Randolph Harris II International Institute

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The Events of this Wide World I Would Seize Like a Strong Giant and My Spirit Tease!

Once you think that your own mind is not your friend anymore, you are on your way to insanity. In 1923 a very significant meeting was held at the Edgewater Beach Hotel in Chicago. Attending that famous gathering were nine of the World’s most successful financiers. The president of the largest independent steel company, the president of the largest utility company, the president of the New York Stock Exchange, a member of the President’s Cabinet, the greatest bear on Wall Street, the head of the World’s greatest monopoly, and finally the president of the Bank of International Settlement were all present. If there ever was one, a high-powered group was for sure present. These humans were supreme masters of the finance World! Twenty-five years later, in 1948 the picture was much different. After living on borrowed money for the last five years of his life, Charles Schwab had died bankrupt. A fugitive from justice, penniless in a foreign land is how Samuel Insull died. Howard Hopson was insance. Arthur Critten died abroad, insolvent. Richard Whitney has just been released from Sing Sing. Being pardoned from prison so he could die at home was the fate of Albert Fall. Death by suicide was the date with destiny for Leon Fraser and Ivar Kreuger. #RandolphHarris 1 of 26

All those men, master of finance, were mastered by wealth! The extraordinary sameness of the hellish gravity of their famous lives is a divine warning, for God set the ghost of these financial giants as spectral, mid-century witnesses to a nation about to run amok in materialism. Today their ghost have faded, and a new gallery of forlorn spirits is assembling, with names like Ivan Boesky, Michael Milken, Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Jeff Bezos, Amancio Ortega, and Elon Musk. Yet few take serious notice. Perhaps it is because most, especially if they are Christians, do not aspire to be the head of the World’s greatest monopoly or to the vulgar display of the lifestyles of the rich and famous. Instead they are quite content to cultivate a less encumbering level of wealth—not realizing that the dangers for themselves are the same for the super rich: a growing delusion that this World is everything that someday they will be content, the “providing for one’s family” means being able to give them more and better, that relationships will be enriched by wealth, that wealth will make them better people. Clearly, the abiding reality is that wealth presents substantial dangers for all, and especially for today’s increasingly prosperous Christian population. #RandolphHarris 2 of 26

However, what can we do to escape the power of materialism? Step out of the competitive World? Abandon Wall Street? Avoid the professions? Join a commune? Some think so, despite Christ’s firm admonitions against isolation. We all need stuff—stuff to wear, stuff to eat, stuff for home, stuff for school. And, of course, beyond the necessities there is also the stuff we want but do not really need, as well as the stuff we dream about but may not be able to obtain at the moment. If we are not careful, we can have a hard tie seeing past all that stuff. Material possession (both those we have and those we want) can obstruct our view of who we really are and what life is really about. There is a better way, actually, and it is taught repeatedly in God’s World. In fact, Scripture presents it as a grace—the grace of giving. The most explicit teaching on this subject is 2 Corinthians 8, where the Apostle Paul deftly instructs the Corinthian church regarding giving by citing the beautiful example of the Macedonian church’s giving. He begins: “And now, brothers, we want you to know about the grace [meaning the grace of giving] that God have given the Macedonian churches,” reports 2 Corinthians 8.1. #RandolphHarris 3 of 26

For Paul, giving is so much a grace that he uses the Greek word five times in this short text: verse 1, “the grace” (charin); verse 4, “the privilege” (charas); verse 6, “this act of grace” (charin); verse 7, “this grace of giving” (charity); and verse 9, “the grace” (charin). Giving is a matter of grace from beginning to end, as we shall see. Grace is the divine help or strength extended to us through the Atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ. Through the grace of God, everyone who has lived will be resurrected—our spirits will be reunited with our bodies, never again to be separated. Through His grace, the Lord also enables those who live His gospel to repent and be forgiven. Grace is a gift from Heavenly Father given through His Son, Jesus Christ. The word grace, as used in the scriptures, refers primarily to enabling power and spiritual healing offered through the mercy and love of Jesus Christ. The grace of giving has nothing to do with being well-off. It is not dictated by ability. It is a willingness to give. Giving is viewed as a privilege. It is joyously enthusiastic and pleads for the opportunity to give more. What else produces such giving? Paul gives the answer in verse 5 as he relates the vertical and horizontal angles of the Macedonians’ commitment. #RandolphHarris 4 of 26

Yes, we will often feel inadequate, but fortunately God knows us far better than we know ourselves. “And they exceeded our expectations: They gave themselves first of all to the Lord, and then by the will of God also to us keeping with God’s will,” reports 2 Corinthians 8.5. Their remarkable giving was the result of their first giving themselves to God. It is so simple: when all one has is given to God, giving to others becomes the natural reflex of the soul. When we have already given the whole, it is easy to surrender part. This was shown in the life of a young Norwegian named Peter Torjesen when at the age of seventeen his heart was so stirred by a challenge to missionary giving that he opened his wallet and poured all his money into the offering. As an afterthought he also included a scrap of paper on which he wrote “Og mit liv” (“And my life”). Significantly, young Torjesen went on to lead a fruitful life as a missionary in China. The Macedonians did things right away: they gave their hearts to God, then they gave themselves to their fellow believers, which in turn resulted in their giving what they had to the work of Christ. #RandolphHarris 5 of 26

This is where grace giving must begin—given ourselves completely to God. Grace giving cannot exist without this. “Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship,” reports Romans 12.1. A selfless person is one who is more concerned about the happiness and well-being of another than about one’s own convenience or comfort, one who is willing to serve another when it is neither sought for nor appreciated, or one who is willing to serve even those whom one dislikes. A selfless person displays a willingness to sacrifice, a willingness to purge from one’s mind and heart personal want, and needs, and feelings. Instead of reaching for and requiring praise and recognition for oneself, or gratification of one’s own wants, the selfless person will meet these very human needs for others. Remember the words of the Saviour as he taught his disciples on an occasion when personal recognition was being sought: “But Jesus called them to him, and saith unto them, Ye know they which are accounted to rule over the Gentiles exercise lordship over them; and their great ones exercise authority upon them. #RandolphHarris 6 of 26

“But so shall it not be among you: but whosoever will be great among you, shall be your minister: And whosoever of you will be the chiefest, shall be servant of all. For even the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many,” reports Mark 10.42-45. There is another word that sound almost like the one we have been using. However, it is an ugly word. It describes a characteristic of satanic proportions. We will not say much of this word, for it is not pleasant to think about, as we do not like to use it. The word is selfish. The dictionary describes a selfish person as ne who is “concerned excessively or exclusively with oneself: seeking pleasure of well-being without regards for others.” May we add, a selfish person is often who refers to “I,” “me,” and “mine” rather than to “we,” “ours,” “yours,” or “theirs.” This person is anxious to be in the limelight, to be on center stage in life’s little dramas. One may not be a good listener, or a conversation monopolizer. Selfishness is the great unknown sin. No selfish person ever thought oneself to be selfish. The shinning example of the Macedonians’ giving was held high by the apostle Paul so as to convict and motivate the Corinthian church. #RandolphHarris 7 of 26

Now Paul left no doubt as to what we hoped would happen: “So we urged Titus, just as he had earlier made a beginning, to bring also to completion this act of grace on your part. However, just as you excel in everything—in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in complete earnestness and in your love for us—see that you also excel in this giving grace,” reports 2 Corinthians 8.6-7. The Corinthians were a gifted group who excelled in many commendable things other than giving. However, Paul knew that despite all their excellences they would never become what they could and should be until they learned the grace of giving. The abiding spiritual fact is, there is no way to grow into spiritual maturity without committing one’s giving to the Lord. God can have our money and not have our hearts, but He cannot have our hearts without having all our money. Jesus said, “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also,” reports Matthew 6.21. The specters of the fallen Wall Street giants are not the only ones to announce the dangers of money. The entire New Testament is full of repeated warnings, many of which are from the lips of Jesus Himself, who informed His listeners about money than about Heaven and Hell, immorality involving pleasures of the flesh, or violence. #RandolphHarris 8 of 26

After the rich young ruler turned away sorrowing because Jesus told him to sell all, Jesus told the disciples, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God,” reports Mark 10.25—His point being that it is impossible for a human who trusts in riches to get into Heaven. “The disciples were even more amazed, and said to each other, ‘Who then can be saved?’ Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God,’” reports Mark 10.26-27. Indeed, if we depend on wealth rather than on God, we can understand why Jesus consistently presented Wealth as a spiritual obstruction. At the end of the Sermon on the mount He recommended: “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on Earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. However, store up for yourselves treasures in Heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal,” reports Matthew 6.19-20. #RandolphHarris 9 of 26

A little later Jesus warned, “No one can serve two masters. Either one will hate the one and love the other, or one will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money,” Matthew 6.4. And to a human grabbing for an inheritance Christ shouted, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed: a human’s life does not consist in the abundance of one’s possessions,” reports Luke 12.15. Then He related the story of the rich man who built bigger barns only to die that night, ending His parable with a solemn pronouncement: “This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for oneself but is not rich toward God,” reports Luke 12.21. Humans, the “rich toward God” are those who give not only themselves, but also their riches—thus laying up their treasures in Heaven. The key to liberation from the power of materialism is not an exodus from culture—abandoning Wall Street or leaving the wealth of the nation to others—but the grace of giving. Grace giving goes beyond a mere tithe, but rather giving till it hurts. Grace giving affects one’s lifestyle. When one indulges in grace giving, there are things one cannot have and things foregone. #RandolphHarris 10 of 26

If our expenditure on comforts, luxuries, amusements, et cetera, is up to the standard common among those with the same income as our own, we are probably giving too little. If our charities do not at all pinch or hamper us, I should say they are too small. There ought to be things we should like to do and cannot do because our charitable expenditure excludes them. Givers for God disarm the power of money. They invite God’s grace to flow through them. “Silver and gold. Silver and gold. I’d rather have Jesus than silver and gold. No fame or fortune, no riches untold, I’d rather have Jesus than silver and gold. Don’t give me a mansion on top of the hill. Don’t give me the World with a shallow thrill, but just give me a Saviour my life He can hold. I’d rather have Jesus than silver and gold,” (Silver and Gold, by Kirk Franklin). It is possible you have reached a sticking point in your spiritual development and are perplexed. After all, you are attending church regularly, you enjoy the fellowship of Christians, you even read your Bible and pray regularly. The problem may be that you are not giving—the God simply does not have that part of you. If so, what you seen is the grace of giving. #RandolphHarris 11 of 26

The firstfruits giving is when one gives to God one’s best up-front, trusting that He will provide the rest; joyous freewill giving such as the Israelites experienced when Moses had to say “stop!”; the grace giving of the Macedonians whose liberality overflowed as they begged for the opportunity to give more. The apostle has made his point convincingly, but he caps it with a supreme illustration: “For you know the face of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich,” reports 2 Corinthians 8.9. Though Jesus could put His finger on every star, He emptied Himself and became a poor Earthly servant for us. That is Heaven’s “stewardship” program, and it is the pattern for us. The Corinthians were not clubbed into giving by fear or some gimmicky financial appeal. Rather, it was the ultimate example of giving—“the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ”—that produced the grace of giving in their lives. It was simply because of Jesus. We must understand that God’s grace in our lives demands discipline. This is why the great apostle of grace says, “discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness,” reports 1 Timothy 4.7. #RandolphHarris 12 of 26

And in this manner of the grace of giving, there must be the discipline of giving as well. Because of personal choices, everyone also experiences effects of sin. “Thus all humankind were lost; and behold, they would have been endlessly lost were it not that God redeemed his people from their lost and fallen state,” reports Mosiah 16.4. These effects are called spiritual death. No one can return to the divine grace. Through the Atonement, we all can be forgiven of our sins; we can become clean before God. To receive this enabling power, we must obey the gospel of Jesus Christ, which includes having faith in Him, repenting of our sins, being baptized, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, and trying to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ for the rest of our lives. The grace of God helps us every day. It strengthens us to do good works we could not do on our own. The Lord promised that if we humble ourselves before Him and have faith in Him, His grace will help us overcome all our personal weaknesses. “And if humans come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto humans weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all humans that humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them,” reports Ether 12.27. #RandolphHarris 13 of 26

Christ delivers from body hatred. A burning sese of these powers of evil actually inhabiting our body and specific parts thereof is one of the reasons body hatred, throughout the ages and across cultures, has been such a dreadful fact. Sincere people really do find evil in their body and wrongly blame the body for it. This misguided and terribly harmful attitude toward the body correctly sees the power of sin that really is in the actual body and its parts, and does not know how to think about the readiness to sin, the sinful meanings and intentions, that have come to possess those parts through their habituation in a World of sin. In this respect Paul’s teaching, explained above, that we are to “present our bodily parts as servants to righteousness for sanctification,” as reported in Romans 6.19, stand in shocking opposition to the assumptions of the classical thought of his day, as well as to those of most human thinking up to now. The same is true for his teaching that the body of the redeemed is a shrine of the Holy Spirit, and that therefore “the body is meant not meant for fornication but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body,” reports 1 Corinthians 6.16. “Do you now know,” he continues to say, “that your bodies are members [mela] of Christ?” (1 Corinthians 6.16). #RandolphHarris 14 of 26

Our bodies are the tabernacles of our spirits. He who is the Father of those spirits would have us build strength and virtue into these personal tabernacles. Dressing in neat, modest clothing invites the Spirit into our lives because it shows respect for our bodies and helps us to be an example for others. Satan is jealous of everyone who has a body, because he cannot have one. He tempts us to ruin our body’s purity by wearing inappropriate clothing or taking harmful substances. He even tempts us to be ashamed of our bodies—to think that they are not good enough, tall enough, strong enough, or pretty enough. If we follow the Spirit, we will be able to build strength and virtue into our bodies, and we will not believe the devils lies about them. Heavenly Father is pleased with the Earthly temples created for our spirits. We must show reverence for our bodies and treat them as holy temples. Well, they did not know, we can be sure, and could hardly think or imagine such a thing. We today do little better. In the past, theirs was the same understanding of the body that led Paul’s hearers in Athens to scoff at the idea of resurrection of the body. #RandolphHarris 15 of 26

A holy temple is considered the house of the Lord. Your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost. However, “When they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some of them sneered, but others said, ‘We want to hear you again on this subject,’” reports Acts 17.32. Yet, some still thought, “Who wants that thing back?” It was inconceivable to them that the physical body and its parts should be honoured and treasured as the habitation of God in redeemed human personality. And the same is true for most people today—and indeed for most professing Christians. For usual human beings in the usual circumstances, their body runs their life. “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes?” reports Matthew 6.25. Contrary to the words of Jesus in Matthew 6.25, life is, for them, not more than food, nor the body more than clothing. As a matter of simple fact, their time and energy is almost wholly, if not entirely, devoted to how their body looks, smells, and feel, and to how it can be secured and used to meet ego needs such as admiration, gratification in pleasures of the flesh, and power over others. #RandolphHarris 16 of 26

It is this bodily orientation of the self that runs the human cosmos, as the elderly apostle John pointed out: “For all that is in the World, the lost of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the World,” report 1 John 2.16. This is “the mind of the flesh” discussed earlier from Paul, which is in opposition to “the mind of the spirit,” reports Romans 8.4-11. And John saw exactly the same outcomes for these two human options that Paul and all of the biblical writers knew: “The World is passing away, and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of God abides forever,” reports 1 John 2.17. By keeping the commandments and living righteously, you invite the Holy Ghost to be your constant companion. “Let thy bowels also be full of charity towards all humans, and to the house of faith and let virtue garnish thy thoughts unceasingly; then shall thy confidence wax strong in the presence of God; and the doctrine of the priesthood shall distil upon thy soul as the dews from Heaven. The Holy Ghost shall be thy constant companion, and thy scepter an unchanging scepter of righteousness and truth; and thy dominion shall be an everlasting dominion, and without compulsory means it shall flow unto thee forever and ever,” reports Doctrine and Covenants 121.45-46. #RandolphHarris 17 of 26

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Nothing can come to pass that is contray to the will of the World-Mind, or that is not already mysteriously present in the World-Idea. All is formed according to the World-Idea, shaped and permeated by its expression of the Divine Will. All things which exist and all events which happen fulfill the World-Idea and are necessary to it. In the ultimate sense, all history—whether planetary or racial or personal—is pre-ordained. No chance event, no human planning can defeat the divine World-Idea. The Universe takes the pattern it does out of realization of its own inherent and latent possibilities. The Divine prevails everywhere within it, from atom to planet. The World-Idea must subsist through all the spectacles of history, must remain the beginning, the middle, and the end of it all, must operate and dominate inside and outside human’s will. The World-Idea is what is ordained for the Universe, its divine prescription. In the end the World-Idea must triumph. Nature, whose guests we all are, issues her dictates and executes them by her own power. #RandolphHarris 18 of 26

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All things must in the end as in the beginning conform to the World-Idea or there would be no order in the Universe. Universal laws will not suffer defeat. All is known to the World-Mind—not only as it was in the past but also as it will be in the future. If it were otherwise then the World-Mind would not be able to maintain the Universe in complete function and all its parts in complete relation, nor would it be able to move all the planets in rhythmic revolution. If everything were not exactly knowable and every consequence predictable in advance, God could not be God. However, that in its turn could not be unless everything were predeterminable too. This is contrary to common modern and Western belief that it is what we, as human beings, freely choose and do, and what we try to get in satisfaction of our desires, which determines what course the future takes. If we all lived in a chaos and not in a cosmos, then it could be said that human’s will was completely free. However, in that case the Sun’s will, the stars’ wills and the moon’s will, would also have to be completely free. All things and all lives would then be subject to caprice, chance, and disorder. #RandolphHarris 19 of 26

The World-Idea is perfect. Since it is God’s Idea, how could it be otherwise? If we fail to become a co-worker with it, nothing of this perfection will be lost. If we do, we add nothing to it. No human can do anything to alter the World-Idea. It is God’s Will in every possible meaning of the word. The World-Idea will be realized anyhow, whatever human beings do or fail to do. “And it came to pass that the brother of Jared, (now the number of the vessels which had been prepared was eight) went forth unto the mount, which they called the mount Shelem, because of its exceeding height, and did molten out of rock sixteen small stones; and they were white and clear, even as transparent glass; and he did carry them in his hands upon the top of the mount, and cried again unto the Lord, saying: O Lord, thou hast said that we must be encompassed about by the floods. Now behold, O Lord, and do not be angry with thy servant because of his weakness before thee; for we know that thou art holy and dwellest in the Heavens, and that we are unworthy before three; because of the fall our natures have become evil continually; nevertheless, O Lord, thou hast given us a commandment that we must call upon thee, that from thee we may receive according to our desires. #RandolphHarris 20 of 26

“Behold, O Lord, thou hast driven us forth, and for these many years we have been in the wilderness; nevertheless, thou hast been merciful unto us. O Lord, look upon me in pity, and turn away thine anger from this thy people, and suffer not that they shall go forth across this ranging deep in darkness; but behold these things which I have molten out of the rock. And I know, O Lord, that thou hast all power, and can do whatsoever thou wilt for the benefit of man; therefore touch these stones, O Lord, with thy finger, and prepare them that they may shine forth in darkness; and they shall shine forth unto us in the vessels which we have prepared, that we may have light while we shall cross the sea. Behold, O Lord, thou canst do this. We know that thou art able to show forth great power, which looks so small unto the understanding of humans. And it came to pass that when the brother of Jared had said these words, behold, the Lord stretched forth his hand and touched the stones one by one with his finger. And the veil was taken from off the eyes of the brother of Jared, and he saw the finger of the Lord. #RandolphHarris 21 of 26

 “And the finer of the Lord was like the finger of a man like unto flesh and blood; and the brother of Jared fell down before the Lord for he was stuck with fear. And the Lord saw that the brother of Jared has fallen to the Earth; and the Lord said unto him: Arise, why hast thou fallen? And he saith unto the Lord: I saw the finger of the Lord, and I feared lest he should smite me; for I knew not that the Lord had flesh and blood. And the Lord said unto him: Because of thy faith thou fast seen that I shall take upon me flesh and blood; and never has man come before me with such exceeding faith as thou hast; for were it not so ye could not have seen by finger. Sawest thou more than this? And he answered: Nay; Lord, show thyself unto me. And the Lord said unto him: Believest thou the words which I shall speak? And he answered: Yea, Lord, I know that thou speakest the truth, for thou art a God of truth, and canst not lie. And when he had said these words, behold, the Lord showed himself unto him, and said: Because thou knowest these things ye are redeemed from the fall; therefore ye are brought back into my presence; therefore I show myself unto you. #RandolphHarris 22 of 26

“Behold, I am he who was prepared from the foundation of the World to redeem my people. Behold, I am Jesus Christ. I am the Father and the Son. In me shall humankind have life, and that eternally, even they who shall believe on my name; and they shall become my sons and my daughters. And never have I showed myself unto humans whom I have created, for never has humans believed in me as thou hast. Seest thou that ye are created after mine own image? Yea, even all humans were crated in the beginning after mine own image. Behold, this body, which ye now behold, is the body of my spirit; and man have I created after the body of my spirit; and even as I appear unto thee to be in the spirit will I appear unto my people in the flesh. And now, as I, Moroni, said I could not make a full account of these things which are written, therefore it sufficeth me to say that Jesus showed himself unto this man in the spirit, even after the manner and in the likeness of the same body even as he showed himself unto the Nephites. And he ministered unto him even as he minister unto the Nephites; and all this, that this man might know that he was God, because of the many great works which the Lord had showed unto him. #RandolphHarris 23 of 26

“And because of the knowledge of this man he could not be kept from beholding within the veil; and he saw the finger of Jesus, which when he saw, he fell with fear; for he knew that it was the finger of the Lord; and he had faith no longer, for he knew, nothing doubting. Wherefore, having this perfect knowledge of God, he could not be kept from within the veil; therefore he saw Jesus; and he did minister unto him. And it came to pass that the Lord said unto the brother of Jared: Behold, thou shalt not suffer these things which ye have seen and heard to go forth unto the World, until the time cometh that I shall glorify my name in the flesh; wherefore, ye shall treasure up the things which ye have seen and heard, and show it to no man. And behold, when ye shall come unto me, ye shall write them and shall seal them up, that no one can interpret them; for ye shall write them in a language that they cannot be read. And behold, these two stones will I give unto thee, and ye shall seal them up also with the things which ye shall write. For behold, the language which ye shall write I have confounded; wherefore I will cause in my own due time that these stones shall magnify to the eyes of humans these things which ye shall write. #RandolphHarris 24 of 26

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“And when the Lord had said these words, he showed unto the brother of Jared all the inhabitants of the Earth which had been, and also all that would be; and he withheld them not from his sight, even unto the ends of the Earth. For he had said unto him in times before, that if he would believe in him that he could show unto him in times before, that if he would believe in hm that he could show into him all things—it should be shown unto him; therefore the Lord could not withhold anything from him, for he knew that the Lord could show him all things. And the Lord said unto him: Write these things and seal them up; and I will show them in mine own due time unto the children of humans. And it came to pass that the Lord commanded him that he should seal up the two stones which he had received, and show them not until the Lord should show them unto the children of men,” reports Ether 3.1-28. Your silver disk will light the entire night; none of the night will be turned over to the dark. Even as your soft light guides my path tonight, may your gentile influence spread softly through my life. Father, please look down on me in blessing; please light my way through the darkness. #RandolphHarris 25 of 26

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With such brilliant light, to rival the Sun, can you be said to move in darkness? A light for the shadows, a lantern for those abroad, a guide for travelers: throughout the night you continue to bless us. However, they neither know nor understand; they walk about in darkness, so that the foundations of the land are shaken. I formerly thought ye were like angels, that ye were all like sons of the Most High. Verily ye shall die like mere mortals, ye shall fall like one of the princes. Arise, O God, judge Thou the Earth; for Thou shalt have dominion over all the nations. O Lord of retribution, O Lord of retribution, reveal Thyself! Rise up, Thou judge of the Earth; render to the arrogant their recompense. Lord, how long shall the wicked, how long shall the wicked exult? Loudly they vaunt their arrogance; all the workers of iniquity bear themselves haughtily. They crush Thy people, O Lord. And afflict Thy Heritage. They slay the widow and the stranger, and murder the fatherless. And they say: “The Lord will not see, the God of Jacob will give no heed.” Consider, ye brutish among the peoples; and ye fools, when will ye understand? Doth not He that formed the eye, see? Shall not He that instructeth the nations, and teacheth man knowledge, reprove them? The Lord knoweth the thoughts of man, that they are mere vanity. #RandolphHarris 26 of 26

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Winchester Mystery House

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O Thou whose Face Halt Felt the Winter’s Wind, One is Nearest unto Heaven’s Quiet Coves!

Let us not look back in anger or forward in fear, but around in awareness. You can never under estimate the power of fear. I have seen athletics bring out the very best and the very worst in people. The satisfaction one feels after a hard-fought tennis match, the thrill of sinking a long putt, or the shared sense of triumph when a local team wins a championship are all examples of how sports can uplift us. Unfortunately, however, sometimes athletic enthusiasm veers over the line and these programs do not run as smoothly as they ought. Problems with sportsmanship sometime arise, problems which hamper the effectiveness of sports activities. When a fan starts screaming at the referee, or a tennis player calls one’s opponent’s close shot our when it is really in, or a golfer spends so much time on the course that one neglects one’s responsibilities at home—then sports can have the opposite effect of what they are intended for: They start to interfere with our ability to get along with people around us. In the heat of the “athletic moment,” we sometimes forget that our behaviour, both as participants and spectators, reflects on us in general. #RandolphHarris 1 of 26

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Some people shrug these problems off as “just human nature,” which seems to imply that nothing can be done about it. The fact is, what you do and how you act during an athletic contest will influence other people’s opinions of you. There are ways to improve sports activities. We need to move vigorously to promote every aspect of sportsmanship. We need to keep in mind that a major purpose of sports programs is the development of character and Christlike qualities. With proper planning and preparation, this can be achieved. Athletics are competitive: The issues of winning, losing, and competing become emotionally charged—that is part of human nature. When we get so wrapped up in the moment that we forget our on-the-field behaviour, that is when the problem starts because it can eventually affect our careers and relationships off the field. I am talking about more than merely yelling at refs. I am talking about what happens when we become so consumed with the game that we ignore the people around us. (Sports widows everywhere are cheering right now—can you hear it?) I am talking about what happens when we become so consumed with winning that we cheat in order to win. #RandolphHarris 2 of 26

I am talking about what happens when competition becomes more important than people. Sportsmanship is no different from fair play in life. When someone crowds into line at a grocery store, that person is a poor sport. We need to discipline ourselves and control our reactions in similar situations as sports. While many people play a game for the enjoyment of playing, some people have an appetite for competition and a desire to win that takes precedence over anything else. They are so occupied with winning that they put their emotions on the front burner, and courtesies go to the back. We need to continually remind team members that a major purpose of sports programs is to offer a wholesome opportunity to participate in a wide variety of activities that involve play and competition. While we need to problem a high level of play, we also must remember we can still keep the goal of playing well, and do it gracefully and within the rules. I admit it: I care about winning. I enjoy pocketing a trophy from my weekly golf game. I like being on the winning side in a tough tennis match. #RandolphHarris 3 of 26

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I revel in the University of Alberta’s hockey team’s victories and suffer with them in defeat (lately I could do with a little less suffering and a little more reveling). We all love the Golden Bears. It is sad that they will be carrying less players this year. Still we all look forward to Tyler Mckinney-Preziuso, Ryan Hughes, Dylan Plouffe, Taz Burman, Ethan Sakowich and others joining the Bears. We all care about how spors are played. If I am not “on” this particular week in golf and I play poorly, I may kick myself, or even sign up for a lesson to figure out what the heck has gone wrong. However, I do not kick my ball to give it a better lie, or “forget” a couple of shots in the rough. I enjoy winning, and I care about how I play the game. Strong leadership in sports programs, sportsmanship incentive programs, and training capable officiators and teaching players the rules can help set the stage for success in strengthening character and developing qualities patterned after the Saviour’s example. The best sports programs always reflect the support of the priesthood leadership. #RandolphHarris 4 of 26

On every level, whether ward, stake, or region, the best programs are found where priesthood leaders are actively involved and supportive. They listen to their sports directors and give them the support they need. Our regional sports directors have been very successful in helping establish good feelings of sportsmanship in our regional tournaments. Everybody feels good about the games, even those who have lost. The fate of the World does not rest on the outcome. We make sure what started out as a friendly game does not quickly degenerate into an argument or worse. It is important to make sure our friendships do not end in ruins. How you play the game is very important. Being a goo competitor matters. People respect people who play by the rules. Either you were touched or you were not. Either the shot was in or it was out. Call the play fairly, accept the other person’s opinion gracefully, and move on. No one likes a whiner or a cheat. On the other hand, I have often heard people talk admiringly about friends and competitors who play the game not only by the rules, but also by the spirit of the rules. Our philosophy is to prevent a problem, not solve it when it occurs. #RandolphHarris 5 of 26

