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There isn’t a Soul in Here
I was returning home late one stormy night. The loud claps of thunder rattled among the house. The lighting quivered about the pinnacles of Llanada Villa, and shed flickering gleams over roof top. There was an evil influence hanging over me; an evil genius or spirit seeking to ensnare me and ensure my perdition. One afternoon I was lying down on the bed with a book trying to rest. Before long I was asleep. Suddenly, I awoke with a feeling of horror that seemed to start at my feet and gradually work its way up throughout my entire body and mind. The room seemed to be permeated with something terribly evil. I could neither see nor hear anything, but I had the feeling that there was a presence there and that it was very strong and about to overcome me. A succession of vivid flashes of lightning revealed it more distinctly. The scenes of blood which followed shocked my sensitive nature, disgusted me with society and the World, and I shut myself up in a Llanada Villa where I pursed my favour speculations. Sometimes I spent hours in my great library, the catacombs of departed authors, in quest of knowledge. I have seen ghosts a few times. In various parts of the house. And in the garden by the Cupid fountain. #RandolphHarris 1 of 7
These apparitions are the desolate souls of those unfortunates who have left their Earthly bodies in traumatic, or perhaps even tragic circumstances. Something must have created a power vortex—the whirlwind of negative and terrible emotions that act now as a magnet for unseen entities. Maybe there are more of them than I realize. The following morning, the housemaid laid my plate before me (scrambled eggs, bacon, and mushrooms). As I sat, casting my eyes down at my own half-eaten breakfast, I contemplated the situation. In the past, I was inclined to believe the someone had been smitten with the worth of a wealth widow; or rather a marauding Tarquin, had stolen into my home to violate my purse, and rifle my strong box, when all the house should be asleep. However, now I am prepared to believe that emotions of certain distressed people can be so strong at the moment of death, whether through pain, unhappiness, or shock, that an impression is left behind. An after image that can take years, maybe centuries, to fade completely. In any event, after breakfast, I went to the library. There was a fire burning in the massive stone fireplace. As one can imagine, the crack and spark of the aromatic logs, as well as the heat itself, were very welcome. I placed myself beside the hearth and relaxed into the delicious heat. #RandolphHarris 2 of 7
When I was sufficiently warmed, I made my way through the ground floor rooms without finding a living soul. Curiously, I had not dismissed the servants. I discovered a mincemeat pie on the kitchen table, and on the massive gas stove a teakettle blackened now because someone had left the flame on while all the water had evaporated. I turned offed the fire and almost seared my palm lifting the kettle to a cool spot. Now I was truly terrified. I heard it. The sound echoing eerily in the bowels of the house. Something was coming out of the shadows. The sound of its movements sent shock waves and terror running through me. I turned and ran from the room. “Oh, God,” I cried in despair, “what is going to happen to me?” There was nobody to protect me, nobody to save me. I flew down the hall and hurtled to the front door. It would not open no matter how hard I pulled and pushed. I ran into the parlour, ripped aside the heavy drapes and tried to open the window. It would not budge. I looked at the storm-swept night outside and found even that preferable to remaining in my home. In a fit of rage, I picked up a chair and threw in at the window, gasping in astonishment as the chair bounced off the pain of glass. I could not run away. #RandolphHarris 3 of 7
Within dreams I seemed gradually to acquire a greater and greater freedom of wandering. I floated through many rooms in Llanada Villa, going through secret passages. Sometimes I encountered those sealed trap-doors in the lowest level, around which such an aura of fear and forbiddingness clung. The next morning, as I was in the library, I looked up from my book and saw a shadow on the frosted glass of the door. When I rushed out into the hallways only to see the door across the hall closing, imagine my irritation. I walked over there, intending to knock, and find out who was in the room, but I saw a shadow withing the room, bent over a table. For some reason this stopped me, and I returned to the library. The next day the same thing happened. Then the day after that. I then refused to leave my desk. I would not chase a shadow; he would not use me in such a fashion. I soon discovered that when I did not go to the door, the shadow remained in my frosted glass all day long. He was standing outside my door all day long, every day. Once there were two shadows. That brought me to my feet immediately. However, when I snatched the door open, I discovered two housemaids busy shining chandeliers, polishing floors and furniture. Of course, after the two housemaids had left, the single shadow was back again. It was there until five. #RandolphHarris 4 of 7
