no voice was uttered.” That would have been quite enough to convict the neighbour in many witchcraft cases. However, fortunately she was permitted to pray with the afflicted girl, and at the conclusions Miss Knapp “confessed that she believed Satan had deluded her.” Willian was happy that “God was pleased to vindicate the case and justify the innocent,” and reported that Miss Knapp never again complained of any “apparition or disturbance from this neighbour.” Instead, she turned to accusing the Devil, who had, she said, been offering her a covenant for several years, a covenant she had frequently been tempted to sign. #RandolphHarris 10 of 21
The dark shadow that Satan has cast over the World grew deeper and deeper. About a month later Miss Knapp accused another person of witchcraft, this time during a period of hallucinations. Her father brought the woman to the house, and Willard, who had been asked to be present, noted that her fit became particularly violent when this woman entered. However, Willard, wrote, “we made nothing of it” since her fits had been as violent on other occasions. Instead they inquired carefully into the mater and found “two evident and clear mistakes” in the accusation. This was enough to exonerate the second accused woman. Satan had implanted this principle. Wherever it was held, people had no barrier against sin. Elizabeth Knapp was still having fits when Willard wrote about her, and all he could be certain of was that “she is an object of pity.” He did not think she was bewitched, but he did believe she was possessed (that is, that Devils has entered into her). This remained his opinion (and that of most others) when the case was remembered in 1692. He also believed that the girl’s terrible afflictions provided an occasion for the community to examine its collective conscience. Therefore he admonished his congregation in a sermon, “Let us all examine by this Providence [id est, this event] what sins they have been, that have given Satan so much footing in this poor place.” Satan was seeking to shut out from humans a knowledge of God, to turn their attention from the temple of God, and to establish His own kingdom. His strife for supremacy had seemed to be almost wholly successful. #RandolphHarris 11 of 21
They robbed God of His glory, and defrauded the World by a counterfeit of the gospel. They had refused to surrender themselves to God for the salvation of the World, and they became agents of Satan for its destruction. They were doing the work Satan designed them to do, taking a course to misrepresent the character of God, and cause the World to look upon Him as a tyrant. The convulsive fits which played so prominent a part in most witchcraft cases, and continued to be one of the most common symptoms of hysteria through the earl years of the twentieth century, have no become relatively rare in Western civilization. D.W. Abse reports fits occurred in only six out of one hundred and sixty-one cases of hysteria treated at a British military hospital during World War II, but that they were the most common symptom among Indian Army hysterics treated at Delhi during the same period. There are a number of possible explanations for this curious fact. Hysterics are notoriously suggestible, so the change may be ascribable to nothing more than the refusal of our culture to give the hysterical fit the respectful and awed attention it used to command. In any case, it seems clear that abnormal behaviour varies with time and place just as normal behaviour does. However, since this particular variation occurred so recently, after the classic studies of hysteria had been completed, it is possible to identify the seventeenth-century Massachusetts fits for what they were. #RandolphHarris 12 of 21
Mr. William Wirt Winchester, while we were attending lectures, purchased three or four old houses in California, one of which was unoccupied. He resided in the country, and he proposed that he wanted his wife and myself to take up our abode in the untenanted house, so long as it should continue unlet; a move which we would accomplish the double end of settling us nearer alike to our lecture-rooms and to our amusements, and of relieving us from the weekly charge of rent for our lodgings. Our furniture was very scant—our whole equipage remarkably modest and primitive; and in short, our arrangements pretty nearly as simple as those of a bivouac. Mrs. Sarah Winchester’s new plan was, therefore, executed almost as soon as conceived. The front drawing-room was our sitting-room. I had the bedroom over it, and Mrs. Winchester had the back bedroom on the same floor, which nothing could have induced me to occupy. The house to begin with was an incomplete, three-story farm house with a basement. It was very old. Dated back to the sixteenth century, I believe. It had nothing modern about it. The agent who looked into the property titles for Mrs. Winchester told her it was originally sold, along with much other forfeited property in 1702; and it had belonged to John Conduit, whose wife was the niece of Sir Isaac Newton, a father of modern science, although keenly interested in the occult. How old it was then, I cannot say; but, at all events, in had seen years and changes enough to have contracted all the mysterious and saddened air, at once exciting and depressing, which belongs to most old mansions. #RandolphHarris 13 of 21
There had been very little done in the way of modernizing details and, perhaps, it was better so; for there was something queer and by-gone in the very walls and ceilings—in the shape of doors and windows—in the odd diagonal site of the chimney-pieces—in the beams and ponderous cornices—not to mention the singular solidity of all the woodwork, from the bannisters to the window-frames, which hopelessly defined disguise, and would have emphatically proclaimed their antiquity through any conceivable amount of modern finery and varnish. An effort had, indeed, been made, to the extent of papering the drawing-rooms; but somehow, the paper looked raw and out of keeping. This woman said, old Judge Sir James Hales (who, having earned the reputation of a particularly ‘hanging judge’, ended by hanging himself, as the corner’s jury found, under an impulse of ‘temporary insanity’, with a child’s skipping-rope, over the massive old bannisters) resided there, entertaining good company, with fine venison and rare old port. In those halcyon days, the drawing-rooms were hung with gilded leather, and, I dare say, cut a good figure, for they were really spacious rooms. The bedrooms were wainscoted, but the front one was not gloomy; and in it the cosiness of antiquity quite overcame its somber associations. However, the back bedrooms, with its two queerly-placed melancholy windows, staring vacantly at the foot of the bed, and with the shadowy recess to be found in most old houses in Dublin, like a large ghostly closet, which, from congeniality of temperament, had amalgamated with the bedchamber, and dissolved the partition. #RandolphHarris 14 of 21
At the night-time, this “alcove”—as our “maid” was wont to call it—had, in my eyes, a specially sinister and suggestive character. Mrs. Winchester’s distant and solitary candle glimmered vainly into its darkness. There it was always overlooking her—always itself impenetrable. However, this was only part of the effect. The whole room was, I cannot tell, how repulsive to me. There was, I supposed, in its proportions and features, a latent discord—a certain mysterious and indiscernible relation, which jarred indistinctly upon some secret sense of the fitting and the safe, and raised indefinable suspicious and apprehensions of the imagination. On the whole, as I began saying, nothing could have induced me to pass a night alone in it. We have not been very long in occupation of our respective chambers, when I began to complain of uneasy nights and disturbed sleep. I was, I suppose, the more impatient under this annoyance, as I was usually a sound sleeper, and by no means prone to nightmares. It was not, however, my destiny, instead of enjoying my customary repose, every night to “sup full of horrors.” After a preliminary course of disagreeable and frightful dreams, my troubles took a definite form, and the same vision, without an appreciable variation in a single detail, visited me at least (on average) every second night of the week. Now, this dream, nightmare, or infernal illusion—which you please—of which I was the miserable port, was on this wise: I saw, or thought I saw, with the most abominable distinctness although at the time in profound darkness, every article of furniture and accidental arrangement of the chamber in which I lay. This, as you know, is incidental to ordinary nightmare. #RandolphHarris 15 of 21
Well, while in this clairvoyant condition, which seemed but the lighting up of the theatre in which was to be exhibited the monotonous tableau of horror, which made my nights insupportable, my attention invariably became, I know not why, fixed upon the windows opposite the foot of my bed; and, uniformly with the same effect, a sense of dreadful anticipation always took slow but sure possession of me. I became somehow conscious of a sort of horrid but undefined preparation going forward in some unknown quarter, and by some unknown agency, for my torment; and, after an interval, which always seemed to me of the same length, a picture suddenly flew up the window, where it remained fixed, as if by an electrical attraction, and my discipline of horror then commenced, to last perhaps for hours. The picture this mysteriously glued to the window-panes, was the portrait of an old man, in crimson flowered silk dressing-gown, the folds of which I could now describe, with countenance embodying a strange mixture of intellect, sensuality, and power, but withal sinister and full of malignant omen. His nose was hooked, like the beak of a vulture; his eyes large, grey, and prominent and lighted up with a more than mortal cruelty and coldness. The features were surmounted by a crimson velvet cap, the hair that peeped from under which was white with age, while the eyebrows retained their original blackness. Well I remember every line, hue, and shadow of that stony countenance, and well I may! The gaze of this hellish visage was fixed upon me, and mine returned it with the inexplicable fascination of nightmare, for what appeared to me to be hours of agony. #RandolphHarris 16 of 21
At last—the cock he crew, away then flew, the fiend who had enslaved me through the awful watches of the night and, harassed and nervous, I rose to the duties of the day. I had—I cannot say exactly why, but it may have been from the exquisite anguish and profound impressions of unearthly horror, with which this strange phantasmagoria was associated—an insurmountable antipathy to describing the exact nature of my nightly troubles to Mrs. Winchester. Generally, however, I told her I was haunted by abominable dreams; and, true to the imputed materialism of medicine, we put our heads together to dispel my horrors, not by exorcism, but by a tonic Vin Mariani. However, the evil spirit, who enthralled my senses in the shape of that portrait, may have been just as near me, just as energetic, just as malignant, though I saw him not. Everybody knows how contagious is fear of all sort, but more especially that particular kind of fear under which poor Mrs. Winchester was at that moment labouring. I would not have heard, nor I believe would she have recapitulated, just at that moment, for half the World, the details of the hideous vision which had so unmanned her. “I was sitting in my room,” said Mrs. Winchester “by my fireplace, the door locked when I heard a step on the flight of stairs descending from the attics. It was two o’ clock, and the streets were as silent as a churchyard—the sounds were, therefore, perfectly distinct. There was slow, heavy tread, characterized by the emphasis and deliberation of age, descending by the narrow staircase from above; and, what made the sound more singular, it was plain that the feet which produced it were perfectly bare measuring a descent with something between a pound and a flop, very ugly to hear. #RandolphHarris 17 of 21
“I knew quite well that you and my attendant had gone away many hours before, and that nobody but myself has any business in the house. It was quite plain also that the person who was coming down stairs had no intention whatever of concealing his movements; but, on the contrary, appeared disposed to make even more noise, and proceed more deliberately, than was at all necessary. When the step reached the foot of the stairs outside my room, it seemed to stop; and I expected every moment to see my door open spontaneously, and give admission to soul killed by the Winchester rifle. I was, however, relieved in a few second by hearing the descent renewed, just in the same manner, upon the stair case leading down to the drawing-rooms, and thence, after another pause, down the next flight, and so on to the hall, whence I heard no more. Now, by the time the sound had ceased, I was wound up, as they say, to a very unpleasant pitch of excitement. I listened, but there was not a stir. I screw up my courage to a decisive experiment—opened my door, and in a stentorian voice bawled over the banisters, ‘Who’s there?’ There was no answer but the ringing of my own voice through the empty old house—no renewal of the movement; nothing short, to give my unpleasant sensations a definite direction. There is, I think, something most disagreeably disenchanting in the sound of one’s own voice under such circumstances, exerted in solitude, and in vain. It redoubled my sense of isolation, and my misgivings increased on perceiving that the door, which I certainly thought I had left open, was closed behind me. #RandolphHarris 18 of 21
“In a vague alarm, lest my retreat should be cut off, I got again into my room as quickly as I could, where I remained in a state of imaginary blockade, and very uncomfortable indeed, till morning. Next night brought no return of my barefooted fellow-lodger; but the night following, being in my bed, and in the dark—somewhere, I supposed, about the same hour as before, I distinctly heard the old fellow again descending from the garrets. This time I jumped out of bed, clutched the poker as I passed the expiring fire, and in a moment was upon the lobby. The sound had ceased by this time—the dark and chill were discouraging; and, guess my horror, when I saw, or thought I saw, a monster, whether in the shape of a man or a bear I could not say, standing, with its back to the wall, on the lobby, facing me, with a pair of great greenish eyes shinning dimly out. Now, I must be frank, and confess that the cupboard which displayed our plates and cups stood just there, though at that moment I did not recollect it. At the same time I must never could satisfy myself that I was made the dupe of my own fancy in this matter; for this apparition, after one or two shiftings of shape, as if in the act of incipient transformation, began, as it seemed on second thoughts, to advance upon me in its original form. From an instinct of terror rather than of courage, I hurled the poker, with all my force, at its head; and to the music of a horrid crash made my way into my room, and double-locked the door. Then, in a minute more, I heard the horrid bare feet walk down the stairs, till the sound ceased in the halls, as on the former occasion. #RandolphHarris 19 of 21
“In a vague alarm, lest my retreat should be cut off, I got again into my room as quickly as I could, where I remained in a state of imaginary blockade, and very uncomfortable indeed, till morning. Next night brought no return of my barefooted fellow-lodger; but the night following, being in my bed, and in the dark—somewhere, I supposed, about the same hour as before, I distinctly heard the old fellow again descending from the garrets. This time I jumped out of bed, clutched the poker as I passed the expiring fire, and in a moment was upon the lobby. The sound had ceased by this time—the dark and chill were discouraging; and, guess my horror, when I saw, or thought I saw, a monster, whether in the shape of a man or a bear I could not say, standing, with its back to the wall, on the lobby, facing me, with a pair of great greenish eyes shinning dimly out. Now, I must be frank, and confess that the cupboard which displayed our plates and cups stood just there, though at that moment I did not recollect it. At the same time I must never could satisfy myself that I was made the dupe of my own fancy in this matter; for this apparition, after one or two shiftings of shape, as if in the act of incipient transformation, began, as it seemed on second thoughts, to advance upon me in its original form. From an instinct of terror rather than of courage, I hurled the poker, with all my force, at its head; and to the music of a horrid crash made my way into my room, and double-locked the door. Then, in a minute more, I heard the horrid bare feet walk down the stairs, till the sound ceased in the halls, as on the former occasion. #RandolphHarris 19 of 21
“If the apparition of the night before was an ocular delusion of my fancy sporting with the dark outlines of our cupboard, and if tis horrid eyes were nothing but a pair of inverted teacups, I had, at all events, the satisfaction of having launched the poker with admirable effect, and in true ‘fancy’ phrase, ‘knocked its two daylights into one,’ as the commingled fragments of my tea-service testified. I did my best to gather comfort and courage from these evidences; but it would not do. And then what could I say of those horrid bare feet, and the regular tramp, tramp, tramp, which measured the distance of the entire staircase through the solitude of my haunted dwelling, and at an hour when no good influence was stirring? Confound it!—the whole affair was abominable. I was out of spirits, and dreaded the approach of night. It came, ushered ominously in with a thunderstorm and dull torrents of depressing rain. Earlier than usual the streets grew silent; and by twelve o’clock nothing but the comfortless patterning of the rain was to be heard. I made myself as snug as I could. I lighted two candles instead of one. I forswore bed, and held myself in readiness for a sally, candle in hand; for, coute qui coute, I was resolved to see the being, if visible at all, who troubled the nightly stillness of my mansion. I was fidgety and nervous and, tried in vain to interest myself with my books. I walked up and down my room, whistling in turn martial and hilarious music, and listening ever and anon for the dreaded noise.” #RandolphHarris 20 of 21
Do not Grieve. Anything you lose comes around in another form. The child weaned from mother’s milk now drinks cranberry juice. God’s joy moves from unmarked box to unmarked box, from cell to cell. As rainwater, down into flowerbed. As roses, up from ground. Now it looks like a plate of rice and fish, now a cliff covered with vines, now a horse being saddled. It hides within these, till one day it cracks them open. There is the light gold of wheat in the sun, and the gold of bread made from wheat. I have neither, I am only talking about them as a town in the desert looks up to stars on a clear night. The Son of God, looking upon the World, beheld suffering and misery. With pity He saw how humans had become victims of satanic cruelty. He looked with compassion upon those who were being corrupted, murdered, and lost. They had chosen a ruler who chained them to his carriage as captives. God’s glory pervades the Universe; His ministering Angels inquire of one another: Where is the place of His glory? In response they give praise: Praised be the glory of the Lord from His Heavenly abode. From His Heavenly abode may He turn in mercy and bestow grace unto the people who, reciting the Shema evening and morning, twice daily, proclaim in love the unity of His name, saying: Hear, O America: the Lord our God, the Lord is One. He is our God; He is our Father, our sovereign and our Deliverer. In His mercy He will make known in presence of all the living that He will be your God. “I am the Lord your God.” As it is written in holy Scripture: The Lord shall reign forever; Thy God, O America, shall be Sovereign unto all generations. Hallelujah. #RandolphHarris 21 of 21
Winchester Mystery House
Ghostly tales are bountiful at Sarah Winchester’s Mystery House. What have you experienced? Photos are encouraged!
The Winchester mansion is 160-room mansion built to appease the spirits who died at the hands of the Winchester Rifle 👻
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“Whoever shadows my every move will not lose me in the dark.” At least that is what Christ says, or what the Evangelist John heard Him say (8.12). He tells us to walk on, through the darkness, with Christ as our only torch. That way, when we mayn’t have gained a step, but we won’t have lost one either. And on into the day we must pursue with dogged tread the life of Jesus Christ. Is this the secret to Mrs. Winchester’s 7-11 staircase?
Affection and Friendship Should Not Interfere with the Fullest Attainment of Our Final End!