To prevent problems, challenges in the sports program and decisions that need to be made must be brought to the attention of the stake activities committee chairman. All players have to be interviewed t make sure that they are worthy to participate in the sports programs and that they understand the rules. Do not be late. For weekend athletes, time is precious. It is irritating for three people to be left standing on the first tee, wondering if a number four is going to make it. Do not miss appointments. There is nothing more frustrating than having thee people show up to play doubles tennis at 6.00am. If you cannot make the scheduled match, it is your job to find a substitute. Be a responsible borrower. Borrow my skis, borrow my surfboard, borrow my racquet. No problem. Break my skis, break my surfboard, break my racquet? Replace the borrowed piece of equipment with a new one of the same or comparable model. It is that simple. “Yeah, but the one I borrowed was about to break,” you say. “Why should I have to replace it with a new one?” Answer: When you borrow, you become responsible for what you borrow, dings and all. #RandolphHarris 6 of 26

If you do not want the responsibility or if the if the equipment you want to borrow is not in the best condition, do not borrow the stuff. Also, do not borrow someone’s equipment and tear it up to create financial hardship for them or to upset them on purpose. That is evil. This also goes for your neighbour’s tools or anything else you borrow. Once it is in your possession, you are the caretaker for the item. Lose it or break it? The replace it of fix it like new. You will stay good neighbours and good friends and happy family members. Leave your athletic venue in better condition than you found it. After your weekly game, before you leave the gym check the area for all your belongings and for any garbage you or prior groups may have left behind. When you walk onto the putting green, repair your ball marks (the depressions left when your ball first lands on the green) and any others you happen to see. When you finish playing tennis on a clay court, take a few minutes to sweep the court and clean off the lines for the next players. “Wait a minute,” you say. “If the humans before us did not clean up, then why should be?” #RandolphHarris 7 of 26

Whenever I talk to people about etiquette, they want to know why they should be considerate, respectful, and honest when the people around them are not. If you are going to be responsible for a decision, you need to be involved in it. We do not do these things to get anything in return—we do them because we believe in their inherent value. Also, nothing in this World is ever going to change until someone starts the ball rolling. We arrive on time, we pick up after ourselves, and we treat others with consideration, respect, and honesty because it is the right thing to do. Lead by example—others will follow, and we will all be better off for it. That way the emphasis is on coming out, playing together, and having fun, not on winning or losing. A team member must participate in 80 percent of the games. The responsibility for good feelings lies clearly with each participant. Among these approaches are honour calls, no officials at games, and team scores given for sportsmanship as well as for points earned in a game. Honour calls take place when a player acknowledges to the game official that one has broken a rule of the game—fouls and other infringements of the rules are called by each play on oneself. #RandolphHarris 8 of 26

Make it a better place. A candy wrapper on the ground, an empty bottle courtside—when you see a piece of litter fouling your playing field, do not leave it for the next person. Toss in the waste or in recycling bin (which ever is appropriate). Furthermore, there is no greater problem in sports than the person who says to oneself, “Cheating is okay as long as I get away with it.” You know who I mean: Cheatin’ Chumps always shaves a few strokes off one’s game—until it is club championship time. Now every stroke counts, and players keep score for each other. Suddenly, Cheatin’ Chump, who is entered some pretty low scores, has to post a ninety-eight. Or maybe one will quit halfway and post a DNF (Did Not Finish). One will blame the playing conditions, one’s playing partners, or anything else one can think of—anything except the real cause of one’s problems: oneself. At the other end of the spectrum is Sandbagger Sinister. This miscreant puts in scores higher than his handicap. The result: One can play significantly better than one’s handicap indicates. So when a net tournament is on the line one has a cheating advantage. Or when one is in a betting game, one increased the chance one will walk away with the money. #RandolphHarris 9 of 26

One will also soon learn one has no friends and the tournament committee is onto one and changes one’s handicap of refuses one entry in the tournament. Nobody wants to play with Sandbagger Sinister. The coach’s role in preparing the team for using honour calls is important to the success of the system. One needs to take the time to help train the team about the riles, so the team will know which situations are appropriate for honour calls. For example, in volleyball, touching the net or touching the ball before it goes out of bounds is appropriate for the call; in basketball, causing the ball to go out of bounds; in softball, balls and strikes. The coach is also responsible for announcing that honour calls are being used in a game. Officials should recognize honour calls by the players, and may overrule such calls when it is necessary because of circumstances involving other players. The coach helps set the mood of good sportsmanship in a game. The coach should be complimentary for the achievement of one’s own players, as well as the opponents. If a leadership is strong in ward sports, honour calls can work. #RandolphHarris 10 of 26

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One reason sportsmanship improves in a game in which players are using honour calls is that players are not blaming the officials for calling a foul one time and not another. Paul recently posed the following question: “Every Thursday morning for the past four years we have played tennis with Justin. However, lately Justin has become the weak link. We want to ask Leo to join us instead. How do we tell Justin we do not want him to play with us anymore without hurting his feelings?” Poor Paul. He and his buddies know that their proposed switch will hurt Justin’s feelings and will probably cost them their friendship with Justin off the court as well. Ditching a regular member of your sporting group for any reason is a very dicey thing to do. Ditching him because he is not quite up to your caliber of play is simply not acceptable. Before kicking him out, it is important to inform Justin of the group’s decision. Maybe Justin is the cause of the breakup of another member’s marriage. Not that would rise to the level of a legitimate reason for Justin to get kicked out of the group. The transgression had better be something pretty outrageous, though—because the decision to dump a playing partner, whatever the reason, is likely to cost a friendship. #RandolphHarris 11 of 26

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Generally, a clinic should be held before initiating any system, to teach the rules of the game as well as principles of the gospel related to integrity, fellowshipping, love, and excellence. Ground rules should be established, such as a team calls infractions on its own team members but not on the opponent’s team. Teams cannot question an opponent’s play or call. If situations arise where there is not enough background or knowledge to make a decision, the two coaches or captains should discuss the situation and resolve it. If no decision can be reached, they may either consult the tournament director for a decision, or replay the point. We also provide incentives for our players to be god sports by giving sportsmanship evaluations as well as game points for each game. A team must earn a certain number of sportsmanship points to be able to progress in the tournament. If a member is not playing that well, other team members can play, for fun, with that member to increase their skill level. It does not have to be brought to anyone’s attention, it can be done as a weekend hobby, out of the goodness of one’s heart. At then end of each tournament, awards are given for the team with the best sportsmanship, the most valuable player, and the all-tournament team. #RandolphHarris 12 of 26

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I think people tend to underestimate how much a person can actually improve with a little one-on-one coaching. Every 20 minutes to an hour, once a week may lead to vast improvements. Sometimes it is all about building up one’s confidence and making one feel comfortable enough to absorb the skills in a group setting. There is a proper spirit present so other things can happen that are more important than the game—fellowshipping and applying other gospel principles. When rooting for your favourite team, how do you know where to draw the line? Simple. You should feel free to shout as much encouragement for your team as you can possibly muster. However, when your yelling shifts from being encouraged to derogatory—that is when you have stopped playing a supportive role as a spectator. Any time you shout encouragement, the players on the field will feed off that energy. On the other hand, if your comments or cheering turn negative and you start berating or putting down the players, coaches, or referees, the effect will not only be counterproductive, but you will also make people around you (who may or may not agree with you) feel uncomfortable. #RandolphHarris 13 of 26

Bottom line: Cheer all you want, but keep it helpful and optimistic. In a revelation the Lord said, “Blessed is my servant Hyrum Smith; for I, the Lord, love him because of the integrity of his heart, and because he loveth that which is right,” reports Doctrine and Covenants. I personally know of no higher praise that any human could receive. Integrity means always doing what is right and good, regardless of the immediate consequences. It means being righteous from the very depth of our soul, not only in our actions but, more importantly, in our thoughts and in our hearts. Personal integrity implies such trustworthiness and incorruptibility that we are incapable of being false to a trust or covenant. We all have within us the ability to know what is right and good. “It is given unto you to judge, that ye may know good from evil; and the way to judge is as plain, that ye may know with a perfect knowledge, as the daylight is from the dark night. For behold, the Spirit of Christ is given to every human, that one may know good from evil; wherefore, I show unto you the way to judge; for everything which inviteth to do good, and to persuade to believe in Christ, is sent forth by the power and gift of Christ; wherefore ye may know with a perfect knowledge it is God. #RnadolphHarris 14 of 26

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“However, whatsoever thing persuadeth humans to do evil, and believe not in Christ, and deny him, and serve not god, then ye may know with a perfect knowledge it is of the devil; for after this manner doth the devil work, for he persuadeth no human to do good, no, no one; neither do his angels; neither do they who subject themselves unto him,” reports Mormon 7.15-17. Unfortunately, there have been incidents, where a fan of one team found oneself surrounded by fans for the other team. Perhaps one pushed too far or maybe one did not, but shouts turned to actions and in the end nobody won. If you are near fans of the other team, please keep the cheering thoughtful, helpful, and optimistic and let everyone enjoy the game. Also, keep in mind that referees are people, too. This is one point that is often lost amid all the jeering at sports events is the fac the referees are humans, too. Basically, they want to make the right calls just as much as the players, coaches, and fans want them to, Referees are faces with a daunting task. A baseball umpire, for instance, might have to make 150 calls or more in a single game. If the baseball umpire makes three calls that could be considered questionable, that means one is still making 98 percent of the calls successfully. #RandolphHarris 15 of 26

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For the umpire, however, the 2 percent of the calls one makes that may be considered questionable, could mean that one is doomed to be on the receiving end of a torrent of abuse. It gets worse. You will also have perfectly sensible players, fans, and coaches who see a call one way while the ref sees it another. The ref is right, but that does not stop the fans from grousing about how they would have would if it had not been for one. They forget all about their team’s missed plays, strikeouts, or blown shots and focus only on the one call they claim “cost them the game.” It is time for these complainers to grow up. The ref did not cost them the game—their own team’s players did. Having received the Spirit of Christ to know good from evil, we should always choose the good. We need not be misled, even though fraud, deception, deceit, and duplicity often seem to be acceptable in our World. America was supposed to be “One Nation Under God,” and the country has steered vastly away from its motto. Being One Nation Under God is what made America great and people refuse to accept that. Now, America is “One Nation Under the Drug of Television,” and everything is going wrong. #RandolphHarris 16 of 26

If America returned to its original mission, being “One Nation Under God,” it would be interest to see how our lives, nation, and communities would improve. It seems everyone references the Statue of Liberty with her promises about immigration, but no one is pursuing the “One Nation Under God with such intensity. As a result, lying, stealing, and cheating have become commonplace. Integrity, a firm adherence to the highest moral and ethical stands, are essential to life of a true Christian. All churches are not going to be perfect, and we have to accept than, but they do love the Lord and do their best to provide their members with soul food. Many Americans spend two hours a day watching TV, but most do not even spend one hour a week in church. Imagine if we spend even 20 minutes a day reminding ourselves of the Scriptures in the Bible. Truth, honesty, and good will might spread like a pandemic. If we have communities that believed in attending church services, it would be fascinating to see how much better life in their region is. A person’s true greatness is not in what one says one is, nor in what people say one is; but really in what one is. Our integrity determines what we really are. #RandolphHarris 17 of 26

The Lord expects us to live lives of integrity and to be obedient to his commandments. “Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of Heaven; but one that doeth the will of my Father which is in Heaven,” reports Matthew 7.21. “For one unto much is given much is required; and one who sins against the greater light shall receive the greater condemnation,” reports Doctrine and Covenants 82.3. Americans have been given much, indeed: the gospel of Jesus Christ. That blessing carries a risk. We have been warned, “Therefore to one that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to one it is sin,” reports James 4.17. The World desperately needs humans of integrity. Nearly every day we hear of fraud, misapplications of fund and tax dollars, or other dealings designed to obtain gain by cheating or deception. The Lord abhours such practices. “If thou borrowest of thy neighbour, thou shalt restore that which thou hast borrowed; and if thou canst not repay then go straightway and tell thy neighbour, lest one condemn thee,” reports Doctrine and Covenants 136.25. The World-Idea is embodied in the World itself. “God had planned something better for us so that only together with us they would be made perfect,” report Hebrews 11.40. #RandolphHarris 18 of 26

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All that we perceive of the Universe in which we live incarnates some part of the World-Idea. The Universe is a system of geometric forms. The connection between number and form is easy to see: the multiplicity of forms makes the Universe. The harmony of all three is their divine ordering—a part of the World-Idea. The two elements become the five, the five become the seven, the seven become the twelve. And so the Universe grows up. There is a mathematical order in the cosmos, a divine intelligence behind life, an Idea for human, animal, plant, and mineral existences. We see the entire cosmos is ruled by rhythm; its operation are cyclic: consequently this must be expressed through number and order. Both mathematics and metaphysics deal with abstract concepts. Neither a point nor a line is more than an idea; the points and lines we see are different from the mathematical definitions of them. Pythagoras gave a prominent place to mathematics in his philosophy and claimed that the Universe was built on Number. The geometrical orderliness of the World-Idea gives us assurance, restores meaning the external Universe, and extracts the hope that the anguish of these decades will be amply compensated. #RandolphHarris 19 of 26

Pythagoras pointed out that the Universe is based on number. This would mean there is a mathematical foundation to the cosmic order. The most important of the happenings was the 26,000-year cycle whereby the celestial pole moves in a complete circle around the ecliptic pole. The World-Idea must not be regarded as something inert, nor only as a pattern, but also as a force through which the World-Mind acts, and through which it moves the Universe. “Therefore, since Christ suffered in his body, arm yourselves also with the same attitude, because one who has suffered in one’s body is done with sin. As a result, one does not live the rest of one’s Earthly life for evil human desires, but rather for the will of God. The end of all things is near. Therefore be clear minded and self-controlled so that you can pray. Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins,” reports 1 Peter 4.1-2 and 7-8. If it is regarded as something dynamic and not static, the World-Idea would be more correctly understood for what it is. It is a mental wave, forever following, rather than a rigid pattern. The World-Idea is all one projection containing countless different forms and stages of itself undergoing countless changes. It is not a single static rigid thing. #RandolphHarris 20 of 26

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It is the paradox of the World-Idea that it is at once a rigid pattern and, within that pattern, a latent source of indeterminate possibilities. This seems impossible to human minds, but it would not be the soul of a divine order if it were merely mechanical. The archetypes of the World-Idea are ever-new yet basically ever-ancient. The states of development, function, consciousness, appearing as mineral, plant, and human repeat themselves without end but the detail within them is less rigid. The World-Idea contains within itself, like a seed, all the elements and all the properties of a Universe which subsequently appear. In this sense they are predestined to recur eternally even when they dissolve and vanish. The ancient Egyptian text puts it: “I become what I will.” The World-Idea is thus the pre-existing Type of all things and all beings. There is an Order in the Universe to which it has to conform. Yet it is not so rigid as the carrying out of an architectural plan. Nor like an architect-built World does it allow only for creation and maintenance; for it allows for destruction too. I call it the World-Idea. If this Universe was built, like a mansion, on a plan, its own life and the life of all things in it would be fated within iron walls. #RandolphHarris 21 of 26

If, on the contrary, its course was an extempore and spontaneous ne, with each phase freshly decided by the situation of the moment, it would be too much a matter of chance and fortuitus happenings. That would be as dreadful as the other. It would be a mistake to believe that the World-Idea is a kind of solid rigid model from which the Universe is copied and made. One the contrary, the theory in atomic physics first formulated by Heisenberg—the theory of Indeterminacy—is nearer the fact. When Plato described his theory of Ideas as referring to eternally existent Forms, but mentalism does not at all liken them to goods laid up on shelves in warehouses, it does not seem that he meant the same thing. Here they are simply the infinitude of possibilities, varieties, permutations, and combinations of elements though which the Infinite Mind can express itself in an infinite Universe without ever exhausting itself. The notion that the Universe is laid out on an architectural plan holes some truth but more error. Its truth appears in the geometrical patterns of the World-Idea, its error in the same building materials theoretically involved. For of Matter there is none. #RandolphHarris 22 of 26

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 “And now I, Moroni, proceed to give an account of those ancient inhabitants who were destroyed by the hand of the Lord upon the face of this north country. And I take mine account from the twenty and four plates which were found by the people of Limhi, which is called the Book of Ether. And as I suppose that the first part f this record, which speaks concerning the creatin of the Word, and also of Adam, and an account from that time even to the great tower, and whatsoever things transpired among the children of men until that time, is had among the Jews—therefore I do not write those things which transpired from the days of Adam until that time; but they are had upon the plates; and whoso findeth them, the same will have power that one may get the full account. However, behold, I give not the full account I give, from the tower down until they were destroyed. And on this wise do I give the account. He that wrote this record was Ether, and he was a descendent of Coriantor. Coriantor was the son of Moron. And Moron was the son of Ethem. And Ethem was the son of Ahah. And Ahah was the son of Seth. And Seth was the son of Shiblon. And Shiblon was the son of Com. And Com was the son of Coriantum. #RandolphHarris 23 of 26

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“And Coriantum was the son of Amnigaddah. And Amnigaddah was the son of Aaron. And Aaron was a descendent of Heth, who was the son of Hearthom. And Hearthom was the son of Lib. And Lib was the son of Kish. And Kish was the son of Corom. And Corom was the son of Levi. And Levi was the Son of Kim. And Kim was the son of Morianton. And Morianton was a descendant of Riplaskish. And Riplaskish was the son of Shez. And Shez was the son of Heth. And Heth was the son of Com. And Com was the son of Coriantum. And Coriantum was the son of Emer. And Emer was the son of Omer. And Omer was the son of Shule. And Shule was the son of Kib. And Kid was the son of Orihah, who was the son of Jared; which Jared came forth with his brother and their families, with some others and their families, from the great tower, at the time the Lord confounded the language of the people, and swore in his wrath that they should be scattered upon all the face of the Earth; and according to the word of the Lord the people were scattered. And the brother of Jared being a large and might man, and a man highly favoured of the Lord, Jared, his brother, said unto him: Cry unto the Lord, that he will not confound us that we may not understand our words. #RandolphHarris 24 of 26

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“And it came to pass that the brother of Jared did cry unto the Lord, and the Lord had compassion upon Jared; therefore he did not confound the language of Jared; and Jared and his brothers were not confounded. Then Jared said unto his bother: Cry again unto the Lord, and it may be that he will turn away his anger from them who are our friends, that he confound not their language. And it came to pass that the brother of Jared did cry unto the Lord, and the Lord had compassion upon their friends and their families also, that they were not confounded. And it came to pass that Jared spake again unto his brother, saying: Go and inquire of the Lord whether he will drive us out of the land, cry unto him whither we shall go. And who knoweth but the Lord will carry us forth into a land which is choice above all the Earth? And if it so be, let us be faithful unto the Lord, that we may receive it for our inheritance. And it came to pas that the brother of Jared did cry unto the Lord according to that which had been spoken by the mouth of Jared. And it came to pass that the Lord did hear the brother of Jared, and had compassion upon him, and said unto him: #RandolphHarris 25 of 26

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“Go to and gather together thy flocks, both male and female, of every kind; and also of the seed of the Earth of every kind; and thy families; and also thy friends and their families, and the friends of Jared and their families. And when thou hast done this thou shalt go at the head of them down into the valley which is northward. And there will I meet thee, and I will go before thee into a land which is choice above all the lands of the Earth. And there will I bless thee and thy seed, and raise up unto me of thy seed, and of the seed of thy brother, and they who shall go with thee, a great nation. And there shall be none greater than the nation which I will raise up into me of thy seed, upon all the face of the Earth. And thus I will do unto thee because this long time ye have cried unto me,” reports Ether 1.1-43. Lamp of the night, guide my way. Shine from above me, a light in the darkness. As is Thy name, O God, so is Thy praise unto the ends of the Earth; Thy right hand is full of righteousness. Let Mount Zion be glad, let the cities of Judah rejoice, because of Thy judgments. Walk about Zion, and go around about her; count her towers. Mark well her ramparts, traverse her palaces, that you may tell it unto a later generation. For such is God, our God, forever. He will guide us eternally. #RandolphHarris 26 of 26

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Then Living Earth, with Labouring Thought Won from the Gaze of Many Centuries!

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Many great things indeed have been achieved by those who choose not to leap into the mainstream. Although the World is very full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it. I do not see myself as a preacher on television at all….I see myself as a doctor in an emergency ward, and those people who are flipping their dials are in pain and dying….I heal through offering what American needs on TV—a philosophy of self-esteem that will make us great once more. The more I see her, the more convinced I am that she is an isolated person. This a man ought never to be, not even a young man, because, since his development depends essentially upon reflection, he must have contact with others. Therefore, a young woman should not be interesting either, for the interesting always involves a reflecting on oneself, just as for the same reason the interesting in art always includes an impression of the artist. A young woman who wants to be pleased by being interesting will, if anything, please herself. From the esthetic side, this is the objection to all kinds of coquetry. It is quite different with what is inappropriately called coquetry, which is nature’s own gesture—for example, feminine modesty, which is always the most beautiful coquetry. #RandolphHarris 1 of 26

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An interesting young lady may very well be successful in pleasing, but just as she herself has surrendered her womanliness, so also the men whom she pleases are usually just as unmasculine. Such a young lady first becomes interesting in her relation with men. The woman is usually the more delicate of the two genders, and yet it is much more important for her to stand alone in her youth than for the man; she must be sufficient unto herself, but that by which and in which she is sufficient unto herself is an illusion; it is this dowry with which nature has endowed her like a king’s daughter. However, it is precisely this resting in illusion that isolates her. I have often pondered why it is that there is nothing more corrupting for a young lady than associating a great deal with other young women. Obviously the reason is that this association is neither one thing nor another; it unsettles the illusion but does not clarify it. The woman’s fundamental qualification is to be company for the man, but through association with her own gender she is lead to reflection upon it, which makes her a society lady instead of company. The language itself is very suggestive in this respect; the man is called “master,” but the woman is not called “maidservant” or anything like that—no, a definition of essence is used: she is company, not companymaid. #RandolphHarris 2 of 26

If I were to imagine an ideal young lady, she would always stand alone in the World and thereby be assigned to herself, but mainly she would not have friends among the young ladies. It is certainly true that the Graces were three, but it certainly never occurred to anyone to think of them as talking together; in their silent trinity they form a beautiful feminine unity. In this respect, I could almost be tempted to recommend the virgins’ bower (any of several usually small-flowered and climbing clematises, which is a leather flower within the buttercup family) again, if this constraint were not in turn damaging in its effects. It is always best that a young lady be allowed her freedom, but that the opportunity not be provided. She thereby becomes beautiful and is rescued from becoming interest. To give a virgin’s veil or a bridal veil to a young lady who spends much time in the company of other young women is futile, but one who has sufficient esthetic sensitivity will always find that an innocent young lady in the deeper and best sense of the word is brought to him veiled, even if it is not the custom to use a bridal veil. #RandolphHarris 3 of 26

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She has been brought up strictly; I honour her parents in their homes for that; she leads a very reserved life, and in thanks I could hug her aunt for that. She has not become acquainted with Worldly delights, has not become jaded through indulgence. She is proud; she spurns what delights other you ladies, and this is as it should be. It is a falseness that I shall know how to turn my advantage. Frills and finery do not appeal to her as they do to other young women; she is somewhat polemic, but this is necessary for a young lady with her romanticism. She loves in a World of fantasy. If she fell into the wrong hands, it might bring out something very unwomanly in her precisely because there is so much womanliness in her. You may believe in miracles—like those the scripture tell about—but do you believe the Lord can work miracles in your own life? If you do your part, God can and will. A miracle is an extraordinary event caused by the power of God. miracles are an important element in the work of Jesus Christ. They include healings, restoring the dead to life, and resurrection. Faith is necessary in order for miracles to be manifested. Do you have some challenges in your life that seem overwhelming at times Would a miracle help you? How can a miracle come about? #RandolphHarris 4 of 26

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The passion of surprise and wonder, arising from miracles, being an agreeable emotion, gives a sensible tendency towards the belief of those events, from which it is derived. And this goes so far, that even those who cannot enjoy this pleasure immediately, nor can believe those miraculous events, of which they are informed, yet love to partake of the satisfaction at second-hand or by rebound, and place a pride and delight in exciting the admiration of others. “For if there be no faith among the children of humans God can do no miracle among them; wherefore, one showed not oneself until after their faith,” reports Ether 12.12. We must have faith to have miracles, specifically faith in Jesus Christ. “And ither at any time hath any wrought miracles until after their faith; wherefore they first believed in the Son of God,” reports Ether 12.18. Trust in God is vital, as is confidence that He will do what He says He will do. For example, we pay tithing with faith. He says that He will open the windows of Heaven, and we have confidence that He will. “And all nation shall call you blessed: for ye shall be a delightsome land, saith the LORD of host,” reports Malac 3.11. This is our natural way of thinking. #RandolphHarris 5 of 26

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Faith implies enough confidence to act on your belief and to conform your life to truth. The pleasure of telling a piece of news so interesting, of propagating it, and of being the first reporters of it, spreads the intelligence. Prodigies, omens, oracles, judgments, quite obscure the few natural events, that are intermingled with them. Having faith means doing our best to bring about a miracle, but it also requires having the patience to realize the Lord understands His eternal timetable better than we do. There is a memorable story related by Cardinal de Retz, which may well deserve our consideration. When that intriguing politician fled into Spain, to avoid the persecution of his enemies, he passed through Saragossa, the capitol of Arragon, where he was shown, in the cathedral, a man, who has served seven years as a door-keeper, and was well known to every body in town, that had ever paid his devotions at that church. He has been seen, for so long a time, wanting a leg; but recovered that limb by rubbing of holy oil upon the stump; and the cardinal assures us that he saw him with two legs. The use of medical science is not at odds with our prayers of faith and our reliance on priesthood blessings. #RandolphHarris 6 of 26

This miracle was vouched by all the canons of the church; and the whole company in town were appealed to for a confirmation of the fact; whom the cardinal found, by their zealous devotion, to be thorough believers of the miracle. And the cardinal cannot be suspected of any holy fraud. If we are sick, and ask the Lord to heal us, and to do all for us that is necessary to be done, according to my understanding of the Gospel of salvation, I might as well ask the Lord to cause my wheat and corn to grow, without my plowing the ground and casting in the seed. It appears consistent to me to apply every remedy that comes within the remedy that comes within the range of my knowledge, and then to ask my Father in Heaven to sanctify that application to the healing of my body. Of course we do not wait until all other methods are exhausted before we pray in faith or give priesthood blessings for healing. In emergencies, prayers and blessings come first. Most often we pursue all efforts simultaneously. This follows the scriptural teachings that we should “pray always” and that all things should be done in wisdom and order. This is one way we seek the way to transports ourselves into some new World. #RandolphHarris 7 of 26

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You have yourself heard many supernatural and marvellos relations. “Search diligently, pray always, and be believing, and all things shall work together for you good, if ye walk uprightly and remember the covenant wherewith ye have covenanted one another,” reports Doctrine and Covenants 90.24. Human’s inclination to the marvellous has full opportunity to display itself. And thus a story, which is universally exploded in the place where it was first started, shall pass for a certain at a hundred thousand miles distance, maybe even light years. It is reported that January 1600, there was total darkness over the whole Earth for eight days. It was also reported by historians who treat of England, that on the first of January 1600, Queen Elizabeth died; both before and after her death she was seen by her physicians and the whole court, as is usual with persons of her rank; that her successor was acknowledged and proclaimed by the parliament; and that, after being interred a month, she again appeared, resumed the throne, and governed England for three years: I must confess that I should be surprised at the concurrence of so many odd circumstances, but should not have the least inclination to believe so miraculous an event. #RandolphHarris 8 of 26

I believe that all of us can bear witness to these miracles. With Moroni of old, I believe in a God of miracles. Moroni wrote to the people of our dispensation, “Behold, I will show unto you a God of miracles, and it is that same God who created the Heavens and the Earth, and all things that are in them are,” reports Mormon 9.11. Moroni proclaimed that Jesus Christ did many mighty miracles, that many mighty miracles were wrought by the hands of the Apostles and that a God who is the same yesterday, today, and forever must be a God of miracles today. “And if there were miracles wrought then, why has Gd ceased to be a God of miracles and yet be an unchangeable Being? And behold, I say unto you he changeth not; if so he would cease to be God; and he ceaseth not to be God and is a God of miracles,” report Mormon 9.19. The World-Idea provides secret invisible patterns for all things that have come into existence. These are not necessarily the forms that our limited perceptions present to us but the forms that are ultimate in God’s Will. #RandolphHarris 9 of 26

The deeper thinkers among our astronomers see no beginning and no end to the Universe; it is t them a process and not a static thing. To this view a philosopher would echo assent, but in accordance with the World-Idea. Just as the wave of life prepares, enters, and leaves our human bodies, so does it prepare, enter, and leave each of the numerous Universes. The World-Idea permeates all existence, patterns all forms, and expresses itself in all evolution. When the revelation of the World-Idea came to religious mystics they could only call it “God’s Will.” When it came to the Greeks, they called it “Necessity.” The Indians called it “Karma.” When its echoes were heard by scientific thinkers, they called it “the laws of Nature.” What we call here the World-Mind’s master image is not quite different from, although not quite the same as, what Plato called the eternal idea and what Malebranche called the archetype of the Universe. Mahat, the divine ideation of the Egyptian teachings, may possibly be correlated with the World-Idea, but I have not examined the doctrine. Nor do I know whether Plato’s divine archetypes meet exactly the same definition. However, I do know that all three constitute the World as seen by the Universal Mind. #RandolphHarris 10 of 26