I am not usually given to emotion. However, the next day I lost my temper. I saw the shadow before the library door and in a fit of rage, I order him away from the door at the top of my voice. When three hours had passed and he still had not left, I began to weep. I pleaded with him. However, he was still there. I opened the door and went across the hall and was startled at what I found. Shadows moved intelligently around the room, getting books from shelves and taking them to great tables, or vice versa, and sometimes writing diligently with a peculiar rod gripped in their hands. Afterwards, I saw them everywhere through the mansion; swarming in all the great chambers and corridors; racing along the vast miles of hallways. I ceased to be afraid of them, for they seemed to form supremely natural parts of the house. Individual differences amongst them began to manifest, and a few appeared to be under some kind of restraint. Hours passed, and night fell. I stopped by a covered form, and pulled back a canvas tarpaulin. “This is my butler,” I said. His body had been dismembered. I looked at the left hand first, saw the thumb and two remaining fingers. His face, empty and expressionless. #RandolphHarris 5 of 7
As for the other pieces—the torso, still joined to the upper right arm and thighs, the right forearm and hand, and the two disjointed feet and lower legs—I was not sure. Then he vanished before my eyes. Shortly after this incident, many of the servants began hearing the door-to-nowhere open by itself and close again. This was immediately followed by footsteps of someone walking through the hall. At first, they would get up to see who it was, but there was never anyone to be seen. Gradually, we realized that these were not the footsteps of a living person. The visitor would come at various times of the day or evening, and then stay away for several months. Then it would all resume. We became used to these sounds, and hardly looked up when they became audible. One day the steps continued and then we could clearly hear someone sit down in the baroque chair in the morning room! This did not bother me, but it bothered some of the servants who held less broadminded views of ghosts. However, it soon because apparent to everyone that the footsteps were not always the same: sometimes they were soft and light, as if made by a young person, while at other times they were heavy, almost clumsy steps of a big man. #RandolphHarris 6 of 7
On January 16, 1892, two servants were in different parts of the mansion busy with their chores. Independently of each other, the two women saw the same figure of a man suddenly appear out of nowhere. At first, the Parlour maid saw him. He was a big man, about six feet in height, and heavy-set, dressed in black, and where his face should have been was just a black mass. However, unmistakably this was a human figure. A few moments later, he appeared to a Kitchen maid. She looked at him, and could see right through him into the other room! The women both had the impression that the man was looking at them. As he disappeared toward the rear of the house, they realized they had not heard a single sound. Since the appearance of the man in black, the footsteps were not heard again, but the door kept opening and closing as before. This too must by no means be passed over that certain servants being seduced by the illusions and phantasmal shows of demons firmly believe and openly profess that in the dead of the night, Satan assumes the shape of a man. Satan, in the form of a tall, dark man conveyed thither, and most often leaves the house by way of the chimney. #RandolphHarris 7 of 7
The Winchester Mystery House
The house had been vacant for many months, but people could not help visiting it, even though it was locked. They would go up to the front steps and peer in the windows. So many people were strangely attacked to the beautiful but bizarre Victorian house. Some say they were “called” by the house as if someone inside were beckoning to them. Over the months after the death of Mrs. Winchester, strangers who had passed by the house would speak of strange tales of music emanating from the empty house. Definite tunes, song after song played by skilled hands. Eventually the house taken possession of by the Winchester Repeating Arms Company. However, Mrs. Winchester’s niece, Daisy, doubted that Mrs. Winchester would move out just because the house changed hands. She felt her presence, very much alive and wholly content to live in the house. In February of 1923, a stranger went to The Winchester Mansion and rang the doorbell. When the door opened and lights appeared, he claims that he had an opportunity of contemplating Mrs. Winchester, and was more than ever intoxicated by her beauty. Her face was pale, but of a dazzling fairness, set off by a profusion of raven hair that hung clustering about it. Her eyes were large and brilliant. As far as her black dress permitted her shape to be seen, it was of perfect symmetry. Her whole appearance was highly striking, though she was dressed in the simplest style.