Every true American believes with all their hearts that when an American is tired of America, one is tired of life. With certain qualifications, a person is happy when one is in the way of a successful execution (more or less) of a rational plan of life drawn up under (more or less) favourable conditions, and one is reasonably confident that one’s intentions can be carried through. Thus we are happy when our rational plans are going well, our more important aims being fulfilled, and we are with reason quite sure that our good fortune will continue. The achievement of happiness depends upon circumstances and luck, and hence the gloss about favourable conditions. While I shall not discuss the concept of happiness in any detail, we should consider a few further points to brings out the connection with the problem of hedonism. First of all, happiness has two aspects: one is the successful execution of a rational plan (the schedule of activities and aims) which a person strives to realize, the other is one’s state of mind, one’s sure confidence supported by good reasons that one’s success will endure. Being happy involves both a certain achievement in action and a rational assurance about the outcomes. This definition of happiness is objective: plans are to be adjusted to the conditions of our life and our confidence must rest upon sounds beliefs. Alternatively, happiness might be defined subjectively as follows: a person is happy when one believes that one is in the way of a successful execution (more or less) of a rational plan, and so on as before, adding the rider that is one is mistaken or deluded, then by contingency and coincidence nothing happens to disabuse one of one’s misconceptions. #RandolphHarris 1 of 21
By good luck one is not cast out of one’s fool’s paradise. Now the definition to be preferred is that which best fits the theory of justice and coheres with our considered judgments of value. We have assumed that the parties in the original position have correct beliefs. They acknowledge a conception of justice in the light of general truths about persons and their place in society. Thus it seems natural to suppose that in framing their plans of life they are similarly lucid. Of course none of this is strictly argument. Eventually one has to appraise the objective definition as part of the moral theory to which it belongs. Adopting this definition, and keeping in mind the account of rational plans presented earlier, we can interpret the special characteristics sometimes attributed to happiness. For example, happiness is self-contained: that is, it is chosen solely for its own sake. To be sure, a rational plan will include many (or at least several) final aims, and any of these may be pursed partly because it complements and furthers one or more other aims as well. Mutual support among ends pursued for their own sake is an important feature of rational plans, and therefore these ends are not usually sought solely for themselves. Nevertheless executing the entire plan, and the enduring confidence with which this is done, is something that we want to do and to have only for itself. All considerations including those of right and justice (using here the full theory of good) have already been surveyed in drawing up the plan. And therefore the whole activity is self-contained. #RandolphHarris 2 of 21
Happiness is also self-sufficient: a rational plan when realized with assurance makes a life fully worthy of choice and demands nothing further in addition. When circumstances are especially favourable and the execution particularly successful, one’s happiness is complete. Within the general conception one sought to follow, there is nothing essential that is lacking, no way in which it could have been distinctly better. So even if the material means that support our mode of life can always be imagined to be greater, and a different pattern of aims might often have been chosen, still the actual fulfillment of the plan itself may have, as compositions, paintings, and poems often do, a certain completeness which though marred by circumstance and human failing is evident from the whole. Thus some become exemplars of human flourishing and models for emulation, their lives being as instructive in how to life as any philosophical doctrine. A person is happy then during those periods when one is successfully carrying through a rational plan and one is with reason confident that one’s efforts will come to fruition. One may be said to approach blessedness to the extent that conditions are supremely favourable and one’s life complete. Yet it does not follow that in advancing a rational plan one is pursuing happiness, not at least as this is normally meant. For one thing, happiness is not one aim among others that we aspire to, but the fulfillment of the whole design itself. However, also, I have supposed first that rational plans satisfy the constraints of right and justice (as the full theory of the good stipulates). #RandolphHarris 3 of 21
To say someone that one seeks happiness does not, it seems, imply that one is prepared either to violate or to affirm these restrictions. Therefore the acceptance of these limits should be made explicit. And secondly, the pursuit of happiness often suggests the pursuit of certain sorts of ends, for example, life, liberty, and one’s own welfare. Thus persons who devote themselves selflessly to a righteous cause, or who dedicate their lives to furthering the well-being of other, are not normally thought to seek happiness. It would be misleading to say this of saints and heroes, or of those whose plan of life is in some marked degree supererogatory. They do not have the kinds of aims that fall under this heading, admittedly not sharply defined. Yet, when their plans succeed, saints and heroes and persons whose intentions acknowledge the limits of right and justice, are in fact happy. Although they do not strive for happiness, they may nevertheless be happy in advancing the claims of justice and the well-being of others, or in attaining the excellences to which they are attracted. However, how in general is it possible to choose among plans rationally? What procedure can an individual follow when faced with this sort of decision? Previously I said that a rational plan is one that would be chosen with deliberative rationality from among the class of plans of all of which satisfy the principles of rational choice and stand up to certain forms of critical reflection. We eventually reach a point though where we just have to decide which plan we most prefer without further guidance from principle. #RandolphHarris 4 of 21
There is however one device of deliberation that I have not yet mentioned, and this is to analyze our aims. That is, we can try to find a more detailed or more illuminating description of the object of our desires hoping that the counting principles will then settle the case. Thus it may happen that a fuller or deeper characterization of what we want discloses that an inclusive plan exists after all. Let us consider again the example of planning a holiday. Often when we ask ourselves why we wish to visit two distinct places, we find that all of them can be fulfilled by going to one place rather than the other. Thus we may want to study certain styes of art, and further reflection may bring out that one plan is superior or equally good on all these counts. In this sense we may discover that our desire to go to Paris is more intense than our desire to go to Rome. Often however a finer description fails to be decisive. If we want to see both the most famous church in Christendom and the most famous museum, we may be stuck. Of course these desires too many be examine further. Nothing in the way that most desire are expressed shows whether there exists a more revealing characterization of what we really want. However, we have to allow for the possibility, indeed for the probability, that sooner or later we will reach incomparable aims between which we must choose with deliberative rationality. We may trim, reshape, and transform our aim in a variety of ways as we try to fit them together. Using the principles of rational choice as guidelines, and formulating our desires in the most lucid form we can, we may narrow the scope of purely preferential choice, but we cannot eliminate it altogether. #RandolphHarris 5 of 21
The indeterminacy of decision seems to arise, then, from the fact that a person has many aims for which there is no ready standard of comparison to decide between them when they conflict. There are many stopping points in practical deliberation and many ways in which we characterize the things we want for their own sake. Thus it is easy to see why the idea of there being a single dominant end (as opposed to an inclusive end) at which it is rational to aim is highly appealing. For if there exists such an end to which all other ends are subordinate, then presumably all desires, insofar as they are rational, admit of an analysis which shows the counting principles to apply. The procedure for making a rational choice, and the conception of such a choice, would then be perfectly clear: deliberation would always concern means to ends, all lesser ends in turn being ordered as means to one single dominant end. The many finite chains of reasons eventually converge and meet at the same point. Hence a rational decision is always in principle possible, since only difficulties of computation and lack of information remain. Now it is essential to understand what the dominant-end theorists wants: namely, a method of choice which the agent oneself can always follow in order to make a rational decision. This there are three requirements: the conception of deliberation must specify: a first person procedure which is generally applicable and guaranteed to lead to the best result (at least under favourable conditions of information and given the ability to calculate). We have no procedures meeting these conditions. A random device provides a general method but it would be rational only in special circumstances. #RandolphHarris 6 of 21
In everyday life we employ schemes of deliberation acquired from our culture and modified during the course of our personal history. However, there is no assurance that these forms of reflection are rational. Perhaps they only meet various minimum standards which enable us to get by, all the while falling short of the best that we might do. Thus if we seek a general procedure by which to balance our conflicting aims so as to single out, or at least to identify in thought, the best course of action, the idea of a dominant end seems to give a simple and natural answer. Let us consider then what this dominant end might be. It cannot be happiness itself, since this state is attained by executing a rational plan of life already set out independently. The most we can say is that happiness is an inclusive end, meaning that the plan itself, the realization of which makes one happy, includes and orders most implausible to think of the dominant end as a personal or social objective such as the exercise of political power, or the achievement of social acclaim, or maximizing one’s material possessions. Surely it is contrary to our considered judgments of value, and indeed inhuman, to be so taken with but one of these ends that we do not moderate the pursuit of it for the sake of anything else. For a dominant end is at least lexically prior to all other aims and seeking to advance it always takes absolute precedence. #RandolphHarris 7 of 21
Thus the dominant end is serving God, and by this means saving our soul. Heavenly Father desires that we find true, lasting happiness. Our happiness is the design of all the blessings He gives us—gospel teachings, commandments, priesthood ordinances, family relationship, prophets, temples, the beauties of creation, and even the opportunity to experience adversity. God’s plan for our salvation is often called “the great plan of happiness,” reports Alma 42.8. He sent His Beloved Son to carry out the Atonement so we can be happy in this lie and receive a fulness of joy in the eternities. Furthering the divine intentions is the sole criterion for balancing subordinate aims. It is for this reason alone that we should prefer health to sickness, riches to poverty, honour to dishonour, a long life to a short one, and, one might add, friendship and affection to hatred and animosity. “Wickedness never was happiness,” reports Alma 41.10. Other seek only to have fun in life. With this as their main goal, they allow temporary pleasure to distract them from lasting happiness. They rob themselves of the enduring joys of spiritual growth, service, and hard work. As we seek to be happy, we should remember that the only way to real happiness is to live the gospel. We will find peaceful, eternal happiness as we strive to keep the commandments, pray for strength, repent of our sins, participate in wholesome activities, and give meaningful service. We must be indifferent to all attachments whatsoever, for these become inordinate once they precent us from being like equalized scales in a balance, ready to take the course that we believe is most for the glory of God. #RandolphHarris 8 of 21
It should be observed that this principle of indifference is compatible with our enjoying lesser pleasures and for allowing ourselves to engage in play and amusements. For these activities relax the mind and rest the spirit so that we are better fitted to advance more important aims. Thus although Aquinas believes that the vision of God is the last end of all human knowledge and endeavour, he concedes play and amusements a place in our life. Nevertheless these pleasures are permitted only to the extent that the superordinate aim is thereby advanced, or at least not hindered. We should arrange things so that our indulgences in frivolity and jest, in affection and friendship, do not interfere with the fullest attainment of our final end. The extreme nature of dominant-end views is often concealed by the vagueness and ambiguity of the end proposed. Thus if God is conceived (as surely He must be) as a moral being, then the end of serving Him above all else is left unspecified to the extent that the divine intentions are not clear from revelation, or evident from natural reason. Within these limits a theological doctrine of morals is subject to the same problems of balancing principles and determining precedence which trouble other conceptions. Since disputed questions commonly lie here, the solution propounded by the religious ethic is only apparent. And certainly when the dominant end is clearly specified as attaining some objective goal such as political power or material wealth, the underling fanaticism and inhumanity are manifest. #RandolphHarris 9 of 21
Human good is heterogeneous because the aims of the self are heterogenous. Although to subordinate all our aims to one end does not strictly speaking violate the principles of rational choice (not the counting principles anyway), it still strikes us as irrational, or more likely as mad. The self is disfigured and put in the service of one of its ends for the sake of system. Governments are composed of persons who meet occasionally in a hall to make speeches and to write resolutions; of human studying papers at desks, receiving and answering letters and memoranda, listening to advice and giving it, hearing complaints and claims and replying to them; o clerks manipulating more papers; of inspectors, tax collectors, law enforcement, and soldiers. These officials have to be fed, and often they overeat. They would often rather go fishing, or have pleasures of the flesh, or do anything than shuffle their papers. They have to sleep. They suffer from indigestion and asthma, bile and palpitation, become bored, tired, careless, and have nervous headaches. They know what they happen to learn, they are away of what they happen to observe, they can imagine what they happen to be interested in, they can accomplish only what they can command or persuade an unseen multitude to do. What is so remarkable about America is that millions of people believe more in the power of prayer than in the power of politics; they believe the message to “repent, be converted, and trust Jesus Christ” can topple even an authoritarian leader. They believe their deliverance is spiritual. #RandolphHarris 10 of 21
Such belief runs counter to the myth that all human problems are political and solvable by all-powerful human institutions. An extreme example was the prominent New Right leader who declared in 1985, after Congress failed to pass his legislative agenda, “The only way to have a genuine spiritual revival is to have legislative reform…I think we have been legislated out of the possibility of a spiritual revival.” Evidently, the work of the Kingdom of God has been defeated by a majority vote in the kingdoms of man. I am sure that individual did not mean to deny the sovereignty of God, but his statement insinuates that nothing can be accomplished except through the government. Jacques Ellul could well have been describing this leader when he wrote that politics has become “the supreme religion of the age.” This political illusion springs from a diminishing belief in God and the growth of big government. What people once expected from the Almighty, they now expect from the almighty bureaucracy. That is bad trade for anyone; but for the Christian, it is rank idolatry. The media encourages the illusion. Stories of spiritual conversion, growth, and revival do not make god thirty-second news spots. While the everyday actions of ordinary citizens lack headline punch, politics offers confrontation, controversy, and scandal. When religion does make the cover of Time or a spot on the network news, it is usually the result of scandal, as extraordinary as the coverage of Jim and Tammy Bakker. That is not a complaint; it I simply the way the news business works, which in turn is merely satisfying the public appetite for sleazy gossip, crime, dramatically suggestive headlines, fiction, outlandish stories, and aggressive reporters. #RandolphHarris 11 of 21
Although most people claim they do not believe most of what the news reports, yet they are drawn to its promise of insider knowledge and hot scoops about celebrities, politicians, and aliens from outer space. New coverage gravitates to political centers, exalting the momentary, assuring suspense. The public waits expectantly for the next installment in the unfolding political soap opera. On one level media and government are natural antagonists; on another they are natural allies, depending on each other for their influence. News organizations concentrate their resources in political capitals; governments gear their policies and decisions for primetime audiences. The media spotlight politics and political feeds in the media. Because the illusion serves those with the power to perpetuate it, neither side cares to expose it. People watch the news like it a heavy weight fight, listening to reporters give breathless blow-by-blow accounts of propaganda, as they often ignore real news that matters. The view back home sits in front of the TV, like a mindless goldfish, being spoon fed junk news. Thousands of journalist are constantly pounding the pavements, desperate for something to film. Some camera operators shot footage of each other. Others give up and go out for fondue. Much of the news treads perilously close to heresy. If this were the seventh century, many reporters would probably be accused by Dr. William Griggs of having the evil hand upon them. News is a big business, after all, having hundreds of millions riding on Nielsen ratings. National Network personalities hold multimillion dollar contracts, and they, as well as many print journalists, enjoy the handsome rewards of celebrity. Even in nations with public-owned media, the illusion guarantees power, privilege, and access to the elite. These are not willingly surrendered. #RandolphHarris 12 of 21
This unwavering focus heightens both the promise and expectations of what government can do. Political rhetoric, therefore, mist offer panaceas to all human ills. If elected, can anyone recall a major candidate who di not claim he or she could solve any problem? However, most politicians know that more than 80 percent of the federal budget—entitlement programs and other congressionally mandated outlays—are beyond their control. Most candidates cannot have a balanced budget and federal judges often strip the president of their power to make changes to the government so society keeps getting worse, instead of improving. Politicians have little choice. Modern technology has reduced all issues to their lowest common denominator. Since there is no time to explain the complexities of the budget process, and since instant perceptions shape voter attitudes, politicians can do no more than create appealing visual impressions. Former Budget Director David Stockman chided Regan aides Baker and Meese for being more interested in the evening network news than in government policy. However, perhaps they were more realistic. Policy has no meaning apart from how it is perceived, and that perception is heavily influenced by newscasters. That is why Lyndon Johnson obsessively watched three evening news programs simultaneously on a three-console television set. He knew public reaction to the televised portrayal of Vietnam would influence opinion far more than battlefield strategies. He was right: the outcome of that war was decided in American living rooms. #RandolphHarris 13 of 21
To maintain the illusion, government attempts to shape, even manipulate public perceptions. The White House gives assignments to people to do just that. Staff members work full time studying daily news briefings, monitoring public reactions to presidential speeches, taking daily polls, and feeding positive information to friendly reporters. Often they aggressively try to manipulate public opinion. For example, immediately after every presidential speech, a White House staff member usually unleashes a small army of assistants who will call key leaders in every walk of life. They might make five hundred calls, each following the same script: “The president asked me to call you to find out what your thought of his announced policy.” The reactions are usually collated, typed, and within hours a report surveying the opinions of hundreds of leaders is in the president’s hands. Helpful information, but the staff also influences public reactions toward acceptance of their policy. To be told that the president wants one’s opinion flatters even the cynics. Those called rarely offer a critical reply; most can hardly wait to call their friends and casually mention that “by the way, the president just called” to ask their opinion. So when journalists Tomi Lahren and Yamiche Alcindor has very public interactions with President Trump about their news reports, it was really a big deal to be acknowledged. With the government policy so dependent on public reaction, it is little wonder that the celebrity syndrome has become such a major force in Western politics. #RandolphHarris 14 of 21
The subtle danger of all this manipulation is that people no longer view their own circumstances as reality. Only what appears in print and on the screen as well. The humans of the present day suffer from acute television intoxication. They do not believe in their own experiences, one’s own judgment and one’s own thought. In their eyes, a fact becomes true when one has read an account of it in the paper, and one measures the importance by the size of the headlines. This has resulted in people giving out false, distorted, or outdated information because no one calls to the agencies involved to verify if. However, people who do not trust the news actually do verify information before they take it as a fact because they know how dangerous disinformation can be. Still, many individuals gradually loses all sense of continuity. Whether a policy is good or bad, a success or a failure, is of no account; all that matters is the emotion its instant image induces. No one remembers from one day to the next. On a Monday a president can say, “The Russians blinked.” Everyone is happy. The next day it is disclosed the Russians did not blink—we did—but no one remembers. So on to the next night. The process is mesmerizing. Images pile on images, day after day, anesthetizing the public so they feel individually important and that all power resides in images they see on their television screens. This eventually erodes their own sense of political responsibility and makes them easy prey to the appetite of an authoritarian state. The consequence is irresistible. The chief characteristic of tyranny is isolation of the individual, denying one access to the public realm where one would show oneself, see and be seen, ear and be heard. #RandolphHarris 15 of 21
Even democracies need institutions and agencies through which the individual can resist the tendency of all central governments to grow larger, stronger, and more domineering. For the only thing that stands between the multitudes and totalitarianism are the mediating structures of society: families, small groups of citizens, churches, voluntary associations that are independent and resistant to the collective state. If the American experiment is to succeed, it will require the continued help of voluntary associations. Of all these independent institutions, the church should be the one best able to expose the political illusion. For the message of a transcendent reality is resounding warning against the futility of seeking immorality from the instruments and institutions of this life. Mastery of nature through technology has given modern humans the illusions that one has mastered life itself. The message of the Kingdom is that only God is master of life, and attempts to create alternatives to His rule are futile. The fall of the Roman Empire plainly demonstrated that no work of mortal hands can be immortal, and it was accomplished by the rise of the Christian gospel of an everlasting individual life to its position as the exclusive religion of Western humankind. Both together made any striving for an Earthly immortality futile and unnecessary. The Kingdom of God is not dependent on power in the kingdoms of humans. It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in princes. Political kingdoms may rise and fall—but the Kingdom of God goes on forever. #RandolphHarris 16 of 21
Modern history is replete with similar lessons about the futility of putting ultimate trust in much-vaunted political systems. When a greedy tyrant is overthrown, the idealist replacing him or her promises liberation and hope for the oppressed. The people are jubilant. However, in a short time the “liberator” becomes the oppressor oneself, resplendent in one’s $6,500 designer glasses. When autocracy is replaced by bureaucracy, only the icons change. Ideology, which in so many parts of the World has replaced true religion, is powerless as well. The promised utopias of the twenty-first century., either Marxist of Fascist, are doomed because they accept the essential premises of current civilization and move with its lines of internal development: Thus, utilizing what this World itself offers them, they become slaves, although they think they are transforming it. Even massive weapons of destruction fail to assure anything for today’s mightiest governments. Wars reach no permanent solutions; there is no such things as a lasting peace or, as American so fondly believed, “a war to end all wars.” Terrorists stalk the globe, and government can do little to stop them. Wars proliferate; political solutions fail; frustrations rise. Yet we continue to look to governments to resolve problems beyond their capability. The illusion persists. Nowhere is that more evident than in one troubled corner of the World. However, even there, in the midst of carnage, violence, and hatred, the example of a few people offers hope, pointing the way for civilization to emerge from darkness. #RandolphHarris 17 of 21