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Plato’s doctrine of a timeless World of archetypal ideas which are copied imperfectly in the physical one may be compared with the doctrine of the World-Idea stated elsewhere in this teaching. Jung’s archetypes, as far as I know his thought, apply to the unconscious of the human being. If you wish to call them by this name, the archetypes of the World-Idea apply universally and are not concerned with the human species alone. The Stoics pointed to Reason (Logos) as the divine spirit which orders the cosmos. Plato pointed to Mind (Nous) in the same reference. There is a universal order, a way which Nature (God) has of arranging things. This is why what we see around us as the World expressed all-pervading meaning, intelligence, and purpose. However, we catch only a mere hint of these veiled qualities—they mystery which recedes from them is immeasurably greater. The intelligence displayed by Nature is an infinite one. This fact, once recognized, forces us to concede that there is a deeper meaning and a wiser purpose in life than our puny intellects can adequately fathom. The World-Idea is secret, its activity is silent, but its effects are everywhere visible and audible to us. #RandolphHarris 11 of 26

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Immanuel Kant referred to “the hidden plan of Nature.” Thus, without benefit of any mystical revelation but with that of acutely concentrated deep thinking to guide him, he sensed the presence of the World-Idea. It is safe to assert that nearly all the activities of the cosmos are beyond ordinary human sense observations. Without the assistance of special apparatus or thinking power we are unaware of them. Just as important as these might miracles are the smaller private miracles that teach each of us to have faith in the Lord. These come as we recognize and heed the prompting of the Spirit in our lives. When we are trying to serve Him and do His will, the Lord will help us in every aspect of our lives. I believe that all of us can bear witness to these mighty and modest miracles. We know children who have prayed for their parents to get a new job and buy a home, and they have. We have seen children who pray for toys for Christmas and get them. We have seen adults who pray for a special phone call and it comes in. The World-Idea contains the pattern, intention, direction, and purpose of the cosmos in a single unified thought of the World-Mind. #RandolphHarris 12 of 26

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Human understanding is too cramped and too finite to comprehend how this miraculous simultaneity is possible. The World-Idea is the whole idea that no human mind can grasp in its time-long entirety and its spiralled cyclers. In some way that the limited mind of human cannot understand by its ordinary processes, the Universe exists in the World-Idea out of passing time and in an unbroken Now. The World-Idea manifests itself by degree but the Idea itself is a perfect whole. The World-Idea not only includes everything existent but also everything which is yet to exist. We may think of the World-Idea as a kind of computer which has been fed with all possible information and therefore contains all possible potentialities. Just as its progenitor the World-Mind is all-powerful, all-present, and all-knowing, it is also possible to think of the World-Idea as being this all-knowing, omniscient aspect of the World-Mind. What is most extraordinary about the cosmos is that although it is a coherent Whole, yet it is one that is greater than, and different from, the sum of is parts. The World-Idea forever realizing itself in the actual, a process which is ceaseless and infinite, without known beginning or known end. #RandolphHarris 13 of 26

Life is in the highest degree properly in God. In proof of which it must be considered that since a thing is said to live in so far as it operates of itself and not as moved by another, the more perfectly this power is found in anything, the more perfect is the life of that thing. In things that move and are moved, a threefold order is found. In the first place, the end moves the agent: and the principal agent is that which acts through it form, and sometimes it does so through some instrument that acts by virtue not of its own form, but of the principal agent, and does no more than execute the action. Accordingly there are things that move themselves, not in respect of any form or end naturally inherent in them, but only in respect of the executing of the movement; the form by which they act, and the end of action being alike determined for them by their nature. Of this kind are plants, which move themselves according to their inherent nature, with regard only to executing the movements of growth and decay. The World-Idea is works itself out in time, which is the form wherein the thoughts appear, and in history, which is the record of time. In the larger workings of the World-Idea we may see the rise and fall of entire culture, civilizations, religions, and even whole continental areas with their inhabitants and races. #RandolphHarris 14 of 26

The World-Mind’s World-Idea unfold with absolute regularity and perfect sequence. The World-Idea is slowly expanding itself on Earth, incarnating itself. My hope is that this rather lengthy discussion of the place of the body in our life and of how the apostle Paul understood its transformation will make very clear why spiritual formation requires the transformation of the body. The proper retaining and nurturing of the body is absolutely essential to Christlikeness. The body is not just a physical thing. As it matures, it increasingly takes on the quality of “inner” life. That is, the body increasingly becomes a major part of the hidden source from which our life immediately flows. The outcome of spiritual formation is, indeed, the transformation of the inner reality of the self in such a way that the deeds and words of Jesus become a natural expression of who we are. However, it is the nature of the human being that the inner reality of the self settles into our body, from which that inner reality then operates in practice. Formed in sin, our character and its body is set against God and God’s ways, and as we look about us, we find it pretty much on its own—at least for a while. #RandolphHarris 15 of 26

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When our heart (will, spirit) comes to new life in God, the old “programs” are still running contrary to our new heart, and for the most part they are running in our body and its parts or members. “So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous and good. Did that which is good, then, become death to me? By no means! However, in order that sin might be recognized as sin, it produced death in me through what was good, so that through the commandment sin might become utterly sinful. We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out,” report Romans 7.12-18. “For when we were controlled by the sinful nature, the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in our bodies, so that we bore fruit of death,” reports Romans 7.5. Because my identity before God has been shifted over to another life that is also now in me as God’s gift, my soul has been cleansed. #RandolphHarris 16 of 26

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While the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak, I may find myself doing the things I have. However, it really is no longer I who is doing it, but the sin still functioning as a living force in the members of my body. Nonetheless, this is only a transitional state for those who can say with David, “My soul follows hard after you,” reports Psalm 63.8. The law or force of the Spirit of life that is in Christ Jesus is now also a real presence in my body and it opens the way to liberation from the force of sin in my bodily parts. “Therefore, humans, we have an obligation—but it is not to the sinful nature, to live according to it. For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeed of the body, you will live, because those who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of God. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.” The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory,” reports Romans 8.12-17. #RandolphHarris 17 of 26

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My soul follows after God. The law or force of the Spirit life that is in Christ Jesus is now also a real presence in my body and it opens the way to liberation from the force of sin in my bodily parts. “Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin,” reports Romans 7.25. By not walking in terms of the flesh but in terms of the Spirit, we are increasingly able to do the things that Jesus did and taught. “And so he condemned sin in sinful humans, in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature,” reports Romans 8.4. We move toward the place where both the spirit is willing and the flesh is strong for God because the Spirit has now occupied it. We have presented the members of our body “as slaves to righteousness, resulting in sanctification,” reports Romans 6.19. To deny the reality of miracles on the ground that the results and manifestations must be fictitious simply because we cannot comprehend the means by which they have happened is arrogant on the face of it. #RandolphHarris 18 of 26

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Genuine miracle is the miracle worked though the power of faith, without specifically invoking the power of the priesthood. Most of us are acquainted with miracles that have occurred in our personal lives and the lives of those we love, such as miracles involving births and deaths and miraculous healings. All of these are fulfillments of the Lord’s modern promise to “show miracles, signs, and wonders, until all those who believe on my name,” reports Doctrine and Covenants 35.8. “And now, I speak also concerning those who do not believe in Christ. Behold, will ye believe in the day of your visitation—behold, when the Lord shall come, yea, even that great day when the Earth shall be rolled together as a scroll, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, yea, in that great day when ye shall be brought to stand before the Lamb of God—then will ye say that there is no God? Then will ye longer deny the Christ, or can ye behold the Lamb of God? Do ye suppose that ye shall dwell with him under a consciousness of your guilt? Do ye suppose that ye could be happy to dwell with that holy Being, when your souls are racked with a consciousness of guilt that ye have ever abused his laws? #RandolphHarris 19 of 26

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“Behold, I say unto you that ye would be more miserable to dwell with a holy and just God under a consciousness of your filthiness before him, than ye would to dwell with the damned souls in hell. For behold, when ye shall be brought to see your nakedness before God, and also the glory of God, and the holiness of Jesus Christ, it will kindle a flame of unquenchable fire upon you. O then ye unbelieving, turn od who ye unto the Lord; cry mightily unto the Father in the name of Jesus, that perhaps ye may be found spotless, pure, fair, and clean, having been purified by the blood of the Lamb, at that great and last day. And again I speak unto you who deny the revelations of God, and say that they are done away, that there are no revelations, nor prophecies, nor gifts, nor healing, nor speaking with tongues, and the interpretation of tongues; behold I say uno you, one that denieth these things knoweth not the gospel of Christ; yea, one has not read the scriptures; if so, one does not understand them. For do we not read that God is the same yesterday, today, and forever, and in him there is no variableness neither shadow of changing? And now, if ye have imagined up unto yourselves a god who doth vary, and in whom there is shadow of changing, then have ye imagined up unto yourselves a god who is not a God of miracles. #RnadolphHarris 20 of 26

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“However, behold, I will show unto you a God of miracles, even the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob; and it is that same God who created the Heavens and the Earth, and all things that in them are. Behold, he created Adam, and by Adam came the fall of man came Jesus Christ, even the Father and the Son; and because of Jesus Christ came the redemption of man. And because of the redemption of man, which came by Jesus Christ, they are brought back into the presence of the Lord; yea, this is wherein all humans are redeemed because the death of Christ bringeth to pass the resurrection, which bringeth to pass a redemption from an endless sleep, from which sleep all humans will be awakened by the power of God when the trump shall sound; and they shall come forth, both small and great, and all shall stand before his bar, being redeemed of death, which death is a temporal death. And then cometh the judgment of the Holy One upon them; and then cometh the time that he that is filthy shall be filthy still. #RandolphHarris 21 of 26

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“And one that is righteous still; one that is happy shall be happy still; one that is unhappy shall be unhappy still. And now, O all ye that have imagined up unto yourselves a god who can do no miracles, I would ask of you, have all these things passed, of which I have spoken? Has the end come yet? Behold I say unto you, Nay; and God has not ceased to be a God of miracles. Behold, are not the things that God hath wrought marvelous in our eyes? Yea, and who can comprehend the marvelous works of God? Who shall say that it was a miracle that by his word the Heaven and the Earth shall be; and by the power of his word man was created of the dust of the Earth and by the power of his word have miracles been wrought? And who shall say that Jesus Christ did not do many mighty miracles? And there were many mighty miracles wrought by the hands of the apostles. And if there were miracles wrought then, why has God ceased to be a God of miracles and yet be an unchangeable Being? And behold, I say unto you he changeth not; if so he would ceaseth not to be God, and is a God of miracles. #RandolphHarris 22 of 26

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 “And the reason why he ceaseth to do miracles among the children of men is because that they dwindle in unbelief, and depart from the right way, and know not the God in whom they should trust. Behold, I say unto you that whoso believeth in Christ, doubting nothing, whatsoever one shall ask the Father in the name of Christ it shall be granted him; and this promise is unto all, even unto the ends of the Earth. For behold, thus said Jesus Christ, the Son of God, unto his disciples who shall tarry, yea, and also to all his disciples, in the hearing of the multitude: God ye into all the World, and preach the gospel to every creature; and one that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, but one that believe not shall be damned; and these signs shall follow them that believe—in my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; they shall take up serpents, and if they drink any deadly thing it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick and they shall recover; and whosoever shall believe in my name, doubting nothing, until one will I confirm all my words, even unto the ends of the Earth. And now, behold, who can stand against the works of the Lord? #RandolphHarris 23 of 26

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“Who can deny his sayings? Who will rise up against the almighty power of the Lord? Who can deny God’s sayings? Who will rise up against the almighty power of the Lord? Who will despise the works of the Lord? Who will despise the children of Christ? Behold, all ye who are despisers of the works of the Lord, for ye shall wonder and perish. O then despise not, and wonder not, but hearken unto the words of the Lord, and ask the Father in the name of Jesus for what things so ever ye shall stand in need. Doubt not, but be believing, and being as in times of old, and come unto the Lord with all your heart, and work out your own salvation with fear and trembling before him. Be wise in the days of your probation; strip yourselves of all uncleanness; ask not, that ye may consume it on your lusts, but ask with a firmness unshaken, that ye will yield to no temptation, but that ye will serve the true and living God. See that ye are not baptized unworthily; see that ye partake not of the sacrament of Christ unworthily; but see that ye do all things in worthiness, and do it in the name of Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God; and if ye do this, and endure to the end, ye will in nowise be cast out. #RandolphHarris 24 of 26

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“Behold, I speak unto you as though I spake from the dead; for I know that ye shall have my words. Condemn me not because of mine imperfection, neither my father, because of his imperfection, neither them who have written before him; but rather give thanks unto God that he hath made manifest unto you our own imperfections, that ye may learn to be more wise than we have been. And now behold, we have written this record according to our knowledge, in the characters which are called among us the reformed Egyptian, being handed down and altered by us, according to our manner of speech. And if our plates had been sufficiently large we should have written in Hebrew; but the Hebrew hath been altered by us also; and if we could have written in Hebrew, behold, ye would have no imperfection in our record. However, the Lord knoweth the things which we have written, and also that none other people knoweth our language; and because that none other people knoweth our language, therefore one hath prepared means for the interpretation thereof. And these things are written that we may rid our garments of the blood of our brethren, who have dwindled in unbelief. #RandolphHarris 25 of 26

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“And behold, these things which we have desired concerning our brethren, yea, even their restoration to the knowledge of Christ, are according to the prayers of all the saints who have dwelt in the land. And may the Lord Jesus Christ grant that their prayers may be answered according to their faith; and may God the Father remember the covenant which he hath made with the house of Israel; and may he bless them forever, through faith on the name of Jesus Christ. Amen, reports Mormon 9.1-37. Queen of Night, your silver wheels roll silently through the darkness from sunset to sunrise on this night when you are full. I look on you in awe, and praise you. I look to you in love, and honor you. God in her palaces hath made Himself known as a tower of strength. For lo, the kinds assembled themselves, they came onward together. They saw, straightway they were amazed; they were affrighted, they hasted away. Trembling seized them there, shaking, as a woman in travail, as the east wind that breaks the ships of Tarshish. As we have heard, so have we seen in the city of the Lord of hosts, in the city of our God—God establish forever. We have meditated on Thy lovingkindness, O God, in midst of Thy Temple. #RandolphHarris 26 of 26

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In His Immortal Spirit, Been as Free as the Sky-Searching Lark, and as Elate!

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Being an entertainer, especially in times like these, is really a public service. When a great person dies, the World looks for one’s successor. One has no successor. Liberty is a power of acting or not acting, according to the determinations of the will; that is, if we choose to remain at rest, we may; if we choose to move, we also may. All humans agree liberty is essential to morality, and that no human actions, where it is wanting, are susceptibe of any moral qualities, or can be the objects either of approbation or dislike. For as actions are objects of our moral sentiment, so far only as they are indications of the internal character, passions, and affections; it is impossible that they can give rise either to praise or blame, where they process not from these principles, but are derived altogether from external violence. I pretend not to have obviated or removed all objections to this theory, with regard to necessity and liberty. I can foresee other objections, derived from topics, which have not here been treated of. It may be said, for instance, that, if voluntary actions be subjected to the same laws of necessity with the operations of matter, there is a continued chain of necessary cases, pre-ordained or pre-determined, reaching from the original cause of all, to every single volition of every creation. No contingency anywhere in the Universe; no indifference; no liberty. #RandolphHarris 1 of 26

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While we act, we are, at the same time, acted upon. The ultimate Author of all our volitions is the Creator of the World, who first bestowed motion on this immense machine, and, placed all being in particular position, whence every subsequent event, by an inevitable necessity, must result. Human actions, therefore, either can have no more turpitude at all, as proceeding from so good a cause; of if they have any turpitude, they must involve our Creator in the same guilt, while he is acknowledged to be their ultimate cause and author. For as a humans, who fired a mine, is answerable for all the consequences whether the train one employed be long or short; so wherever a continued chain of necessary causes is fixed, that Being, either finite or infinite, who produces the first, is likewise the author of all the rest, and must both bear the blame and acquire the praise, which belong to them. When we examine the consequences of any action, our clear and unalterable ideas of morality establish this rule, upon unquestionable reasons; and these reasons must still have force, when applied to the volitions and intentions of a Being, infinitely wise and powerful. #RandolphHarris 2 of 26

Ignorance or impotence may be pleased for so limited a creature as humans; but those imperfections have no place in our Creator. He foresaw, he ordained, he intended all those actions of humans, which we so rashly pronounce criminal, or that the Deity, not humans, are accountable for them. However, as either of these positions is absurd and impious; it follows, that the doctrine, from which they are deduced, cannot possibly be true, as being liable to all the same objections. An absurd consequence, if necessary, proves the original doctrine to be absurd; in the same manner as criminal actions render criminal the original cause, if the connextion between them be necessary and inevitable. The objection consists of two parts, which we shall examine separately; First, that, if human actions can be traced up, by a necessary chain, to the Deity, they can never be criminal; on account of the infinite perfection of that Being, from whom they are derived, and who can intend nothing but what is all together good and laudable. Or, secondly, if they be criminal, we must retract the attributes of perfection, which we ascribe to the Deity, and must acknowledge him to be the ultimate author of guilt and moral turpitude in all his creatures. #RandolphHarris 3 of 26

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The answer to the first objection seems obvious and convincing. There are many philosophers, who, after an exact scrutiny of all the phenomena of nature, conclude, that the WHOLE, considered as one system, is, in every period of its existence, ordered with perfect benevolence; and that the utmost possible happiness will, in the end, result to all created beings, without any mixture of positive or absolute ill and misery. Every physical ill, say they, makes an essential part of this benevolent system, and could not possibly be removed, even by the Deity himself, considered as a wise agent, without giving entrance to greater ill, or excluding greater good, which will result from it. From this theory, some philosophers, and the ancient Stoics among the rest, derived a topic of consolation under all afflictions, while they taught their pupils, that those ills, under which they laboured, were, in reality, goods to the Universe; and that to an enlarged view, which could comprehend the whole system of nature, every event became an object of joy and exultation. However, though this topic be specious and sublime, it was soon found in practice weak and ineffectual. #RandolphHarris 4 of 26

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You would surely more irritate, than appease a human, lying under the racking pains of the gout, by preaching up to one the rectitude of those general laws, which produced the malignant humours in one’s body, and led them through the proper canals, to the sinew and nerves, where they now excite such acute torments. These enlarged views may, for a moment, please the imagination of a speculative human, who is placed in ease and security; but neither can they dwell with constancy on one’s mind, even though undisturbed by the emotions of pain or passion; much less can they maintain their ground, when attacked by such powerful antagonists. The affections take a narrower and more natural survey of their object; and by an economy, more suitable to the infirmity of human minds, regard alone the beings around us, and are actuated by such events as appear good or ill to the private system. The case is the same with moral as with physical ill. It cannot reasonably be supposed, that those remote considerations, which are found of so little efficacy with regard to one, will have a more powerful influence with regard to the other. #RandolphHarris 5 of 26

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The mind of humans is so formed by nature, that, upon the appearance of certain characters, dispositions, and action, it immediately feels the sentiment of approbation or blame; nor are there any emotions more essential to its frame and constitution. The characters, which engage our approbation, are chiefly such as contribute to the peace and security of human society; as the characters, which excite blame, are chiefly such as tend to public detriment and disturbance: Whence it may reasonably be presumed, that the moral sentiments arise, either mediately or immediately, from a reflection of these opposite interest. What though philosophical meditations establish a different opinion or conjecture; that every thing is right with regard to the WHOLE, and that the qualities, which disturb society, are, in the main, as beneficial, and are as suitable to the primary intention of nature, as those which more directly promote its happiness and welfare? A human who is robbed of a considerable sum; does one find one’s vexation for the losses any wise diminished by the sublime reflections? #RandolphHarris 6 of 26

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Why then should one’s moral resentment against the crime be supposed incompatible with them? Or why should not the acknowledgement of a real distinction between vice and virtue be reconcilable to all speculative systems of philosophy, as well as that of a real distinction between person beauty and deformity? Both these distinctions are founded in the natural sentiment of the human mind: And these sentiments are not to be controller or altered by any philosophical theory or speculation whatsoever. The second objection admits not of so easy and satisfactory an answer; nor is it possible to explain distinctly, how the Deity can be the mediate cause of all the actions of humans, without being the author of sin and moral turpitude. These are mysteries, which mere natural and unassisted reason is very unfit to handle; and whatever system she embraces, she must find herself involved in inextricable difficulties, and even contradictions, at every step which she takes with regard to such subjects. To reconcile the indifferences and contingency of human actions with prescience; or to defend absolute decrees, and yet free the Deity from being the author of sin, has been found hitherto to exceed all the power of philosophy. #RandolphHarris 7 of 26

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Happy, if she be thence sensible of her temerity, when she pries into these sublime mysteries; and leaving a scene so full of obscurities and perplexities, return, with suitable modesty, to her true and proper province, the examination of common life; where she will find difficulties enough to employ her enquiries, without launching into so boundless an ocean of doubt, uncertainty, and contradiction! From the standpoint of justice as fairness there is no reason why the persons in the original position (Often referred to as the veil of ignorance, one is asked to consider which principles one would select for the basic structure of society, but one must selectas if one has no knowledge ahead of time what position one would have in that society. This choice is made from behind a veil of ignorance, which prevents one from knowing your ethnicity, social status, gender and, crucially, your individual idea of how to lead a good life. Ideally, this would force participants to select principles impartially and rationally.) would agree to the approvals of an impartial sympathetic spectator as the standard of justice. This agreement has all the drawbacks of the classical principle of utility to which it is equivalent. #RandolphHarris 8 of 26

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If, however, the parties are conceived as perfect altruists, that is, as persons who desired conform to the approvals of such a spectator, then the classical principle (the classical principle of utility, the best actions produce the greatest amount of utility for the greatest number of individuals) would, of course, be adopted. The greater net balance of happiness with which to sympathize, the more perfect altruist achieves one’s desire. Thus we arrive at the unexpected conclusion that while the average principle of utility is the ethic of a single rational individual (with no aversion to risk) who tries to maximize one’s own prospects, the classical doctrine is the ethic of perfect altruists. A surprising contrast indeed! By looking at these principles from the standpoint of the original position, we see that a different complex of ideas underlies them. Not only are they based upon contrary motivational assumptions, but the notion of taking chances has a part in one view yet none in the other. In the classical conception one chooses as if one will live through the experiences of each individual, seriatim as Lewis says, the then sum up the result. #RandolphHarris 9 of 26

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The idea of taking a chance on which person one will turn out to be does not arise. Thus even if the concept of the original position served no other purpose, it would be a useful analytic device. Although the various principles of utility may often have similar practical consequences, we can see that these conceptions derive from markedly distinction assumption. There is, however, a peculiar feature of perfect altruism that deserves mention. A perfect altruist can fulfill one’s desire only if someone else has independent, or first-order, desires. To illustrate this fact, suppose that in deciding what to do all vote to do what everyone else wants to do. Obviously nothing get settled; in fact there is nothing to decide. For a problem of justice to arise at least two persons must want to do something other than whatever everyone else wants to do. It is impossible, then, to assume that the parties are simply perfect altruists. They may have some separate interests which may conflict. Justice as fairness makes this assumption, in the form of mutual disinterest, the main motivational condition of the original position. While this may prove to be an oversimplification, one can develop a reasonably comprehensive conception of justice on this basis. #RandolphHarris 10 of 26

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Some philosophers have accepted the utilitarian principle because they believed that the idea of an impartial sympathetic spectator is the correct interpretation of impartiality. Indeed, Hume thought that it offered the only perspective from which moral judgments could be made coherent and brought into line. Now moral judgments are, or should be, impartial; but there is another way to achieve this, another point of view by reference to which our judgments of justice may be organized. Justice as fairness provides what we want. An impartial judgment, we can say, is one rendered in accordance with the principles which would be chosen in the original position. An impartial judgment, we can say, is one rendered in accordance with the principles without bias of prejudice. Instead of defining impartiality from the standpoint of a sympathetic observer who responds to the conflicting interests of others as if they were one’s own, we define impartiality from the standpoint of the litigants themselves. It is they who must choose their conception of justice once and for all in an original position of equality. They must decide by which principles their claims against one another are to be settled, and one who is to judge between humans serves as their agent. #RandolphHarris 11 of 26

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The fault of the utilitarian doctrine is that it mistakes impersonality for impartiality. If one adopted the sympathetic spectator idea, but did not character this spectator as conflating all desires into one system, the preceding remarks naturally lead one to ask what sort of theory of justice would result. Hume’s conception provides one modus operadi for benevolence, but is it the only possibility? Now love clearly has among its main elements the desire to advance the other person’s good as this person’s rational self-love would require. Very often how one is to realize this desire is clear enough. The difficulty is that the love of several persons is thrown into confusion once the claims of these persons conflict. If we reject the classical doctrine, what does the love of humankind enjoin? It is quite pointless to say that one is to judge the situation as benevolence dictates. This assumes that we are wrongly swayed by self-concern. Our problem lies elsewhere. Benevolence is at sea as long as its many loves are in opposition in the persons of its many objects. #RandolphHarris 12 of 26

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We might try out here the idea that a benevolent person is to be guided by the principles someone would choose if one knew that one is to split, so to speak, into many members of society. That is, one is to imagine that one is to divine into a plurality of persons whose life and experiences will be distinct in the usual way. Experiences and memories are to remain each person’s own; and there is to be no conflation of desires and memories into those of one person. Since a single individual is literally to become many persons, there is no question of guessing which one; once again the problem of taking chances does not arise. Now knowing this (or believing it), which conception of justice would a person chose for a society comprised of these individual? As this person would, let us suppose, love this plurality of persons as one loves oneself, perhaps the principles one would chose characterize the aims of benevolence. Leaving aside the difficulties in the idea of splitting that may arise from problems about personal identity, two things seem evident. First of all, it is still unclear what a person would decide, since the situation does not offhand provide an answer. #RandolphHarris 13 of 26

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However, secondly, the two principles of justice now seem a relatively more plausible choice than the classical principle of utility. The latter is no longer the natural preference, and this suggests that the conflation of persons into one is indeed at the root of the classical view. The reason why the situation remains obscure is that love and benevolence are second-order notions: they seek to further the good of beloved individuals that is already given. If the claims of these goods clash, benevolence is at a loss as to how to proceed, as long anyway as it treats these individuals as separate persons. These high-order sentiments do not include principles of right to adjudicate these conflicts. Therefore a love of humankind that wishes to preserve the distinction of persons, to recognize the separateness of life and experience, will use the two principles of justice to determine its aims when many goods it cherishes are in opposition. Love is guided by what individuals themselves would consent to in a fair initial situation which gives them both equal representation as moral persons. We now see why nothing would have been gained by attributing benevolence to the parties in the original position. #RandolphHarris 14 of 26

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We must, however, distinguish between the love of humankind kind and the sense of justice. The difference is not that they are guided by different principles, since both include a desire to give justice. Rather, the former is manifest by the greater intensity and pervasiveness of this desire, and in a readiness to fulfill all the natural duties in addition to that of justice, and even to go beyond their requirements. The love of humankind is more comprehensive than the sense of justice and prompts to acts of supererogation, whereas the latter does not. Thus we see that the assumption of the mutual disinterestedness of the parities does not prevent a reasonable interpretation of benevolence and of the love of humankind within the framework of justice as fairness. The fact that we start out assuming that the parties are mutually disinterested and have conflicting first-order desires still allows us to construct a comprehensive account. For once the principles of right and justice are on hand, they may be used to define the moral virtues just as in any other theory. The virtues are sentiments, that is, related families of dispositions and propensities regulated by a higher-order desire, in this case a desire to act from the corresponding moral principles. #RandolphHarris 15 of 26

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Although justice as fairness begins by taking the persons in the original position as individuals, or more accurately as continuing strands, this is no obstacle to explicating the higher-order moral sentiments that serve to bind a community of persons together. Otherwise people can spend years groping amid-semi darkness for the entrance to the path which they have missed, but justice will gladly lead them in due course. Spiritually, at the moment of dying one will WILL one’s own rebirth again and again until one’s flock are brought safely through the narrow gate which leads to the kingdom of Heaven. Therefore it is said, for such is the mysterious reality of one’s telepathic power, that the birth of the self-actualized sends forth an echoing vibration within the Universe, which acts as a call to one’s unborn chelas (disciples) to incarnate with one, and as a command to the principle of rebirth to make effectual the event. The one sacrifices oneself for the salvation of one’s chelas (disciples). There are several self-styled spiritual guides who can guide their flocks into all kinds of queer experiences, but they cannot guide them into the Kingdom of Heaven. That territory is barred to them. Consequently it is barred to those who meekly walk behind them. The reason is quite simple. #RandolphHarris 16 of 26