The only thing approaching to an ornament which she wore, was a board black band round her neck, clasped by diamonds. He spoke to her, but received no reply. He advanced to greet her. On taking her hand, it was cold—there was no pulsation. Horrified and frantic, a scene of confusion ensued. The police were summoned. Because the house had been vacant for months, they are armed with guns. Once in the foyer, they switched on the lights. As they looked around, they saw no one. The police finally went back to where the man was standing, looking dejectedly at him. “There isn’t a soul in here,” they told him flatly. They tried to soothe him, but in vain. He was possessed with the frightful belief that an evil spirit had reanimated Mrs. Winchester’s body to ensnare him. He went distracted, and died in a mad-house. This was a fact not to be doubted. The best authority said that saw him in The Great Asylum for the Insane. Perhaps he saw a manifestation of some kind. A visual representation of Mrs. Winchester still lingering. With a house this old, it would be a little unusual is there was not a skeleton or two lurking in a cupboard somewhere.
Please come and enjoy a delicious meal in Sarah’s Café, stroll along the paths of the beautiful Victorian gardens, and wonder through the miles of hallways in the World’s most mysterious mansion. For further information about tours, including group tours, weddings, school events, birthday party packages, facility rentals, and special events please visit the website: https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
Please visit the online giftshop, and purchase a gift for friends and relatives as well as a special memento of The Winchester Mystery House. A variety of souvenirs and gifts are available to purchase. https://shopwinchestermysteryhouse.com/
The Fear of Isolation and Ostracism
Many people wonder why it is so important to work hard. Well, accumulation is the reward of personal merit and millionaires are a product of natural selection; the business class is essentially predatory in outlook and habits. The personal attributes of the ideal pecuniary man are ordinarily reserved for moral delinquents. Where the function of the captain of industry is conventionally considered a productive one, the methods of a developed business society is an attenuated form of sabotage. Where pecuniary acquisition is regarded as the reward of social service, the productive function of industry is an expression of workmanship, and the partially fraudulent character of business is an expression of salesmanship and chicanery. Competition has sometimes been looked at chiefly as a rivalry in productive service, but this is only true of the past when there had been no divorce between business and industry. Competition had once centered about rivalry between producers for industrial efficiency; but when business became supreme over industry it had become chiefly a contest between seller and consumers with a large admixture of fraudulent exploitation. #RandolphHarris 1 of 24
Institutions, individuals, and habits of thought are results of selective adaptation. The simple aggression characteristic of barbarian culture has given way to shrewd practice and chicanery, as the best approved method of accumulating wealth. There are the qualities which have become essential for selective admission into the leisure class. The tendency of pecuniary life is, in a general way, to conserve the barbarian temperament, but with the substitution of fraud and prudence, or administrative ability, in place of the predilection for physical damage that characterizes the early barbarian. The process of selection, under the conditions of modern society, has caused the aristocratic and bourgeois virtues—that is to say the destructive and pecuniary traits—to be found among the upper classes, and the industrial virtues, the peaceable traits, largely among the classes given to mechanical industry. The thing that distinguishes post-Darwinian science from pre-evolutionary science is not the insistence on facts, nor again the effort to formulate schemes of growth or development. It is a difference of spiritual point of view…a difference in the basis of valuation of the fact for the scientific purpose, or in the interest from which the facts are appreciated. #RandolphHarris 2 of 24
Evolutionary science is unwilling to depart from the test of causal relation or quantitative sequence. The modern scientist who asks the question “Why?” demands an answer in terms of cause and effect and refuses to go beyond it to any ultimate system, to any teleological conception of the cosmos. This is the crux of the distinction; for earlier natural scientists were not satisfied with this bare formula of mechanical sequence, but sought for some ultimate systematization the facts within a framework of natural law. They persistently clung to the notion of some spiritually legitimate end resident in and underlying the matters of fact which they observed. Their object was to formulate knowledge in terms of absolute truth; and this absolute truth is a spiritual fact. This pre-Darwinian viewpoint still dominates the conceptions of modern economics. The ultimate laws formulated by the classical economists are laws setting down the normal or natural in the light of their preconception regarding the ends to which, in the nature of things, all things, tend; and this preconception imputes to things a tendency to work out what the instructed common sense of the time accepts as the adequate or worthy end of human effort. #RandolphHarris 3 of 24