Each of us must gain for oneself the authentic mystical experience. Sugar can be known only by its sweet taste, the Overself only by opening the doors of the mind to consciousness of its presence. Those who have had this overwhelming experience require no arguments to make them believe in the soul. They know that they are the soul. An experience which is so convincing, so real, that no intellectual argument to the contrary can stand against it, is final. Let others say what they will, one remains unswayed. A glimpse is a transitory state of mental enlightenment and emotional exaltation. It I an experience of self-discovery, not the discovery of some other being, whether a guru or a god. These brief flashes bring with them great joy, great beauty, and great uplift. They are, for most people, their first clear vivid awakening to the existence and reality of a spiritual order of being. The contrast with their ordinary state is so tremendous as to shame it into pitiful drabness. The intention is to arouse and stimulate them into the longing for re-entry into the spirit, a longing which inevitably express itself in the quest. In the past these glimpse experiences were regarded as wholly religious. Today the truth about them is better understood. They may be aesthetic, psychological, intellectual, or creative—happening outside the religious circle. All our ordinary experience comes to us through sense responses or intellectual workings. However, here is a kind of experience which does not come through these two channels. It is not a series of sensations nor a series of thoughts. What is it, then? Philosophy says it belongs to the transcendental World. #RandolphHarris 18 of 21
The uniqueness of this moment shines out against the relatedness of all other moments. Words only limit it by their precision and their pressure, yet they are all some of us have with which to make a likeness of it to show friends, or to hold before the ardent seekers, or even to return to ourselves in dark and difficult periods. The glimpse may be best compared to a moment of wakefulness in a long existence of sleep. These mystical glimpses have close parallels with the best features of the best types of religious conversion. Indeed, as might be expected, they are deeper and more developed and better controlled forms of them. These glimpses, these transcendental visitations bring joy, serenity, and understanding. No rational explanation has given of the seemingly eccentric characters of these glimpses, no reasonable theory of their why, what, how, and when. The mystical experience may be beyond reasoned analysis but it is not beyond reasonable description. Putting words together on paper to tell how this glimpse lifts one out of the ordinariness of the common existence, is a work anyone must enjoy doing. It is a brief and temporary enlargement of consciousness, in theological language, an improvement of its connection with God. How is one to describe this experience? It is an expansion, and yet also a concentration, of consciousness. It is not enough to say that someone has had a mystical experience. This phrase can over the most opposite, the most widely different experiences. The experience is so beautiful that no description can transfer the feelings it awakens from one heart to another. #RandolphHarris 19 of 21
There are the real waking moments of a person’s life: for the rest one is asleep without ever guessing that one is. It is not the highest point of the moral experience, although that approaches it, or can help to being it on, or acts as a preparation for it. It is not the peak of the aesthetic experience, although that fulfills the same services. A long time I have lived with you and now we must be going separately to be together. Perhaps I shall be the wind to blur your smooth waters so that you do not see your face too much. Perhaps I shall be the star to guide your uncertain wings so that you have direction in the night. Perhaps I shall be the fire to separate your thoughts so that you do not give up. Perhaps I shall be the rain to open up the Earth so that your seed may fall. Perhaps I shall be the snow to let your blossoms sleep s that you may bloom in spring. Perhaps I shall be the stream to play a song on the rock so that you are not alone. Perhaps I shall be a new mountain so that you always have a way home. Here are life’s highest processes, an experience beyond thinking and an awareness beyond the sensual. During this period one is in God. These rare moments lift one out of one’s terrestrial self and detach one from one’s lower human self. Only a poet could portray these experiences as they deserve; to write of them with outer photographic exactness only is to half-lose them. In religious language one is in God, and in mystical language God is in one. One has reached a World which is as much beyond good as it is beyond evil. #RandolphHarris 20 of 21
Magnified and sanctified be the name of God throughout the World which He hath created according to His will. May He establish His kingdom during the days of your life and during the life of your life and during the life of all the house of America, speedily, yea, soon; and say ye, Amen. May His great name be blessed for every and ever. Exalted and honoured be the name of the Holy One, blessed be He, whose glory transcends, yea, is beyond all praises, hymns and blessings that humans can render unto Him; and say ye, Amen. When I call upon the Lord, ascribe greatness unto our God. O Lord, open Thou lips and my mouth shall declare Thy praise. Praised art Thou, O Lord our God and God of our fathers, Go of Abraham, God of Isaac, and God of Jacob, mighty, revered and exalted God. Thou bestowest lovingkindness and possessest all things. Mindful of the patriarchs’ love for Thee, Thou wilt in Thy love bring a redeemer to their children’s children for the sake of Thy name. Please remember us unto life, O King who delightest in life, and inscribe us in the Book of Life so that we may live worthily for Thy sake, O Lord of life. O King, Thou Helper, Redeemer and Shield, be Thou praised, O Lord, Shield of Abraham. Thou, O Lord, art mighty forever. Thou callest the dead to immortal life for Thou art mighty in deliverance. Thou causest the wind to blow and the rain to fall. Thou sustainest the living with lovingkindness, and in great mercy callest the departed to everlasting life. Thou upholdest the falling, healest the sick, settest free those in bondage, an keepest faith with those that sleep in the dust. Who is like unto Thee, Almighty King, who decreest death and life and bringest forth salvation? God provides an experience of complete security—so rarely found among people in the World today. #RandolphHarris 21 of 21
BRIGHTON STATION AT CRESLEIGH RANCH
Rancho Cordova, CA |
Now Selling!
Brighton Station at Cresleigh Ranch is Rancho Cordova’s newest home community! This charming neighborhood offers an array of home types with eye catching architecture styles such as Mid-Century Modern, California Modern, Prairie, and Contemporary Farmhouse.
Located off Douglas Road and Rancho Cordova Parkway, the residents of Cresleigh Ranch will enjoy, being just minutes from shopping, dining, and entertainment, and quick access to Highway 50 and Grant Line Road providing a direct route into Folsom. Residents here also benefit from no HOA fees, two community parks and the benefits of being a part of the highly-rated Elk Grove Unified School District.
Best of all, each Cresleigh home comes fully equipped with an All Ready connected home! This smart home package comes included with your home and features great tools including: video door bell and digital deadbolt for the front door, connect home hub so you can set scenes and routines to make life just a little easier. Two smart switches and USB outlets are also included, plus we’ll gift you a Google Home Hub and Google Mini to help connect everything together!
Cresleigh offers enchanting homes that have all the amenities you have come to expect in a grand home.
This is the Beginning, When People Will Be Opening their Eyes!
Nothing is quite as funny as the unintended humour of reality. The original position is designed to be a fair and impartial point of view that is to be adopted in our reasoning about fundamental principles of justice. In taking up this point of view, we are imagining ourselves in the position of free and equal persons who jointly agree upon and commit themselves to the principles of social and political justice. The main distinguishing feature of the original position is “the veil of ignorance”: to insure impartiality of judgment, the parties are deprived of all knowledge of their personal characteristics and social and historical circumstances. The two principles of justice guarantee the equal basic rights and liberties needed to secure the fundamental interests of free and equal citizens and to pursue a wide range of conceptions of good. The second principle provides fair equality of education and employment opportunities enabling all to fairly compete for powers and positions of office; and it secures for all a guaranteed minimum of the all-purpose means (including income and wealth) that individuals need to pursue their interests and to maintain their self-respect as free and equal persons. Persons in the original position give pride of place to their interest in the equal freedoms. The intuitive idea behind the precedence of liberty is that if the persons in the original position assume that their basic liberties can be effectively exercised, they will not exchange a lesser liberty for an improvement in the economic well-being, at least not once a certain level of wealth has been attained. #RandolphHarris 1 of 21
It is only when social conditions do not allow the effective establishment of these rights that one can acknowledge their restriction. Only if it is necessary to enhance the quality of civilization so that in due course the equal freedoms can be enjoyed by all can the denial of equal liberty can be accepted. The lexical ordering of the two principles is the long-run tendency of the general conception of justice consistently pursued under reasonably favourable conditions. Eventually there comes a time in the history of a well-ordered society beyond which the special form of the two principles takes over and holds from then on. What must be shown then is the rationality of this ranking from the standpoint of the parties in the original position. Clearly the conception of goodness as rationality and the principles of moral psychology have a part in answering this question. Now the basis for the priority of liberty is roughly as follows: as the conditions of civilization improve, the marginal significance for our god of further economic and social advantages diminishes relative to their interests of liberty, which become stronger as the conditions for the exercise of the equal freedoms are more fully realized. Beyond some point it becomes and then remains irrational from the standpoint of the original position to acknowledge a lesser liberty for the sake of greater material means and amenities of office. This is so because as the general level of well-being raises (as indicated by the index of primary goods the less favoured can expect) only the less urgent wants remain to be met by further advances, at least insofar as human’s wants are not largely created by institutions and social forms. #RandolphHarris 2 of 21
At the same time the obstacles to the exercise of the equal liberties decline and a growing insistence upon the right to pursue our spiritual and cultural interests assert itself. Increasingly it becomes more important to secure the free internal life of the various communities of interests in which persons and groups seek to achieve, in modes of social union consistent with equal liberty, the ends and excellences to which they are drawn. In addition humans come to aspire to some control over the laws and rules that regulate their association, either by directly taking part themselves in its affairs or indirectly through representatives with whom they are affiliated by ties of culture and social situation. To be sure, it is not the case that when the priority of liberty holds, all material wants are satisfied. Rather these desires are not so compelling as to make it rational for the persons in the original position to agree to satisfy them by accepting a less than equal freedom. The account of the good enables the parties to work out a hierarchy among their several interests and to note which kinds of ends should be regulative in their rational plans of life. Until the basic wants of individuals can be fulfilled, the relative urgency of their interest in liberty cannot be firmly decided in advance. It will depend on the claims of the least favoured as seen from the constitutional and legislative stages. However, under favourable circumstances the fundamental interest in determining our plan of life eventually assumes a prior place. One reason for this I have discussed in connection with liberty of conscience and freedom of thought. #RandolphHarris 3 of 21
And a second reason is the central place of the primary good of self-respect and the desire of human beings to express their nature in a free social union with others. Thus the desire for liberty is the chief regulative interest that the parties must suppose they all will have in common in due course. The veil of ignorance forces them to abstract from the particulars of their plans of life, thereby leading to this conclusion. The serial ordering of the two principles then follows. Now it might seem that even though the desire for an absolute increase in economic advantages declines, human’s concern for their relative place in the distribution of wealth will persist. In fact, if we suppose that everyone wishes a greater proportionate share, the result could be a growing desire for material abundance all the same. Since each strives for an end that cannot be collectively attained, society might conceivably become more and more preoccupied with raising productivity and improving economic efficiency. And these objectives might become so dominant as to undermine the precedence of liberty. Some have objected to the tendency to equality on precisely this ground, that it is thought to arouse in individuals an obsession with their relative share of social wealth. However, while it is true that in a well-ordered society there is most likely a trend to greater equality, its members take little interest in their relative position as such. As we have seen, they are not much affected by envy and jealousy, and for the most part they do what seems best to them as judged by their own plan of life without being dismayed by the greater amenities and enjoyments of others. #RandolphHarris 4 of 21
Thus there are no strong psychological propensities prompting them to curtail their liberty for the sake of greater absolute or relative economic welfare. The desire for a higher relative place in the distribution of material means should be sufficiently weak that the priority of liberty is not affected. Of course, it does not follow that in a just society everyone is unconcerned with matters of status. The account of self-respect as perhaps the main primary good has stressed the great significance of how we think others value us. However, in a well-ordered society the need for status is met by the public recognition of just institutions, together with the full and diverse internal life of the many free communities of interest that equal liberty allows. The basis for self-esteem in a just society is not then one’s income share but the publicly affirmed distribution of fundamental rights and liberties. And this distribution being equal, everyone has a similar and secure status when they meet to conduct the common affairs of the wider society. No one is inclined to look beyond the constitutional affirmation of equality for further political ways of securing one’s status. No one is inclined to look beyond the constitutional affirmation of equality for further political position from a strategic point of view. It would also have the effect of publicly establishing their inferiority as defined by the basic structure of society. This subordinate ranking in the public forum experienced in the attempt to take part in political and economic life, and felt in dealing with those who have a greater liberty, would indeed be humiliating and destructive of self-esteem. #RandolphHarris 5 of 21
And so by acquiescing in a less than equal liberty one might lose on both counts. This is particularly likely to be true as society becomes more just, since equal rights and public attitudes of mutual respect have an essential place in maintaining a political balance and in assuring citizens of their own worth. Thus while the social and economic differences between the various sectors of society, the noncomparing groups as we may think of them, are not likely to generate animosity, the hardships arising from political and civic inequality, and from culture and ethnic discrimination, cannot be easily accepted. When it is the position of equal citizenship that answers to the need for status, the precedence of equal liberties becomes all the more necessary. Having chosen a conception of justice that seeks to eliminate the significance of relative economic and social advantages as supports for human’s self-confidence, it is essential that the priority of liberty be firmly maintained. So for this reason too the parties are led to adopt a serial ordering of the two principles. In a well-ordered society then self-respect is secured by the public affirmation of the status of equal citizenship for all; the distribution of material means is left to take care of itself in accordance with the idea of pure procedural justice. Of course doing this assumes the requisite background institutions which narrow the range of inequalities so that excusable envy does not arise. Now this way of dealing with the problem of status has several noteworthy features which may be brought out as follows. #RandolphHarris 6 of 21
Suppose to the contrary that how one is valued by others depends upon one’s relative place in the distribution of income and wealth. In this case, having a higher status implies having more material means than a larger fraction of society. Thus not everyone can have the highest status, and to improve one person’s position is to lower that of someone else. Social cooperation to increase the conditions of self-respect is impossible. The means of status, so to speak, are fixed, and each human’s gain is another’s loss. Clearly this situation is a great misfortune. Persons are set at odds with one another in the pursuit of their self-esteem. Given the preeminence of this primary good, the parties in the original position surely do no want to find themselves so opposed. If not impossible, it would tend, for one thing, to make the good of social union difficult to achieve. Moreover, if the means of providing a good are indeed fixed and cannot be enlarged by cooperation, as mentioned in the discussion of envy, then justice seems to require equal shares, ceteris paribus. However, an equal division of all primary gods in irrational in view of the possibility of bettering everyone’s circumstances by accepting certain inequalities. Thus the best solution is to support the primary good of self-respect as far as possible by the assignment of the basic liberties that can indeed be made equal, defining the same status for all. At the same time, distributive justice as frequently understood, justice in the relative shares of material means, is relegated to a subordinate place. #RandolphHarris 7 of 21
Thus we arrive at another reason for factoring the social order into two parts as indicated by the principles of justice. While these principles permit inequalities in return for contributions that are for the benefit of all, the precedence of liberty entails equality in the social bases of esteem. Now it is quite possible that this idea cannot be carried through completely. To some extent human’s sense of their own worth may hinge upon their institutional position and their income share. If, however, the account of social envy and jealousy is sound, then, with the appropriate background arrangements, these inclinations should not be excessive, at least not when the priority of liberty is effectively upheld. However, if necessary, theoretically we can include self-respect in the primary goods, the index of which defines expectations. Then in applications of the difference principle this index can allows for the effects of excusable envy; the expectations of the less advantaged are lower the more severe these effects. Whether some adjustment for self-respect has to be made is best decided from the standpoint of the legislative stage where the parties have more information about social circumstances and the principle of political determination applies. Admittedly this problem is an unwelcome complication. Since simplicity it itself desirable in a public conception of justice, the conditions that elicit excusable envy should if possible be avoided. Expectations of the less advantaged can be understood so as to include the primary good of self-esteem. #RandolphHarris 8 of 21
Now some may want to object to this account of the priority of liberty that societies have other ways of affirming self-respect and of coping with envy and other disruptive inclinations. Thus in a feudal or in a caste system each person is believed to have one’s allotted station in the natural order of things. One’s comparisons are presumably confined to within one’s own estate or caste, these ranks becoming in effect so many noncomparing groups established independently of human control and sanctioned by religion and theology. Humans resign themselves to their position should it ever occur to them to question it; and since all may view themselves as assigned their vocation, everyone is held to be equally fated and equally noble in the eyes of providence. This conception of society solves the problem of social justice by eliminating in thought the circumstances that give rise to it. The basic structure is aid to be already determined, and not something for human beings to affect. On this view, it misconceives human’s place in the World to suppose that the social order should match principles which they would as equals consent to. Now to this idea, parties re to be guided in their choice of a conception of justice by a knowledge of the general facts about society. They take for granted than that institutions are not fixed but change overtime, altered by natural circumstances and the activities and conflicts of social groups. The constraints of nature are recognized, but humans are not powerless to shape their social arrangements. #RandolphHarris 9 of 21
This assumption is likewise part of the background of the theory of justice. It follows that certain ways of dealing with envy and other aberrant propensities are closed to a well-ordered society. For example, it cannot keep them in check by promulgating false or unfounded beliefs. For our problem is how society should be arranged if it is to conform to principles that rational persons with true general beliefs would acknowledge in the original position. The publicity condition of requires the parties to assume that as members of society they will also know the general facts. The reasoning leading up to the initial agreement is to be accessible to public understanding. Of course, in working out what the requisite principles are, we must rely upon current knowledge as recognized by common sense and the existing scientific consensus. However, there is no reasonable alternative to doing this. We have to concede that as established beliefs change, it is possible that the principles of justice which it seems rational to choose may likewise change. Thus when the belief in a fixed natural order sanctioning a hierarchical society is abandoned, assuming here that this belief is not true, a tendency is set up that points in the direction of two principles of justice inertial order. The effective protection of the equal liberties becomes increasingly of first importance. When God wants to punish people, he gives the unjust leaders. So the answer is for the people to repent, turn from their ways, be converted, and seek God. #RandolphHarris 10 of 21
Some people only care about power and what they can do with power. May the Lord come down to protect our people. Democracy is not prescribed in the Bible, and Christians can and do live under other political systems. However, Christians can hardly fail to love democracy, because of all systems it best assures human dignity, the essence of our creation in God’s image. If a candidate wins by cheating, he or she can only be forgiven by God if one renounced the office one has obtained by fraud. There will be no divine forgiveness for this act of injustice without a previous decision to repay the damage done. However, apparently God’s forgiveness is unimportant to some ruling. When politicians rig the vote, it means all the passion for democracy and all the prayers of the people are meaningless. A government that assumes or maintains power through fraudulent means has no moral basis. If it does not of itself freely correct the evil it has inflicted on the people, then it is our serious moral obligation as a people to make it do so. Nonetheless, there is enormous sin attached to fratricidal strife. As moral outrage grows, it is important to study the Bible. God has ordained government to preserve order, but even a bad government is better than no government—which results in chaos. Government’s authority comes from God; it is a delegation. Therefore, governments—all governments—whether they acknowledge it or not, rule under God. However, does God give an unrestricted delegation? Certainly not. #RandolphHarris 11 of 21
As Jesus Christ made clear with the coin, there are two realms—and Caesar is not to usurp what belongs to God. Any government that violates the law that is higher than its own is exceeding the legitimate authority God has granted. Government must always be respected, otherwise anarchy results; but the nation may attempt to venerate a culture or race. “When the state is made to serve the aspirations of race or nation instead of the cause of justice for all, it becomes a demonic state warranting resistance and rejection by the Christian faith,” reports Donald Bloesch, Crumbling Foundations (Grand Paris, Mich.: Zondervan, 1984), 183. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer put it, “If government persistently and arbitrarily violates its assigned task, then the divine mandate lapses.” In that case the state becomes evil incarnate, as in Nazi Germany. Instead of acting as God’s instrument for preserving life and order, it does the reverse, destroying life and order. Then the church must resist. Though as argued earlier, the church’s primary function is evangelization and ministering to spiritual needs; as the principle visible manifestation of the Kingdom of God, it must be the conscience of society, the instrument of moral accountability. Richard Neuhaus eloquently wrote that “the church can and should subject to moral questioning every political agenda or cause, thus keeping the entirety of human politics under the transcendent judgement of God.” #RandolphHarris 12 of 21