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Jesus explained it long ago. The lower ego with its baggage of desires is too big, while the door leading into the Kingdom is too small. In all their activities, these teachers fail to achieve a truly spiritual result because they are thinking primarily of themselves rather than of what they are supposed to be thinking. In some cases the process is an unconscious one, but in many it is not. The difference between a false teacher and a genuine one is often the difference between a dominating dictator and a quiet guide. The false teacher will seek to emasculate your will or even to enslave your mind, whereas the true teacher will endeavour to exalt you into a sense of your own self-responsibility. The teacher who demands or accepts such servility is dangerous to true growth. In the end, one will require a loyalty which should be given only to God. The true teacher will carry your soul into greater freedom and not less, into stabilizing truth and not emotional moods. The true teacher has no desire to hold anyone in pupilage, but on the contrary gladly welcomes the time when the disciple is able to stand without help from outside. However, because talk is easy and redemption is not demanded except in the distant future, these false teachers thrive for a while. #RandolphHarris 17 of 26

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Many of the false teachers are but students, yet find it hard to take the low places where humility dwells. Hence their gravity; hence the laughter of the gods at them. Could they but laugh at themselves awhile, and perhaps at their doctrines occasionally, they might regain balance, a sense of proportion—but greatest of all true Humility. They are not necessarily deliberate misleaders of others, these self-appointed saviours, but their mystical experiences have given them false impressions about themselves. Their authority is fallible and their doctrines are false. They find it easy to deliver themselves of lofty teachings, but hard to put the same teachings into practice. These gurus promise much, but in the sequel do not redeem their word. These self-styled adepts appear to be adepts in circumlocution more than in anything else. Those who openly court worship or secretly exult in it cannot possibly have entered into the true Kingdom of Heaven. For the humility it demands is aptly described by Jesus when he describes its entrance as smaller than a needle’s eye. #RandolphHarris 18 of 26

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Would-be disciples who are so eager to fill this role that they are swept straightaway into enthusiasm by the extravagant promises of would-be masters, usually lack both the desire and the competence to investigate the qualifications of such masters. Consequently they pay the penalty of their lack of discrimination. If a nation accepts and follows a wicked human as its leader, then there must be some fault in it which make this possible. And if a seeker accepts a false guide on one’s spiritual path, then there must be some false intuition, false thinking, or false standards which made this possible to. There are various ways of appraising a teacher at one’s true worth. We may watch one’s external life and notice how one conducts one’s affairs, how one talks and works, and how one behaves toward other humans. Or we may dive deep into one’s interior nature and plumb the depths of one’s mental life. The latter course presupposes some degree of psychic sensitiveness. The best way is to combine both to penetrate the unseen and to observe the visible. Do not reverence those who call themselves guru and beg for alms. Only who live by the fruits of their labours and do honest and useful work are in the way of truth. #RandolphHarris 19 of 26

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Spiritual knowledge is not to be bought and sold. Indeed it could not be. That which could be got and given in this way is only the pretense of it. It is utterly impossible for a human who has entered into communion with the World-Mind to sell one’s power for money. The very act would of itself break one’s connection with it, leaving for one’s possession only those undesirable lesser powers which come from contact with the fringes of the nether World of dark spirits. There are too many aspirants who are hoping, like Micawber in Dicken’s story, for something to turn up. In their cause it is a spiritual master who will not only take their burdens and responsibilities off their shoulders but, much more, translate them overnight into a realm of spiritual consciousness for evermore. They go on waiting and they go on hoping, but nothing turns up and no one appears. What is the reason for this frustration of their hopes? It is that they fail to work while they wait, fail to prepare themselves to be fit for such a meeting, fail to recognize that whether they have a master or not they must still work upon themselves diligently, and that they harder they work in this task or self-improvement, the more likely it is that they will find a master. #RandolphHarris 20 of 26

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They are like children who want to be carried all the way and coddled while they are being carried. They are waiting for someone to do what they ought to be doing for themselves. They are waiting to receive from outside what they could start getting straightaway by delving inside themselves. Instead of wandering about looking for Christs to come, we should be better employed wandering inward looking for Christ there, the Christ within. Such a truth is our best Saviour and the surest Avatar of our time. After he has “seen” you take the plunge and try to “feel” his presence as the next stage. Only When one has reached a point where one no longer thinks of the Master as another person but as the core of one’s inner self, can it be said that the Master’s work for one is done. When Jesus said that one who eats His flesh and drinks His blood abides in Him and He in one, Jesus meant no theatrical rite of purely ceremonial order such as is performed outwardly through the Eucharist today. He meant this inwardly achieved union here described. #RandolphHarris 21 of 26

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There are untouched forces back of self which we seldom include when we reckon up our mortal accounts. One of these is that aspect of God in man which we denominate Power. Once found it makes us feel greater than we seem. When the divine will works through our hands, we may go forth into the World and master it. Strong in the consciousness of Power, we can advance without fear, asking favour of none, yet conferring it upon all we meet. “And now I finish my record concerning the destruction of my people, the Nephites. And it came to pass that we did march forth before the Lamanites. And I, Mormon, wrote an epistle unto the king of the Lamanites, and desired of him that he would grant unto us that he would grant unto us that we might gather together our people unto the land of Cumorah, by a hill which was called Cumorah, and there we could give them battle And it came to pass that the king of the Lamanites did grant unto me the thing which I desired. And it came to pass that we did march forth to the land of Cumorah, and we did pitch our tents around the hill Cumorah; and it was in the land of many waters, rivers, and fountains; and here we had hope to gain advantage over the Lamanites. #RandolphHarris 22 of 26

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“And when three hundred and eighty and four years had passed away, we had gathered in all the remainder of our people unto the land of Cumorah. And it came to pass that when we had gathered in all our people in one to the land of Cumorah, behold I, Mormon, began to be old; and knowing it to be the last struggle of my people, and having been commanded of the Lord that I should not suffer the records which had been handed down by our fathers, which were sacred, to fall into the hands of the Lamanites, (for he Lamanites would destroy them) therefore I made this record out of the plates of Nephi, and hid up in the hill Cumorah all the records which had been entrusted to me by the hand of the Lord, save it were these few plates which I gave unto my son Moroni. And it came to pass that my people, with their wives and their children, did now behold the armies of the Lamanites marching towards them; and with that awful fear of death which fills the breast of all the wicked, did they await to receive them. And it came to pass that they came to battle against us, and every soul was filled with terror because of the greatness of their numbers. #RandolphHarris 23 of 26

“And it came to pass that my men were hewn down, yea, even my ten thousand who were with me, and I fell wounded in the midst; and they passed by me that they did not put an end to my life. And when they had gone through and hewn down all my people save it were twenty and four of us, (among whom my son Moroni) and we having survived the dead of our people, did behold on the morrow, when the Lamanites had returned unto their camps, from the top of the hill Cumorah, then ten thousand of my people who were hewn down, being led in the front by me. And we also beheld the ten thousand of my people who were led by my son Moroni. And behold, the ten thousand of Gidgiddonah had fallen, and he also in the midst. And Lamah had fallen with his ten thousand; and Limhah had fallen with his tend thousand; and Jeneum had fallen with his ten thousand; and Cumenihah, and Moronihah, and Antinum, and Shiblom, and Shem, and Josh, had fallen with their ten thousand each. And it came to pass that there were tend more who did fall by the sword, with their ten thousand each; yea, even all my people, save it were those who with me, and also a few who had escaped into the south countries, and a few who had deserted over unto the Lamanites, had fallen. #RandolphHarris 24 of 26

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“And their flesh, and bones, and blood lay upon the face of the Earth, being left by the hands of those who slew them to molder upon the land, and to crumble and to return to their mother Earth, And my soul was rent with anguish, because of the slain of my people, and I cried: O ye fair ones, how could ye have departed from the ways of the Lord! O ye fair ones, how could ye have rejected that Jesus, who stood with open arms to receive you! Behold, if ye had not done this, ye would have fallen. However, behold, ye are fallen, and I mourn your loss. O ye fair sons and daughters, ye fathers and mothers, ye husbands and wives, ye fair ones, how is it that ye could have fallen! However, behold, ye are gone, and my sorrows cannot bring your return. And the day soon cometh that your mortal must put on immortality, and these bodies which are now moldering in corruption must soon become incorruptible bodies; and then ye must stand before the judgment-seat of Christ, to be judged according to your works; and if it so be that ye are righteous, then are ye blessed with your fathers who have gone before you. O that ye had repented before this great destruction had come upon you. #RandolphHarris 25 of 26

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“However, behold, ye are gone, and the Father, yea, the Eternal Father of Heaven, knoweth your state; and he doeth with you according to his justice and mercy,” reports Mormon 6.1-22. Out of the bright sky as the Sun goes down, appears the Father who rules the darkness. I pray to him, my eyes facing west at the end of the day, and the beginning of the month. You will not be here with us long; you dance quickly toward the horizon. While you are still with us, though, I will look on you with love. Hope in the west, prophet of return from darkness: you show us it is possible to go from age into the shadowland and emerge, new yet the same. When I am surrounded by the shadows, come to me and remind me of this night’s lesson I pray to you, who wear the silver crescent, not to let me forget. Unto Israel and unto our scholars, unto their disciples and pupils, and unto all who engaged in the study of the Scriptures, here and everywhere, unto them and unto you, may there be abundant peace, grace, lovingkindness, mercy, long life, sustenance and salvation from their Father in Heaven; and say ye, Amen. May there be abundant peace from Heaven, and a happy life for us, and for all Israel; and say ye, Amen. May He who establisheth peace in the Heavens, in His mercy, grant peace unto us and unto all America; and say ye, Amen. #RandolphHarris 26 of 26

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Winchester Mystery House

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Sarah Winchester kept building over 38 years. Supernatural guidance or something to keep her occupied – what do you think?

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I Might Lose Myself in Bottomless Abysses of Ignorance—Cleanse the Horrible Darknesses of Our Mind!

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The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved…the ones who…are passionate, compassionate, enthusiastic. In order to seize hold of the fantasies, I frequently imagined a steep descent. I even made several attempts to get to the very bottom. The very first time I reached, as it were, a depth of about a thousand feet; the next time I found myself at the edge of a cosmic abyss. It was like a voyage to the mon, or a descent into empty space. First came the image of a crater, and I had the feeling that I was in the land of the dead. The atmosphere was that of the other World. Near the steep slope of a rock I caught sight of two figures, an old mand with a white beard and a beautiful young lady. I summoned up my courage and approached them as though they were real people, and listened attentively to what they told me. The old man explained that he was Elijah, and that gave me a shock. However, the young lady staggered me even more, for she called herself Salome! She was blind. What a strange couple: Salome and Elijah. However, Elijah assured me that he and Salome had belonged together from all eternity, which completely astounded me. They have a black serpent living with them which displayed an unmistakable fondness for me. #RandolphHarris 1 of 27

I stuck close to Elijah because he seemed to be the most reasonable of the three, and to have a clear intelligence. Of Salome I was distinctly suspicious. Elijah and I had a long conversation which, however, I did not understand. Naturally I tried to find a plausible explanation for the appearance of Biblical figures in my fantasy by reminding myself that my father had been a clergyman. However, that really explained nothing at all. For what did the old man signify? What did Salome signify? Why were they together? Only man years later, when I knew a great deal more then I knew then, did the connection between the old man and the young lady appear perfectly natural to me. In such dream wanderings one frequently encounters an old man who is accompanied by a young girl, and examples of such couples are to be found in many mythic tales. Thus, according to Gnostic tradition, Simon Magus went about with a young lady whom he had picked up in a brothel. Her name was Helen, and she was regarded as the reincarnation of the Trojan Helen. Klingsor and Kundry, Lao-tzu and the dancing girl, likewise belong to this category. I have mentioned that there was a third figure in my fantasy besides Elijah and Salome: the large black snake. #RandolphHarris 2 of 27

In myths the snake is frequently counterpart of the hero. There are numerous accounts of their affinity. For example, the hero has eyes like a snake, or after his death he is changed into a snake and revered as such, or the snake is his mother, et cetera. In my fantasy, therefore, the presence of the snake was an indication of a hero-myth. Salome is an anima figure. She is blind because she does not see the meaning of things. Elijah is the figure of the wise old prophet and represents the factor of intelligence and knowledge; Salome, the erotic element. One might say that the two figures are personifications of Logos and Eros. However, such a definition would be excessively intellectual. It is more meaningful to let the figures be what they were for me at the time—videlicet, events and experiences. Soon after this fantasy another figure rose out of the unconscious. He developed out of the Elijah figure. I called him Philemon. Philemon was a pagan and brought with him an Egypto-Hellenistic atmosphere with a Gnostic colouration. His figure first appeared to me in the following dream. #RandolphHarris 3 of 27

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The sky was blue, like the sea, covered not by clouds but by flat brown clods of Earth. It looked as if the clods were breaking apart and the blue water of the sea were becoming visible between them. However, the water was blue sky. Suddenly there appeared from the right a winged being sailing across the sky. I saw that it was an old man with the horns of a bull. He held a bunch of four keys, one of which he clutched as if here were about to open a lock. He had the winds of the kingfisher with it characteristic colours. Since I did not understand this dream-image, I painted it in order to impress it upon my memory. During the days when I was occupied with the painting, I found in my garden, by the lake shore, a dead kingfisher! I was thunderstruck, for kingfishers are quite rare in the vicinity of Zurich and I have never since found a dead one. The body was recently dead—at the most, two or three days—and showed no external injuries. Philemon and other figures of my fantasies brought home to me the crucial insight that there are things in the psyche which I do not produce, but which produce themselves and have their own life. Philemon represented a force which was not myself. #RandolphHarris 4 of 27

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In my fantasies I held conversations with him, and he said things which I had not consciously thought. For I observed clearly that it was he who spoke, not I. He said I treated thoughts as if I generated them myself, but in his view thoughts were like animals in the forest, or people in a room, or birds in the air, and added, “If you should see people in a room, you would not think that you had made those people, or that you were responsible for them.” It was he who taught me psychic objectivity, the reality of the psyche. Through hum the distinction was clarified between myself and the object of my thought. He confronted me in an objective manner, and I understood that there is something in me which can say things that I do not know and do not intend, things which may even be directed against me. Psychologically, Philemon represented superior insight. He was a mysterious figure to me. As if here were a living personality, at times, he seemed to me quite real. I went walking up and down the garden with him, and to me he was what the Indians called a guru. Whenever the outlines of a new personification appeared, I felt it almost as a personal defeat. It meant: “Here is something else you did not know until now!” #RandolphHarris 5 of 27

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Fear crept over me that the succession of such figures might be endless, that I might lose myself in the bottomless abysses of ignorance. My ego felt devalued—although the success I had been having in Worldly affairs might have reassured me. In my darknesses (horridas nostrae mentis purge tenebras— “cleanse the horrible darkness out of our mind” – the Aurora Consurgens* says) I could have wished for nothing better than a real, live guru, someone possessing superior knowledge and ability, who would have disentangled for me the involuntary creations of my imagination. This task was undertaken by the figure of Philemon, whom in this respect I had willy-nilly to recognize as my psychagogue. And the fact was the he conveyed to me many an illuminating idea. More than fifteen years later a highly cultivated elderly Indian visited me, a friend of Gandhi’s, and we talked about Indian education—in particular, about the relationship between guru and chela. I hesitantly asked him whether he could tell me anything about the person and character of one’s own guru, whereupon he replied in a matter-of-fact tone, “Oh yes, he was Shankaracharya.” #RandolphHarris 6 of 27

“You do not mean the commentor on the Vedas who died centuries ago?” I asked.

“Yes, I mean him,” he said, to my amazement.

“Then you are referring to a spirit?” I asked.

“Of course it was his spirit,” he agreed.

At that moment I thought of Philemon.

“There are ghostly gurus too,” he added. “Most people have living gurus. However, there are always some who have a spirit for teacher.” #RandolphHarris 7 of 27

This information was both illuminating and reassuring to me. Evidently, then, I had not plummeted right out of the human World, but had only experienced the sort of thing that could happen to others who made similar efforts. Later, Philemon became relativized by the emergence of yet another figure, whom I called Ka. In ancient Egypt the “king’s ka” was his Earthly form, the embodied soul. In my fantasy, as if out of a deep shaft, the ka-soul came from below, out of the Earth. I did a painting of him, showing him in his Earth-bound form, as a herm with base of stone and upper part of bronze. High up in the painting appears a kingfisher’s wing, and between it and the head of Ka floats a round, glowing nebula of stars. Ka’s expression has something demonic about it—one might also say, Mephistophelian. In one had he holds something like a coloured pagoda, or a reliquary, and in the other a stylus with which he was working on the reliquary. He is saying, “I am he who buries the gods in gold and gems.” Philemon had a lame foot, but was a winged spirit, where as Ka represented a kind of Earth demon or mental demon. Philemon was the spiritual aspects, or “meaning.” #RandolphHarris 8 of 27

Ka, on the other hand, was a spirit like the Anthroparion of Greek alchemy—with which at the time I was still unfamiliar. [The Anthroparion is a tiny man, a kind of homunculus. He is found, for example, in the visions of Zosimos of Panopolis, an important alchemist of the third century. To the group which includes the Anthroparion belong the gnomes, the Dactyls of classical antiquity, and the homunculi of the alchemists. As the spirit of quicksilver, the alchemical Mercurius was also an Anthroparion.] Ka was he who made everything real, but who also obscured the halcyon spirit, Meaning, or replaced it by beauty, the “eternal reflection.” In time I was able to integrate both figures through the study of alchemy. The archetype of the wise old man, also called the “Mana-personality,” tend to be projected upon human beings who set themselves up as leaders, secular or spiritual. This may have disastrous results, as when religious sects or political movements are led by charlatans or madmen. Alternatively, the subject may identify oneself with the archetype, believing that one oneself has superior wisdom. Analysts and priests, as well as politicians, sometimes succumb to this danger, referred to as “inflation.” #RandolphHarris 9 of 27

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I have frequently considered, what could possibly be the reason, why all humankind, though they have ever, without hesitation, acknowledged the necessity, in their whole practice and reasoning, have yet discovered such a reluctance to acknowledge it in words, and have rather shown a propensity, in all ages, to profess the contrary opinion. The matter, I think, may be accounted for, after the following manner. If we examine the operations of body, and the production of effects from their causes, we shall find, that all our faculties can never carry us farther in our knowledge of this relation, than barely to observe, that particular objects are constantly transition, from the appearance of one to the belief of the other. However, though this conclusions concerning human ignorance be the result of the strictest scrutiny of this subject, human still entertain a strong propensity to believe, that they penetrate farther into the powers of nature, and perceive something like a necessary connexion between the cause and the effect. When again they turn their reflections towards the operations of their own minds, and feel no such connexion of the motive and the action; they are thence apt to suppose, that there is a difference between the effects, which result from material force, and those which arise from thought and intelligence. #RandolphHarris 10 of 27

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However, being once convinced, that we know nothing father of causation of any kind, than merely the constant conjunction of objects, and the consequent inference of the mind from one to another, and finding, that these two circumstances are universally allowed to have a place in voluntary actions; we may be more easily led to own the same necessity common to all causes. And though this reasoning may contradict the systems of many philosophers, in ascribing necessity to the determination of the will, we shall find, upon reflection, that they dissent from it in words only, not in their real sentiment. Necessity, according to the sense, in which it is here taken, has never yet been rejected, nor can ever, I think, be rejected by any philosopher. It may only, perhaps, be pretended, that the mind can perceive, in the operations of matter, some farther connexion between the cause and effect; and a connexion that has not place in the voluntary actions of intelligent beings. Now whether it be so or not, can only appear upon examination; and it is incumbent on these philosophers to make good their assertion, by defining or describing that necessity, and pointing it out to us in the operations of material causes. #RandolphHarris 11 of 27

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When they enter upon it by examining the faculties of the soul, the influence of the understanding, and operations of the will, it would seem, indeed, that humans begin at the wrong end of this question concerning liberty and necessity. Let them first discuss a more simple question, namely, the operations of body and of brute unintelligent matter; and try whether they can there form any idea of causation and necessity, except that of a constant conjunction of objects, and subsequent inference of the mind from one to another. If these circumstances form, in reality, the whole of that necessity, which we conceive in matter, and if these circumstances be also universally acknowledged to take place in the operations of the mind, the dispute is at an end; at least, must be owned to be thenceforth merely verbal. However, as long as we will rashly suppose, that we have some farther idea of necessity and causation in the operations of external objects; at the same time, that we can find nothing farther, in the voluntary actions of the mind; there is no possibility of bringing the question to any determinate issues, while we proceed upon so erroneous a supposition. #RandolphHarris 12 of 27

The only method of undeceiving us, is, to mount up higher; to examine the narrow extent of science when applied to material causes; and to convince ourselves, that all we know of them, is, the constant conjunction and inference above mentioned. We may, perhaps, find, that it is with difficulty we are induced to fix such narrow limits to human understanding: But we can afterwards find no difficulty when we come to apply this doctrine to the actions of the will. For as it is evident, that these have a regular conjunction with motives and circumstances and character, and as we always draw inferences from one to the other, we must be obliged to acknowledge in words, that necessity, which we have already avowed, in every deliberation of our lives, and in every step of our conduct and behaviour. The prevalence of the doctrine of liberty may be accounted for, from another cause, namely, a false sensation or seeming experience which we have, or may have, of liberty or indifference, in may of our actions. The necessity of any action, whether of matter or of mind, is not, properly speaking, a quality in the agent, but in any thinking or intelligent being, who many consider the action. #RandolphHarris 13 of 27

And it consists chiefly in the determination of one’s thoughts to infer the existence of that action from some preceding objects; as liberty, when opposed to necessity, is nothing but the want of that determination, and a certain looseness or indifference, which we feel, in passing, or not passing, from the idea of one object to that of any succeeding one. Now we may observe, that, though, in reflecting on human actions, we seldom feel such a looseness or indifference, but are commonly able to infer them with considerable certainty from their motives, and from the dispositions of the agent; yet if frequently happens, that, in performing the actions themselves, we are sensible of something like it: And as all resembling objects are readily taken for each other, this has been employed as a demonstrative and even intuitive proof of human liberty. We feel, that our actions are subject to our will, on most occasions; and imagine we feel, that the will itself is subject to nothing, because, when by a denial of it we are provoked to try, we feel, that it moves easily every way, and produces an image of itself (or a Velleity, as it is called in the schools) even n that side, on which it did not settle. #RandolphHarris 14 of 27

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This image, of faint motion, we persuade ourselves, could, at that time, have been completed into the things itself; because, should that be denied, we find, upon a second trial, that, at present, it can. We consider not, that the fantastical desire of showing liberty, is here the motive of our actions. And it seems certain, that, however we may imagine we feel a liberty within ourselves, a spectator can commonly infer our actions from our motives and character; and even where one cannot, one concludes in general, that one might, were one perfectly acquainted with every circumstance of our situation and temper, and the most secret springs of our complexion and disposition. Now this is the very essence of necessity, according to the foregoing doctrine. However, to proceed in this reconciling project with regard to the question of liberty and necessity; the most contentious question, of metaphysics, the most contentious science; it will not require many words to prove, that all humankind have ever agreed in the doctrine of liberty as well as in that of necessity, and that the whole dispute, in this respect also, have been hitherto merely verbal. For, when applied to voluntary actions, what is meant by liberty? #RandolphHarris 15 of 27

We cannot surely mean, that actions have so little connexion with motives, inclinations, and circumstances, that one does not follow with a certain degree of uniformity from the other, and that one affords no inference by which we can conclude the existence of the other. For these are plain and acknowledged matters of fact. By liberty, then we can only mean a power of acting or not acting, according to the determinations of the will; that is, if we choose to remain at rest, we may; if we choose to move, we also may. Now this hypothetical liberty is universally allowed to belong to every one, who is not a prisoner and in chains. Here then is no subject of dispute. Whatever definition we may give of liberty, we should be careful to observe two requisite circumstances; first, that it be consistent with plain matter of fact; secondly, that it be consistent with itself. If we observe these circumstances, and render our definition intelligible, I am persuaded that all humankind will be found of one opinion with regard to it. It is universally allowed, that nothing exists without a cause of its existence, and that chance, when strictly examined, is a mere negative word, and means not any real power, which has any where, a being in nature. #RandolphHarris 16 of 27

However, it is pretended, that some causes are necessary, some not necessary. Here then is the advantage of definitions. Let any one define a cause, without comprehending, as a part of the definition, a necessary connexin with its effect; and let one show distinctly the origin of the idea, expressed by the definition; and I shall readily give up the whole controversy. However, if the foregoing explication f the matter be received, this must be absolutely impracticable. Had not objects regular conjunction with each other, we should never have entertained any notion of cause and effect; and this regular conjunction produces that inference of the understanding, which is the only connexion, that we can have any comprehension of. Whoever attempts a definition of cause, exclusive of these circumstances, will be obliged, either to employ unintelligible terms, or such as are synonymous to the term, which one endeavours to define. Thus, if a cause be defined, that which produces any thing; it is easy to observe, that producing is synonymous to causing. In like manner, if a cause be defined, that by which anything exists; this is liable to the same objection. For what is meant by these words by which? #RandolphHarris 17 of 27

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Had it been said that a cause is that after which anything constantly exists; we should have understood the terms. For this is, indeed, all we know of the matter. And this constancy forms the very essence of necessity, nor have we any other idea of it. And if the definition above mentioned by admitted; liberty, when opposed to necessity, not to constraint, is the same thing with chance; which is universally allowed to have no existence. “And it came to pass that the thirty and fourth year passed away, and also the thirty and fifth, and behold the disciples of Jesus had formed a church of Christ in all the lands round about. And as many as did come unto them, and did truly repent of their sins, were baptized in the name of Jesus; and they did also receive the Holy Ghost. And it came to pass in the thirty and sixth year, the people were all converted unto the Lord, upon all the face of the land, both Nephites and Lamanites, and there were no contentions and disputations among them, and every human did deal justly one with another. And they had all things common among them; therefore there were not rich and poor, bond and free, but they were all made free, and partakers of the heavenly gift. And it came to pass that the thirty and seventh year passed away also, and there still continued to be peace in the land. #RandolphHarris 18 of 27

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“And there were great and marvelous works wrought by the disciples of Jesus, insomuch that they did heal the sick, and raise the dead, and cause the lame to walk, and the blind to receive their sight, and the deaf to hear; and all manner of miracles did they work among the children of men; and in nothing did they work miracles save it were in the name of Jesus. And thus did the thirty and eighth year pass away, and also the thirty and ninth, and forty and first, and the forty and second, yea, even until forty and nine years had passed away, and also the fifty and first, and the fifty and second; year, and even until fifty and nine year has passed away. And the Lord did prosper them exceedingly in the land; yea, insomuch that they did build cities again where there had been cities burned. Yea, even that great city of Zarahemla did they cause to be built again. However, there were many cities which had been sunk, and waters came up in the stead thereof; therefore these cities could not be renewed. And now, behold, it came to pass that the people of Nephi did wax strong, and did multiply exceedingly fast, and become an exceedingly fair and delightsome people. And they were married, and given in marriage, and were blessed according to the multitude of the promises which the Lord had made unto them. #RandolphHarris 19 of 27

“And they did not walk any more after the performances and ordinances of the law of Moses; but they did walk after the commandments which they had received from their Lord and their God, continuing in fasting and prayer, and in meeting together oft both to pray and to hear the word of the Lord. And it came to pass that there was no contention among all the people, in all the land; but there were mighty miracles wrought among the disciples of Jesus. And it came to pass that the seventy and first year passed away, and also the seventy and second year, yea, and in fine, till the seventy and ninth year had passes away; yea, even an hundred years had passed away, and the disciples of Jesus, whom he had chosen, had all gone to the paradise of God, save it were the three who should tarry; and there were other disciples ordained in their stead; and also many of that generation had passed away. And it came to pass that there was no contention in the land, because of the love of God which did dwell in the hearts of the people. And there were no envyings, nor strifes, nor tumults, nor whoredoms, nor lyings, nor murders, nor any manner of lasciviousness; and surely there could not be a happier people among al the people who has been created by the hand of God. #RandolphHarris 20 of 27

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“There were no robbers, nor murderers, neither were there Lamanites, nor any manner of -ites; but there were in one, the children of Christ, and heirs to the kingdom of God. And how blessed were they! For the Lord did bless them in all their doings; yea, even they were blessed and prospered until an hundred and ten years had passed away; and the first generation from Christ had passes away, and there was no contention in all the land. And it came to pass that Nephi, he that kept this last record, (and he kept it upon the plates of Nephi) died, and his son Amon kept it in his stead; and he kept it upon the plates of Nephi also. And he kept it eighty and four years, and there was still peace in the land, save it were a small part of the people who had revolted from the church and taken upon them the name of Lamanites; therefore there began to be Lamanites again in the land. And it came to pass that Amos died also, (and it was an hundred and ninety and four years from the coming of Christ) and his son Amos kept the record in his stead; and he also kept it upon the plates of Nephi; and it was also written in he book of Nephi, which is this book. And it came to pass that two hundred years had passed away; and the second generation had all passed away save it were a few. #RandolphHarris 21 of 27