The church’s first duty then would be to publicly expose the state’s immorality. The government should not be involved in corruption, oppression, the deprivation of civil liberties, nor the taking of innocent lives. As a second step the church should refuse to have any part in the state’s immorality. The church must take the next more severe measures of resistance lest its words be rendered hollow. The great evangelist Charles Finney refused communion to slave-holders. Others organized the underground railroad and rescued fugitive slaves from prison. Many ministers broke the law, were arrested, and some imprisoned. However, that state’s evil, even as egregious as slavery, does not give an unrestricted license to disobey any law; only the unjust law can properly be contested. While active resistance may succeed, as it did with slavery and the Civil-Rights Movement, it may not, however, be enough in the face of the raw power modern totalitarian states have achieved. So, when all peaceable means fail, what does the Christian do? Is revolution ever justified? Scottish reformation theologians like John Knox and Samuel Rutherford believed they could be, advocating the right of Christians to rise up against ungodly rulers. Many ministers in the colonies agreed as well; when they preached that the people had the authority to resist the king when the king violated God’s commands, they were setting the stage for the American Revolution. After dumping tea in Boston Harbour the next step of resistance was the musket. #RandolphHarris 13 of 21
A Boston preacher said that for a people to “arise unanimously and resist their prince, even to dethrone him, is not criminal but a reasonable way of vindicating their liberties and just rights.” John Adams observed, “The revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people, a change in their religious sentiments of their duties and obligations.” Some Christian activists today loosely call for a new American Revolution just as the young radical youth movements did in the sixties. However, history reveals, revolution most often results, after the bodies are buried, in one form of tyranny replacing another. G.K. Chesterton summed it up well: “The real case against revolution is this: That there always seems to be much more to be said against the old regime than in favour of the new regime.” So for the Christian, revolution is never to be lightly regarded. It is the most extreme form of disobedience. It could only be contemplated on the same justification as a just war; that is, that there must be a better alterative as a result of the revolution. Its advantages must outweigh the suffering, and the evil employed in the revolution must prevent a far greater evil than the status quo. This was the reasoning that caused Albert Einstein to abandon his pacifism in the face of a dictator’s rise to power. “To prevent the greater evil, it is necessary that the lesser—the hated military—be accepted for the time being,” Einstein contended. It was this reasoning the caused Bonhoeffer to patriciate in the plot to assassinate this dictator. #RandolphHarris 14 of 21
For Christians to justify participation in revolution, therefore, they would have to be convinced that the state had become totally opposed to the purposes of God for the state and there was no other recourse to prevent massive evil. The Exodus from Egypt is often cited as a model for political action by liberation theologians, but they ignore the fact that in the Exodus, God did not overthrow the political system in Egypt. He extracted His own people from that system, taking them to Mount Sinai that they might worship Him. In the light of this, then, what about America? What lessons are to be drawn from it? We must be aware to prevent a regime’s refusal to allow free elections, the suspensions of civil liberties, the massive corruption of the governmental process, the trampling of human rights, and a leader’s own blasphemous, at times messianic pretensions, which give the church a mandate to act. The church should be mobilized to say no to evil. The first stage of an individua approach should be entirely biblical. By preaching repentance and conversion, one can encourage outbreaks of spiritual revival all across America. One should call for people to pray for their country. A courageous cardinal and ordinary citizens can open a crack of light in the dark canopy that envelops so much of planet Earth. Through peaceful actions and resistance to evil, the Kingdom of God will be made visible again. The Late Francis Schaeffer once wrote, “If here is no place for civil disobedience, then the government has been made autonomous, and as such, it has been put in the place of the living God.” #RandolphHarris 15 of 21
The belief that government is autonomous, the ultimate repository of power, the solution to all of society’s ills, is the greatest imposter of the twenty-first century. Christians and the church have no higher calling than to expose it by every legitimate means. To some people the great trouble about any argument for the Supernatural is simply the fact that argument should be needed at all. If so stupendous a thing exists, ought it not be obvious as the sun in the sky? It is not intolerable, and indeed incredible, that knowledge of the most basic of all Facts should be accessible only by wire-drawn reasonings for which the vast majority of humans have neither leisure nor capacity? I have great sympathy with this point of view. However, we must notice two things. When you are looking at a garden from a room upstairs it is obvious (once you think about it) that you are looking through a window. However, if it is the garden that interests you, you may look at it for a long time without thinking of the window. When you are reading a book, it is obvious (once you attend to it) that you are using your eyes: but unless your eyes begin to hurt you, or the book is a text book on optics, you may read all evening without once thinking of eyes. When we talk we are obviously using langue and grammar: and when we try to talk a foreign language we may be painfully aware of the fact. However, we are talking English, we do not notice it. When you shout from the top of the stirs, “I am in half a moment,” you are usually conscious that you have made the singular am agree with the singular I. #RandolphHarris 16 of 21
There is indeed a story told about a Native American who, having learned several other languages, was asked to write a grammar of the language used by his own tribe. He replied, after some thought, that it had no grammar. The grammar he had sued all his life had escaped his notice all his life. He knew it (in once sense) so well that (in another sense) he did not know it existed. All these instances show that the fact, and through which alone you have access to all the other facts, may be precisely the one that is most easily forgotten—forgotten not because it is so remote or abstruse but because it is so near and so obvious. And that is exactly how the Supernatural has been forgotten. The Naturalists have been engaged in thinking about Nature. They have not attended to the fact that they were thinking. The moment one attends to this it is obvious that one’s own thinking cannot be merely a natural event, and that therefore something other than Nature exists. The Supernatural is not remote and abstruse: it is a matter f daily and hourly experience, as intimate as breathing. Denial of it depends on a certain absent-mindedness. However, this absent-mindedness is in on way surprising. You do not need—indeed you do not wish—to be always thinking about windows when you are looking at gardens or always thinking about eyes when you are reading. #RandolphHarris 17 of 21
In the same way the proper procedure for all limited and particular inquiries is to ignore the fact of your own thinking, and concentrate on the object. It is only when you stand back from particular inquiries and try to form a complete philosophy that you must take it into account. For a complete philosophy must get in all the facts. In it you turn away from specialized or truncated thought to total thought: and one of the facts total thought must think about is Thinking itself. There is thus a tendency in the study of Nature to make us forget the most obvious first of all. And since the Sixteenth Century, when Science was born, the minds of humans have been increasingly turned outward, to know Nature and to master her. They have been increasingly engaged on those specialized inquiries for which truncated thought is the correct method. It is therefore not in the least astonishing that they should have forgotten the evidence for the Supernatural. The deeply ingrained habit of truncated thought—what we call the “scientific” habit of mind—was indeed certain to lead to Naturalism, unless this tendency were continually corrected from some other source. However, no other source was at hand, for during the same period humans of science were coming to be metaphysically and theologically uneducated. That brings me to the second consideration. The state of affairs in which ordinary people can discover the Supernatural only by abstruse reasoning is recent and, by historical standards, abnormal. #RandolphHarris 18 of 21
All over the World, until quite modern times, the direct insight of the mystics and the reasonings of the philosopher percolated to the mass of the people by authority and tradition; they could be received by those who were no great reasoners themselves in the concrete form of myth and ritual and the whole pattern of life. In the conditions produced by a century or so of Naturalism, plain humans are being forced to bear burdens which plain humans were never expected to bear before. We must get the truth for ourselves or go without it. There may be two explanations for this. It might be that humanity, in rebelling against tradition and authority, has made a ghastly mistake; a mistake which will not be less fatal because the corruptions of those in authority rendered it very excusable. On the other hand, it may be that the Power which rules our species is at this moment carrying out a daring experiment. Could it be intended that the whole mass of the people should now move forward and occupy for themselves those heights which were once reserved only for the sages? Is the distinction between wise and simple to disappear because all are now expected to become wise? If so, our present blunderings would be but growing pains. However, let us make no mistake about our necessities. If we are content to go back and become humble plain humans obeying a tradition, well. If we are ready to climb and struggle on till we become sages ourselves, better still. However, the human who will neither obey wisdom in others nor adventure for her oneself is fatal. #RandolphHarris 19 of 21
A society where the simple many obey the few seers can live: a society where all were seers could live even more fully. However, a society where the mass is still simple and the seers are no longer attended to can achieve only superficiality, baseness, ugliness, and in the end extinction. On or back we must go; to stay here is death. One other point that may have raised doubt or difficulty is the advanced reasons for believing that a supernatural element in present in every rational human. The presence of human rationality in the World is therefore a Miracle. Human Reason an Morality have been mentioned not as instances of Miracle (at least, not of the kind of Miracle you wanted to hear about) but as prods of the Supernatural: not in order to show that Nature ever is invaded but that there is a possible invader. Whether you choose to call the regular and familiar invasion by human Reason a Miracle or not is largely a matter of words. Its regularity—the fact that it regularly enters by the same door, human pleasures of the flesh—may incline you not to do so. It looks as if it were (so to speak) the very nature of Nature to suffer this invasion. However, then we might later find that it was the very nature of Nature to suffer Miracles in general. Fortunately the course of our argument will allow us to leave this question of terminology on one side. We are going to be concerned with other invasions of Nature—with what everyone would call Miracles. #RandolphHarris 20 of 21
Our question could, if you liked, be put in the form, “Does Supernature every produce particular results in space and time except through the instrumentality of human brains acting on human nerves and muscles?” I have said “particular results” because, on our view, Nature as a whole is herself one huge result of the Supernatural: God created her. God pierces her wherever there is a human mind. God presumably maintains her in existence. The question is whether He ever does anything else to her. Does God, beside all this, ever introduce into her events of which it would not be true to say, “This is simply the working out of the general character which God gave to Nature as a whole in creating her”? Such events are what are popularly called Miracles: and it will be in this sense only that the word Miracle will be used from now on. Do not stand at my grace and weep, I am not there. I do not sleep. I am a though rays of light that glow. I am the diamond glint on snow. I am the moonlight on the shinning sea. I am the gentle autumn rain. When you wake in the morning hush, I am the swift, uplifting rush or quiet birds in circling flight. I am the soft starlight at night. Do not stand at my grace and weep. I am not there. I do not sleep. Our God and God of our fathers, we thank Thee for Thy Torah, our priceless heritage. May the portion we have ready today inspire us to do Thy will and to seek further knowledge of Thy word. Thus our minds will be enriched and our lives endowed with purpose. May we take to heart Thy laws by which humans truly live. Happy are all who love Thee and delight in Thy commandments. Amen. #RandolphHarris 21 of 21
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Wise Humans, Good Humans, Patriotic Humans are to be Found in All Communities!
If Americans could be made to believe that their sufferings were for some remote, high sacrificial end, perhaps it would be possible for them to become reconciled to their plight; but sharing the culture that condemns them, and seeing that lust for trash is what blinds the nation to their claims, is what sets storms rolling in the soul of America. The United State of America is so unique from other nations because it is a nation of laws, not a nation of humans. A nation of laws means that legal decrees, not people rule. Whether it be the most common American members or members of Congress, high-ranking bureaucrats or the president of the United States of America, everyone is governed by the same laws, regardless of their station. All must be held to the just laws of America. America’s founds extolled a nation of laws, for they knew that only a fairly enforced legal system could protect liberty and property against corruption and tyranny. God is in fact the author of liberty and to retain it, the inhabitant of the land must be protected by His might hand. There is no other power that can protect that liberty. In order for us to enjoy this protection of His might, we must accept God as our God and keep His commandments. “Behold, this America is a choice land, and whatsoever nation shall possess it shall be free from bondage, and from captivity, and from all other nations under Heaven, if they will but serve the God of the land, who is Jesus Christ,” reports Ether 2.12. The God of this land is also the King of the land. And this is true. #RandolphHarris 1 of 25
Manifest Destiny is a phenomenon. Jesus spoke here in America, and He proclaimed, “This lad shall be a land of liberty, and there shall be no kings upon it. For I, the Lord, the king of Heaven, will be their king, and I will be light unto them forever, that hear my words. For it is a choice land, saith God, wherefore I will have all humans that dwell thereon that they shall worship me,” reports 2 Nephi 10.11-19. The alternative to enjoying this liberty and happiness through acceptance of and obedience to Jesus Christ is made clear by Manifest Destiny. Manifest Destiny is a tangible blessing from God that has created American history. It is a systematic body of concepts and beliefs that powers American life and culture. The right of our manifest destiny to over spread and to possess the whole of the continent which Providence has given us for the development and great creation of liberty and federative development of self government entrusted to us is a promise that we shall flourish. “Whoso should possess this land of promise, from that time henceforth and forever, should serve him, the true and only God, or they should be swept off when hey are ripened in iniquity,” reports Ether 2.8-9. It is as a right that we serve God and obey the laws as that of the tree to the space of air and the Earth be suitable for the full expression of its principle and destiny of growth. When people follow the guidance of God of the land, they reach great heights. The Lord in the very beginning revealed to Adam a perfect form of government for the benefit of humans. We believe that governments are instituted of God. #RandolphHarris 2 of 25
Individual freedom is necessary. No law shall be passed that takes away from a human the right of free choice. Free agency is fundamental as law of human conduct. Humans have a right to obey or disobey that laws as they please, and take the consequences. That government is best which has as its aim the administration of justice, social well-being and the promotion of prosperity among its members. We must recognize that property rights are essential to human liberty. The individual has three great rights, equally sacred from arbitrary interference: the right to one’s life, the right to one’s liberty, and the right to one’s property. The three rights are so bound together as to be essentially one right. To give a human one’s life, but to deny one one’s liberty, is to take from one all that makes life worth living. To give one liberty, but take from one the property which is the fruit and badge of one’s liberty, is to still leave one a slave. Laws are enacted for the protection of society, and have no value except when they are administered in righteousness and justice. If dishonest humans occupy administrative offices, laws cannot be so administered in righteousness and justice. The Lord says, “When the wicked rule, the people mourn.” Wise humans, good humans, patriotic humans are to be found in all communities, in all political parties, among all creeds. None but such humans should be chosen. Without beneficent laws, righteously administered, the foundations of civilization crumble, anarchy reigns, decay and dissolution follow. #RandolphHarris 3 of 25
We call upon all members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints throughout the World to honour the laws of God, and obey and uphold the law of the land; and we appeal to good humans everywhere, regardless of creed, party affiliation, race, culture, or condition to join with us in an effort to put into operation the words of President Lincoln, the great emancipator, that our country may continue to be a light to the World, a loyal, law-abiding, God-fearing nation. We claim the privilege of worshiping Almighty God according to the dictates of our own conscience; and allow all humans the same privilege, let them worship how, where, or what they may. However, we claim absolutely no right, no prerogative whatever, to interfere with any other people. A good government must secure for every citizen the free exercise of conscience. Matters of belief or religious practice should not be interfered with, unless they oppose laws formulated for the common good. There should be no mingling of religious influence with the civil governments. We believe in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers, and magistrates, in obeying, honouring, and sustaining the laws. The main psychological root of the liability to envy is a lack of self-confidence in our own worth combined with a sense of impotence. Our way of life is without zest and we feel powerless to alter it or to acquire the means of doing what we still want to do. This creation the notion of resentment. By contrast, someone sure of the worth of one’s plan of life and one’s ability to carry it out is not given to rancor nor is one jealous of one’s good fortune. #RandolphHarris 4 of 25
Even if one could, one has no desire to level down the advantages of others at some expense to oneself. This hypothesis implies that the least favoured tend to be more envious of the better situation of the more favoured the less secure their self-respect and the greater their feeling that they cannot improve their prospects. Similarly the particular envy aroused by competition and rivalry is like to be stronger the worse one’s defeat, for the blow to one’s self-confidence is more severe and the loss may seem irretrievable. It is general envy, however, that mainly concerns us here. There are three conditions that encourage hostile outbreaks of envy. The first of these is the psychological condition we have just noted: persons lack a sure confidence in their own value and in their ability to do anything worthwhile. Second (and one of two social conditions), many occasions arise when this psychological condition is experienced as painful and humiliating. The discrepancy between oneself and others is made visible by the social structure and style of one’s society. The less fortunate are therefore often forcibly reminded of their situation, sometimes leading them to an even lower estimation of themselves and their mode of living. And third, they see their social position as allowing no constructive alternative to opposing the favoured circumstances of the more advantaged. #RandolphHarris 5 of 25
To alleviate their feelings of anguish and inferiority, they have no choice but to impose a loss on those better placed even at some cost to themselves, unless of course they are to relapse into resignation and apathy. Now, if not to present these conditions, many aspects of a well-ordered society of to mitigate. It is clear that, although it is a psychological state, social institutions are a basic instigating cause. However, the contract conception of justice supports the self-esteem of the citizens generally more firmly than other political principles. In the public forum each person is treated with the respect due to a sovereign equal; and everyone has the same basic rights that would be acknowledged in an initial situation regarded as fair. The members of the community have a common sense of justice and they are bound by ties of civic friendship. Obedience implies a higher attitude than mere submission, for obedience has its root in good intent; submission may spring from selfishness or meanness of spirit. Though obedience and submission both imply restraint on one’s own will, we are obedient only from a sense of right; submissive from a sense of necessity. Honour expressed an act or attitude of an inferior towards a superior. When applied to things it is taken in the sense of holding honour. Thus, in honouring the law, we look upon it as something which is above selfish desires or indulgences. To sustain signifies to hold up; to keep from falling. To sustain the law, therefore, is to refrain from saying or doing anything which will weaken it or make it ineffective. #RandolphHarris 6 of 25
We obey the law from a sense of right. We honour the law because of its necessity and strength to society. We sustain law by keeping it in good repute. This is in our connection with stability. The greater advantages of some are in return for compensating benefits for the less favoured; and no one supposes that those who have a larger share are ore deserving from a moral point of view. Happiness according to virtue is rejected as a principle of perfection: regardless of the excellences that persons or associations display, their claims to social resources are always adjudicated by principles of mutual justice. For all these reasons the less fortune have no cause to consider themselves inferior and the public principles generally accepted underwrite their self-assurance. The disparities between themselves and others, whether absolute or relative, should be easier for them to accept than in other forms of polity. Turning to the second condition, both the absolute and the relative differences allowed in a well-ordered society are probably less than those that have often prevailed. Although in theory the difference principle permits indefinitely large inequalities in return for small gains to the less favoured, the spread of income and wealth should not be excessive in practice, given the requisite background institutions. Moreover the plurality of associations in a well-ordered society, each with its secure internal life, tends to reduce the visibility, or at least the painful visibility, of variations in human’s purposes. For we tend to compare our circumstances with others in the same or in a similar group as ourselves, or in positions that we regard as relevant to our aspirations. #RandolphHarris 7 of 25
The various associations in society tend to divide it into so many noncomparing groups, the discrepancies between these divisions not attracting the kind of attention which unsettles the lives of those less well placed. And this ignoring of differences in wealth and circumstances is made easier by the fact that when citizens do meet one another, as they must in public affairs at least, the principles of equal justice are acknowledged. Moreover in everyday life the natural duties are honoured so that the more advantaged do not make an ostentatious display of their higher estate calculated to demean the condition of those who have less. After all, if the disposing conditions for envy are removed, so probably are those for jealousy, grudgingness, and spite, the converses of envy. When the less fortunate segments of society lack the one the more fortunate will lack the other. Taken together these features of a well-ordered regime diminish the number of occasions when the less favoured are likely to experience their situation as impoverished and humiliating. Even if they have some liability to envy, it may never be strongly envoked. Finally, considering the last condition, it would seem that a well-ordered society as much as any other offers constructive alternatives to hostile outbreaks of envy. The problem of general envy anyway does not force us to reconsider the choice of the principles of justice. As for particular envy, to a certain extent it is endemic to human life; being associated with rivalry, it may exist in any society. #RandolphHarris 8 of 25
The more specific problem for political justice is how pervasive are the rancor and jealousy aroused by the quest for office and position, and whether it is likely to distort the justice of institutions. It is difficult to settle this latter in the absence of the more detailed knowledge of social forms available at the legislative stage. However, there sees to be no reason why the hazards of particular envy should be worse in a society regulated by justice as fairness than by any other conception. The principles of justice again seems relatively stable. A question has been asked man times. In the case of a conflict between requirements made by the law revealed by the word of God, and those imposed by the secular law, which of these authorities would members of the Church be bound to obey? The word of God is to come first. So essentially, God should be in and influence the government because the number one rule of God is to be honest and if one cannot honestly enforce the law, they have no right in government. In all civilized nations the people are accorded the right to pray, and this right is assured by what maybe properly called a common law of humankind. No earnest soul is cut off from communion with one’s God; and with such an open channel of communication, relief from burdensome laws and redress from grievances may be sought from the power that holds control of nations. “Bad laws, if they exist, should be repleaded as soon as possible; still, while they continue in force, they should be religiously observed,” reports President Abraham Lincoln. This is the view of the Church. #RandolphHarris 9 of 25
While there are many forms of equality, and egalitarianism admits of degrees, there are conceptions of justice that are recognizably equalitarian, even though certain significant disparities are permitted. The two principles of justice fall under this heading. The different conception of equality which they define is acknowledged on the supposition that envy does not exist. For behold, you should not fear humans more than God, you should be faithful and God will extend His arm, and He will be with you in every time of trouble. Children of God are chosen to do the work of the Lord. Repent of that which thou hast done, and thou art still chosen, and art again called to the world. Except thou doest this, thou shalt become as other humans, and have no more gift. When thou delivers up that which God has given thee sight and power to translate thou delivers up that which is sacred into the hands of a wicked human who depends upon one’s own judgment, and boasts in one’s own wisdom; and this is the reason that thou will lose thy privileges for a season. Nevertheless, God’s work shall go forth, for, inasmuch as the knowledge of the Saviour has come unto the World, through the testimony of the Jewish people, even so shall the knowledge of a Saviour come unto our people, and to the Americans through the testimony of their fathers. And this testimony shall come to the knowledge of all. For this very purpose are these plates preserved that the promises of the Lord might be fulfilled, which He made to His people. And the Americans might come to the knowledge of their fathers, and they might know the promise of the Lord. And they may believe the gospel and rely upon the merits of Jesus Christ, and be glorified through faith in his name and through their repentance they might be saved. I cancel every demonic assignment against you and your purpose. The plans of the enemy will not prevail. In Jesus’ name, Amen. #RandolphHarris 10 of 25
Joseph Smith was very sorry he had been unfaithful, and he humbled himself before God, determining to try harder to keep all of the Lord’s commandments. Later, within a month, the gift and the plates were returned to Joseph, but he was not allowed to translate the same record again. By revelation Joseph was told that wicked people had the lost manuscript. The Lord, Jesus Christ said; Behold, Satan, has put it into their hearts to alter the words, because they have altered the words, they read contrary from that which you translated and caused to be written. On this wise the Devil has sought to lay a cunning plan, the he may destroy this work. Verily I say unto you, that I will not suffer that Satan shall accomplish his evil design in this thing. Behold, they say and think in their hearts, We will see if God has given him power to translate, if so, he will also give him power again; and if he bringeth forth the same words, behold, we have the same with us, and we have altered them. Therefore, they will not agree, and we will say that he has lied in his words, and that he has no gift, and that he has no power; therefore, we will destroy him, and also the work. Behold, I say unto you, that you shall not translate again those words which have gone forth out of your hands. For, behold, if you should bring forth the same words, they will say that you have contradicted yourself. And, behold, they will publish his, and Satan will harden the hearts of the people to stir them up to anger against you, that they will not believe my words. #RandolphHarris 11 of 25
The Lord told Joseph that the part of the record he had translated which had been lost (about one hundred and sixteen pages) was a shorted story of the Nephite record; and that the golden plates also contained the complete story. Joseph was told he should translate the full record rather than the shortened one he had previously translated: the Lord said: I will not suffer that they shall destroy my work; yea, I will show unto them that y wisdom is greater than the cunning of the Devil. Behold, I am Jesus Christ, the Son of God. I came unto my own, and my own received me not. I am He who said, Other sheep have I which are not of this fold, unto my disciples, and many there were that understood me not. And I will show unto this people, that I had other sheep, and I will also bring to light my gospel, which was ministered unto them. And this I do, that I may establish my gospel, that there may not be so much contention. Yea, Satan doth stir up the hearts of the people to contention, concerning the points of my doctrine; and in these things they do err, for they do wrest the Scriptures, and do not understand them. Therefore, I will unfold unto them this great mystery; for behold, I will gather them as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, if they will not harden their hearts. Behold, this is my doctrine: Whosoever repenteth and cometh unto me, the same is my church Whosoever is of my church, and endureth of my church to the end, one will I establish upon my Rock. And now, remember the words of your Redeemer, your Lord, and your God. Amen. #RandolphHarris 12 of 25
The important of separating envy from the moral feelings can be seen from several examples. Suppose first that envy is held to be pervasive in poor less affluent societies. The reason for this, it may be suggested, is the general belief that the aggregate of social wealth is more or less fixed, so that one person’s gain is another’s loss. The social system is interpreted, it might be said, as a naturally established and unchangeable zero-sum game. Now actually, if this belief were widespread and the stock of goods were generally thought to be given, then a strict opposition of interests would be assumed to obtain. In this case, it would be correct to think that justice requires equal shares. Social wealthy is not viewed as the outcome of mutually advantageous cooperation and so there is no fair basis for an unequal division of advantages. What is said to be envy may in fact be resentment which might or might not prove to be justified. Dr. Freud’s speculations about the origin of the sense of justice suffer from the same defect. He remarks that this sentiment is the outgrowth of envy and jealousy. As some members of the social group jealously strive to protect their advantages, the less favoured are moved by envy to take them away Eventually everyone recognizes that they cannot maintain their hostile attitudes toward one another without injury to themselves. Thus as a compromise they settle upon the demand of equal treatment. The sense of justice is a reaction-formation: what was originally jealousy and envy is transformed into a social feeling, the same sense of justice that insists upon equality for all. #RandolphHarris 13 of 25
Dr. Freud believes that this process is exemplified in the nursey and in many other social circumstances. Yet the plausibility of one’s account assumes that the initial attitudes are correctly described. With a few changes, the underlying features of the example he depicts correspond to those of the original position. That persons have opposing interests and seek to advance their own conception of the god is not at all the same thing as their being moved by envy and jealousy. As we have seen, this sort of opposition gives rise to the circumstances of justice. Thus if children compete for the attention and affection of their parents, to which one might say they justly have an equal claim, one cannot assert that their sense of justice springs form jealousy and envy. Certainly children are often envious and jealous; and no doubt their moral notions are so primitive that the necessary distinctions are not grasped by them. However, waiving these difficulties, we could equally well say that their social feelings arise from resentment, from a sense that they are unfairly treated. And similarly one could say to conservative writers that it is mere grudgingness when those better circumstances reject the claims of the less advantaged to greater equality. However, this contention also calls for careful argument. None of these charges and countercharges can be given credence without first examining the conceptions of justice sincerely held by individuals and their understanding of the social situation in order to see how far these claims are indeed founded on these motives. #RandolphHarris 14 of 25
None of these remarks is intended to deny that the appeal to justice is often a mask for envy. What is said to be resentment may really be rancor. However, rationalizations of this sort present a further problem. In addition to showing that a person’s conception of justice is not itself founded on envy, we must determine whether the principles of justice cited in one’s explanation are sincerely held as this is shown in their being applied by one to other cases in which one is not involved, or even better, in which one would suffer a loss from their being followed. Dr. Freud means to asset more than the truism that envy and jealousy, and that without this energy, there would be no (or much less) desire to give justice. Conceptions of justice have few attractions for us other than those deriving from these and similar feelings. It is claim that is supported by erroneously conflating envy and resentment. Unhappily the problem of the other special psychologies must go untouched. They should in any case be treated in much the same way as envy. One tries to assess the configuration of attitudes toward risk and uncertainty, domination and submission, and the like, that just institutions are likely to generate, and then to estimate whether they are likely to render theses institutions unworkable or ineffective. We also need to ask whether, from the point of view of the persons in the original position, the conception chosen is acceptable or at least tolerable whatever our special proclivities may turn out to be. #RandolphHarris 15 of 25
The most favourable alternative is that which allows a place for all these different tendencies insofar as they are likely to be encouraged by a just basic structure. There is a division of labour so to speak between persons with contrary inclinations. Of course some of these attitudes may earn a premium in the way that certain trained abilities do, as for example the willingness to be adventuresome and to take unusual risks. However, if so, the problem is o all fours with the return to natural assets and it is covered by the discussion of distributive shares. What a social system must not do clearly is to encourage propensities and aspirations that it is bound to repress and disappoint. So long as the pattern of special psychologies elicited by society either supports its arrangements or can be reasonably accommodated by them, there is no need to reconsider the choice of a conception of justice. I believe, though I have not shown, that the principles of justice as fairness pass this test. When people can measure the extent of their freedom in two or three paces, and realize for the first time in their lives they have nothing else to do, but sit on a bunk, as they say passes into night and they continue to sit there because they are in prison—that is when it dawns on them how important freedom is. Even the children of a wealthy family, children of charismatic, gregarious politicians may suddenly find themselves stripped of everything that has propped up their egos. All their plans, friends, their busy work schedule, all their carefully cultivated followers will be gone, and replaced by the sheer loneliness and boredom of the prison cell and the venomous hostility of their guards. And they will keep waiting for justice, for a deal. Surely the United States Constitution could not simply leave them to rot in prison! #RandolphHarris 16 of 25
Imagine half a year going by before you are confronted with any charges. Then a fraudulently concocted murder case is brought, and a rigged military court condemns you to death. This is a bad dream, for the real reason for your imprisonment is the President is a communist and has lust for money and greed for power. Then imagine within his or her two-term limit as president due to expire in a few short weeks, the president declares martial law, granting him or herself almost unlimited powers. Then he or she can have you and other political opponents thrown into prison. The president may never intend to leave office—and may be determined never to let a popular rival out to silence him or her. Prison has the bewildering effect on many, which causes them to lose all sense of direction and perspective. One may become better not only at the president, but at the World, even at God. Injustice causes some to hate everyone and their prison guard may goad on an individual. Imagine if sometimes they put your dinner plate on the ground and let a mongrel dog wolf part of it down; then, kicking the dog aside, they give you what and left, and if you do not eat it, you get placed on suicide watch. In a matter of weeks, this could cause an individual to lose forty pounds, suffer two heart attacks. And when you are not longing for revenge, you want to die. However, much like Joseph Smith, if you keep your faith in God, He will show you that such losses are not in vain as you find your true life in Christ. What is this suffering is what draws you closer to the Lord and saves you from a life of eternal flames in the pits of hell? Therefore, continue to search for meaning in life. Find great inspiration in the Holy Bible to motivate your life and struggle for your country. Then, even if your prison is physical, or only in your mind, kneel in your jail cell and give your life to Jesus Christ. #RandolphHarris 17 of 25
Even if you are overcome with grief for your anger towards God, please beg for forgiveness. There is a close connection between frequent and solid spiritual experiences between us and the development of faith in the elaborate and creative purposes of God. This is derived from the close connection between Father and child because we are here with God now, needing Him and He says, “I am thinking of you,” and even though we may not be able to see God, we are having Him as part of our current experience, even when we are unaware. The fortune individual will have had many times when one was with God but not are of Him except for the security of knowing that He was there when needed. We are fortune because our environment is fulfilling one of the essentials needed if one is to have highly developed creativity. Because we have somehow had God there when He was not an obvious part of our experience, one can discover the Lord after we think He is absent (from experience) for a while. The individual will have had the experience of tolerating God’s absence without having to feel the terror that He might be lost forever. As we build our faith our experience will flicker between “God here when He is not here,” and “God not here when He is here.” One has thereby discovered that one can hold on to a concept—the symbol—which stands for the available God—has become pleasantly and interestingly established. We can play peekaboo with it. We can make the symbol happen while waiting for God to come along. The symbol can fill the interval of waiting, a small space of time. #RandolphHarris 18 of 25
The symbol stands for God—it stands for “You who normally come soon after I realize that I need You. Something arouses in my mind, an anticipation, a phantasy of something good. Then there is a small gap an absence, an interval of time. Then You came.” All one’s viewpoints, one’s life, most of all one’s bitterness—all will change. One will have a sense that life has suddenly moved into a different channel with another purpose. It is for our doubting hearts to believe that spiritual power—which is peaceful, prayerful, humane, forgiving, willing to suffering on the side of the poor and oppressed—can change society. We know that the gospel affects the lives of individuals, but can it make an impact on institutions and governments, where the heartless realities of power pierce like a knife? It is hard to fathom this. Nevertheless, it can happen. It does happen. One can never quite calculate how one conversation in a mental or physical prison cell may set in motion a train of events to shake a nation. Many people in prisons want to die. However, when they find Christ, they acquire a new maturity, and, though one may also retain their natural ebullience, a relative serenity that have never had before manifests. Some people will sense an individual has undergone something like a religious conversion as a result of years of injustice inflicted in a cell or in their own community. And indeed they have, but it will take away none of their heartfelt concern for their nation. #RandolphHarris 19 of 25
In countries that suffer from communism, the president uses martial law as a cover while they rape the country. Leaders and their business cronies have been known to bleed nations dry, making huge profits through monopoly powers and putting the money into New York real estate and Swiss banks. Meanwhile, half the working population cannot find jobs. The ugly scabs of the slums, many without running water or flushing toilets, spread across Sacramento and other cities. Marxist guerrillas are quickly gaining around, and the some in positions of authority, riven by corruption, seem unable to stop them. They may find it easier to savage poor peasants than to fight the Communists. Things may even reach a pint where anyone who helps the poor will be under suspicion. Army units have arrested, killed, and tortured even Catholic priests and nuns who have chosen to work with the desperately poor in other countries. While in America, some people, even the rich and famous, are given bonuses and jobs to help extort those suffering injustices. A few Catholics have, it is true, take the side of the Marxists, but the vast majority simply minister in the name of Jesus to those in need. Between the Marxist insurgency and a president who becomes a dictator, there is little room in the middle. Some people, even many in America, have seen the ruthless side of communism—after all they suffer and lose their lives just because of who they are. It is true, one can fight hatred with a greater hatred, but it is more effective to fight hatred with greater Christian love. #RandolphHarris 20 of 25
Do much soul searching and pursue your freedom struggle through the path of nonviolence, fully cognizant that this ay be the longer and more arduous road. And you may suffer solitary confinement once again, and possibly death. However, by taking the road of revolution, how many lives, other then one’s, will have to be sacrificed? Humans are ordained to eternal life through the providence of God, it likewise is part of that providence to permit some to fall away from that end; this is called reprobation. Thus, as predestination is a part of providence, in regard to those ordained to eternal salvation, so reprobation is a part of providence in regard to those who turn aside from that end. Hence reprobation includes the will to permit a person to fall into sin, and to impose the punishment of damnation on account of that sin. Symbols can stand for what will come. However, equally, they can stand for what may come, what may not come, or what will not come again. All kinds of conceptual processes can fill the interval between the moment when we have phantasy of something and the moment of finding something. Transitional objects and other symbols appear where there had been either nothing, or an experience of something not there. God loves all humans and all creatures, inasmuch as He wishes them all some good; but He does not wish every good to them all. So far, therefore, as He does not wish this particular good—namely, eternal life—He is said to hate or reprobate them. Reprobation different in its causality from predestination. This atter is the cause of what is expected in the future life by predestined—namely, glory—and of what is received in this life—namely grace. #RandolphHarris 21 of 25
Reprobation, however, is not the cause of what is in the present, namely sin; but it is the cause of abandonment by God. It is the cause, however, of what is assigned in the future—namely, eternal punishment. However, guilt proceeds from the free-will of the person who is reprobated and deserted by grace. In this way, the word of the prophet is true—namely, “Destruction is thy own, O Israel.” Reprobation by God does not take away from the power of the person reprobated. Hence, when it is said that the reprobated cannot obtain grace, this must not be understood as implying absolute impossibility: butt only conditional impossibility: as was said above does not do away with the liberty of choice. Whence, although anyone reprobated by God cannot acquire grace, nevertheless, that one falls into this or that particular sin comes from the use of one’s free will. Hence is rightly imputed to one as guilt. It is as if it were illuminated through a succession of continuously changing filters. You discover that the first phase of your involvement was no more than a prelude or an overture before the curtain vanished. You come to see that sin began by enticing you with an illusion—the illusion of a light-filled hedonistic joy, evil disguised by sun-drenched window—and to accept that what you are in fact confronted with is nothing more or less than the successive layers of the thinnest of honey-comb marks laid down gently in whispers of lies upon the canvas surface. #RandolphHarris 22 of 25
However, when the curtain has risen and the any the painting of lies continues to such your eyes into itself, it will engulf your soul with its entertainment. The uniform skin of God’s grace evaporates in part because in tenuous existence came about only through the adhering to God’s commandments and your organization of forms of faith, which was a shimmering ray of love inviting the Holy Ghost in your temple. However, as this shimmer disintegrates, it gives way to billowing and boundless hazes of black smoke, to seemingly limitless vistas of your soul space. It is the duty of citizens of any country to remember that they have individua responsibilities, and that they must operate within the law of the country in which they have chosen to live. No member of the Church can be accepted as in good standing whose way of life is one of rebellion against the established order of decency and obedience to law. We cannot be in rebellion against the law and be in harmony with the Lord, for He has commanded us to “be subject to the powers that be, until He reigns whose right it is to reign,” reports Doctrine and Covenants 58.22. And one of these days He is going to come. The exception to this principle would be when the Lord directs His people through His prophets to take an opposing stand to government. Otherwise they recognize the established authority of government. Remember that the Lord holds all of us responsible for our conduct here. He held our father Adam responsible for his conduct, but no more than He does us, in proportion to the station we hold. #RandolphHarris 23 of 25
The kings of the Earth will have to give an account to God, for their conduct in a kingly capacity. Kings are heads of nations, governors are heads of provinces; so are fathers or husbands governors of their own houses, and should act accordingly. Because some regard the theory and practice of one’s subject from the inside, they mystic can discuss it with a correctness and authority which most critics do not possess because they are outside it. They are largely in the dark about it—one is actually in the light. Those who has never felt it in themselves nor seen in demonstrated in others cannot understand the blessedness of such a state. Because they are unready for it, they cannot endure such an experience. The peace it imparts is too impersonal and would suffocate them. The detachment which it creates makes the Worldly life seem less important and is too frightening. The recognition that this experience does happen is increasingly rapidly in Western counties but in the East, it has never been doubted. The criticism that mystical experience is subjective and illusory is being dropped, as it ought to be Those who have never experienced this state yet venture to criticize it as illusory are dealing with mere words, not facts. If the ordinary human seldom gets these subtler experiences it is because one’s nature is too coarse, one’s mind too physically based, one’s focus too personal to permit one to receive them. Deep within one’s own heart, hidden within one’s own consciousness, every person carries all the evidence for the truth of these teachings that one is ever likely to need. #RandolphHarris 24 of 25
That arrogance which denies Heaven to the unorthodox does not trouble the mystic. One finds Heaven here in this life, now before the transition of death. At such times, unexpected and unsought though they are, one feels the nearness of God, the love of God, the reality of God. Whoever ventures to call them delusions s oneself deluded. Those who are dead are never gone: they are there in the shimmering light. The dead are not under the Earth: they are there in the blue sky, they are in the clouds that drift above, they are in the rain that falls, they are in the sun that shines, they are in the moon the beams, they are in the trees that provide shade, they are in the crowd, the dead are not dead. Those who are dead are never gone, they are in your heart, they are in the eyes of an innocent child, they are in the flames in your fireplace. They are in the forest, they are in the house, they are not dead. When the Ark rested, Moses said: Mayest Thou, O Lord, dwell among the myriads of the families of America. Arise, O Lord, unto Thy sanctuary, Thou, and the Ark of Thy strength. Let Thy priest be clothed with salvation; and Thy faithful ones exult. For the sake of David, Thy servant, reject not Thine anointed. I have given your good teaching; forsake not My Torah. It is a Tree of Life to them that hold fast to it, and everyone who upholds it is happy. Its ways are ways of pleasantness, and all its paths are peace. Turn us unto Thee, O Lord, and we shall return; renew our days as of Heaven. This nation and all nations, together with president, queens, kings, emperors, judges, and all humans, righteous and wicked, have go to go into the spirit World and stand before the bar of God. They have got to give an account of the deeds done in the body. #RandolphHarris 25 of 25
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They Shared the Feelings and Belief of the Best Hearts and Wisest Heads of the Seventeenth Century!