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“And now I, Mormon, would that ye should know that the people had multiplied, insomuch that they were spread upon all the face of the land, and that they had become exceedingly rich, because of their prosperity in Christ. And now, in this two hundred and first year there began to be among them those who were lifted up in pride, such as the wearing of costly apparel, and all manner of fine pearls, and of the fine things of the World. And from that time forth they did have their goods and their substance no more common among them. And they began to be divided into classes; and they began to build up churches unto themselves to get gain, and began to deny the true church of Christ. And it came to pass that when two hundred and ten years had passes away there were many churches in the land; yea, there were many churches which professed to know the Christ, and yet they did deny the more parts of his gospel, insomuch that they did receive all manner of wickedness, and did administer that which was sacred unto him to whim it had been forbidden because of unworthiness. And this church did multiply exceedingly because of iniquity, and because of the power of Satan who did get hold upon their hearts. #RandolphHarris 22 of 27

“And again, there was another church of Christ, because of their humility and their belief in Christ; and they did despise them because of the many miracles which were wrought among them. Therefore they did exercise power and authority over the disciples of Jesus who did tarry with them, and they did cast them into prison; but by the power of the word of God, which was in them, the prisoners were rent in twain, and they went forth doing mighty miracles among them. Nevertheless, and notwithstanding all these miracles, the people did harden their hearts, and did seek to kill them, even as the Jews at Jerusalem sought to kill Jesus, according to his word. And they did cast them into furnaces of fire, and they came forth receiving no harm. And they also cast them into dens of wild beasts, and they did play with the wild beasts even as a child with a lamb; and they did come forth from among them, receiving no harm. Nevertheless, the people did harden their hearts, for they were led by many priests and false prophets to build up many churches, and to do all manners of iniquity. And they did smite upon the people of Jesus; but the people of Jesus did not smite again. And they thus did dwindle in unbelief and wickedness from year to year, even until two hundred and thirty years had passed away. #RandolphHarris 23 of 27

“And now it came to pass in this year, yea, in the two hundred and thirty and first year, there was a great division among the people. And it came to pass that in this year there arose a people who were called the Nephites, and they were true believers in Christ; and among them there were those who were called by the Lamanites—Jacobites, and Josephites, and Zoramites; therefore the true believers in Christ, and the true worshipers of Christ, (among whom were the three disciples of Jesus who should tarry) were called Nephites, and Jacobites, and Josephites, and Zoramites. And it came to pass that they who rejected the gospel were called Lamanites, and Lemuelites, and Ishmaelites; and they did not dwindle in unbelief, but they did willfully rebel against the gospel of Christ; and they did teach their children that they should not believe, even as their fathers, from the beginning, did dwindle. And it was because of the wickedness and abomination of their fathers, even as it was in the beginning. And they were taught to hate the children of God, even as the Lamanites were taught to hate the children of Nephi from the beginning. #RandolphHarris 24 of 27

“And it came to pass that two hundred and forty and four years had passed away, and thus were the affairs of the people. And the more wicked part of the people did wax strong, and became exceedingly more numerous than were the people of God. And they did still continue to build up churches unto themselves, and adorn them with all manner of precious things. And thus did two hundred and fifty years pass away, and also two hundred and sixty years. And it came to pass that the wicked part of the people began again to build up the secret oaths and combinations of Gadianton. And also the people who were called the people of Nephi began to be proud in their hearts, because of their exceeding riches, and become vain like unto their brethren, the Lamanites. And from this time the disciples began to sorrow for the sins of the World. And it came to pass that when three hundred years had passes away, both the people of Nephi and the Lamanites had become exceedingly wicked one like unto another. And it came to pass that the robbers of Gadinaton did spread over all the face of the land; and there were none that were righteous save it were the disciples of Jesus. And gold and silver did they lay up in store in abundance, and did traffic in all manner of traffic. #RandolphHarris 25 of 27

“And it came to pass that after three hundred and five years had passed away, (and the people did still remain in wickedness) Amos died; and his brother, Ammaron, did keep the record in his stead. And it came to pass that when three hundred and twenty years had passed away, Ammaron, being constrained by the Holy Ghost, did hide up the records which were sacred—yea, even all the sacred records which had been handed down from generation to generation, which were sacred—even until the three hundred and twentieth year from the coming of Christ. And he did hide them up unto the Lord, that they might come again unto the remnant of the house of Jacob, according to the prophecies and the promises of the Lord. And thus is the end of the record of Ammaron,” reports 4 Nephi 1.1-49. Night is called the first of all things because of the common belief that the World came out of darkness. In part, this reflects the obvious truth that before something there was nothing, and that “nothing” is equated with darkness. The connection between these two is not so subtle, however. For, after all, if light (and everything else) was born out of darkness be thought of as nothing? It is a creative force in itself. #RandolphHarris 26 of 27

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Thus, among the Celts and Germans, the day began with night, and the year with Winter. To this day, our day begins in the middle of night and our year in the middle of Winter. The World rests beneath night’s blanket and I sit quietly, finally myself at rest. All day, I have been the one talking; my time for silence has arrived. Speak to me, Holy Ones, and I will listen. Here I am, waiting to hear your words. Lord of the World, the King supreme, ere aught was formed, He reigned alone. When by His will all things were wrought, then was His sovereign name made known. And when in time all things shall cease, He still shall reign in majesty. He was, He is, He shall remain all-glorious eternally. Incomparable, unique is He, no other can His Oneness share. Without beginning, without end, Dominion’s might is His to bear. He is my living God who saves, my Rock when grief or trials befall, my Banner and my Refuge strong, my bounteous Portion when I call. My soul I give unto His care, asleep, awake, for He is near, and with my soul, my body, too; God is with me, I have no fear. #RandolphHarris 27 of 27

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Winchester Mystery House

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What was once a two-story farmhouse grew over 38 straight years into a massive 160-room labyrinth style Victorian Mansion. Have you experienced the house during the holiday season?

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I Heard Echoes of Angels from the Gilded Ages Saying, “Forecast the Years, and Find in Loss a Gain to Match!”

I just want to lobby for God and have faith that everything else will turn out the way it is supposed to. You cannot have faith without results any more than you can have motion without movement. “If ye have faith ye hope for things which are not seen, which are true,” reports Alma 32.21. Faith is a principle of action and power. Whenever we work toward a worthy goal, we exercise faith. We show our hope for something that we cannot yet see. In order for faith to lead to salvation, it must be centered in the Lord Jesus Christ. When we have an assurance that Jesus Christ exists, a correct idea of His character, and a knowledge that we are striving t live accord to His will, we can exercise faith in Him. When thinking about a spirit of excellence, thinking about operations at Disneyland might further illustration this condition. Compared to other parks of amusement, Disneyland is just different. From the restaurants and shrubbery to the Indiana Jones ride, the park exudes excellence. For example, Disneyland employs one crew to do nothing but change light bulbs throughout the park year-round. The crew has a catalog listing the life expectancy of they thousands of light bulbs in the park, and they make sure to change each and every bulb at 80 percent life expectancy so no one ever sees burned-out bulb! #RandolphHarris 1 of 23

If Disney can impart this sort of spirit of excellence to its bulb changers, we Christians can afford to do no less when it comes to worshipping God. When it comes to corporate and private worship, we need to increase our expectations of excellence. And if we do, the proper cultivation of the mind will be a crucial dimension of our excellence in worship. Loving and worshiping God includes the total personality, including the min. When we struggle to read something so we can love and serve Him better, when we understand the contents of the hymns we sing, when we activate our minds and make them ready to hear before given something to which to respond in the worships service, we worship God with our minds. Without the bulb changers, Disneyland would be just another amusement park. Without an intellectual component, worship becomes a less tan total expression of adoration to a God who deserves a lot more effort tan Disney insists on at its park. “I need a sign to let me know you’re here. All of these lines are being crossed over the atmosphere. I need to know that things are gonna look up ‘cause I feel us drowning in a sea spilled from a cup. When there is no place safe and no safe place to put my head. When you feel the World shake from the words that are said, and I’m calling all angels, and I’m calling all you angels. And I won’t give up if you don’t give up. I won’t give up if you don’t give up.” #RandolphHarris 2 of 23

The lyrics above are by Train, the song is Calling All Angels. At times, and many often daily many of us fee lost, or worried due to our financial situations, medical condition, things going on in the family, at school, or at work and we are desperately seeking reassurance that God is there and will protect us. We are desperately asking for a sign that he is listening to prayers and praises. Having faith in Jesus Christ means relying completely on Him—trusting in His infinite power, intelligence, and love. It includes believing His teachings. It means believing that even though we do not understand all things, He does. Because He has experienced all our pains, afflictions, and infirmities, He knows how to help us rise above our daily difficulties. Jesus Christ has overcome the World and prepared the way for us to receive eternal life. He is always ready to help us as we remember His plea: “Look unto me in every thought; doubt not, fear not,” reports Doctrine and Covenants 6.36. Faith is much more than passive belief. We express our faith through action—by the way we live. In a way, worship is an aspect of our fellowship with a personal God. If there is an intellectual component to our fellowship with God, it should be no surprise tat there should be an intellectual dimension to our fellowship with others in the body of Christ. If this is right, then a cultivation of a developed, Christian mind should both enrich and serve as at least one goal of Christian fellowship. #RandolphHarris 3 of 23

The living spirit consists of particles in motion, and spirit permeates all modes of human behaviour. God is truly the Giver and Architect of Forms, and it may be to the angels and higher intelligences to help guide us in our building faith. At the beginning of one’s life, the understanding was not quite a blank tablet. The human soul at birth was a product of divine inspiration, not the outcome of natural laws. As the highest part of the rational soul, the understanding contained the seed of conscience from which it developed notions of good and evil, and the vestige of Adam’s perfect wisdom on which it grafted knowledge. As it matured it formed its own ideas; and though it derived information directly from the senses as well as from its own experience, its own nature is always mixing up with the nature of things. The materials that were laid up in the understanding, as a result of its own action and that of reason, were materials altered and digested from the stimuli that prompted them. The process of understanding are in part creative. Our world presents the shadows and counterfeits of an ideal World, if there such there be. Our World is but a figure plane, of princely powers. It is seen with mind alone. Either mind is nothing, or nature has wrought a World in agreement with a suprasensible World. This same just framed World does pass the World that senses see, as much as mind excels the sense in perfecter degree. #RandolphHarris 4 of 23

The more perfect World, with God, saints, angels, and stars contains that causes of each thing. The World senses my perception: from this same World doth spring and seemeth here a figure sure, and shadow of that thing. All things more sound and perfect there, and all things whole appear, we have but portions of the same which are increased here. In our reason there notices, or the understanding of things ingraffted, and as it were origin of reason; so intelligence or reason is as it were certain beams of the heavenly light. The Saviour promised, “If ye will have faith in me ye shall have power to do whatsoever things is expedient in me,” reports Moroni 7.33. “Your friends, they stand around, they watch you crumble as you fall to the ground. And someday, your friends, they stand beside as you were flying. Oh, you were flying oh so high, but then some day people look at you for what they call their own. They watch you suffer. Yeah, they hear you calling home. They watch you suffer. Yeah, they hold you down.” The lyrics to the song Far Behind by Candlebox is a reflection of life. Sometimes family can become more like your friends, and friends do not always wish us well nor want the best for us. This can lead to a lot of grief. However, it is really a time for reflection and understanding. It is the time when we are called to build a better relationship with Jesus Christ. #RandolphHarris 5 of 23

This relationship is considered as a cognitive power, which as an inward sense depending upon the body, receives the sensible kinds from the common sense, and presents them to the possible understanding, which is the place of the intelligible kinds or forms. The possible understanding is not only the place of forms, but it exhibits an agency which is responsible for the understanding in action. The agency is termed the agent understanding, probably equivalent to what others call the active understanding. Its function is the illumination of forms. The relationships involved may be expressed in a proportional analogy: Possible understanding: agent understanding: potentiality: actuality:: darkness: light. Intellectual experience creates a potentiality that is made actual only through an agency that is comparable to what occurs when darkness is made light. Apprehension tells us that our ideas are real. It gives force to “is” and to other linguistic elements that connect terms. Simple apprehension is of the essence, existence, or being of things and truths without discourse, which more resembles the Divine nature. When we meet for fellowship, we should have something in mind and ought intentionally to seek to foster our mutual commitment to advancing the cause of Christ and spread of the gospel. #RandolphHarris 6 of 23

Meeting real Christians is appealing. To meet someone and have your relationship be based on God and learning about God is like finding a candle in a dark room and being able to find a way out. We must be committed to praying for each other, to entering more deeply into life in the kingdom of God, and to developing a more articulate and effective ministry of speaking the gospel in our respective spheres of influence. We need Christians who share the same vocation—businesspersons, homemakers, health care professional—to band together in groups to study and encourage each other to penetrate their professions with the gospel and a Christian Worldview. We must encourage youth and adults to “Just Say No” to drugs. The added cost of greater consumption in the United States of America is much higher overall, particularly in healthcare costs plus lost work. And also, the moral choice of not discouraging drugs and other narcotics consumption would be a difficult decision at best. If society takes the stand that it is worth discouraging people from using or overusing or abusing drugs, then some degree of legislative prohibition is called for, and some level of enforcement effort is likewise required. This may be obvious, but it emphasizes the fact that, unless societal characteristics change dramatically, the drug problem will not go away. In fact, the increased consumption of legalizing drugs like marijuana, ignores that the gains in tax revenue may be overshadowed. #RandolphHarris 7 of 23

Marijuana is a gateway drug because it puts people in contact with others who use more harsh drugs and they may be encouraged to try them. With the opioid crisis going on, we need to encourage people to abstain from drug use. Logically, legalizing marijuana would attract more consumers who previously abstained because it was a criminal activity. With greater consumption of legalized narcotics, greater addiction could lead to higher levels of robberies and other crimes by addicts seeking to pay for their consumption. There would also be more drug overdoses, traffic accidents, and this could all dramatically increase the cost of law enforcement. Also, on the health care side, the cost of additional lost work and lost lives due to addiction and drug abuse would, under most scenarios, far outweigh these tax revenues. Currently, law enforcement is able to stop 35 percent of drug trafficking. By doubling the number of law enforcement officers dealing with narcotics, that number would rise by 15 percent to being able to stop 50 percent of drug trafficking. However, if we are not going to start another “War on Drugs,” we need to make sure people can see why drug dealing is illegal and a bad idea. They need to see how addiction, consumption, and distribution of drugs impacts individuals, families, the economy, and the community. #RandolphHarris 8 of 23

What we do when we weed a field is not quite different from what we do when we pray for a good harvest. We need people to gather for weekly breakfasts or house-church meetings and commit themselves to reading serious books, to developing their understanding of theology and of the structures of thought in the culture they are seeking to reach, to mutual pursuit of life in the kingdom of God and to the spread of the gospel. To live Christianity is to allow Jesus Christ to be the Lord of every aspect of my life. There is no room for a secular/sacred separation in the life of Jesus’ followers. Secondly, discipleship is not a job, it is a vocation! Further, as a disciple of Jesus, I do not have a job, I have a vocation; and if I go to college, I go to find and become excellent in my vocation, not simply to find a job. A job is a means for supporting myself and those for whom I am responsible for. For the Christian, a vocation (from the Latin vocare, “to call”) is an overall calling from God. The general vocation of all Christians—indeed of all men and women—is the same. We are called to live as children of God, obeying His will in all things. However, obedience to God’s will must inevitably take many different forms. The wife’s mode of obedience is not the same as the nun’s; the farmer’s not the same as the priest’s. #RandolphHarris 9 of 23

 By “special vocation” we designate God’s call to a human to serve Him in a particular sphere of activity. We often neglect God’s concept of vocation in our models of discipleship. A vocation includes a job but is much, much more. It is the specific role I am to play in life, and it includes the sum total of the natural talents, spiritual gifts, and historical circumstances providentially bestowed on me by God. An important part of a believer’s vocation is one’s major in college or main form of work as a career. If we are to be integrated, holistic Christians who make an impact on the World, we need to learn how to be Christian doctors, schoolteachers, lawyers, businesspersons, and so forth. Some economists assert that, others thing being equal, to the degree that people lead morally upright lives and embody a wide range of virtues, the economy will be healthier. Certain scientists have argued that the big bang theory supports the biblical doctrines that the World had a beginning due to the creative power of a supernatural person outside the World. The church must see herself as an educational institution, and the development of the Christian mind will be at the forefront of the church’s ministry strategy of equipping the saints. After all, most practicing Christians sense deep in their hearts that they know far too little about their faith and are embarrassed about it. #RandolphHarris 10 of 23

They want to be stretched to learn something regularly and cumulatively over the years by the sermons they hear. People really want passionate and deep commitment to come through the message instead of talk that sounds like it was hurriedly put together the day before. It is important for God’s truth to be exposed through a number of different personalities, and that is more healthy. One reason we have no science of transcendent-behaviour may lie in the relationship between the individual and the social system. Humans, as we encounter then, are fundamentally estranged from much of their possible experience, and from the experience of their possibilities. They have repressed their experience of freedom and renounced their freedom t experience. In order to fit the social systems in which they exist, humans feel obliged to conceal much of their experience from others. If a human conceals too effectively, they finally become alienated from their experience. Phenomenologists are discovering that typical human experiences are fragmented, serialized, objectified, separated from action—in short, reduced from its earlier promise of richness and wholeness. Indeed, we denigrate as infantile, mentally ill, or primitive those persons who report experience in which fantasy, memory, feeling, perception, conceptualizing, and action are all integrated into a rich syncretic unity. #RandolphHarris 11 of 23

We reward the human whose experience of oneself and the World is intellectualized and schematized, like a blueprint. It is such people whom psychologists typically study. These persons who have transcendent experience are seldom studied because they seem to defy the “laws of behaviour.” Thus, the possibility arises that our psychology is only a report of the behaviour and experience of human beings who have complied with social and biological pressures (including pressure from the experimenter) and have reduced their experience of themselves and their World in order to “play it safe” and conform. If this is true, there is all the more reason for developing a psychology of transcending. If human functions typically in the “reduced” state, but has the potentiality for transcending it, then we are called upon to explore the conditions which such potentiality can be fulfilled. Actually, the study of transcendent-behaviour is a misnomer. Humans do not transcend their real being; one transcends only someone’s concept of their being—one’s own concept, or that of an investigator or a witness to one’s conduct. Humans cannot go beyond their ultimate limits. One only reveals powers beyond someone’s concept of one’s limits. #RandolphHarris 12 of 23

If modal human’s actualizing of possibilities is a feeble hint of what one might be, do, or become; and if a human might become what one (or someone) is capable of imagining one might become—then wild imaginations about human possibilities must be encouraged, both individuals and in those who function as consulting specialists. Surely it is a sad commentary on the profession of psychology that writers of science fiction, certain leaders, poets, mystics, inspired teachers of the young, all have been more productive of concepts of human possibility than psychologists. They also may know more about the ways of brining them into being than psychologists presently do. Also, in the adult and professional World, we do not take seriously enough what children say about their own feelings, and needs, their fears, their version of life as they experience it. One makes us wonder if we may not have encouraged the secretiveness (which misleads us) with which a child may hide its fears when parents in a temper threaten to leave home or kill themselves or throw the child out. A similar secretiveness may be encouraged when the child realizes that a loved person’s death must not be talked about. The feelings surrounding separation are so painful that they tend to be denied, as if the pain many of us feel when we leave a child on its own without us. #RandolphHarris 13 of 23

We do not care to put ourselves in the shoes of a child that feels unprotected an abandoned, and so we rather tend to claim that children feel less, or do not remember, or must lean, and so on. This although we know that adults have clearer time-perspectives, better self-control, more ways of compensating, and so on. We cannot bear to think what a childhood can be like. Professionals too, for a variety of reasons, may help to obscure the worries of childhood. With an “attachment figure,” usually the mother, a child’s anxiety grows in intensity, the longer the attachment figure is away. No even the TV will sooth the child. The TV is merely a compliment to the attachment figure, not a substitute. The child’s bond to the mother is built up from many experiences which come from being physically close to a person. Attachment behaviour is rewarding to both participants, and thereby their bond is rewarded and confirmed. Nevertheless, attachment behaviour is based on biological predispositions, making loneliness and lack of support as agonizing a deprivation as hunger. #RandolphHarris 14 of 23

 Yet we live in a society where people are more likely to be economically successful if they can cultivate individual enterprise, independence, and some ability to disregard their own feelings and other people’s.  They, and those who have been unsuccessful in this endeavour, may have to pay quite a price for this. Attachment behaviour leads to affection, and this happens not only in childhood but between adults. Attachment is “any form of behaviour that results in a person being in proximity to some other particular person. As long as the latter—the attachment figure—remains accessible and responsive, attachment behaviour may be more than keeping an eye on the person’s whereabouts. In other circumstances, attachment behaviour shows itself in crying, following about, clinging, and so on, likely to elicit a caring response. Attachment behaviour derives from a distinct biological motivational system (like an instinct), just as feeding does, or any other biologically rooted behaviour. Experience through learning elaborates the biologically given behaviour; the infant may learn what leads to a better maintenance of closeness, and it may learn about the circumstances in which it is best to be close to the other, and when this is less important. Attachment behaviour occurs in many species and work for the survival of the species. #RandolphHarris 15 of 23

When attachment behaviour occurs, another being will tend to respond by giving care. Especially the attachment figure will do so. Very intense emotions are involved. The formation of an attachment bond is described as falling in love, maintaining a bond as loving someone, and losing a partner as grieving over someone. The threat of loss arouses anxiety. Actual loss gives rise to sorrow. Loss also arouses anger. The unchallenged maintenance of a bond is experienced as a source of security, and the renewal of a bond as a source of joy. Attachment behaviour is not neurotic but normal. In the progression toward complete identification of our will with God’s there are distinctions to be noted. First there is surrender. When we surrender our will to God we consent to attach ourselves to His supremacy in all things. Perhaps we do so grudgingly. We recognize His supremacy to intellectually, and we concede to it in practice—though we still may not like it, and parts of us may still resist it. We may not be able to do His will, but we are willing to will it. In this condition there is still much grumbling and complaining about our life and about God. We find the Christian life so difficult because we seek for God’s blessing while we live in our own will. We should be glad to live the Christian life according to our own liking. #RandolphHarris 16 of 23

Still, this is an important move forward. The center of the self, the heart or spirit, is not willing for God to be God—even if with little hope or enthusiasm. Perhaps is it only willing to be made willing. However, it is for lack of this minimal identification with God’s will that multitudes of people are unable to understand the truth of Jesus. “If anyone chooses to do God’s will, one will find out whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own,” reports John 7.17. Such persons who do not understand the truth of Jesus are not willing to do His will, and hence God does not open their understanding, and they cannot do so. They are left to struggle in the darkness, which in fact they desire. And they will certainly reproach God for not giving them more light, though they are unwilling to act on the light they have. However, if grace and wisdom prevail in the life of the one who only surrenders to God’s will, one will move on to abandonment. Then the individual is fully surrendered. There is no longer any part of oneself that holds back from God’s will. Typically, at this point, surrender now covers all the circumstances of life, not just the truth about God and His explicit will (commandments) for human beings, given through the Bible. #RandolphHarris 17 of 23

The Sun does not ask any plant, animal, or human if it is worthy before shedding benign life-giving rays upon it. The light is given without stint to all. Why should anyone who is untied with the spiritual Sun of pure love within oneself hold its warmth back from any living creature. Why should one make distinctions and bestow it only on a chosen few? The fact is that one does not. However, the mass of humans fail to recognize what one is, seeing only one’s body, and miss the opportunity that one’s presence among them affords. “And it came to pass that he commanded them that they should write the words which the Father had given unto Malachi, which he should tell unto them. And it came to pass that after they were written he expounded them. And these are the words which he did tell unto them, saying: Thus said the Father unto Malachi—Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom ye seek shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in; behold, he shall come, saith the Lord of Hosts. However, who may abide the day of his coming, and who shall stand when he appeareth? For he is like a refiner’s fire, and like fuller’s soap. #RandolphHarris 18 of 23

“And he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness. Then shall the offering of Judah and Jerusalem be pleasant unto the Lord, as in the days of old, and as in former years. And I will come near to you to judgment; and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, and against the adulterers, and against false swearers, and against those that oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow and the fatherless, and that turn aside the stranger, and fear not me, saith the Lord of Hosts. For I am the Lord, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed. Even from the days of your father ye are gone away from mine ordinances, and have not kept them. Returned unto me and I will return unto you, saith the Lord of Hosts. However, ye say: Wherein shall we return? Will a man rob Gd? Yet ye have robbed me. However, ye say: Wherein have we robbed thee? In tithes and offerings. Ye are cursed with a curse, for ye have robbed me, even this whole nation. Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in my house; and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of Hoist, if I will not open you the windows of Heaven, and pour you out a blessing that there shall not be room enough to receive it. #RandolphHarris 19 of 23

“And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, and he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground; neither shall your vine cast her fruit before the time in the fields, saith the Lord of Hosts. And al nations shall call you blessed, for ye shall be a delightsome land, saith the Lord of Hosts. Your words have been stout against me, saith the Lord. Yet ye say: What have we spoken against thee? Ye have said: It is vain t serve God, and what doth it profit that we have kept his ordinances and that we have walked mournfully before the Lord of Hosts? And now we call the proud happy; yea, they that work wickedness are set up; yea, they that tempt God are even delivered. Then they that feared the Lord spake often one to another, and the Lord hearkened and heard; and a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the Lord, and that thought upon his name. And they shall be mine, saith the Lord of Hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels; and I will spare them as a man spareth is own son that serveth him. Then shall ye return and discern between the righteousness and the wicked, between him that serveth God and him that serveth him not,” reports 3 Nephi 24.1-18. #RandolphHarris 20 of 23

While some things happen to us may clearly not be what God would wish or has brought about, yet He does allow all—the tragic loss of a loved one, for example, or of health or opportunity, or a grievous wrong done to us by the sins of others. Otherwise such things would not happen. We therefore no longer fret over “the bad thins that happen to goo people,” though we may undergo much hardship and suffering. While God does not cause these things to happen, we now accept them as within His plan for good to those who love Him and are living in his purposes. “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose,” reports Romans 8.28. Irredeemable harm does not befall those who willingly live in the hand of Gd. What an astonishing reality! We are privileged to “kiss the rod” of affliction which strikes us, even while trembling with weakness and pain. What a crucial lesson this is for spiritual transformation! We cease to live on edge, wondering, “Will God do what I want?” Pain will not turn to bitterness or disappointment to paralysis. So forecast the years, and find loss a gain to match, and reach a hand through time to catch the far-off interest of tears. #RandolphHarris 21 of 23

However, there is still more. Beyond abandonment is contentment with the will of God: not only with His being who He is and ordaining what He has ordained in general, but with the lot that has fallen to us. At this point in the progression toward complete identification with the will of God, gratitude and joy are the steady tone of our life. We are now assured that God has done, and will always do, well by us—no matter what! Dreary, foot-dragging surrender to God looks like a far distant country. Also, at this point, duplicity looks like utter foolishness in which no sane person would be involved. Grumbling and complaining are gone. “For it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his god purpose. Do everything without complaining or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure children of God without faut in crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the Universe,” reports Philippians 2.13-16. If we learn to obey this commandment, strife and suffering will disappear—not painstakingly resisted or eliminated, but they will be simply unthought of. “Rejoice evermore” is natural and appropriate. Faith is much more than passive belief. We express our faith though action—by the way we live. #RandolphHarris 22 of 23

 The Saviour promised, “If ye will have faith in me ye shall have power to do whatsoever thing is expedient in me,” reports Moroni 7.33. Hail to you, Saviour setting in the west. As you close your day, you end your long journey. As for me, I too will soon begin my time to rest. However, first, I will one more time face you as you sit on the horizon and once more raise my hand in praise. God is just, though we do not always comprehend His ways. When death seems to overwhelm us, negating life, prayer renews our faith in the worthwhileness of life. In prayer, we manifest our desire and intention to assume the relation to the spiritual community which our parents had in their lifetime. The prayers our ancestors said for us are still guiding us through this life. As we continue the chain of tradition that binds generation to generation, we express our undying faith in God’s love and justice, and pray that He will speed the day when His kingdom shall finally be established and His peace pervade the World. Lord of the Universe, enthroned in Heaven, I pray to you at the end of the day, offering to you my day’s actions on the altar of the fiery sky. Please accept them; please take them to yourself, please purify me of my errors, blessing me in my good deeds. #RandolphHarris 23 of 23

You can feel a spirit in there forsure. It is a good feeling. Probably due to the age of the place and all the people who have passed through there. Something just speaks to your soul and feels godly.

Winchester Mystery House

What a great first weekend of our Victorian Candlelight Tour! Tour capacity is greatly reduced and tickets sell fast. The holiday ‘spirits’ are strong this year – grab your tickets while you can!

And please do not get tired of the holiday ‘spirit’ pun, because we will not! 👻

Buy Tickets Link in bio. winchestermysteryhouse.com

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Winchester Mystery House is a 160-room mansion built to appease the spirits who died at the hands of the Winchester Rifle 👻
🗝 winchestermysteryhouse.com

Cast Upward, through the Waves, a Ruby Glow!