As far as aggression is biologically given in human genes, it is not spontaneous, but a defense against threats to human vital interests, that of one’s growth and one’s species’ survival. This defensive aggression was relatively small under certain primitive conditions—when no human was much of a threat to another human. Humans have gone through an extraordinary development since then. It is legitimate to imagine that humans will complete the full circle and construct a society in which no one is threatened: not the child by the parent; not the parent by the superior; no social class by another; no nation by a superpower. To achieve this aim is tremendously difficult for economic, political, cultural, and psychological reasons—and the added difficulty that the nations of the World worship idols—and different idols—and thus do not understand each other, even though they understand each other’s languages. To ignore these difficulties is folly; but if the political and psychological roadblocks are removed, the empirical study of all data shows that a real possibility exists to build such a World in the foreseeable future. The malignant forms of aggression, on the other hand—sadism and necrophilia—are not innate; hence, they can be substantially reduced when the socioeconomic conditions are replaced by conditions that are favourable to the full development of human’s genuine needs and capacities: to development of human self-activity and human’s creative power as its own ends. #RandolphHarris 1 of 20
Exploitation and manipulation produce boredom and triviality; they cripple humans, and all factors that make humans into psychic cripples turn the also into a sadist or a destroyer. Witchcraft and sorcery are taboo subject matter. However, witchcraft actually did exist and was widely practiced in seventeenth-century New England, as it was in Europe at that time (and still is, for that matter, among the unlearned majority of humankind). It worked then as it works now in witchcraft societies like those of the West Indies, through psychogenic rather than occult means, commonly producing hysterical symptoms as a result of the victim’s fear, and sometimes, when fear was succeeded by a profound sense of hopelessness, even producing death. The behaviour of the afflicted person was not fraudulent but pathological. They were hysterics, and in the clinical rather than the popular sense of that term. These people were not merely overexcited; they were mentally ill. Furthermore, they were ill long before any clergyman got to them. The general populace did reach that state of public excitement inaccurately called “mass hysteria,” but this was due to the popular fear of witchcraft rather than to the preachings of the clergy. The public excitement continued well after the leadership, both clerical and secular, had called a halt to the witchcraft proceedings. In fact the clergy were, from beginning to end, the chief opponents to the events at Salem, Massachusetts USA. #RandolphHarris 2 of 20
In particular, Cotton Mather was anything but the wild-eyed fanatic of tradition. Throughout most of the proceedings, Mr. Mather was a model of restraint and caution, and at one point he went further than any of his colleagues dared go in proposing a method to protect the innocent. The executions at Salem were by no means unique. Belief in witchcraft was quite as common among seventeenth century Anglicans, Quakers, Lutherans, and Catholics as it was among Puritans. Executions for witchcraft reached their height in Western civilization during the seventeenth century and continued in Europe until the end of the following century, more than a hundred years after the outbreak at Salem. Many writers have taken exception to one point or another in the traditional interpretation. The point raised most often has been that witchcraft trials were not at all unusual in the seventeenth century; that they were in fact typical of Western civilization at the time. The Salem outbreak was not due to Puritanism; it is not assignable to any particular temper on the part of our New England ancestors; it is no sign of exceptional bigotry or abnormal superstition. Our forefathers believed in witchcraft, not because they were Puritans, not because they were Colonials, but because they were New Englanders,–but because they were men of their time. They shared the feelings and beliefs of the best hearts and wisest head of the seventeenth century. What more can be asked of them? #RandolphHarris 3 of 20
It is hard to satisfy modern writers on witchcraft, who insist on censuring the sixteenth and seventeenth century on a basis of modern rationalism. If some of these who now sit in judgement on the witch-prosecutors had been witch judges, it is quite certain that no defendant would have escaped. The common scholar as well as the common human has continued to believe that there was something peculiarly puritanical about the Salem trials. Most significantly, a few persons have recognized that image magic was actually employed in Massachusetts, and at least two have wondered whether there might not have been something behind the charges of witchcraft after all. The belief in the supernatural has even led some people to believe that perhaps Adolph Hitler, the most powerful man in Europe, who was admired by many Germans (and not few other people), had special talents and gifts. There are many reports mentioning the magnetic qualities of Hitler’s eyes. People often said that they saw a particular glitter in his eyes that gave them the appearance of great intensity, otherworldliness, and devotion that allowed him to whip up the audience’s emotions, and open the floodgates of his hate. Well-educated and intelligent people were fascinated by him and his extremely wide range of subjects on which Hitler talked with such self-assurance. It was these qualities that entranced a nation and that is why people felt that he may have had some supernatural powers, much like the women in Salem. #RandolphHarris 4 of 20
David R. Proper, formerly librarian of Essex Institute, tells us that English professor George Lyman Kitteridge of Harvard University suspected that there might have been witchcraft practiced at Salem. Early in the year 1692 several girls of Salem Village (now Danvers), Massachusetts, began to sicken and display alarming symptoms. The most disturbing and most frequent of these symptoms was convulsive fits: fits so grotesque and so violent that eyewitnesses agreed the girls could not possibly be acting. “Their motions in the fits,” wrote Reverend Deodat Lawson, “are so preternatural, both as to the manner, which is so strange as a well person could not screw their body into; and as to the violence also it is preternatural, being much beyond the ordinary force of the same person when they are in their right mind.” The Reverend John Hale of Beverly confirmed Lawson’s description. “Their arms, necks, and back,” he wrote, “were turned this way and that way, and returned back again, so as it was impossible for them to do of themselves, and beyond the power of any epileptic fits, or natural disease to effect.” There were other symptoms almost equally alarming: temporary loss of hearing, speech, and sight; loss of memory, so that some girls could not recall what had happened to them in their fits; a choking sensation in the throat; loss of appetite. #RandolphHarris 5 of 20
Later there were terrifying hallucinations; they saw spectors who tormented them in a variety of ingenious and cruel ways. They felt themselves pinched and bitten, and often there were actual marks upon their skin. Dr. William Griggs of Salem Village—produced a diagnosis. “The evil hand,” he announced, “is upon them”; the girls were victims of malefic witchcraft. The diagnosis was in no way unusual. The overwhelming majority of seventeenth-century physicians, like other learned men, believed in witchcraft and considered it the cause of some of the diseases. Sir Thomas Brown shared the same opinion, “That these swooning fits were natural, and nothing else but what they call the mother, but only heightened to a great excess by the subtlety of the Devil, co-operating with the malice of these which we term witches, at whose instance he doth these villainies.” “The mother” was the common abbreviation for “the suffocation of the mother,” one of the seventeenth-century English terms for hysteria; it referred to the choking sensation in the throat that was one of the commoner systems. Thus, Sir Thomas Browne was entirely correct in his identification of the illness, and it is quite possible that Dr. Griggs, too, was right in whatever identification he made of the Salem symptoms. What is more surprising is that Dr. Griggs was probably also correct in his identification of the cause. It does seem to have been witchcraft that was responsible for the girls’ afflictions. #RandolphHarris 6 of 20
Witchcraft is not easy to define, because it is not, like the major formal religions, a coherent body of belief. However, in the New World civilization since prehistoric times there has been a loosely grouped body of magical lore—charms, spells, and so forth—having to do primarily with fertility and infertility, and with healthy and sickness, as well as a series of more marginal concerns, including the foretelling of the future. If tenuous, such lore has obvious connections with pre-Christian fertility worship, whose tutelary deity was a fertility god. Probably the commonest of such gods has been the deified sun, but the next most common was the deified herd animal, the cow, or, more often (because of his reputation for lechery) the goat. Half human and half bestial, with horns and cloven hooves, he appeared as Dionysus or Bacchus, the chief fertility god of the classical World, and was also to be found in the pantheons of northern Europe. Apparently the early Christians thought him the most abominable of all the pagan deities; they gave his attributes, his horns and cloven hooves, to the Devil, adding to these the wings of the fallen Angel. That he was once an extraordinarily powerful god cannot be doubted; there are instances of his survival in pre-Christian form as late as the twentieth century. A traveler in southern Ireland during the nineteen thirties reported seeing villagers dance in a ring around a goat those horns and hooves had been painted gold. #RandolphHarris 7 of 20
They informed him that on the coming Sunday they would roast and eat the goat, because “they had done it always.” I myself have seen one survival of the horned god: the Austrian Krampus. He has now degenerated into a bogeyman for children. Black and furry, with horns and a contorted face, he is the companion of St, Nicholas, and attends to bad children while St. Nicholas attends the good. The horned god’s power may also be seen in the fact that medieval and renaissance artists frequently forgot to give him his Christian attribute, the fallen Angel’s wins, but never forgot his horns, the attribute that made him a fertility god. This is true not only of provincial works of art but also of those created for the centers of Western civilization. In the dome of the baptistery at Florence for example, is a mosaic “Last Judgment,” and at the center of its Hell sits Devil who is wingless but conspicuously horned. The same is trye of the Devil in Giotto’s “Last Judgment” in the Arena Chapel in Padua. If the tutelary deity of witchcraft was deified herd animal, this does not mean that everyone who has used a charm was a formal worshipper of Satan. Nevertheless, not much more than two centuries ago everyone who used a charm believed one was making an appeal to dangerous occult forces, and at possible peril to one’s soul. However, the degree of peril was relative, and proportionate to the degree of witchcraft which like murder, comes in three degrees. The first is the practice of white magic—charms or spells used for benevolent purposes. Carrying a rabbit’s foot (the rabbit, like the goa, is notorious for its fertility) is white magic. So is nailing a horseshoe over the door (the open end must be upward, so the shape will suggest the horns of the herd animal). #RandolphHarris 8 of 20
Since the intention was innocent, the practice of white magic was seldom a cause for official concern. It was, of course, an appeal to occult forces that were specifically non-Christian, and as such it could, and sometimes did, draw a stern verbal rebuke from the clergy. However, that was all. The second degree of witchcraft is black magic—magic used maliciously—and in the seventeenth century black magic was very serious indeed; it was an appeal to the Prince of Evil in order to accomplish evil. The third degree is pact, where the witch is no longer merely invoking the Devil’s assistance through one’s charms and spells, but actually believes one has made a contract to serve him. The penalties for witchcraft were relatively light in the early years of Christian history. In the seventh century Theodore, Archbishop of Canterbury, in his Liber Poentientialis, considered the penance appropriate to a person who has been imitating “a stage or a bull; that is, making oneself into a wild animal and dressing in the skin of a herd animal, and putting on the heads of beasts.” To “those who in such wise transform themselves into the appearance of a wild animal” he assigned “penance for three years because this is devilish.” At this time paganism was still so widespread and Christianity so new that, according to the Venerable Bede, King Redwald of East Anglia “had in the same temple an altar to sacrifice to Christ and another to offer victims to demons.” Elements of paganism remained strong throughout the Middle Ages, inside the church as well as out. In 1282 the priest of Inverkeithing led a fertility dance around the churchyard. #RandolphHarris 9 of 20
And Giraldus Cambrensis (ca. 1146-ca. 1220) reported, “though I say it with tears,” that there were priests who celebrate “masses over images of wax, to curse someone.” The remedy for such an appalling situation, Giraldus thought was to ordain fewer priests and more care in their selection. His advice, of course, was not followed, and members of the clergy continued to practice black arts as late as the eighteenth century. Toward the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of the Renaissance both church and state began to take witchcraft more seriously. The crucial century was the fifteenth, which saw a number of important trials, including those of Joan of Arc, Gilles de Rais, and the Duchess of Gloucester. At the end of this century, in 1490, Malleus Maleficarum (The Hammer of Witches) was published. The authors were James Sprenger and Henry Kramer, two German Dominicans, and their book published with the Papal Bull by which Innocent VIII gave them jurisdiction as Inquisitors for the Germanic countries. Malleus gave a thorough definition of witchcraft with rules on how to investigate, try, and judge cases of witchcraft. It remained an important work for more than two hundred years; Increase Mather knew of it and referred to it. The publication of Malleus Maleficarum gives us a convenient date for opening of that general war against the Devil which occupied all Christendom during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. #RandolphHarris 10 of 20
The full horror of that warfare will never be known in all of its detail. Even the statistics of convicted witches who were executed vary widely from one authority to another. However, it is clear that the battle reached its height during the first half of the seventeenth century, when, for example, approximately nine hundred witches were burned in the single city of Bamberg, and approximately five thousand in the single province of Alsace. It was Boyle who proposed that English miners be interviewed as to whether they “meet with any subterraneous demons; and if they do, in what shape and manner they appear; what they portend, and what they do. Newton, the greatest scientist of his age, spent more of his time on the occult than he did in the study of physics. He explicated, for example, apocalyptic passages in the Bible, and interpreted the measurements of Solomon’s temple, hoping in both cases that a mystic reading of the scriptures would lead him to the inmost secrets of the Universe. We should remember also that the seventeenth century firmly believed in a dualistic Universe: in a material or visible World, and a spiritual or invisible Worlds as well. Heaven was still a concrete reality, as were the Angels who inhabited it; so was Hell and its Devil. As John Locke argued in his Essay Concerning Human Understanding: “If this notion of immaterial spirit may have, perhaps, some difficulties in it not easily to be explained, we have therefore no more reason to deny or doubt the existence of such spirits, than we have to deny or doubt the existence of body; because the notion of body is cumbered with some difficulties very hard, and perhaps impossible to be explained or understood by us.” #RandolphHarris 11 of 20
Like other learned men of his time, Locke not only believed in a World of spirits, but that the spirits can appear in this material World: “that Spirits can assume to themselves bodies of different bulk, figure, and conformations of parts.” To be sure, Locke warned that “universal certainty” concerning the World of spirits was beyond us; we could know it, he thought, only as it impinges on our senses. However, that, of course, is precisely what was thought to happen in witchcraft. Thomas Hobbes was a skeptic, but his skepticism was rather different in character from that of the nineteenth or twentieth century. “As for witches,” he wrote in his Leviathan, “I think not that their witchcraft is any real power; but yet that they are justly punished, for the false belief they have that they can do such mischief, joined with their purpose to do it if they can; their trade being nearer to a new religion than to a craft or science.” (The last clause is remarkably perceptive, although it was, of course, survivals of old religion rather than anything new that were to be found in witchcraft.) If you had been sticking pins in your neighbour’s image or casting spells on his cow, you would not have wanted Thomas Hobbes to be your judge. He would not have believed in your occult powers, but he would have hanged you anyway, for your heresy and malice. We must bear in mind that in a society which believes in witchcraft, it works. If you believe in witchcraft and you discover that someone has been melting your wax image over a slow fire or muttering charms over your nail-parings, the probability is that you will get extremely sick. #RandolphHarris 12 of 20
To be sure, your symptoms will be psychosomatic rather than organic. However, the fact that they are obviously not organic will make them only more terrible, since they will seem the result of malefic and demonic power. So it was in seventeenth-century Europe, and so it was in seventeenth-century Massachusetts. The hideous convulsive fits were thought to be the result of witches and demons wrenching the bodies of their victims into tortuous postures. The loss of hearing, speech, sight, appetite, and memory were deprivations caused by Satan himself. The contradiction of the throat—the globus hystericus—was seen as an attempt by demons to make the victim swallow occult poisons. And when she swallowed rapidly and her belly welled (what s actually involved here is a kind of accelerated ulcer formation), it was thought the demons had succeeded. When blisters appeared upon the skin (many skin diseases are functional rather than organic), they were thought to have been raised by brimstone out of Hell. Many of these symptoms, including the skin lesions, would pass fairly rapidly. Cotton Mather, who was a Fellow of the Royal Society, a former medical student, and a thorough and careful observer, remarked more than once on the surprising rapidity with which “witch-wounds” healed. However, other symptoms would persist. And a new fit would bring a repetition of the old afflictions, or new ones equally alarming. #RandolphHarris 13 of 20
The cause of these hysterical symptoms, of course, was not witchcraft itself but the victim’s fear of it, and that is why so many innocent persons were executed. It is impossible now, and was in many instances impossible then, to tell how many of the persons executed for witchcraft were actually guilty of practicing it. It is surely no exaggeration to say that the majority, even the vast majority, were innocent victims of hysterical fears. However, we should again be wary of converting a statistical truth into a general principle. While it is clearly true that the majority of persons executed for witchcraft were innocent, it is equally true that some of them, in Massachusetts and elsewhere, were guilty. For those who look back on it, the Victorian age seems to be invested with a peculiar quality of difference—heightened by tis relative proximity in time—that is reflected in its ghost. It was an age shaped, perhaps more than any other previous period, by the forces of transition. In 1884, Mrs. Winchester left New Haven, Connecticut, and the graves of her husband and only child, moved to San Jose, California, and began the obsession that was to last for the rest of her life. She purchased an unfinished eight-room farmhouse outside the small agricultural town, and for the next 38 years, the sound of construction on Mrs. Winchester’s mansion never stopped. With the shadow of change falling across virtually every area of life and thought, the receding past became a focus for anxiety, and in literature the ghost story offered a way of anchoring the past to an unsettled present by operating in a continuum of life and death. #RandolphHarris 14 of 20
Mrs. Winchester hired carpenters to work around the clock building and rebuilding room after room, as the spirits—or her mood—directed. The house was furnished with the finest materials and was a showcase of Victorian elegance and taste. Mrs. Winchester passed away peacefully in her sleep on September 5, 1922, and work on the still uncompleted mansion stopped. Why did Mrs. Winchester build the World’s most beautiful and bizarre mansion? Was she following the advice of psychics who told her to provide a home for the spirits of those killed by the Winchester rifles? Was she told she would live forever, so long as construction never stopped? We may never know Mrs. Winchester’s real motivations, since she took the secret with her to her grace. So we leave to you to decide for yourself the mystery of the Winchester Mystery House. In the ghost story, obligations do not cease with death, and the past is never a closed book. What has been can be again, though often terribly transformed. For a progressive age (progressing to what?), the idea of a vindictive past held an especial potential for terror. In personal terms, ghosts were obvious, though still potent, images of the lost past—past sins, past promises, past attachments, past regrets—and could be used to confront, and exorcize, the demons of guilt and fear. We know that we are to be shown a climatic interaction between the living and the dead, and usually expect to be unsettled by the experience. #RandolphHarris 15 of 20