I have called the major crisis of adolescence the identity crisis; it occurs in that period of the life cycle when each youth must forge for oneself some central perspective and direction, some working unity, out of the effective remnants of one’s childhood and the hopes of one’s anticipated adulthood. If I engage in conversation with you, in dialogue; and if you disclose your experience of yourself and of me to me in truth—then I must be letting change happen and be disclosed to us both. If I reflect upon my experience of the dialogue, I must notice that I am different from the way I was when we began the dialogue. However, if I have (as it were) pledged myself to appear before you and to myself as this kind of human and no other, then my intentional disclosures to you will be very selective. Perhaps I will lie to you, to preserve your present concept of me, or at least my concept of your concept of me. Indeed, if my pledge of sameness is made to myself, then every time my actually changed being discloses itself to me, I will become threatened and repress it. I will pretend to myself I did not have the experience of hatred, or of anxiety, or of lust. And I will believe my own pretense to myself. Then I shall not grow. #RandolphHarris 1 of 23

My concept of myself will become increasingly estranged from the ongoing change of my being. If my self-concept is too discrepant from actuality, the disclosure to me of my changed being will become more insistent. I will then have to pretend and repress much harder. If the change is too great, the experience of change will no longer me repressible. It will declare itself in my experience and perhaps in my behaviour; I may become terrified and feel I have “gone out of my mind.” Actually, I have, if by “mind” we mean “self-concept.” If still I insist on trying to appear to you as the same person I was, I may develop neurotic symptoms. Or if I am terrified enough, I may become psychotic. You can help me grow, or you can obstruct my growth. If you have a fixed idea of who I am and what my traits are, and what my possibilities of change are, then anything that comes out of me beyond your concept, you will disconfirm. In fact, you may be terrified of any surprises, any changes in my behaviour, because these changes may threaten your concept of me; my changes may, if disclosed to you, shatter your concept of me and challenge you to grow. You may be afraid to. In your fear, you may do everything in your power to get me to un-change and to reappear to you as the person you once knew. #RandolphHarris 2 of 23

However, if you suspend any preconceptions you may have of me and my being, and invite me simply to be and to disclose this being to you, you create an ambience, an area of “low pressure” where I can let my being happen and be disclosed, to you and to me simultaneously—to me from the insides, and to you who receive the outside layer of my being. If your concept of my being is one that encompasses more possibilities in my behaviour than I have myself acknowledged; if your concept of my being is more inclusive and indeed more accurate than my concept of my being, and if you let me know how you think of me; if you say, “Now I like you. Now I think you are being ingratiating. Now I think you can succeed at this, if you try”; if you tell me truly how you experience me, I can compare this with my experience of myself, and with my own self-concept. You may thus insert the thin edge of doubt into the crust of my self-concept, helping to bring about its collapse, so that I might re-form it. In fact, this is what a loving friend, or a good psychotherapist, does. #RandolphHarris 3 of 23

There is another way you can help me grow and that is through challenging me and encouraging me to attempt new projects. We actually construe and conceptualize the World and ourselves in the light of the projects we live for. It is our commitment to these which structures our Worlds. The beings in the World, including our own being, reveal different faces of themselves to us, depending upon the projects we are pursuing at the moment. The trees in the forest reveal their timber footage to the lumber merchant, the bugs in their trunks to the insect-collector, and their colours to the painter. My muscular strength or weakness reveals itself to me as I try to chop the forest down, and I form a concept of my muscular strength. I may never come to question or doubt this estimate I made. My self-concept gets frozen if my projects are frozen, and if I become too adept and skilled at fulfilling them. Suppose, when I find my existence dull and boring, I decide to try some new project—to write a book, climb a mountain, change jobs. I tell you of this, at first, faint resolve. I am afraid to try, because, as I presently think of myself, I do not believe I have the capacity to succeed. #RandolphHarris 4 of 23

If you encourage me to try and encourage me and support me when the going gets rough, so that I stick with the project with more and more singlemindedness, I discover in myself transcendent powers I never experienced before and never imagined I had. Triumphant starts with try. I do not and cannot transcend my possibilities; I do not know what these are and will not know until I stop living. I only transcend my concept of what my possibilities might be. You can help me transcend my concept of what my possibilities might be. You can help me transcend my self-concept by challenging and supporting me in new projects that I undertake. Even the decision to attempt something new results in a new experience of myself and the World, before I actually get going. If I decide to start a new book, I begin to experience friends as interferences in this project; movies and television, formerly very inviting, become dull and boring. The whole World and my experience of myself change with the change in projects. If you help me give up old projects that are no longer satisfying, delightful, or fulfilling and encourage me to dare new ones, you are helping me to grow. If I am willing, God will lead me to places I have never dreamed I could go—as lofty as my dreams might already be. #RandolphHarris 5 of 23

God’s thoughts and His ways are much higher than ours. It is a divine goal. Lofty thoughts are what makes life so attractive, and it is at the heart what makes the restored gospel so attractive and inspiring. Deep in our souls is an echo—a memory—that tells us why we came to Earth. We accepted our Father in Heaven’s plan first and foremost because we wanted to become like Him. We knew that it was a staggering goal that would never be easy to achieve. However, we simply could not be satisfied with anything less. Our souls were created to grow, and we were stirred then and now to make the journey. Teaching, learning, and living the gospel are key principles at the heart of growing toward our divine potential and becoming like our Heavenly Parents. Sometimes we call this process eternal progression. Sometimes we simply name it repentance. However, whatever we call it, it involves learning. Learning in the sense of growth and change, of insight leading to improvement, of knowing the truth, which in turn leads us closer to the God of all truth. #RandolphHarris 6 of 23

The Holy Ghost gives conviction to the earnest seeker of truth, it fosters faith, which promotes repentance and obedience to God’s commandments. These essential ingredients of conversion turn us from the ways of the World to the ways of the Lord, which brings a mighty change of heart. This kind of learning is about changing ourselves, about being different (better) because we know more of what God knows. You can help yourself grow if you will engage in aimless contemplation and prayer. All these truths God is trying to teach us each day are only so many seeds sown in rocky soil or among the thorns to be burned up or chocked out unless we take Alma’s counsel to nourish them by experimenting in the word. “But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves,” reports James 1.22. To contemplate the World before you, in its visual, auditory, olfactory, and tactual dimensions means simply to let the World present itself to you. You are not searching for anything when you contemplate. Rather, you are letting the World disclose itself to you as it is in itself. You can only do this when you suspend your work, your striving, your goals and projects. #RandolphHarris 7 of 23

When you suspend your projects in this way, you open the “doors of perception,” and let the word of God, birds, trees, other people, in fact everything disclose itself to you. All these brings always were, but you did not notice so long as you were involved in some task or mission. Such contemplation yields a different experience of the World, which must change your concepts of the World, and thus fosters growth. Maslow has described such contemplation as “B-cognition,” and has pointed out that it has dangers as well as delights. The dangers, of course, are that one might simply revel in the sheer beauty of evil rather than do something about it. However, it cannot be gainsaid that contemplation of the World in this aimless way enriches experience. So many today need to be blasted from their delusions by an understanding of the great doctrine of the Church. There is no text that will ignite one’s soul more than Hebrews 12.22-24, which describes the seven stupendous meetings which the Christian experiences in the Church: “But you have come to Mount Zion, to the Heavenly Jerusalem, the city of living God. You have come to thousands upon thousands of Angels in joyful assembly, to the church of the firstborn, whose names are written in Heaven. #RandolphHarris 8 of 23

“You have come to God, the judge of all humans, to the spirits of righteous humans made perfect, to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.” We come to the city of God—“But you have come to Mount Zion, to the Heavenly Jerusalem, the city of the living God.” Mount Zion was the location of the Jebusite stronghold which David captured and made the religious center of his kingdom by bring to it the golden Ark of God’s presence. When Solomon built the Temple and installed the Ark, Zion/Jerusalem became synonymous with the Earthly dwelling-place of God. In Christ we have come to its Heavenly counterpart, the spiritual Jerusalem from above. In one sense it is still to come, but at the same time we have already arrived there in spirit. Christians are now citizen the Heavenly City and enjoy it privileges. As the Church we meet Angels—“You have come to thousands upon thousands of Angels in joyful assembly.” Moses tells us that “myriads of holy ones” attend the giving of the Law (Deuteronomy 33.2), and from Daniel we hear that “Thousands upon thousands attended him [the Ancient of Days—God]; ten thousand times thousands stood before him,” reports Daniel 7.10. #RandolphHarris 9 of 23

David said, “The chariots of God are tens of thousands and thousands of thousands,” reports Psalm 68.17. In the Church we come to these dizzying thousands of Angels, all of whom are in joyful celebration. They are everywhere—mighty flaming spirits, “ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation,” reports Hebrews 1.14, passing in and out of our lives, moving around us and over us, just as they did to Jacob of old. Instead of gazing upon the World and letting it disclose itself to you through your eyes, ears, nose, and hands, you can pray upon your own experience of your bodily being. Perhaps close your eyes, or seek a tranquil setting with no sudden distractions. Let your experience happen without direction. Engage in free reverie. You may find yourself now recalling something of the past, now vividly imagining—in playful ways—all kinds of possibilities. You may find yourself experiencing anger for somebody, love for somebody else, you may find you have aches and pains you had not noticed before. Some of your self-experiencing may be frightening. It may help you to pray if, instead of close your eyes, you gaze with or without fixed focus at a mandala, or a flower. #RandolphHarris 10 of 23

If you gaze long enough, your experiencing my turn on fully and freely. Instead of being frozen into some one mode of experiencing—say, perceiving, or imagining, or remembering—which may be customary for you, you may find that you become “unglued” and then integrated. You experience perceptions fused with memories fused with imagination fused with conceptualizing fused with fantasy fused with emotion. This richness may truly shatter your self-concept, so that when you “pull yourself together,” you are truly a different person from the person you thought you were. As I said before, your being and mine are always in progress of change, in consequence of the way we live, the passage of time, and sheer past experience. However, living as we do mostly at a conceptual level and for definite projects—dealing, not with concrete things, but with concepts of things and people and of ourselves—we reflect quietly upon our awareness of ourselves, we suspend the concepts, and we et our being disclose itself to us. And thus we grow. As we learn the truth and chose to act on it, our testimonies grow. “If any human will do one’s will, one shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself,” reports John 7.17. #RandolphHarris 11 of 23

We come to fellow believers—to the church of the firstborn, whose names are written in Heaven. Jesus was the firstborn par excellence, and by virtue of our union with Him we are firstborn. All the rights of inheritance go to the first born—to us, “co-heirs with Christ,” reports Romans 8.17. In the Church we do more than come int each other’s presence—we share membership together. We come to God—You have come to God, the judge of all humans. We come in awe because He is the Judge—but we do not come in craven dread, because His Son has borne the judgment for us. This is our highest delight—to gather before our God! We come to the Heavenly Church Triumph—to the spirit of righteous humans made perfect. Though they are in Heaven, we share a solidarity with those who have gone before. The same spiritual life course through us as through them. We share the same secrets and joys as Abraham and Moses and David and Paul. Growing entails going out of our minds and into our raw experience. Our experience is always of the disclosure of the World and of our own embodied being. #RandolphHarris 12 of 23

When we function smoothly, habitually, and effectively in the World, our concepts are confirmed; and we do not receive new disclosure. When we meet impasses and failure in the pursuit of our projects, then our habits, concepts (a habit can be seen as the “outside” of a concept), and expectations are challenged, or upended. Failure of our projects gives us a whiff of the stink of chaos, and this can be terrifying. Our concepts get crack in them when we fail. Through these cracks, the encapsulated experience “contained” by the concept might leak or explode; or though the crack there may occur an implosion of more being. When there are no concepts, there is nothing—no-thing we can grapple with, get leverage on, in order to get on with the projects of living. There is the threat of pure chaos and situationlessness. If we experience the pure nothingness, we become panicked, and seek quickly to shore up the collapsing World, to daub clay into the cracks in our concepts. If we do this, we do not grow. If we let the concepts explode or implode and do not re-form them veridically, we appear mad, and are mad. If we re-form them, to incorporate new experience, we grow. #RandolphHarris 13 of 23

As we make the truth part of us by striving to live it consistently even in the face of challenges, it changes us and we become more like the Father of truth. Though Earthly families are far from perfect, they give God’s children the best change to be welcomed to the World with the only love on Earth that comes close to what we felt in Heaven—parental love. Families are also the best way to preserve and pass on moral virtues and true principles that are most likely to lead us back to God’s presence. One again, we must consider projects, this time in relation to integration, a vital and crucial phase of growth. When our projects are obstructed, because our concepts are out of phase with being, the concepts must explode, or become fractioned, differentiated into parts. We experience chaos. Our commitment to the old projects, or recommitment to new projects, serves as the field of force which organizes the fractionated experience of being into meaningful wholes, concepts, gestalten. Growth is our experience of our concepts and perfect being detotalized and then retotalized into newly meaningful unities. We have come to Jesus—to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant. #RandolphHarris 14 of 23

It is through Jesus that the promises come to us. He is the source and dispenser of all for which we hope. Jesus is in us, and we are in Him. We come to forgiveness because of sprinkled blood—and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. Abel’s warm blood cried condemnation and judgment from the ground, but Christ’s blood shouts that we are forgiven and have peace with God. Hallelujah! I know I am ready to grow when I experience surprise—a dissonance between my beliefs and concepts and expectations of the World and my perception of the World. I am also ready to grow when I experience boredom, despair, depression, anxiety, or guilt. These emotions inform me that my goals and projects have lost meaning for me; that my being has gotten too big, too out of phase with my concepts of my being. I have a choice at these moments, if indeed I can experience them. I may have become so unaccustomed to and maladapt at reflection and prayer that I simply do not notice these all-is-not-well signals. And I continue to pursue my projects and to believe my beliefs as if experience were conforming them. #RandolphHarris 15 of 23

However, if I do not acknowledge the signals, my choice is either to pray, suspend my concept and preconception of self, and let my changed being disclose itself to me, even when it hurts (it frequently does); or to decide to affirm the project of being the same (an impossible project, but one that many people try to live). If I decide to try to be the same, then I will repress my experience of change, of all-is-not-well signals. I have resolved, really, to stop perceiving myself. The invitation to suspend preconceptions and concepts, to let being disclose itself, is actually an invitation to go out of one’s mind. To be out of one’s mind can be terrifying; because when projects are suspended, and experiencing is just happening, myself and the World are experienced as infinite possibility: anything might be possible. Yet, if a person can endure this voyage within one’s own experience—one’s Odyssey within—one can emerge from it with a new concept of one’s being and with new projects; the new concept of being will include more of one’s being in it. However, this new integration will last only so long, and then the entire process must be repeated again. #RandolphHarris 16 of 23

A sentient life is an endless series of getting out of one’s mind and concepts, only to reenter and to depart again. The Scriptures tell us that in the Church “you have come” (right now!) to these seven sublime realities: to the city of God, to myriads of Angels, to fellow believers, to God, to the Church of Triumphant, to Jesus, and to forgiveness. If this does not create a wellspring of thanksgiving in your hearts and a longing for fellowship in the visible Church, nothing will! When many of us fall into despondency which may last for several says, we desperately seek a word from God to meet our need. Often times, we will find one night that the World was good to us; maybe we have had but few better; we long for the company of some of God’s people, that we may impart into them what God has shown us. Christ is a precious Christ to our souls on a night like such; we can scarce lie in our bed for joy, and peace, and triumph through Christ. Saviour, if of Zion’s city, I through grace a member am, please let the World deride or pity, I will glory in Thy name. “And it came to pass that Jesus commanded his disciples that they should bring forth some bread and wine unto him. And while they were gone for bread and wine, he commanded the multitude that they should sit themselves down upon the Earth. #RandolphHarris 17 of 23

“And when the disciples had come with bread and wine, Jesus took of the bread and brake and blessed it; and he gave unto the disciples and commanded that they should eat. And when they had eaten and were filled, he commanded that they should give unto the multitude. And when the multitude had eaten and were filled, he said unto the disciples: Behold there shall one be ordained among you, and to him will I give power that he shall break bread and bless it and give it unto the people of my church, unto all those who shall believe and be baptized in my name. And this shall ye always observe to do, even as I have done, even as I have broken bread and blessed it and given it unto you. And this shall ye do in remembrance of my body, which I have shown unto you. And it shall be a testimony unto the Father that ye do always remember me. And if ye do always remember me ye shall have my Spirit to be with you. And it came to pass that when he said these words, he commanded his disciples that they should take of the wine of the cup and drink of it, and that they should also give unto the multitude that they might drink of it. And it came to pass that they did so, and did drink of it and were filled; and they gave unto the multitude, and they did drink, and they were filled. #RandolphHarris 18 of 23

“And when the disciples had done this, Jesus said unto them: Blessed are ye for this thing which ye has done, for this is fulfilling my commandments, and this doth witness unto the Father that ye are willing to do that which I have commanded you. And this shall ye always do to those who repent and are baptized in my name; and ye shall do it in remembrance of my blood, which I have shed for you, that ye may witness unto the Father that ye do always remember me. And if ye do always remember me, ye shall have my spirit to be with you. And I give unto you a commandment that ye shall do these things. And if ye shall do these things, blessed are ye, for ye are built on my rock. However, whoso among you shall do more or less than these are not built upon my rock, but are built upon a sandy foundation; and when the rain descends, and the floods come, and the winds blow, and beat upon them, they shall fall, and the gates of hell are ready open to receive them. Therefore blessed are ye if ye shall keep my commandments, which the Father hath commanded me that I should give unto you. Verily, verily, I say unto you, ye must watch and pray always, lest ye be tempted by the devil, and ye be led away captive by him. #RandolphHarris 19 of 23

“And as I have prayed among you even so shall ye pray in my church, among my people who do repent and are baptized in my name. Behold I am the light; I have set an example for you. And it came to pass that when Jesus has spoken these words  unto his disciples, he turned again unto the multitude and said unto them: Behold, verily, verily, I say unto you, ye must watch and pray always lest ye enter into temptation; for Satan desireth to have you, that he may sift you as wheat. Therefore ye must always pray unto the Father in my name; and whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, which is right, believing that ye shall receive, behold it shall be given unto you. Pray in your families unto the Father, always in my name, that your wives and your children may be blessed. And behold, ye shall meet together oft; and ye shall not forbid any human from coming unto you when ye shall meet together, but suffer them that they may come unto you and forbid them not; but ye shall pray for them, and shall not cast them out; and if it so be that they come unto you oft ye shall pray for them unto the Father, in my name. Therefore, hold up your light that it may shine unto the World. Before I am the light which ye shall hold up—that which ye have seen me do. #RandolphHarris 20 of 23

“Behold ye see that I have prayed unto the Father, and ye all have witnessed. And ye see that I have commanded that none of you should go away, but rather have commanded that ye should come unto me, that ye might feel and see; even so shall ye do unto the World; and whosoever breaketh this commandment suffereth himself to be led into temptation. And now it came to pass that when Jesus had spoken these words, he turned his eyes again upon the disciples whom he had chosen, and said unto them: Behold verily, verily, I say unto you, I give unto you another commandment, and then I must go unto my Father that I may fulfil other commandments which he hath given me. And now behold, this is the commandment which I give unto you, that ye shall not suffer any one knowingly to partake of my flesh and blood unworthily, when ye shall minister it; for whoso eateth and drinketh my flesh and blood unworthily eateth and drinketh damnation to his soul; therefore if ye know that a human is unworthy to eat and drink of my flesh and blood ye shall forbid one. Nevertheless, ye shall not cast one out from among you, but ye shall minister unto one and shall pray for one unto the Father, in my name; and if it so be that one repenteth and is baptized in my name, then shall ye receive one, and shall minister unto one of my flesh and blood. #RandolphHarris 21 of 23

“However, if one repent no one shall not be numbered among my people, that one may not destroy my people, for behold I know my sheep, and they are numbered. Nevertheless, ye shall not cast one out of your synagogues, or your places of worship, for unto such shall ye continue to minister; for ye know not but what they will return and repent, and come unto me with full purpose of heart, and I shall heal them; and ye shall be the means of bringing salvation unto them. Therefore, keep these sayings which I have commanded you that ye come not under condemnation; for wo unto one who the Father condemneth. And I give you these commandments because of the disputations which have been among you. And blessed are ye if ye have no disputations among you. And now I go unto the Father, because it is expedient that I should go unto the Father for your sakes. And it came to pass that when Jesus had made an end of these sayings, he touched with his hand the disciples whom he had chosen, one by one, even until one had touched them all, and spake unto them as he touched them. And the multitude heard not the words which he spake, therefore they did not bear record. #RandolphHarris 22 of 23

“However, the disciples bare record that he gave them power to give the Holy Ghost. And I will show unto you hereafter that this record is true. And it came to pass that when Jesus had touched them all, there came a cloud and overshadowed the multitude that they could not see Jesus. And while they were overshadowed he departed from them, and ascended into Heaven. And the disciples saw and did bear record that he ascended again into Heaven,” 3 Nephi 19.1-39. Though you are high above, your heat still reached me, testing my endurance as I work under its glare. Please do not give me more testing than I can handle, and please do not insult me by making life a cake walk. May His great name be blessed for ever and ever. Exalted and honored 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. May the prayers and supplications of the whole house of Israel be accepted unto their Father in Heaven; and say ye, Amen. May there be abundant peace from Heaven, and life for us and all of Israel; and say ye, Amen. May He who establisheth peace in the Heavens, grant peace unto us all and unto all Israel; and say ye, Amen. #RandolphHarris 23 of 23


Winchester Mystery House

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The all new Victorian Candlelight Tour will feature some of our most chilling ghost stories told as you explore the most active parts of the Mansion, including the basement, which has been off limits for quite some time now. It is a rare chance to glimpse one of the World’s most alleged haunted mansions at night…all alone on a safe, self-guided adventure! Tour capacity is LIMITED and these dates will sell out quick – get your tickets while they are available! 🎄🔔

A 160-room mansion built to appease the spirits who died at the hands of the Winchester Rifle 👻
🗝 winchestermysteryhouse.com

Into the Light of Heaven and in their Stead a Sense of Real things to Come Doubly Strong!

They only complete love is for God. The goal is to love everyone equally, but it does not necessarily work out that way. Science is the creation of scientists, and every science advance bears somehow the mark of humans who made it. The artist exposes oneself in one’s work; the scientist seems rather to hide in one’s, but one is there. If one is to fully understand the process of science, surely the historian of science must understand the human, and if one is to understand the people who make it, one must have some comprehension of the science. The general public image of the scientist has not been and indeed is not now a flattering one, and at best it certainly is not an endearing one. Characterization of scientists almost always emphasize the objectivity of their work and describe their cold, detached, impressive unconcerned observation of phenomena which have no emotional meaning for them. This could hardly be further from the truth. The scientist as a person is a nonparticipating observer in only a very limited sense. One does not interact with what one is observing, but one does participate as a person. It is, perhaps, this fact—that the scientist does not expect, indeed does not want, the things that one is concerned with to be equally concerned with one—that has given others this impression of coldness, remoteness, and objectivity. #RandolphHarris 1 of 23

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The social scientist is in a remarkably difficult position since the object with which one is concerned are people, and both they and one may be more than a little ambivalent about this matter of interaction. However, this is a special problem which I will by-pass here, nothing only that in many ways the social scientist differs from the natural scientist in terms of personality and motivations. The truth of the matter is that the creative scientist, whatever one’s field, is very deeply involved emotionally and personally in one’s work, and that one oneself is one’s own most essential tool. We must consider both the subjectivity of science and what kinds of people are scientists. However, first we must consider the process of science. Suppose we take the scientist at the time wen one has asked a question, or has set up a hypothesis which one wants to test. One must decide what observations to make. It is simply not possible to observe everything that does on under a given set of conditions: one must choose what to observe, what measurements to make, how fine these measurements are to be, now to record them. These choices are never dictated entirely by the question or hypothesis (and anyway, that too bears one’s own particular stamp). #RandolphHarris 2 of 23

One has only to consider how differently several of one’s colleagues would go about testing the same hypothesis to see that personal choice enters here. However, this is just the beginning. Having decided what is to be observed, and having set up the techniques for observation, the scientist comes to the point of making the actual observations, and of recording these observations. All the complex apparatus of modern science is only a means of extending the range of human’s sensory and perceptual capacities, and all the information derived through such extensions must eventually be reduced to some form in which humans, with their biological limitations, can receive it. Here, too, in spite of all precautions and in spite of complete honesty, the personal factor enters in. The records of two observers will not dovetail exactly, even when they read figures from a dial. Errors may creep in, and the direction of the error is more likely than not to be associated with the observer’s interest in how the findings come out. Perhaps the clearest evidence on this point comes from research on extrasensory perception. #RandolphHarris 3 of 23

If the import of an observation is immediately apparent, a scientist who is deeply committed to a hypothesis is well advised to have a neutral observer. Often, of course, such errors are minor, but they can be important, not only to the immediate problem but to society. I have wondered to what extent the disparity in figures on radioactive fallout may reflect such factors. Very few scientists, including psychologists, who have demonstrated selective perception as a laboratory exercise, take account of the phenomenon in their own work. Once the observations are recorded, other questions are asked: When is the evidence sufficient to be conclusive, one way or the other? How important are discrepancies? What degree of generalization is permissible? Here, again, we may expect personally slanted answers. Taxonomy offers a very clear illustration of the effect of personality: One biologist may classify a given set of specimens into a few species, and another may classify them into many species. Whether the specimens are seen as representing a few or many groups depends largely on whether one looks for similarities or for differences, on whether one looks at the forest or the trees. A “lumper” may honestly find it impossible to understand how a “splitter” arrives at such an obviously incorrect solution, and vice versa. #RandolphHarris 4 of 23

Such differences cannot be resolved by appeal to the facts—there are no facts which cannot be perceived in different ways. This is not to say that the facts are necessarily distorted. The problem of the criterion exists in all science, although some scientists are more aware of it than others. The matter of personal commitment to a hypothesis is one that deserves more consideration than it usually receives. Any person who has gone through the emotional process of developing a new idea, of constructing a new hypothesis, is to some extent, and usually to a large extent, committed to that hypothesis in a very real sense. It is one’s baby. It is as much one’s creation as a painting is the personal creation of the painter. True, in the long run it stands or falls, is accepted or rejected, on its own merits, but its creator has a personal stake in it. The scientist has more at stake than the artist, for data which may support or invalidate one’s hypothesis are in the public domain in a sense in which art criticism never is. It may even be because of this that scientist customarily check their hypotheses as far as they can before they state them publicly. And, indeed, the experienced scientist continues to check, hoping that is errors are to be found, it will be one who finds them, so that one will have a chance to make revisions, or even to discard the hypothesis, should that prove necessary. #RandolphHarris 5 of 23

If, in one’s efforts at checking, one has been able to come up with another one, one finds it less difficult to discard one’s hypothesis. The extent of personal commitment to a hypothesis is a prominent factor in the historical interplay between scientists. The degree of this commitment varies in an individual with different hypotheses, and varies between individuals. One very important factor here is the scientist’s productivity. If one has many new ideas one will be less disturbed (and less defensive) if one fail to pan out. If one has very few ideas, an error is much harder to take, and there are many historical instances of errors which the author of the idea has never been able to see oneself. I think many scientists are genuinely unaware of the extent, or even the fact, of this personal involvement, and themselves accept the myth of impersonal objectivity. This is really very unfortunate. It is true that only a person who is passionately involved in one’s work is likely to make important contributions, but the committed person who knows one is committed and comes to terms with this fact has a good chance of getting beyond one’s commitment and of learning how to disassociate oneself from one’s idea when this is necessary. #RandolphHarris 6 of 23

There is little in the traditional education of scientists to prepare them for this necessity, and there are many who are still unaware of it. The extent of a scientist’s personal involvement in a theory can now be a matter of grave public concern. Scientists who become advisers on political or other policy have an extraordinarily heavy responsibility for achieving some detachment from their own theories. How many of them realize this? However, once one’s hypothesis is found acceptable, this is not the end of it. One hypothesis inevitably leads to another; answering one question makes it possible to ask other, hopefully more precise ones. And so a new hypothesis or a new theory is offered. How is this new theory arrived at? This is one expression of the creative process, and it is a completely personal process. It is personal regardless of whether one or more individuals is involved, for every advance made by a group, the person contributing at the moment has had to assimilate the contributions of others and order them in one’s own personal way. After a person has abandoned one’s previous incarnation, entered one’s experiencing, and then emerged, one experiences the World as disclosing new possibilities, new dimensions of its being for one. #RandolphHarris 7 of 23

However, I am part of this World, and I have the capacity to disclose myself to one even while one is embodies in one’s usual fixed roles and self-definitions. When I am with one, I can disclose to one how I experience one. I can enter int dialogue with one; and with each of one’s utterances or acts, I can respond out of my experience and disclose to one what it is that I am experiencing. If I remain in contact with one, consistently in dialogue, I may actually lead one to the edge of going out of one’s mind, thus clearing the way for the emergence of a new self. I ask you to consider dialogue. You say something from your being—let us employ a jazz combo to illustrate. I blow a phrase on my trumpet, and you respond with a passage on your saxophone. Your response is both a reply and a question and a challenge, and so I reply. And so it goes until one of us loses one’s nerve and dares not let spontaneous, true disclosure out. Dialogue has ended for the time. Now switch to the dialogue in psychotherapy. The patient says something to me. I reply, in honesty. My reply evokes experiencing in one, and one utters this. This evokes a reply from me. We continue in this way until one has tripped off panic in the other; at this point, in sincerity, dissemblance intrudes, and dialogue has creased. #RandolphHarris 8 of 23