Mrs. Winchester’s mansion was said to be a very grand place. Driving up to the mansion, it was like one left all signs of a town, or even a village, and were then inside the gates of a large Victorian park—not like the parks here in the north, but with rocks, and the noise of running water, and beautiful thorn-trees, and old oaks, all white and peeled with age. The road went up about two miles, and then one would see a great and stately house, with many trees close around it, so close that in some places their branches dragged against the walls when the wind blew. The great oval drive was without a weed and two palm trees, in plain view a 7 story tower, along with two statues of a Greek goddesses, at the many-windowed front; at both sides of which a wing projected, which were each the ends of other side fronts; for the house was grander than most expected. There was also a little old-fashioned flower-garden. When people rode up to the great front entrance of Winchester mansion in their carriage, and went into the hall they thought they should be lost—it was so large, and vast, and grand. There was a chandelier all of bronze, hanging down from the middle of the ceiling; and many have never seen one before, and looked at it all in amaze. Then, at once end of the hall, was a great fireplace, as large as the sides of the houses in many countries, with massy andirons and Greek goddesses to hold the wood; and by it were heavy French provincial sofas. At the opposite end of the hall, to the left as you went in—on the western side—was an organ built into the wall, and so large that it filled up the best part of that end. Beyond it, on the same side, was a door; and opposite, on each side of the fireplace, were also doors leading to the east front; but those I never went through as long as I stayed in the house, so I cannot tell you what lay beyond. #RandolphHarris 16 of 20
Mrs. Winchester held very tight to me, as if she were scared and lost in that great place, and for myself, I was not much better. The west drawing-room was very cheerful-looking, with a warm fire in it, and plenty of good, comfortable future about it. So we went out of that great drawing-room, and into another sitting-room, and out of that, and then up a great flight of stairs, and along a broad gallery—which was something like a library, having books all down one side, and windows and writing-tables all down the other—till we came to the room I would be staying in, which I was not sorry to hear was just over the kitchens; for I began to think I should be lost in that wilderness of a house. The great old house was a famous place for Mrs. Winchester. She made expeditions all over it, with me at her heels; all except the east wing, which was never opened, and whither we never thought of going. However, in the western and northern part was many a pleasant room; full of things that were curiosities to guests. The windows were darkened by the sweeping boughs of the trees, and ivy which had overgrown them: but, in the green gloom, we could manage to see old China jars and carved ivory boxes, and great heavy books, and, above all, the old pictures. They were all portraits of some of the Winchester family, though Mrs. Winchester could not tell us the names of every one. We had gone through most of the 180 rooms, when we came to the old state drawing-room over the all, and there was a picture of Mrs. Winchester. She was such a beauty! She had a dress on, the like of which I had never seen before. #RandolphHarris 17 of 20
Mrs. Winchester said there were some places about the house she was half frightened at. As winter drew closer and day grew shorter, I was sometimes almost certain that I heard noises as if someone was playing on the great organ in the hall. I did not hear it ever evening; but certainly, I did very often; usually when I was sitting with Mrs. Winchester. Even after she went to bed, I used to hear it booming and swelling in the distance. The first night I went down to my supper, I asked Mrs. Winchester who had been playing music, and the butler said very short that I was a gowk to take the wind soughing among the trees for music: but I saw Mrs. Winchester look at him very fearfully, and the kitchen-maid, said something beneath her breath, and went quite white. I saw they did not like my question. They had heard the very strange noise, and had heard it many a time, but most of all on winter nights, and before storms; and folks did say it was the old lord playing on the great organ in the hall, just as he used to do when he was alive. The days grew shorter and shorter; and the old lord, if it was he, played more and more stormily and sadly on the great organ. The doors in the east wing were always locked, and Mrs. Winchester always had the keys. I wondered what was hidden there. One fearful night, just after the New Year had come in, when the rain was thick and deep, and it was still falling—fast enough to blind anyone who might be out and abroad—there was a great and violent noise heard, and the old lord’s vice above all, cursing and swearing awfully—and the cries of a little child—and a fierce woman—the sound of a blow—and a dead stillness—and moans and wailings dying away. #RandolphHarris 18 of 20
Suddenly Mrs. Winchester went towards the door, and I durst not be left, though my heart almost stopped beating for fear. In the hall the screams were louder than ever; they sounded to come from the east wing—near and nearer—close on the other side of the locked-up doors—close behind them. Then I noticed that the great bonze chandelier seemed all alight, though the hall was dim, and that a fire was blazing in the vast in the vast hearth-place, though it gave no heat; and I shuddered up with terror. The east door shook, and Mrs. Winchester cried, “I must go! My little girl is there; I hear her; she is coming! I must go!” As if torn open in a violent passion, all at once the east door gave way with a thundering crash and there came into that broad mysterious light, the figure of a tall man, with red hair and gleaming eyes. He drove before him, with many a restless gesture of abhorrence, a stern and beautiful woman, with a little baby in her arms. “It’s the lady! the lady from the garden; and my little girl is with her. They are drawing me to them I feel them—I feel them I must go!” cried Mrs. Winchester. Again she almost convulsed by her effort to go towards them; but I held her tighter and tighter, till I feared I should do her a hurt; but rather that then let her go towards those terrible phantoms. They passed along toward the great hall-door, where the winds howled and ravened for their prey. And Mrs. Winchester was torn by a power stronger than mine and writhed in my arms, and sobbed (for by this time the poor darling was growing faint). #RandolphHarris 19 of 20
“They want me to go with them—they are drawing me to them. Oh, my little girl!” said Mrs. Winchester. But just then I saw—we saw—another phantom shape itself, and grow clear out of the blue and misty light that filled the hall; we had not seen her till now, for it was another lady who stood by the man, with a look of relentless grief and triumphant scorn. That figure was very beautiful to look upon, with a soft white hat drawn down over the proud brows and a red and curling lip. It was dressed in a gown of blue stain. I had seen the figure before. It was the likeness of Mrs. Winchester in her youth; and the phantom moved on, regardless of Mrs. Winchester’s wild entreaty. But at that moment the dim lights, and the fire that gave no heat, went out of themselves, and Mrs. Winchester lay at my feet stricken down by the palsy—death stricken. Yes! She was carried to her bed that night never to rise again. She lay with her face to the wall muttering low but muttering alway; “Alas! alas! what is done in youth can never be undone in age! What is done in youth can never be undone in age!” In recognition to Mrs. Winchester’s contribution to San Jose and the Santa Clara Valley, the Winchester Mansion was designated California Register of Historic Place in 1974. The mansion was also designated a San Jose Historic Landmark in 1996. #RandolphHarris 20 of 20
Winchester Mystery House
Ever-changing and evolving, Mrs. Winchester’s Llanada Villa once stood seven-stories tall before the 1906 earthquake forced the top three floors to be removed. How do you think it felt to stand in the tower and look across the land that would eventually become a technology hub?
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Those Who Can Give Justice are Owed Justice!
There is no yesterday, so what is left is today. Praise God from whom all blessings flow. The signs of the Kingdom of God are like a human planting a seed. We do our part; but then God makes the seed grow. For it is God who produces the signs of His Kingdom on this Earth. We are merely the instruments. The Kingdom of God will transform places of hopelessness in the kingdom of man. Justice and hope will be found where there was once only inequity and despair. When we consider the basis of equality, the features of human beings in virtue of which they are to be treated in accordance with the principles of justice, what are our relationships with other human persons supposed to be like? We examine what determines the range of application of conceptions of justice. We may distinguish three levels where the concept of equality applies. The first is to the administration of institutions as public systems of rules. In this case equality is essentially justice as regularity. It implies the impartial application and consistent interpretation of rules according to such precepts as to treat similar cases similarly (as defined by statutes and precedents) and the like. Equality at this level is the least controversial element in the commonsense idea of justice. The second and much more difficult application of equality is to the substantive structure of institutions. Here the meaning of equality is specified by the principles of justice which require that equal basic rights be assigned to all persons. #RandolphHarris 1 of 22
Presumably this excludes animals; they have some protection certainly but their status is not that of human beings. However, this outcome is still unexplained. We have yet to consider what sort of beings are owed the guarantees of justice. This brings us to the third level at which the question of equality arises. The natural answer seems to be that it is precisely the moral persons who are entitled to equal justice. Moral persons are distinguished by two features: first they are capable of having (and are assumed to have) a conception of their good (as expressed by a rational plan of life); and second they are capable of having (and are assumed to acquire) a sense of justice, a normally effective desire to apply and to act upon the principles of justice, at least to a certain minimum degree. We use the characterization of the persons in the original position to single out the kind of beings to whom the principles chose apply. After all, the parties are though of as adopting these criteria to regulate their common institutions and their conduct toward one another; and the description of their nature enters into the reasoning by which these principles are selected. Thus equal justice is owed to those who have the capacity to take part in and to act in accordance with the public understanding of the initial situation. One should observe that moral personality is here defined as a potentiality that is ordinarily realized in due course. It is this potentiality which brings the claims of justice into play. #RandolphHarris 2 of 22
We see, then, that the capacity for moral personality is a sufficient condition for being entitled to equal justice. This fact can be used to interpret the concept of natural rights. For one thing, it explains why it is appropriate to call by this name the rights that justice protects. These claims depend solely on certain natural attributes the presence of which can be ascertained by natural reason pursuing common sense methods of inquiry. The existence of these attributes and the claims based upon them is established independently from social conventions and legal norms. The propriety of the term “natural” is that is suggests the contrast between the rights identified by the theory of justice and the rights includes the idea that these rights are assigned in the first instance to persons, and that they are given a special weight. Claims easily overridden for other values are not natural rights. Now the rights protected by the first principle have both of these features in view of the priority rules. This justice as fairness has the characteristic marks of a natural rights theory. Not only does it ground fundamental rights on natural attributes and distinguish their bases from social norms, but it assigns rights to persons by principles of equal justice, these principles having a special force against which other values cannot normally prevail. Although specific rights are not absolute, the system of equal liberties is absolute practically speaking under favourable conditions. Nothing beyond the essential minimum is required. #RandolphHarris 3 of 22
Whether moral personality is also a necessary condition, I shall leave that aside. I assume that the capacity for a sense of justice is possessed by the overwhelming majority of humankind, and therefore this question does not raise a serious problem. That moral personality suffices to make one a subject of claims is the essential thing. We cannot go far wrong in supposing that the sufficient condition is always satisfied. Even if the capacity were necessary, it would be unwise in practice to withhold justice on this ground. The risk to just institutions would be too great. It should be stressed that the sufficient condition for equal justice, the capacity for moral personality, is not all stringent. When someone lacks the requisite potentiality either from birth or accident, this is regarded as a defect or deprivation. There is no race or recognized group of human beings that lacks this attribute. Only scattered individuals are without this capacity, or its realization to the minimum degree, and the failure to realize it is the consequence of unjust and impoverished social circumstances, of fortuitous contingencies. Furthermore, while individuals presumably have varying capacities for a sense of justice, this fact is not a reason for depriving those with a lesser capacity of the full protection of justice. Once a certain minimum is met, a person is entitled to equal liberty on a par with everyone else. A greater capacity for a sense of justice, as shown say in a greater skill and facility in applying the principles of justice and in marshaling arguments in particular cases, is a natural asset like any other ability. #RandolphHarris 4 of 22
The special advantages a person receives for its exercises are to be governed by the difference principle. Thus is some have a preeminent degree the judicial virtues of impartiality and integrity which are needed in certain positions, they may properly have whatever benefits should be attached to these offices. Yet the application of the principle of equal liberty is not affected by these differences. It is sometimes thought that basic rights and liberties should vary with capacity, but justice as fairness denies this: provided the minimum for moral personality is satisfied, a person is owed all the guarantees of justice. First of all, when considering the basis of equality, it may be objected that equality cannot rest n natural attributes. There is no natural feature with respect to which all human being are equal, that is, which everyone has (or which sufficiently many have) to the same degree. If we wish to hold a doctrine of equality, it might appear we must interpret it in another way, namely as a purely procedural principle. Thus to say that human beings are equal is to say that none has a claim to preferential treatment in the absence of compelling reasons. The burden of proof favours equality: it defines a procedural presumption that persons are to be treated alike. Departures from equal treatment are in each case to be defended and judged impartially by the same system of principles that hold for all; the essential equality is thought to be equality of consideration. #RandolphHarris 5 of 22
There are several difficulties with this procedural interpretation. For one thing, it is nothing more than the precept of treating similar cases similarly applied at the highest level, together with an assignment of the burden of proof. Equality of consideration puts no restrictions upon what grounds may be offered to justify inequalities. There is no guarantee of substantive equal treatment, since slave and caste systems (to mention extreme cases) may satisfy this conception. The real assurance of equalities lies in the content of the principles of justice and not in these procedural presumptions. The placing of the burden of proof is not sufficient. However, further, even if the procedural interpretation imposed some genuine restrictions on institutions, there is still the question why we are to follow the procedure in some instances and not others. Surely it applies to creatures who belong to some class, but which one? We still need a natural basis for equality so that this class can be identified. Moreover, it is not the case that founding equality on natural capacities is incomplete with an egalitarian view. All we have to do is to select a range property (as I shall say) and to give equal justice to those meeting its conditions. For example, the property of being in the interior of the unit circle is a range of property points in the plane. All points inside this circle have this property although their coordinates vary within a certain range. And they equally have this property, since no point interior to a circle is more or less interior to it than any other interior point. #RandolphHarris 6 of 22
Now whether there is a suitable range property for singling out the respect in which human beings are to be counted equal is settled by the conception of justice. However, the description of the parties in the original position identifies such a property, and the principles of justice assure us that any variations in ability within the range are to be regarded as any other natural asset. There is no obstacle to thinking that a natural capacity constitutes the basis of equality. How then can it seem plausible that founding equality on natural attributes undermines equal justice? The notion of a range property is too obvious to be overlooked. There must be a deeper explanation. The answer, I think, is that a teleological theory is often taken for granted. Thus, if the right is to maximize the net balance of satisfaction, say, then rights and duties are to be assigned so as to achieve this end. Among the relevant aspects of the problem are human’s different productive skills and capacities for satisfaction. It may happen that maximizing aggregate welfare requires adjusting basic rights to variations in these features. Of course, given the standard utilitarian assumptions, there is a tendency to equality. The relevant thing, however, is that in either case the correct natural basis and the appropriate assignment of rights depend upon the principle of utility. It is the content of the ethical doctrine, and the fact that it is a maximizing notion, that allows variations in capacity to justify unequal fundamental rights, and not the idea that equality is founded on natural attributes. #RandolphHarris 7 of 22
An examination of perfectionism would, I believe, lead to the same conclusion. However, justice as fairness is not a maximizing theory. We are not directed to look for differences in natural features that affect some maximand and therefore serve as possible grounds for different grades of citizenship. Although agreeing with many teleological theories in the relevance of natural attributes, the contract view needs much weaker assumptions about their distribution to establish equal rights. It is enough that a certain minimum is generally fulfilled. First of all, when considering some other points, it should be noted that the conception of moral personality and the required minimum may often prove troublesome. While many concepts are vague to some degree, that of moral personality is likely to be especially so. However, these matters are, I think, best discussed in the context of definite moral problems. The nature of the specific issue and the structure of the available general facts may suggest a fruitful way to settle them. In any case, one must not confuse the vagueness of a conception of justice with the thesis that basic rights should vary with natural capacity. The minimal requirements defining moral personality refer to a capacity and not to the realization of it. A being that has this capacity, whether or not it is yet developed, is to receive the full protection of the principles of justice. Since infants and children are thought to have basic rights (normally exercised on their behalf by parents and guardians), this interpretation of the requisite conditions seems necessary to match our considered judgments. #RandolphHarris 8 of 22
Moreover, regarding the potentiality as sufficient accords with the hypothetical nature of the original position, and with the idea that as far as possible the choice of principles should not be influenced by arbitrary contingencies. Therefore it is reasonable to say that those who could take part in the initial agreement, were it not for fortuitous circumstances, are assured equal justice. Now of course none of this is literally argument. I have not set out the premises from which this conclusion follows, as I have tried to do, albeit not very rigorously, with the choice of conceptions of justice in the original position. Nor have I tried to prove that the characterization of the parties must be used as the basis of equality. Rather this interpretation seems to be the natural completion of justice as fairness. The problem of those who have lost their realized capacity temporarily through misfortune, accident, or mental stress can be regarded in a similar capacity of children in connection with paternalism. However, those are more or less permanently deprived of moral personality may present a difficulty. It is assumed that the account of equality would not be materially affected. First of all, the simplicity of the contract view of the basis of equality is worth emphasizing. The minimum capacity for the sense of justice insures that everyone has equal rights. The claims of all are to be adjudicated by the principles of justice. Equality is supported by the general facts of nature and not merely by a procedural rule without substantive force. #RandolphHarris 9 of 22
Nor does equality presuppose an assessment of the intrinsic worth of persons, or a comparative evaluation of their conceptions of the good. Those who can give justice are owed justice. When other accounts of equality are examined, the advantages of these straightforward proposition become more evident. For example, one might think that equal justice means that society is to make the same proportionate contribution to each person’s realizing the best life which one is capable of. Offhand this may seem an attractive suggestion. It suffers however from serious difficulties. For one thing it not only requires a method of estimating the relative goodness of plans of life, but it also presupposes some way of measuring what counts as an equal proportionate contribution to persons with different conceptions of their good. The problem in applying this standard are obvious. A more important difficulty is that the greater abilities of some may give them a stronger claim on social resources irrespective of compensating advantages to others. One must assume that variations in natural assets will affect what is necessary to provide equal proportionate assistance to those with different plans of life. However, in addition to violating the principle of mutual advantage, this conception of equality means that the strength of human’s claims is directly influenced by the distribution of natural abilities, and therefore by contingencies that are arbitrary from a moral point of view. The basis of equality in justice as fairness avoids these objections. The only continency which is decisive is that of having or nor having the capacity for a sense of justice. By giving justice to those who can give justice in return, the principle of reciprocity is fulfilled at the highest level. #RandolphHarris 10 of 22
A further observation is that we can now more fully reconcile two conceptions of equality. Some writers have distinguished between equality as it is invoked in connection with the distribution between equality as it is invoked in connection with the distribution of certain goods, some of which will almost certainly give higher status or prestige to those who are more favoured, and equality as it applies to the respect which is owed to persons irrespective of their social position. Equality of the first kind is defined by the second principle of justice which regulates the structure of organizations and distributive shares so that social cooperation is both efficient and fair. However, equality of the second kind is fundamental. It is defined by the first principle of justice and by such natural duties as that of mutual respect; it is owed to human beings as moral persons. The natural basis of equality explains its deeper significance. The priority of the first principle over the second enables us to avoid balancing these conceptions of equality in an ad hoc manner, while the argument from the standpoint of the original position shows how this precedence comes about. The consistent application of the principle of fair opportunity requires us to view persons independently from the influences of their social position. However, how far should this tendency be carried? It seems that even when fair opportunity (as it has been defined) is satisfied, the family will lead to unequal chances between individuals. #RandolphHarris 11 of 22
Is the family to be abolished then? Taken by itself and given a certain primacy, the idea of equal opportunity inclines in this direction. However, within the context of the theory of justice as a whole, there is much less urgency to take this course. The acknowledgment of the difference principle redefines the grounds for social inequalities as conceived in the system of liberal equality; and when the principle of fraternity and redress are allowed their appropriate weight, the natural distribution of assets and the contingencies of social circumstances can more easily be accepted. We are more ready to dwell upon our good fortune now that these differences are made to work to our advantage, rather than to be downcast by how much better off we might have been had we had an equal chance along with others if only all social barriers had been removed. The conception of justice, should it be truly effective and publicly recognized as such, seems more likely than its rivals to transform our perspective on social World and to reconcile us to the dispositions of natural order and the conditions of human life. Last of all, we should recall here the limits of a theory of justice. Not only are many aspects pf morality left aside, but no account is given of right conduct in regard to animals and the rest of nature. A conception of justice is but one part of a moral view. While I have not maintained that the capacity for a sense of justice is necessary in order to be owed the duties of justice, it does seem that we are not required to give strict justice anyway to creatures lacking this capacity. #RandolphHarris 12 of 22
However, it does not follow that there are no requirements at all in regard to them, not in our relations with the natural order. Certainly it is wrong to be cruel to animals and the destruction of whole species can be a great evil. The capacity for feelings of pleasure and pain and for the forms of life which of animals are capable clearly imposes duties of compassion and humanity in their case. These beliefs, however, are outside the scope of the theory of justice, and it does not seem possible to extent the contract doctrine so as to include them in a natural way. A correct conception of our relations to animals and to nature would seem to depend upon a theory of the natural order and our place in it. One of the tasks of metaphysics is to work out a view of the World which is suited for this purpose; it should identify and systematize the truths decisive for these questions. How far justice as fairness will have to be revised to fit into this larger theory it is sound as an account of justice among persons, it cannot be too wrong when these broader relationships are taken into consideration. Technocrats, experts in science or technology who have a lot of power in or influence with the government of industry, suffer from econo-think. They look at the World and analyze the way the World works by comparing the cost of an action with the benefit generated. Except during war and dire emergency, they start from the premise that even non-economic problems can be solved with economic remedies. Social futurism challenges this root assumption of both Marxist and Keynesian managers. In its historical time and place, industrial society’s single-minded pursuits of material progress served the human race well. #RandolphHarris 13 of 22
As we hurtle toward the super age of information, however, a new ethos emerges in which other goals begin to gain parity with, and even supplant those of economic welfare. In personal terms, self-fulfillment, social responsibility, aesthetic achievement, hedonistic individualism, and an array of other goals vie with and often overshadow the raw drive for material success. Affluence serves as a base from which humans begin to strive for varied post-economic ends. At the same time, in societies arrowing toward super-age of information, economic variables—wages, balance of payments, productivity—grow increasingly sensitive to change in the non-economic environment. Economic problems are plentiful, but a whole range of issues that are only secondarily economy break into prominence. Racism, the battle between the generations, crime, cultural autonomy, violence—all these have economic dimensions; yet none can be effectively treated by econocentic measures alone. The move from manufacturing to health-care and social assistance, the psychologization of both goods and services, and ultimately the shift toward experiential production all tie the economic sector much more tightly to non-economic forces. Consumer preference turn over in accordance with rapid life style changes, so that the coming and going of subcults is mirrored in economic turmoil. Super-age of information production requires workers skilled in symbol manipulation, and computer information science, so that what goes on in their heads becomes much more important than in the past, and much more dependent upon computers, technology, and algorithm. #RandolphHarris 14 of 22
Because many more American corporations are investing part of their sizeable portfolios in companies selected not for economic payout alone, but for their potential contribution to solving urban problems, providing jobs for hard-core unemployed, in organizing literacy and job-training programs, and scores of other unfamiliar activities, including worrying about water, air, and noise pollution, improving the aesthetic appearance of the company’s trucks and equipment, and fostering experimental preschool learning programs in underserved communities, and supporting cultural groups; although this is accurately signaling the direction of change, none of this necessarily implies that big companies are growing altruistic; it merely underscores the increasing intimacy of the links between the economic sector and powerful cultural, psychological, and social forces. While these forces batter at our doors, however, most technocratic planners and managers behave as though nothing had happened. They continue to act as though the economic sector were hermetically sealed off from social and psychocultural influences. Indeed, econocentric premises are buried so deeply and held so widely in both capitalist and communist nations, that they distort the very information systems essential for management of change. For example, all modern nations maintain elaborate machinery for measuring economic performance. We know virtually day by day the directions of change with respect to productivity, prices, investment, and similar factors. Through a set of “economic indicators” we gauge the overall health of the economy, the speed at which it is changing, and the overall directions of change. Without these measures, our control of the economy would be far less effective. #RandolphHarris 15 of 22
By contrast, we have no such measures, no set of comparable “social indicators” to tell us whether the society, as distinct from the economy, is also healthy. We have no measures of the “quality of life.” We have no systematic indices to tell us whether people are more or less alienated from one another; whether education is more effective; whether art, music and literature are flourishing; whether civility, generosity or kindness are increasing. Gross National Product is our Holy Grail, but we have no environmental index, no census statistics to measure whether the country is more livable from year to year. On the surface, this would seem a purely technical matter—something for statisticians to debate. Yet it has the most serious political significance, for lacking such measures it becomes difficult to connect up national or local policies with appropriate long-term social goals. The absence of such indices perpetuates vulgar technocracy. Little known to the public, a polite, but increasingly bitter battle over this issue has begun in Washington. Technocratic planners and economists see in the social indicators idea a threat to their entrenched position at the ear of the political policy maker. In contrast, the need for social indicators has been eloquently argued by such prominent social scientists as Dr. Bertram M. Gross and Wayne State University, Eleanor Sheldon and Wilbert Moore of the Russell Sage Foundation, Daniel Bell and Raymond Bauer of Harvard. We are witnessing, says Gross, a “widespread rebellion against what has been called the ‘economic philistinism’ of the Untied States government’s resent statistical establishment.” #RandolphHarris 16 of 22
This revolt has attracted vigorous support from political and government officials who recognize our desperate need for a post-technocratic social intelligence system. In the near future, we can expect the same revolt to break out in other World capitals as well, once again drawing a line between technocrats and post-technocrats. The danger of future shock, itself, however, points to the need for new social measures not yet even mentioned in the fast-burgeoning literature on social indicators. We urgently need, for example, techniques for measure the level of transience in different communities, different populations groups, and in individual experience. It is possible, in principle, to design a “transience index” that could disclose the rate at which we are making and breaking relationships with the things, places, people, organizations and informational structures that comprise our environment. Such an index would reveal, among other things, the fantastic differences in the experiences of different groups in society—the static and tedious quality of turnover in the lives of others. Government policies that attempt to deal with both kinds of people in the same way are doomed to meet angry resistance from one or the other—or both. Similarly, we need indices of novelty in the environment. How often do communities, organizations or individual have to cope with first-time situations? How many of the articles in the home of the average working-class family are actually “new” in function or appearance; how many are traditional? #RandolphHarris 17 of 22
What level of novelty—in terms of things, people or any other significant dimension—is required for stimulation without over-stimulation? How much more novelty can children absorb than their parents—if it is true that they can absorb more? In what way is gaining related to lower novelty tolerances, and how do such differences correlate with the political and intergenerational conflict now tearing the techno-societies apart? By studying and measuring the invasion of newness, we can begin, perhaps, to control the influx of change into our social structures and personal lives. And what about choice and over choice? Can we construct measures of the degree of significant choice in human lives? Can any government that pretends to be democratic not concern itself with such an issue? For al the rhetoric about freedom of choice, no government agency in the World can claim to have made any attempt to measure it. The assumption simply is that more income or affluence means more choice and that more choice, in turn, means freedom. Is it not time to examine these basic assumptions of our political systems? If we are to prevent future shock and build a humane super-age of informational society, post-technocratic planning must deal with precisely such issues. A sensitive system of indicators geared to measuring the achievement of social and cultural goals, and integrated with economic indicators, is part of the technical equipment that any society needs before it can successfully reach the next stage of eco-technological development. It is an absolute precondition for post-technocratic planning and change management. #RandolphHarris 18 of 22
This humanization of planning, moreover, must be reflected in our political structures as well. To connect the super-age of information social intelligence system with the decisional centers of society, we must institutionalize a concern for the quality of life. Thus it has been proposed by people in the social indicators movement that there is a creation of a Council of Social Advisers to the President. Such a Council, as they see it, would be modeled after the already existing Council of Economic Advisers and would perform parallel functions in the social field. The new agency would monitor key social indicators precisely the way the Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) keeps its eye on economic indices, and interpret changes to the President. It would issue an annual report on the quality of life, clearly spelling out our social progress (or lack of it) in terms of specified goals. This report would thus supplement and balance the annual economic report prepared by the CEA. By providing reliable, useful data about our social condition, the Council of Social Advisers would begin to influence planning generally, making it more sensitive to social costs and benefits, less coldly technocratic and econocentric. Proponents differ as to whether the Council of Social Advisers ought to be organizationally independent or become a part of a larger Council of Economic and Social Advisers. All sides agree, however, on the need for integrating economic and social intelligence. #RandolphHarris 19 of 22
The establishment of such councils, not merely at the federal level but at state and municipal levels as well, would not at the federal level but at state and municipal levels as well, would not solve all our problems; it would not eliminate conflict; it would not guarantee that social indicators are exploited properly. In brief, it would not eliminate politics from political life. However, it would end recognition—and political force—to the idea that the ais of progress reach beyond economics. The designation of agencies to watch over the indicators of change in the quality of life would carry us a long way toward that humanization of the planner which is the essential first stage of the strategy of social futurism. Replace fear with faith—faith in God and the power of the Atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ. As we think of the future, we should be filled with faith and hope. Always remember that Jesus Christ—the Creator of the Universe, the architect of our salvation, and the head of this Church—is in control. He will not permit His work to fail. He will be victorious over all darkness and evil. And He invites us all, members of His church and others who are the honest in heart, to join in the battle for the souls of God’s children. Along with all else we will do in life, we must also dedicate and consecrate our heart, might, mind, and strength to His cause, walking in faith and working with conviction. Face the future with optimism. I believe we are standing on the threshold of a new era of growth, prosperity, and abundance. #RandolphHarris 20 of 22
I think the next few years will bring a resurgence in the World economy as new discoveries are made in communication, medicine, energy, transportation, physics, computer technology, and other fields endeavor. Many of these discoveries, as in the past, will be the result of the spirit whispering insights into and enlightening the minds of truth-seeking individuals. With these discoveries and advances will come new employment opportunities and prosperity for those who work hard and especially for those who strive to keep the commandments of God. This has been the case in other significant periods of national and international economic growth. People, we rainclouds closer to the sun and full of life soaking up the knowledge of the Earth and storing it within ourselves, moving on to spread truth through the World. We clouds are loved and feared, ready to explore and give new life to a dying planet. Beautiful clouds, casting shadows of love, shadows of dignity, shadows of healing. Giving of ourselves to promote life, while realizing our ability to destroy rainclouds, we are nature, natural! People, we rainclouds are closer to the run and full of life. May the Father of mercies who dwells on high, in His mighty compassion, remember the loving, upright and blameless souls and all the holy communities in America who laid down their lives for the sanctification of the divine name. Even as they were devoted and faithful in life, so in death they were not parted. They were swifter than eagles and stronger than lions to do the will of their Master and the desire of their Rock. #RandolphHarris 21 of 22
May our God remember them for good with other righteous of the World, and bring retribution for blood of His servants which has been shed, in accordance with the promise given in the in the Law of Moses, reiterated in the Books of the Prophets and again stated in the Sacred Writings: Sing aloud, O ye nations, for God des bring to judgment those who shed the blood of His servants. Wherefore should the nations say, “Where is their God?” Let the retribution of Thy servants’ blood be made known among the nations in our sight. For God, the Avenger of bloodshed, will not forget the cry of the humble. He will judge among the nations, and crushing evil, will emerge triumphant. Happy are they that dwell in Thy house; they will ever praise Thee. Happy is the people who thus fare; yea, happy is the people whose God is the Lord. I will extol Thee, my God, O King, and I will bless Thy name for ever and ever. Every day will I bless Thee, and I will praise Thy name for ever and ever. Great is the Lord, and highly to be praised; His greatness is unsearchable. One generation shall laud Thy works to another, and shall declare thy might acts. On the majestic glory of Thy splendor, and on Thy wonderous deeds will I meditate. And humans shall proclaim the might of Thy tremendous acts, and I will recount Thy greatness. They shall make known the fame of Thy great goodness, and shall exult in Thy righteousness. The Lord is gracious and full of compassion, long forbearing, and abundant in kindness. The Lord is good to all, and His tender mercies are over all His works. All Thy works shall praise Thee, O Lord, and Thy faith one shall bless Thee. #RandolphHarris 22 of 22
Cresleigh Homes
Lovely on the outside, dreamy on the inside! Mills Station Res 2 has a laundry room that will have you pinching yourself. We’re thrilled to show off this home’s design; it features Universal Design concepts that prioritizes life’s transitions and aging in place. Learn more from a sales associate! https://cresleigh.com/mills-station/residence-2/
Cresleigh Ranch offers charming architectural designs, access to top-rated schools, and is conveniently located nearby all of life’s conveniences.
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Randolph Harris II International Institute 