One of the participants does not wish to be known, and one holds back. In dialogue at its best, the participants remain in contact and let their reciprocal disclosures affect one another. If the dialogue occurs in the context of letting be and confirmation, then the weaker of the two may indeed flip into raw experiencing, find it safe, and emerge in a more awakened state. Authentic disclosure of self is a likely factor in the promotion of awakening, of authentication and validation of the other, and the emergence of independent learning. However, authentic disclosure is rare. More common is semblance, role-playing, impersonation of the other one wishes to seem to the Other. Hence, the other person seldom truly encounters a person-in-process. One meets a pledge of consistency, a World of people who do not invite one into new possibilities. If I am in your World, and I do not grow and change, then you are in a World that obstructs and impedes your growth! In true encounter, there is a collapse of roles and self-concepts. No one emerges from an encounter the same as one entered. My willingness to disclose myself to you, to drop my mask, is a factor in your trusting me and daring then to disclose yourself to me. #RandolphHarris 9 of 23

This disclosure of yourself to me assists the process of your disengagement from your disengagement from your previous ways of being. And as I disclose myself to you, I am your World, and this World discloses new possibilities to you—it evokes new challenges and invitations that may stir and enliven your imagination. In an age in which infidelity abounds, do we observe them [parents] carefully instructing their children in the principles of faith which they profess? Or do they furnish their children with arguments for the defense of that faith? They would blush on their child’s birth to think one inadequate in any branch of knowledge or any skill pertaining to one’s station in life. One cultivates these skills with becoming diligence. However, one is left to collect one’s religion as one may. The study of Christianity has formed no part of one’s education. One’s attachment to it—where any attachment to it exists at all—is too often not the preference of sober reason and conviction. Instead one’s attachment to Christianity is merely the result of early and groundless possession. One was born in a Christian country, so of course one is a Christian. One’s father was a member of the Church of England, so that is why one is, too. #RandolphHarris 10 of 23

When religion is handed down among us by hereditary succession, it is not surprising to find youth of sense and spirit beginning to question the truth of the system in which they were brought up. And it is not surprising to see them abandon a position which they are able to defend. Knowing Christianity chiefly by its difficulties and the impossibilities falsely imputed to it, they fall perhaps into the company of unbelievers. Having witnessed hundreds of evangelical children hit the college campus, I can attest to the fact that we need to start early in teaching them the reasons for their faith. Make no mistake about it. Young children can ask profound intellectual questions about God and religion. And if we do not take them seriously and work to provide them with good answers, it will impact the vibrancy of their Christian commitment sooner or later. Just last night I received a phone call from a woman in our neighbourhood called Monica. Monica has a son in high school who is a friend of my youngest teenage daughter, Jillian. Monica become a Christian five years ago, and her son is a believer, too. Unknown to me, a friend of Monica’s had recommended she read an apologetic book on Christianity. She then called to ask me some apologetic questions. #RandolphHarris 11 of 23

The conversation was quite interesting. She opened up on the phone about a frustration and a fear. The frustration was that she still has a large number of non-Christian friends and relatives who regularly asked her hard questions about her faith that she was not able to answer. She felt fear because of the spiritual life of her son, like most teenagers, was something she could not take for granted, and her son regularly asked her questions about Christianity that she could not address. If she did not take hard questions seriously enough to find out answers, she feared not only for her son’s spiritual growth but also that he would not respect her own dedication to Christ. Her son had pointed out that she had time to do a number of hobbies, watch television, and so on, so that if getting god answers to certain questions mattered to her, she would have gotten them by now. He concluded that her faith must not matter that much to her, because she had not taken the time t wrestle with issues that might show her faith was false. I encouraged her to continue growing and to be intentional about making progress in learning apologetical answers to various questions. My experience leads me to believe that Monica’s situation is not unique. #RandolphHarris 12 of 23

Monica’s call reminded me that it is important to develop our Christian minds by learning why we believe what we believe. This is an important aspect of our spiritual lives. As we grow in our apologetical knowledge and skills, our faith becomes more steady, powerful, and confident. We also grow in our courage and boldness as witnesses for Jesus Christ. And we learn to be attractive, nondefensive ambassadors for Christ who are prepared to give an answer to someone who asks us what we believe and why. As one can see, there is great importance in the transformations of our minds toward Christlikeness as it relates to evangelism. An important foundation for evangelism is the ability to answer questions, much like Monica’s need just mentioned. The Master is always there, behind the disciple, always ready to give one stability, guidance, inspiration, peace, and strength. If the disciple does not find these things coming to one from the Master, the fault is in oneself, the blockage is self-created, is somewhere between the two, and only one alone and remove it. If the disciple becomes responsive enough, if one’s mind is harmonized with the master’s, there will be a feeling of one’s presence even though a continent’s width separates them. The master’s nearness will sometimes seem quite uncanny. #RandolphHarris 13 of 23

Yet the deeper we travel, the less need have we of thoughts and words, for all multiplicity collapses in this marvelous unity. We can neither think nor talk of this sublime state with any accuracy. Hence the only medium whereby we can properly represent it is—silence! Hence the competent teacher gives one’s best teaching not through lectures, talks, or books, but through this magical, mysterious, yet effective silence wherein the higher initiations are wrapped. To sit with such a teacher in the right receptive attitude for a single hour of meditation may bring more than ten years of previous self-effort could bring. For one can telepathically carry the other’s power of attention to a depth in the stillness which is habitual with one but which is rare or unknow to most. Thereafter one of the veils is torn aside and one can more easily penetrate to the same depth alone. One should ask oneself whether one is attracted by the teacher’s mind or body, whether one is devoted to the teacher’s thought or flesh. If one can answer correctly one should grant that real discipleship exists only when the sense of the teacher’s physical form is absent and one’s spiritual being is present. And this indeed is the case. #RandolphHarris 14 of 23

The outer relation is only a beginning, a slight foretaste of the richness possible in this inner relation, this union of heart and soul. Then the disciple finds that the teacher’s nearness to or distance from one is not to be measured in miles, is not an affair of what can be seen sensorily, but of what can be felt mentally. Sat-sang, or inner affiliation with the master, is regarded as more important than outer association with one. “If any human is willing to do His will, one shall know of the teaching, whether it is of God, or whether I speak from Myself,” reports John 7.17. Would you know who is the greatest saint in the World? It is not one who prays most or fasts most; it is not one who gives most alms or is most eminent for temperance, chastity, or justice; but it is one who is always thankful to God, who wills everything that God wills, who receives everything as an instance of God’s goodness and has a heart as an instance of God’s goodness and has a heart always ready to praise God for it. By this point we are beginning to get a glimpse of what those renovated in Christlikeness look like. We know that they will have a thought life centered on God in His goodness and greatness, and therefore on truth. #RandolphHarris 15 of 23

Also, their feelings will be dominated by the rich array of beneficial feelings that naturally accompany love, joy, and peace, along with their foundational conditions of faith and hope. However, such conditions of thought and feeling are not to be produced and sustained without massive changes in other dimensions of the human being, nor do those massive changes in other dimensions come about without corresponding transformations of thought and feeling. Each constituent of the human being is but one element in an interlocking whole. Those constituents can to some degree be distinguished and described in isolation from the others, but they cannot actually exist or develop except in tandem with the others. “And now it came to pas that there were a great multitude gathered together, of the people of Nephi, round about the temple which was in the land Bountiful; and they were marveling and wondering one with another, and were showing one to another the great and marvelous change which had taken place. And they were also conversing about this Jesus Christ, of whom the sign had been given concerning his death. And it came to pass that while they were thus conversing one with another, they heard a voice as if it came out of the Heaven. #RandolphHarris 16 of 23

“And they cast their eyes round about, for they understood not the voice which they heard; and it was not a harsh voice, neither was it a loud voice; nevertheless, and notwithstanding it being a small voice it did pierce them that did hear to the center, insomuch that there was no part of their frame that it did not cause to quake; yea, it did pierce them to the very soul, and did cause their hearts to burn. And it came to pass that again they heard the voice, and they understood it not. And again the third time they did hear the voice, and did open their ears to hear it; and their eyes were towards the sound thereof; and they did look steadfastly towards Heaven, from whence the sound same. And behold, the third time they did understand the voice which they heard; and it said unto them: Behold my Beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased, in whom I have glorified my name—hear ye him. And it came to pass, as they understood they cast their eyes up again towards Heaven; and behold, they saw a Man descending out of Heaven; and he was clothed in a white robe; and he came down and stood in the midst of them; and the eyes of the whole multitude were turned upon him, and they durst not open their mouths, even one to another, and wist not what it meant, for they thought it was an Ange that had appeared unto them. #RandolphHarris 17 of 23

“And it came to pass that he stretched forth his hand and spake unto the people, saying: Behold, I am Jesus Christ, whom the prophets testified shall come into the World. And behold, I am the light and the life of the World; and I have drunk out of that bitter cup which the Father hath given me, and have glorified the Father in taking upon me the sins of the World, in the which I have suffered the will of the Father in all things from the beginning. And it came to pass that when Jesus had spoken these words the whole multitude fell to the Earth; for they remembered that it had been prophesied among them that Christ should show himself unto them after his ascension into Heaven. And it came to pass that the Lord spake unto them saying: Arise and come forth unto me, that ye may thrust your hands into my side, and also that ye may feel the prints of the nails in my hands and in my feet, that ye may know that I am the God of Israel, and the God of the whole Earth, and have been slain for the sins of the World. And it came to pass that the multitude went forth, and thrust their hands into his side, and did feel the prints of the nails in his hands and in his feet; and this they did do, going forth one by one until they had all gone forth, and did see with their eyes and did feel with their hands, and did know of a surety and did bear record, that it was he, of whom it was written by the prophets, that should come. #RandolphHarris 18 of 23

“And when they had all gone forth and had witnessed for themselves, they did cry out with one accord, saying: Hosanna! Blessed be the name of the Most High God! And they did fall down at the feet of Jesus, and did worship him. And it came to pass that he spake unto Nephi (for Nephi was among the multitude) and he commanded him that he should come forth. And Nephi arose and went forth, and bowed himself before the Lord and did kiss his feet. And the Lord commanded him that he should arise. And he arose and stood before him. And the Lord said unto him: I give unto you power that ye shall baptize this people when I am again ascended into Heaven. And again the Lord called others, and said unto them likewise; and he gave unto them power to baptize. And he said unto them: On this wise shall ye baptize; and there shall be no disputations among you. Verily I say unto you, that whoso repenteth of one’s sins through your words, and desireth to be baptized in my name, on this wise shall ye baptize them—Behold, ye shall go down and stand in the water, and in my name shall ye baptize them. And now behold, these are the words which ye shall say, calling them by name, saying: #RandolphHarris 19 of 23

“Having authority given me of Jesus Christ, I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen. And then shall ye immerse them in water, and come forth again out of the water. And after this manner shall ye baptize in my name; for behold, verily I say unto you, that the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost are one; and I am in the Father, and the Father in me, and the Father and I are one. And according as I have commanded you thus shall ye baptize. And there shall be no disputations among you, as there have hitherto been; neither shall there be disputations among you concerning the points of my doctrine, as there have hitherto been. For verily, verily I say unto you, he that hath the spirit of contentions is not of me, but is of the devil, who is the father of contention, and he stirreth up the hearts of humans to contend with anger, one with another. Behold, this is not my doctrine, to stir up the hearts of humans with anger, one against another; but this is my doctrine, that such things should be done away. Behold, verily, verily, I say unto you, I will declare unto you my doctrine. And this is my doctrine, and it is the doctrine which the Father hath given unto me. #RandolphHarris 20 of 23

“And I bear record of the Father, and the Father beareth record of me, and the Holy Ghost beareth record of the Father and me; and I bear record that the Father commandeth all humans, everywhere, to repent and believe in me. And whoso believeth in me, and is baptized, the same shall be saved; and they are they who shall inherit the kingdom of God. And whoso believeth not in me, and is not baptized, shall be damned. Verily, verily, I say unto you, that this is my doctrine, and I bear record of it from the Father; and whoso believeth in me believeth in the Father also; and unto one will the Father bear record of me, for he will visit one with fire and with the Holy Ghost. And thus will the Father bear record of me, and the Holy Ghost will bear record unto one of the Father and me; for the Father, and I, and the Holy Ghost are one. And again I say unto you, ye must repent, and become as a little child, and be baptized in my name, or ye can in nowise receive these things. And again I say unto you, ye must repent, and be baptized in my name, and become as a little child, or ye can in nowise inherit the kingdom of God. Verily, verily, I say unto you, that this is my doctrine, and whoso buildeth upon this buildeth upon my rock, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against them. #RandolphHarris 21 of 23

“And whoso shall declare more or less than this, and established it for my doctrine, the same cometh of evil, and is not built upon my rock; but one buildeth upon a sandy foundation, and the gates of hell stand open to receive such when the floods come and the winds beat upon them. Therefore, go forth unto this people, and declare the words which I have spoken, unto the ends of the Earth,” reports 3 Nephi 11.1-41. The truth of our intellect is according to its conformity with its principle, that is to say, to the things from which it receives knowledge. The truth also of things is according to their conformity with their principle, namely, the divine intellect. Now this cannot be said, properly speaking, of divine truth; unless perhaps in so far as truth is appropriated to the Son, Who has a principle. However, if we speak of divine truth in its essence, we cannot understand this unless the affirmative must be resolved into the negative, as wen one says: “the Father is of Himself, because He is not from another.” Similarly, the divine truth can be called a “likeness to the principle,” inasmuch as His existence is not dissimilar to His intellect. Not-being and privation have no truth of themselves, but only in the apprehension of the intellect. #RandolphHarris 22 of 23

Now all the apprehension of the intellect is from God. Hence all the truth that exists in the statement—“that a person commits fornication is true”—is entirely from God. However, to argue, “Therefore that this person fornicates is from God,” is a fallacy Accident. My day begins again, and again I dedicate myself to the service of God. May it be His task I perform. Remember the Messiah of the house of David, Thy servant, and Jerusalem, Thy holy city, and all Thy people, the house of Israel. Please grant us deliverance and wellbeing, lovingkindness, life and peace on this day of : The Feast of Unleavened Bread. The Fest of Weeks. The Feast of Tabernacles. The Eighth-Day Fest of Assembly. Please remember us this day, O Lord our God, for our good, and please be mindful of us for a life blessing. With Thy promise of salvation and mercy, please deliver us and be gracious unto us, have compassion upon us and please save us. Unto Thee we do life our eyes for Thou art a gracious and merciful God and King. Just as the proximity of an electrified wire coil can induce a current of magnetism in a bar of soft iron, so the proximity of those who love God and are true Christians can induce some of their Christlike inner stillness to appear in those who are receptive of God’s grace. #RandolphHarris 23 of 23


Winchester Mystery House

During Sarah Winchester’s lifetime, the spookiest day of the year was actually Christmas Eve. Families and neighbors would gather around the fire in shadow filled story circles to hear tales of specters and the supernatural.

The all new Victorian Candlelight Tour will feature some of our most chilling ghost stories told as you explore the most active parts of the Mansion, including the basement, which has been off limits for quite some time now. It is a rare chance to glimpse one of the world’s most alleged haunted mansions at night…all alone on a safe, self-guided adventure! Tour capacity is LIMITED and these dates will sell out quick – get your tickets while they’re available! 🎄🔔

Buy Tickets Link in bio. winchestermysteryhouse.com

The Learner Has the Need and the Capacity to Assume Responsibility for One’s Own Continuing Learning!

The system has not failed—but some of us have failed the system. Do not become the problems instead of the solution to the problem. Recent insights from the behavioral sciences have expanded our conceptions of human potential through a re-casting of the image of the human—from passive, reactive recipient to an active, seeking, autonomous, and reflective being. What are the implications of this impelling new image for our concern with human the learner? Educators are giving increased attention to implementing in practice the recognition that the learner has both the capacity and the need to assume responsibility for one’s continuing learning. However, the real question is here is what do humans learn and for whom? Learning is not a task; it is a way to be in the World. Humans learn as they purse their goals and projects that have meaning for them. Humans are always learning something. Perhaps the key to the problem of independent learning lies in the phrase, “The learner has the need and the capacity to assume responsibility for one’s own continuing learning.” That is one phrase that will help wide unclasp the table of their thoughts. These same thoughts—people, the little World. #RandolphHarris 1 of 22

It may well be that those who train young people in the ways of their group (a most necessary task) have overshot the mark; they have trained youngster to believe that they cannot, dare not, learn anything without a trainer close at hand. The only safe and good learning is learning-for-the trainer. And the youngsters, being human, independently learned something meaningful to them; namely, that it is dangerous or futile to become interested in something, to learn for oneself. It is only safe to learn for the teacher’s or for society’s approval. One set of image-molders, the teachers, have been commissioned by social leaders to shape youngsters to the acquiescent mode. They implement this commission by invalidating a child’s experience of spontaneous curiosity and fascination with aspects of the World. They insist one learn only when and what one is taught. One must learn for others. The teachers and parents have robbed children of their autonomy—their capacity to experience amazement, wonder, and fascination—by invalidating it whenever it appears. Then, they look at their product and find it wanting; they produced a Golem, a humanoid, a “dependent learning.” Now we are asked to breathe life into it. #RandolphHarris 2 of 22

We are caught on the horns of a dilemma. Children must be shown the ways of their group; they must be taught and trained. However, if they are to experience their lives as meaningful, and if the society in which they live is to grow and change, they must also be able to transcend this training and learn for themselves. The question is, how is it possible to reconcile the contradiction between teaching children for society and letting them learn for themselves, such that children can serve their society without a loss of freedom and capacity to go beyond what they have been taught? This is the same problem, write large, that every serious teacher—of piano, of art, of math, or English, of Science, of History, of woodshop, of psychotherapy, or even of teaching—faces: how can one teach a pupil in the fundamental techniques of this art without producing a mere technician? In any of these arts, we wish the learner to commit oneself, to be willing to struggle for objectives beyond mastery of exercises and technique (learning experienced as “for-the-teacher”) and even beyond current goals. We hope one will week to make actual one’s own image (not one’s teacher’s image) of beautiful music, pictures, woodworks, healthy personalities, or independent learners. #RandolphHarris 3 of 22

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If the teacher has been effective, one will have shown one’s pupil that techniques are no more than a beginner’s set of tools, to be used up to the point that an impasse is reached. Then, the trust scholar, the involved therapist, the committed teacher (committed to one’s own image of ultimate goals, not means), gropes and leaps into the unknown, exercising that courage that is not devoid of fear and trembling, to invent or discover new means to further one’s project of actualizing the image. If the old versions of the ultimate goals have lost meaning, the pupil will envision new embodiments of them. Your must play the teacher to yourself. One cannot tread the path for you: you must walk and work by your own effort. The mother cannot grow up on behalf of the child, no matter how greatly she loves it. The adept cannot do your growing-up for you. Nature’s laws must prevail. One has shown you the way; use your will to follow it. However, devote a little time each day to keeping open the channel of communication with your teacher and thus receive one’s impetus, one’s inspiration to help you. So although you must strive by your own use of free will, do not imagine that you need to strive unassisted. #RandolphHarris 4 of 22

Working along the line that the teacher found suitable for oneself, slavishly and artificially trying to produce a copy of one, will in the end not even produce that but a caricature instead. For only the teacher’s bodily acts will be imitated; one’s Spirit is invisible and therefore cannot be imitated. Why should anyone copy another’s artwork? Why should Whistler paint pictures in the same way that Gainsborough did? Whistler remained loyal to one’s own conceptions. Why then, going further, copy another’s lifestyle? We may honour a master’s inspirations but yet express our own in our individual way. It is true that followers have no right to burden the teacher with their personal problems, that they should learn bravely to shoulder their difficulties and not pass them on to one. Yet human nature is weak, the teacher kindly. What they may do without taxing one’s strength is to place the problem before one in prayer, thought, or meditation silently, and nor in letter or interview. If they will keep their distresses, troubles, or indecisions to themselves in this way, such reticence will not be to their loss. When an aspirant plagues a teacher too frequently or on too trivial matters, it is indeed a sign of neuroticism. Such conduct is quite suited to children but not to adults. #RandolphHarris 5 of 22

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Every person must come to terms with who they are now. It reveals too egocentric a person, one who is unwilling to bring the stage of novice to an end because the dependence on another person is more comforting and much easier than endeavouring to settle one’s own little problems. One must learn to speak, move, and even experience the World in the given ways, those deemed right and sane where one lives. It is not easy. It takes a long time. The temptation to stary is strong. Commissars stand close, to insure each person conforms to one’s prescribed position and role. Once a human masters the rules of the social “games,” what then? One plays the games so long as they yield meaningful rewards and the rewards of meaning. Ultimately, the games become confining, boring, even strangling. The person may then wish to opt out, but one cannot—there re no other games to play. So one may become sick. Then, one is patched up by doctors who pronounce one healed, and they send one back into the game. If one seeks to transcend the given, for new realms of experience, one threatens the sleep of the unawakened. They condemn and invalidate one. So one gives up and becomes “normal,” or else seeks a richer experience in private, the while impersonating a typical person. #RandolphHarris 6 of 22

It should be made clear that dramatic and directive dominance are dramaturgical terms and that performers wo have positions of visible leadership are often merely figureheads, selected as a compromise, or as a way of neutralizing a potentially threatening position, or as a way of strategically concealing the power behind the front and hence the power behind the power behind the front. So also, whenever inexperienced or temporary incumbents are given formal authority over experienced subordinates, we often find that the formally empowered person is bribed with a part that has dramatic dominance while the subordinates tend to direct the show. Since we all participate on teams we must all carry within ourselves something of the sweet guilt of conspirators. And since each team is engaged in maintaining the stability of some definitions of the situation, concealing or playing down certain facts in order to do this, we can expect the performer to live out one’s conspiratorial career in some furtiveness. A basic problem for many performances, then, is that of information control; the audience must not acquire destructive information about the situation that is being defined for them. In other words, a term must be able to keep its secrets and have its secrets kept. #RandolphHarris 7 of 22

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There are what are sometimes called “dark” secrets. These consist of facts about a team which it knows and conceals and which are incompatible with the image of self that the team attempts to maintain before its audience. Dark secrets are, of course, double secrets: one is the crucial fact that is hidden and another is the fact that crucial facts have not been openly admitted. There are also what might be called “strategic” secrets. These pertain to intentions and capacities of a team which it conceals from its audience in order to prevent them from adapting effectively to the state of affairs the team is planning to being about. Strategic secrets are the ones that businesses and armies employ in designing future actions against the opposition. So long as a team makes no pretense of being the sort of team that does not have strategic secrets, its strategic secrets need not be dark ones. Yet it is to be noted that even when the strategic secrets of a team are not dark ones, still the disclosure or discovery of such secrets disrupts the team’s performance, for suddenly and unexpectedly the team finds it useless and foolish to maintain the care, reticence, and studied ambiguity of action that was required prior to loss of its secrets. #RandolphHarris 8 of 22

 It may be added that secrets that are merely strategic tend to be ones which the team eventually discloses, performance, when action based upon secret preparations is consummated, whereas an effort may be made to keep dark secrets secret forever. It may also be added that information is often held back not because of its known strategic importance but because it is felt that it may someday acquire such importance. Thirdly, there are what might be called “inside” secrets. These are ones whose possession marks an individual as being a member of a group and help the group feel separate and different from those individuals who are not in the know. Inside secrets give objective intellectual content to subjectively felt social distance. Almost all information in a social establishment has something of the exclusion function and may be seen as none of somebody’s business. Inside secrets may have little strategic importance and may not be very dark. When this is the case, such secrets may be discovered or accidentally disclosed without radically disrupting the team performance; the performance need only shift their secret delight to another matter. Of course, secret that are strategic and/or dark serve extremely well as inside secrets and we find, in fact, that the strategic and dark character of secrets is often exaggerated for this reason. #RandolphHarris 9 of 22

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Interestingly enough, the leaders of a social group are sometimes faced with a dilemma regarding important strategic secrets. Those in the group who are not brought in on the secret will feel excluded and affronted when the secret finally comes to light; on the other hand, the greater the number of persons who are brought in on the secret, the greater the likelihood of intentional or unintentional disclosure. The knowledge that one team can have of another’s secrets provides us with two other types of secrets. First, there re what might be called “entrusted” secrets This is the kind which the possessor is obliged to keep because of one’s relation to the team to which the secret refers. If an individual who is entrusted with a secret is to be the person one claims one is, one must keep the secret, even thought it is not a secret about oneself. Thus, for example, when a lawyer discloses the improprieties of one’s clients, two quite different performances are threatened: the client’s show of innocence to the court, and the lawyer’s show of trustworthiness to one’s client. It may also be noted that a team’s strategic secrets, whether dark or not, are likely to be the entrusted secrets of the individual members of the team, for each member of the team is likely to present oneself to one’s teammates as someone who is loyal to them. #RandolphHarris 10 of 22

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Since time immemorial, each society had secretly harbored “gurus.” These wise humans have been sought by sufferers, who may have been rich in goods but poor in spirit. The gurus have taught the seekers to let go their attachments in this World, the better to concentrate on spiritual purification. The intimated rewards have not been wealth, fame, or power; but rather enlightenment and liberation, an enriched, more meaningful experience of oneself and one’s World. The gurus have helped seekers attain liberation from entrapment in the culture. They have invited the experience and disclosure of individuality that had hitherto been concealed under the trappings of conformity to roles. The society that would not fall must locate and treasure its gurus, protect them, and not deny seekers access to them. The gurus and their ways are not for everyone. Gurus cannot be hired or bought; they can only be deserved! A society without gurus is stagnant, and will perish as did the dinosaurs, unable to change ways to cope with changing conditions. In the New World, I think we are experiencing an absence in our midst, an absence of gurus. We have myriad commissars, but no one to lead beyond their ways. #RandolphHarris 11 of 22

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 The commissars insure that everyone conforms to existing ways, to the image of humans that is current, that is synonymous with goodness and sanity. Commissars use bribery, guile, and threats of force to get people to follow their prescribed ways, the ways that keep the society and its existing power-structure intact. Who are the commissar? Most of our teacher are commissars. So are our parents. And law enforcement, judges, lawyers, congress, our psychiatrist and psychologist, and even our neighbours. Radio, TV, and the press function as commissars. All commissars collude with oner another to keep us wanting what we are supposed to want and doing what we are supposed to do. Conform, and be reward. However, we are discovering, we who have graduated from such institutes, that something is missing. The something was ourselves. Somewhere along the line, we have lost ourselves, our capacity to experience in new modes and qualities. If we are at all sensitive, we notice the absence and become concerned. We state to seek ourselves and our lost capacity for experiencing. I hope we find it. Our nation will sit stunned, the people having forgotten how to live for themselves, otherwise. #RandolphHarris 12 of 22

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If we do not get in touch with reality, people will know only how to live for the system of things. An era will have ended. Then, it will be the turn of the Asiatics and Africans to follow the American Way, until they too reach the end of their tether. Finally, people of Marts will land on Earth and have their turn. When you lose yourself your own experiences and their meanings are being denied, and you are developing a self that is different from your real experience self, which may be becoming increasingly unknow to you. Because so many people accept other’s meanings as their own experience, they will come to distrust their own organismic experience. As one beings to distrust more and more of one’s own experience, one’s sense of self-worth will steadily decline until one has very little use for one’s own experience or one’s self. Of course things will be well for those you are trying to please. This pseudoself is just what they want. It is only within oneself, at some deep and unknown level, that there is a vague uneasiness. When a person denies awareness to all of one’s own experiencing—one will get to a pint where one no longer really has a self and is trying to be a self wanted by someone else. Next, rebellion happens. #RandolphHarris 13 of 22

One can only attribute this rebellion to the actualizing tendency that has been suppressed for so long but that finally asserts itself. However, often times, because one has distrusted one’s own experience for such a long period and because the self by which one is living is so sharply different from the experiences of one’s organism, one cannot reconstruct one’s true self without help. When there is such a great discrepancy, the need for help often exists. In contrast, however, when people have spent years and even decades trying to socially engineer you, and you do not adhere to their values, even though they do not know you, they will think you are acting weird because their sick and twisted and sadistic methods are not working on you. When people reclaim the value of their experience, they are the ones who decides what matters to them and how they want to live. The center of the valuing process, and the evidence is provided by one’s own sense. What is right for someone who is trying to indoctrinate and corrupt you, may not be what is right for you. One may have started off at a young age knowing the love of God and who one wants to be. Society may call a given experience bad, but when one trusts one’s own valuing of it, one will find that following the path to truth and the love of God is significant and worthwhile. #RandolphHarris 14 of 22

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 When denied experience comes close to awareness, anxiety always results because these previously unadmitted experiences will have meanings that will change the structure of the self by which one as been living. Any drastic change in the self-concept is always a threatening and frightening experience. One may be dimly aware of this threat even though one does not yet know what would emerge. When the denied experienced break through the dam, they turn out to be hurts and angers that one has been completely unaware of. It is impossible for people to realize how completely an experience can be shut out of awareness until it does break through into awareness. Every individual is able to shut out and deny those experiences that will endanger one’s self concept. When the self-concept is so sharply changed that parts of it are completely shattered, it is a very frightening experience, and it is accurate to feel like an alien has take over you. That is why the law allows for mental competence to be called into question when some people are accused of crimes, for they may have been manipulated since they were too young to think for themselves and unaware of what they are doing is wrong. #RandolphHarris 15 of 22

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So, the system wants to give people who are victims of crimes, who have gone on to commit crimes, an opportunity for repentance and the chance to live a life as themselves, instead of being condemned for having been brainwashed. Some will realize that they are the alien because the submissive, malleable self by which they have been living, the self that has been guided by the statements, attitudes, and expectations of others, is no longer theirs. The new self that had seemed so alien is more than likely one that had experienced hurt and anger and feelings that society regards as bad, as well as wild hallucinatory thoughts—and love. As one goes further into self-discovery, it is likely that one will find out that some of one’s anger is directed against one’s parents. The hurts will have come from various sources; some of the feelings and experiences that society regards as bad but that one finds good and satisfying are experiences and feelings that probably have to do with pleasures of the flesh. Sometimes one has to let their experiences tell them what they mean instead of trying to impose a meaning on them. The more the individual’s self-concept is rooted in the spontaneously felt meanings of one’s experiencing, the more one is an integrated person. People who are learning to self-actualize will enjoy meet and making friend with their thoughts and feelings. #RandolphHarris 16 of 22

Here is the dawning of the self-respect and self-acceptance of which one has been deprived for so long. One will even feel an affection for oneself. One of the curious but common side effects of this change is that now one will be able to give oneself more freely to others, to enjoy others more, to be more genuinely interested in them. As one becomes more expressive of one’s love one can also be more expressive of one’s anger and hurt, one’s likes and dislikes, and one’s “wild” thoughts and feelings (which will turn out to be creative impulses). One is in the process of changing from psychological maladjustment to a much healthier relationship to others and to reality. There is a peaceful harmony in being a whole person, but one will be mistaken if one thinks this reaction is permanent. Instead, if one is really open to one’s experience, one will find other hidden aspects of oneself that one has denied to awareness, and each such discovery will give one uneasy and anxious moments or days until it is assimilated into a revised and changing picture of oneself. One will discover that growing toward a congruence between one’s experiencing organism and one’s concept of oneself is an exciting, sometime disturbing, but neverending adventure. #RandolphHarris 17 of 22

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“And now behold, there was not a living soul among all the people of the Nephites who did doubt in the least the words of all the holy prophets who had spoken; for they knew that it must needs be that they must be fulfilled. And they knew that it must be expedient that Christ had come, because of the many signs which had been given, according to the words of the prophets; and because of the things which had come to pass already they knew that it must needs be that all things should come to pass according to that which had been spoken. Therefore they did forsake all their sins, and their abominations, and their whoredoms, and did sever God with all diligence day and night. And now it came to pass that when they had taken all the robbers prisoners, insomuch that none did escape wo were not slain, they did cast their prisoners into prison, and did cause the word of God to be preached unto them; ad as many as would repent of their sins and enter into a covenant that they would murder no more were set at liberty. However, as many as there were who did not enter into a covenant, and who did still continue to have those secret murders in their hearts, yea, as many as were found breathing out threatenings against their brethren were condemned and punished according to the law. #RandolphHarris 18 of 22

“And thus they did put an end to all those wicked, and secret, and abominable combinations, in the which there was so much wickedness, and so many murders committed. And thus had the twenty and second year passed away, and the twenty and third year also, and they twenty and forth, and the twenty and fifth; and thus had twenty and five years passed away. And these had many things transpired which, in the eyes of some, would be great and marvelous; nevertheless, they cannot all be written in this book; yea, this book cannot contain even a hundredth part of what was done among so many people in the space of twenty and five years; but behold there are records which do contain all the proceedings of this people; and a shorter but true account was given by Nephi. Therefore I have made my record of these things according to the record of Nephi, which was engraven on the plates which were called the plates of Nephi. And behold, I do make the record on plates which I have made with mine own hands. And behold, I am called Mormon, being called after the land of Mormon, the land in which Alma did establish the church among the people, yea, the first church which was established among them after their transgression. #RandolphHarris 19 of 22

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“Behold, I am a disciple of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. I have been called of him to declare his work among his people, that they might have everlasting life. And it hath become expedient that I, according to the will of God, that the prayers of those who have gone hence, who were the holy ones, should be filled according to their faith, should make a record of these things which have been done—yea, a small record of that which hath taken place from the time that Lehi left Jerusalem, even down until the present time. Therefore I do make my record from the accounts which have been given by those who were before me, until the commencement of my day; and then I do make record of the things which I have seen with mine own eyes. And I know the record which I make to be a just and a true record; nevertheless here are many things which, according to our language, we are not able to write. And now I make an end of my saying, which is of myself, an proceed to give my account of the things which have been before me. I am Mormon, and a pure descendant of Lehi. I have reason to bless my God and my Saviour Jesus Christ, that he brought our fathers out of the land of Jerusalem, (and no one knew it save it were himself and those whom he brought out of that land) and that he hath given me and my people so much knowledge unto the salvation of our souls. #RandolphHarris 20 of 22

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“Surely he hath blessed the house of Jacob, and hat been merciful unto the seed of Joseph. And insomuch as the children of Lehi have kept his commandments he hath blessed them and prospered them according to his word. Yea, and surely shall be again bring a remnant of the seed of Joseph to the knowledge of the Lord their God. And as surely as the Lord liveth, will he gather in from the four quarters of the Earth all the remnants of the seed of Jacob, who are scattered abroad upon all the face of the Earth. And as he hath covenanted with all the house of Jacob, even so shall the covenant wherewith he hath covenanted with the house of Jacob be fulfilled in one’s own due time, unto the restoring all the house of Jacob unto the knowledge of the covenant that he hath covenanted with them. And then shall they know their Redeemer, who is Jesus Christ, the Son of God; and then shall they be gathered in from the four quarters of the Earth unto their own lands, from whence they have been dispersed; yea, as the Lord liveth so shall it be. Amen,” reports 3 Nephi 5.1-26. We adore Thee, Blessed Jesus very God and very Man, the Same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever, our strong Salvation and our only Hope. #RandolphHarris 21 of 22

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Please take us, we pray Thee, into Thy keeping, both now and at the hour of our death; please make us faithful to Thee upon Earth, and blessed with Thee in Heaven, where the Father, Who raises in glory the World, piercer of darkness, illuminates our path as we go through our days. God, pleased continue to illuminate or paths as we go through life. O God, Who hast brought us near to an innumerable company Angels, and to the spirits of just human made perfect; please grant us during our pilgrimage to abide in their fellowship, and in our Country to become partakers of their joy; through Jesus Christ our Lord. I pray Thee, good Lord Jesus, by the love which Thou hadst for him that lay on Thy heart, to make me thankful for all that Thou hast given men in this World and to bless this planet exceedingly abundantly, above all that I can ask or think. Please help us to love each other in Thee and for Thee, to be one in heart through all separations, and to talk as friends in the path of Thy service; and finally unite us for ever at Thy feet, where peace and love are perfect and immortal, and Thou with the Father Who is turning the World towards Him, as He has turned it since its very beginning, in infinite longing, in infinite love. And I, a child of Earth, take the Lord as my exemplar, and hold my heart out to Hum in the dawn. #RandolphHarris 22 of 22

Winchester Mystery House

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I am Not a Politician and My Other Habits are Good for in the Evening of Life, One Shall be Examined on Love!

It is a lonesome walk to the sidelines, especially when thousands of people are cheering your replacement. Humans are not and cannot be justified by anything of their own doing; they are not, and cannot be, separated from God by their sinful actions: sinful or not in their behaviour, humans are estranged from God. What stand in the way of the divine if not one’s bad deed only; it is one’s very existence. The self, as such, is sinful before any act; it is separated from God, unwilling to love Him. When you come to God forget your Christian morals, your achievements and your failures. Nothing is demanded of you—no idea of God, and no goodness in yourselves, not your being religious, not your being Christian, not your being wise and not your being moral. Immoralists take the opposite of the law, calling evil good and good evil. The New Being manifested in Christ is above morality and immorality. It demands nothing but your being open and willing to accept what is given to you, the New Being, the love and justice and truth, as it is manifest in Him whose yoke is easy and whose burden is light. The mortality of the Christ does not mean that we can be saved by good actions or damned by evil actions; it means that there is a creative and saving possibility implied in every situation, which cannot be destroyed by any event. #RandolphHarris 1 of 22

Deep under the estrangement from God which is our existence and which our life manifests, there lies a unity, a unity with the ground being, with the power to be. The ethics of the New Being consists in letting the power to be inform all our actions. The forgiveness of sins of the Gospels is a symbol of this victory of the ground of being over existence; it conveys the certainty that we reach eternal life in spite of suffering and sin. Christian revelation does not give a new law and a new set of commands; it gives a new spirit, in which any law may be accepted as a norm of behaviour because it is already transcended in spirit. Can the problem of conscience be answered at all in terms of moral conscience? Being able to become deeply involved in one’s personhood, one’s very self, might lead to the reconstruction of the person—the person’s outlook, attitudes, values, behaviour. This would be a true reconstruction of experience; it would be a learning in a real sense. In those moments of unearthing the New Being are moments when you see a human soul revealed before you, in all its breathless wonder; and then a silence, almost like reverence, overtakes the environment. And each individual becomes enveloped with a warmth and a loveliness that borders on the mystic. #RandolphHarris 2 of 22

The Bible presents human’s experience in relation to God as being above all, ethical existence. The ethics of the Old Testament is in a constant tension between the law and prophecy, between fear and love. In the New Testament, Jesus reinterprets the law, shows its radical implications, and sums it up n the commandments of love. In the person, this might be characterized by a healthy change, an increase in one’s flexibility, one’s openness, one’s willingness to listen. In the process, we all feel elevated, freer, more accepting of ourselves and others, more open to new ideas, trying hard to understand and accept. Once you become close to a person, perceive one’s thoughts, one’s emotions, one’s feelings, one becomes not only understandable but good and desirable. Every generation in every nation, including the selected one, the decision against righteousness means self-destruction. We must acknowledge with ultimate seriousness that all righteousness is from God and not from humans. To choose the righteous that is from God is to choose the Christ. To prefer a righteousness that would be from humans is to decide against Christ. What is decisive is only whether one acts for the law of love, for which Christ stands. Acting according to it means being received in the unity of fulfilment. Acting against it means being excluded from fulfilment and being cast into the despair of non-being. This is biblical ethics. #RandolphHarris 3 of 22

If we view education, however, as the reconstruction of experience, does not this presume that the individual must do one’s own reconstruction? One must do it oneself, through the reorganization of one’s deepest self, one’s values, one’s attitudes, one’s very person. What better method is there to engross the individual; to being one, one’s ideas, one’s feelings into communication with others; to break down the barriers that create isolation in a World where for one’s own mental safety and health, humans have to learn to be part of humankind? From this standpoint, biblical ethics means being presented with an ultimate choice and making with courage an ultimate decision. In every such choice the fight of light with chaos of Christ with estrangement, is fought anew. And in every choice of absolute love the victory of the New Being over estrangement and existence triumphs again. Obviously, this has little do to with the middle-class ethics of avoiding a few things which are supposed to be wrong, and doing a few things which are supposed to be right. There exists a Universal transmoral conscious called the emotional-esthetic, the abstract-formalistic, and the rational-idealistic interpretations of conscience. #RandolphHarris 4 of 22

The first rests on the principle of Universal harmony which humans discover through one’s conscience, and with which one should harmonize one’s actions. A conscience may be called “transmoral” which judges, not in obedience to a moral law, but according to the participation in a reality which transcend the sphere of moral commands. It is a new concept of conscience from the experience of justification through faith. Justification through faith is an ultimate experience which throws new light on all things, including the commands of morality. Justification implies that it is not because of our moral perfection but in spite of our moral imperfection that we are fighting and triumphing on the side of God. We are justified in our estrangement and sin. In the experience of sin we are graciously justified. Participation in the New Being is the other side of the experience of estrangement. It is the depth of estrangement, the depth of estrangement, the abyss and the ground under existence. Human’s actions, whether good or bad, reveal, in the ecstatic experience of the New Being in the Christ, an ultimate ground: the saving grace of the courage to be, the universal redeeming power of being-itself. The ethical question is not, to do or not to do; it is, to be nor not to be, to accept or to reject being-itself. #RandolphHarris 5 of 22

Any view of the politics of human relationships must rest basically upon the conception of the human organism and what makes it “tick”—the nature and motivation of that organism. Here in this palmlike seaweed of society is the tenacity of life, the forward thrust of life, the ability to push into an incredibly hostile environment and not only for the soul to hold its own but to adapt, develop, become itself. We can even attempt some biochemical explanations of phototropism. We can say that the human soul grows where it does because there is an ecological niche that is fills, and that is this soul had not developed to fill this niche, the process of evolution would have favoured some other organism that would gradually have developed much these same characteristics. Yet it is very valuable as a part of the continuing differentiation, the finer description, the more accurate picture of functional relationship, which our curiosity demands, and which gives us at least a deeper respect for and understanding of the complexities of life. The transmoral conscience is not without content. It is rooted in the power to be. It is enlightened by the historical manifestation of the power to be. It is enlightened by the historical manifestation of the power to be under the conditions of existence in Jesus the Christ. #RandolphHarris 6 of 22

On the strength of this, the transmoral conscience dominates all law and all mortality. It determines a situation instead of being determined by it. If it is not, in this sense, moral, neither is it amoral or immortal. For its very definite content is immovable, being no other than the ultimate rock of life, justification of the sinner: The good, transmoral conscience consists in the acceptance of the bad, moral conscience, which is unavoidable wherever decisions are made and act performed. This is to say, as soon as humans act ethically, one develops a moral conscience, a system of good and evil, categories of good deeds and misdeeds. It matters little where the contents of this moral conscience come from. They may derive from religion or from society; they may be biblical commands, primitive taboos, bourgeois prejudices, or superstitions. What matter is that the moral conscience, judging itself in the light of the New Being, perceives its incapacity to do justice to being-itself even in its fulfilment of an accepted system of ethics. Then, it is impossible not to transcend the moral conscience because it is impossible to unite a sensitive and a good conscience. The content of the transmoral conscience consists therefore in accepting both the dictates of the moral conscience and also the guilt that unavoidably accompanies ethical actions, in the knowledge that even morality does not justify. #RandolphHarris 7 of 22

The moral conscience derives beyond the sphere in which it is valid to the sphere from which it must receive its conditional validity. The moral conscience receives its validity from the ecstatic perception of its incapacity: when this takes place, the transmoral conscience is born. It is the ethical analogue of faith as the self-transcendence of the intellect. We find that all parts and processes are so ordered so that they guarantee the maintenance, construction, restitution, and reproduction of organic systems. Here, then at the very heart of the mystery of what makes organisms “tick,” is an important foundation stone for our political thinking. The organism is self-controlled. In its normal state it moves toward its own enhancement and toward an independence from external control. What the transmoral conscience brings is neither security nor comfort. The person who is justified does not cease to be a sinner, and there is no comfort in accepting life in a boundary-situation, on the boundary-line that forms a ridge between and above the affirmations and the negations of morality. If we accept the message of the new reality in the Christ, we must understand that this message does not contain an easy answer, and that it does not guarantee spiritual security. #RandolphHarris 8 of 22

The transmoral conscience does not prescind from the human situation; on the contrary, it knows that there is no ultimate answer to the ethical questions unless we experience it permanently in the light of our human situation, in which tragedy and hope fight each other without victory. It is the meaning of the Cross that victory is given in death, that resurrection is also crucifixion. The New Being arises out of the wrecked old being. The most impressive fact about the individual human being seems to be that directional tendency toward wholeness, toward actualization of potentialities. Psychotherapy or group experience is not effective when one tries to create in another individual something that is not there, but it is effective when one provides the conditions that make for growth, then this positive directional tendency brings about constructive results. It is much like when a scientist divides a cell One cannot cause the cell to develop in one way or another, one cannot (as yet, at least) shape or control the DNA molecule, but if one focuses one’s skill on providing the conditions that permit the cell to survive and grow, then the tendency for growth and the direction of growth will be evident, and will come from within the organism. Given the opportunity, a living organism tends to fulfill its more complex potentialities rather than settle for simpler satisfactions. #RandolphHarris 9 of 22

Then there is no security; there still is sin and guilt, estrangement and frustration. However, there is liberty. For sin and guilt, estrangement and frustration are accepted as revelatory of the ground of all being. Bondage and fear have disappeared; obedience has ceased to be obedience and has become free inclination; ego and super-ego are united. This is the liberty of the children of God, liberty from the law, and because from the law, also from the condemnation to despair. It is very clear that when you receive an absolute minimum of any external stimuli, you open yourself to a flood of inter experiencing that goes far beyond that of everyday living. You most certainly do not lapse into homeostasis, into a passive equilibrium. This only occurs in diseased organisms. When it comes to motivation, the organism is an active initiator and exhibits a directional tendency. Even when its primary needs are satisfied and its homeostatic chores are done, an organism is alive, active, and up to something. We are, in short, dealing with an organism that is always motivated, is always up to something, always seeking. With liberty, holiness is recovered. The holy is human’s apprehension of the divine. When a human commits oneself unreservedly to the New Being, one enters into communion with God. #RandolphHarris 10 of 22

So I reaffirm, even more strongly than when I first advanced the notion, my belief that there is one central source of energy in the human organism; that it is a trustworthy function of the whole organism rather than some portion of it; and that it is perhaps best conceptualizes as a tendency toward fulfillment, toward actualization, not only toward the maintenance but also toward the enhancement of the organism. The ethics of the New Bring develops a sensitive rather than “good” conscience. It implies liberation from moral commands as well as from moral prohibitions. Human’s free inclination now determines one’s purposes. The liberty of the children of God creates a new morality in harmony with the New Being, and by so doing unveils the holiness of creation. And the holy is the sphere of the divine, in which the divine radiates. A classic experiment showed that even the human infant eventually does a quite satisfactory job of balancing one’s diet. One may go on a protein “binge,” for a time, or devour too much fat, but soon evens out these errors, showing a wisdom of the body in maintaining and enhancing one’s development. This type of relatively integrated, self-regulating behaviour, directed toward maintenance and fulfillment, seems to be the rule in nature rather than the exception. #RandolphHarris 11 of 22

Life flows into ever more diverse forms, correcting in its errors, and moving towards its own enhancement. God’s wrath is not directed against our moral shortcomings, against special acts of disobedience to the divine order. It is directed against the secret of our personality, against what happens in us and to us, unseen by humans, unseen even by ourselves. This, our secret, determines of fate. Love alone can transform itself according to the concrete demands of every individual and social situation without losing its eternity and dignity and unconditional validity. When a person is functioning in an integrated, unified, effective manner, one has the confidence in the directions one unconsciously chooses, and trust one’s experiencing, of which, even if one is fortunate, one has only partial glimpses in one’s awareness. Love alone is able to determine standards of conduct that will respect the changing human situations while safeguarding the divine content of every human action in which humans are ultimately concerned. Love has the power to transform human actions. Love is an absolute law because it is also absolute self-sacrifice. As love it is absolute, eternally related to the ground of being and manifesting this ground in action There is no danger of its swerving from the divine, because it is the divine. #RandolphHarris 12 of 22

Love is always love; that is its static and absolute side. The ethics of the New Being is essentially inter-personal. Love is the drive toward the unity of the separated. The love of Jesus as the Christ, which is the manifestation of the divine love—and only this—embraces everything concrete in self and World. In love, the absolute become relational. Humans are totally dominated by the divine ground of love, and totally committed to all other human beings. When love reigns, the ethical problem is solved. The yoke of the law no longer exists. Moral pride has vanished. The sin of religion has come to an end. There are no right decisions which are rooted in love, which by resigning the absolute do not fall into the relative. No decision can be annihilated; no action can be undone. However, love gives meaning even to those decisions and actions which prove to be failures. The failures of love do not lead to resignation but to new decisions beyond absolutism and relativism. No objective law is absolute. What is absolute is this: life, as directed by the transmoral conscience, becomes the expression of unconditional love. Love creates the forms in which it will express its divine ground. These forms may be successful or they may be failures; at any rate they are neither right nor wrong. They are beyond morality, in the realm of love’s creativity. #RandolphHarris 13 of 22

Love creates its forms, or it gives a divine content to forms of behaviour borrowed from human culture. If a condition of worth imposed on a child are numerous and significant, then the dissociation can become very great, and the psychological consequences very serious indeed. Individuals are culturally conditioned, rewarded, reinforced, for behaviours that are in fact perversions of the natural directions of the unitary actualizing tendency. If awareness and conscious thought are seen as part of life—not its masters nor its opponent but an illusion of the developing processes within the individual—then our total life can be the unified and unifying experience that seems characteristic in nature. If our magnificent symbolizing capacity can develop as part of and be guided by the tendency toward fulfillment that exists in us both at the conscious and nonconscious levels, then the organic harmony is never lost and becomes a human harmony and human wholeness simply because our species is capable of greater richness of experience than any other. Dissociation occurs when love and esteem are made conditional. #RandolphHarris 14 of 22

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In such a World God intrudes, gently and in many ways, but especially in the person of Jesus Christ. It is he who stands for love, as no one else has ever done, and pays the price for it. His crucifixion is the all-time high-water mark of love on Earth. “While we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly,” reports Romans 5.6. No other source, whether inside or outside of religions, even comes close to what God in Christ shows of love. This is the first “move” of love in the process of redemption. “He first loved us,” reports 1 John 4.19. Therefore, “love is from God,” reports 1 John 4.7. And “We know love by this, that He laid down His life for us,” reports 1 John 3.16. All other loves are to be measured by this standard (Acts 17.31). When we receive what is thus clearly given, the revelation of God’s love in Christ, that in turn makes is possible for us to love. Love is awakened in us by him. We feel its call—and to love Jesus himself, and then God. Thus the first great commandment, to love God with all out being, can be fulfilled because of the beauty of God given in Christ. This is the second movement in the return to love: “We love, because He first loved us.” Every conscience, be it right or erroneous, is binding. And conscious is not only an intellectual knowledge of the law. It is also the recipient of God’s moral guidance through the gifts of the Holy Spirit.  This guidance increases with growth in love. One who is totally committed to love always knows how to behave, even though one may be in the dark as to the letter of the law. #RandolphHarris 15 of 22

If we can identify the environmental influences that promote a continuing learning of dissociation, these findings could be put to preventive use. We can prevent the rift from occurring. We can, if we will, use our scientific skills to help us keep the person whole and unified, a creature whose actualizing tendency will be continually forming one in the direction of a richer and more fulfilling relationship to life. The human species is composed of basically trustworthy organisms, trustworthy persons. The actualizing tendency, when operating freely, tends toward an integrated wholeness in which behaviour is guided as much by the experiencings within as by the consciousness that flutters over these experiences. However, what does this mean from the point of view of the political of interpersonal relationships? It leads me to the conclusions that the most trustworthy entity in our uncertain World is an individual who is fully open to the two major sources: the data from internal experiencing, and the data from experiencing of the external World. This person is at the opposite pole from the dissociated individual. Either one was fortunate in not developing the internal rift between the experiencing organism and the conscious self or this rift has been eliminated in helping relationships or by healing life experiences. #RandolphHarris 16 of 22

In such an individual, functioning in a unified way, we have the best possible base for wise action. Politically, then, if we are in search of a trustworthy base to operate from, our major aim would be to discover and possibly to increase the number of individuals who are coming closer to being whole persons—who are moving toward a knowledge of, and harmony with, their innermost experience, and who sense with an equal lack of defensiveness, all that data from the persons and objects of their external environment. These persons would constitute an increasing flow of wisdom in action. Their directions would be wiser than the commandments of gods or the directives of governments. They might become the vitalizing stream of a constructive future. The love in question is the love of God, God being understood in the sense of being-itself, not one being among others, but the Supreme Being. Such a love embraces all created beings as concrete expressions of being-itself. It is focused on the Christ as the manifestation of being-itself in the conditions of existence. There is a close kinship between this and the Catholic doctrine of the supremacy of love. Well known is the saying of St. John of the Cross: “In the evening of your life, you shall be examined on love.” #RandolphHarris 17 of 22

Conformity to the moral law will not decide eternal bliss or doom. Rather, the love of God that shall have informed both our obedience to the law and, if possible, our aberrations shall judge us. The soul is entirely guided by the instinctive discoveries of its love of God. The higher one has been raised into the love of God, the more all embracing is the light. What the mind learns through the commandments, love knows by experience. Then the law is transformed. No longer a yoke, it is a delight. Humans no longer obey an exterior, heteronomous authority; rather, one discovers anew the regulations of the law in implications of His love. “And now, my beloved brethren, behold, I declare unto you that except ye shall repent your houses shall be left unto you desolate. Yea, expect ye repent, your women shall have great cause to mourn in the day that they shall give suck; for ye shall attempt to flee and there shall be no place for refuge; yea, and wo unto them which are with child, for they shall be heavy and cannot flee; therefore, they shall be trodden down and shall be left to perish. #RandolphHarris 18 of 22

“Yea, wo unto this people who are called the people of Nephi except they shall repent, when they shall see all these signs and wonders which shall be showed unto them; for behold, they have been a chosen people of the Lord; yea, the people of Nephi hath he loved, and also hath he chastened them; yea, in the days of their iniquities hath he chastened them because he loveth them. However, behold my brethren, the Lamanites hath he hated because their deeds have been evil continually, and this because of their iniquity of the tradition of their fathers. However, behold, salvation hath come unto them through the preaching of the Nephites; and for this intent hath the Lord prolonged their days. And I would that ye should behold that the more part of them are in the path of their duty, and they do walk circumspectly before God, and they do observe to keep his commandments and his statues and his judgments according to the law of Moses. Yea, I say unto you, that the more part of them are doing this, and they are striving with unwearied diligence that they may bring the remainder of their brethren to the knowledge of the truth; therefore there are many who do add to their numbers daily. #RandolphHarris 19 of 22

“And behold, ye do know of yourselves, for yes have witnessed it, that as many of them as are brought to the knowledge of the truth, and to know of the wicked and abominable traditions of their fathers, and are led to believe the holy scriptures, yes, the prophets, which are written, which leadeth them to faith on the Lord, and unto repentance, which faith and repentance bringeth a change of heart unto them—therefore, as many as have come to this, ye know of yourselves are firm and steadfast in the faith, and in the thing wherewith they have been made free. And ye know also that they have buried their weapons of war, and they fear to take them up lest by any means they should sin; yea, ye can see that they fear to sin—for behold they will suffer themselves that they be trodden down and slain by their enemies, and will not lift their swords against them, and this because of their faith in Christ. And now, because of their steadfastness when they do believe in that thing which the do believe, for because of their firmness when they are once enlightened, behold, the Lord shall bless them and prolong their days, notwithstanding their iniquity. #RandolphHarris 20 of 22

Yea, even if they should dwindle in unbelief the Lord shall prolong their days, until the time shall come which hath been spoken of by our fathers, and also by the prophet Zenos, and many other prophets, concerning the restoration of our brethren, the Lamanites, again, to the knowledge of truth. Yea, I say unto you, that in the latter times the promises of the Lord have been extended to our brethren, the Lamanites; and notwithstanding the many afflictions which they shall have, and notwithstanding they shall be driven to and fro upon the face of the Earth, and be hunted, and shall be smitten and scattered abroad, having no place for refuge, the Lord shall be merciful unto them. And this is according to the prophecy, that they shall again be brought to the true knowledge, which is the knowledge of their Redeemer, and their great and true shepherd, and be numbered among his sheep. Therefore I say unto you, it shall be better for them than for you except ye repent. For behold, had the mighty words been shown unto them which have been shown unto you, yes, unto them who have dwindled in unbelief because of the traditions of their fathers, ye can see of yourselves that they never would again have dwindled in unbelief. #RandolphHarris 21 of 22

“Therefore, saith the Lord: I will not utterly destroy them, but I will cause that in that day of my wisdom they shall return again unto me, saith the Lord. And now behold, saith the Lord, concerning the people of the Nephites: If they will not repent, and observe to do my will, I will utterly  destroy them, saith the Lord, because of their unbelief notwithstanding the many mighty works which I have done among them; and as surely as the Lord liveth shall these things be, saith the Lord,” reports Helaman 15.1-17. How wonderful! How marvelous! This house if the gift of those who drew it forth and those who prepared it. How wonderful! How marvelous! This house is the gift of God and the spirits. How wonderful! How marvelous! We give, in return, our thoughts and prayers, our words and deeds. A gift for a gift, with thanks to the architects. How wonderful! How marvelous! We humbly beseech you, O God, Whose nature is purification. Almighty God, unto Whom assists us all, Almighty God, the fountain of all wisdom; Almighty God, Who hast promised to hear, you are the model of our lives. When we wake in the morning, we are doing so because of you, taking place in the chain of life. Bless this say, then, that is might be productive and healing both in body and spirit. #RandolphHarris 22 of 22

Winchester Mystery House

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