Yet evolutionary natural science deals only with cumulative causation, and not with the formulation of some normal case, which is constructed not out of any available facts but out of the investigator’s ideal of economic life. Traditional economics, following a preconceived notion of the normal, formulates an abstraction of the hedonistic man as a homogeneous globule of desire of happiness, passive under the buffetings of pain and pleasure stimuli. In the light of evolutionary science, on the contrary, man is seen to be a coherent structure of propensities and habits which seeks realization and expression in an unfolding activity. Instead of seeking for normal cases in the existence f an imaginary normal hedonistic man, a truly evolutionary economics must be the theory of a process of cultural growth as determined by the economic interest, a theory of cumulative sequence of economic institutions stated in terms of the process itself. Where other economist had found in Darwinian science merely a source of plausible analogies or a fresh rhetoric to substantiate traditional postulates and precepts, it is a loom upon which the whole fabric of economic thinking could be rewoven. The dominant school of economists had said that the existing is the normal and the normal is the right, and the roots of human ills lie in acts which interfere with natural unfolding of this normal process toward its inherent end in a beneficent order. #RandolphHarris 4 of 24
By virtue of their hedonistic preconceptions, their habituation to the ways of a pecuniary culture, and their avowed animistic faith that nature is in the right, the classical economists knew that the consummation to which, in the nature of things, all things tend, is the frictionless and beneficent economic system. This competitive ideal, therefore, affords the normal, and conformity to its requirements affords the test of absolute economic truth. In so far as economists had tried to use Darwinism, it was only to fortify this theoretical structure. Henceforth, economics should abandon such preconceived notions and devote itself to a theory of the evolution of institutions as they actually are. It is interesting to note that earlier political economists writing in the nineteenth century saw clearly that the economic process of greater and greater production was a means to an end, not an end in itself. Once a decent standard of material life had been achieved, it was hoped and expected that productive energies would be redirected toward the truly human development of society. The goal of producing more material goods as the final and total end of life was foreign to them. #RandolphHarris 5 of 24
Solitude, in the sense of being often alone, is essentially to any depth of meditation or of character; and solitude, in the presence of natural beauty and grandeur, is the cradle of thoughts and aspirations which are not only good for the individual, but which society could ill do without. Nor is there much satisfaction in contemplating the World with nothing left to the spontaneous activity of nature; with every rood of land brought into cultivation, which is capable of growing food for human beings; every flowery waste or natural pasture ploughed up, all quadrupeds or birds which are not domesticated for man’s use exterminated as his rivals for food, every hedgerow or superfluous tree rooted out, and scarcely a place left where a wild shrub or flower could grown without being eradicated as a weed in the name of improved agriculture. If the Earth must lose that great portion of its pleasantness which it owes to things that the unlimited increase of wealth and population would extirpate from it, for the mere purpose of enabling it to support a larger, but not a better or happier population, I sincerely hope, for the sake of posterity, that they will be content to be stationary, long before necessity compels them to it. #RandolphHarris 6 of 24
It is scarcely necessary to remark that a stationary condition of capital and population implies no stationary state of human improvement. There would be as much scope as ever for all kinds of mental culture, and moral and social progress; as much room for improving the Art of Living, and much more likelihood of its being improved, when minds ceased to be engrossed by the art of getting on. And though it is true that a shortening of the hours of labour would in many cases lessen the national dividend and lower wages; it would probably be well that most people should work rather less; provided that the consequent loss of material income could be met exclusively by the abandonment by all classes of the least worthy methods of consumption; and they could learn to spend leisure well. The most revolutionary change in our times lies in the fact that all the peoples of the World have opened their eyes and are aware of their desire for a dignified material life, and that man has discovered the technical means for the fulfillment of this aspiration. In the Western World and in Russian it will take only a relatively short while until this stage is achieved, even though it will take much longer in the nonindustralized countries of Asian, Africa, and Latin America. #RandolphHarris 7 of 24
Does this mean that in the rich industrial countries there is almost no longer any need for repression? This is, indeed, a widespread illusion among most people; yet it is not a fact. These societies, too, exhibit many contradictions and irrationalities. Does it make sense to spend millions of dollars on storing agricultural surpluses while millions of people in the World are starving? Well, in some senses yes. Many of the people who are starving in these other countries are not allies of America. The World is already overpopulated and by feeding people who are starving, they will be encouraged to breed more. When people cannot afford to feed themselves, they generally abstain from having children, which would reduce the burden on the World. Does it make sense to spend half of the national budget on weapons which, if and when they are used, will destroy our civilization? Well, the only way to protect a nation is to be heavily armed. This will make developed nations and less developed nations strongly reconsider an attack. Does it make sense to teach children the Christian virtues of humility and unselfishness and, at the same time, to prepare them for a life in which the exact opposites of these virtues are necessary in order to be successful? #RandolphHarris 8 of 24
In spite of our sinful heats, competition can bring out the best in people. When we compete, we push each other to test our strengths and give our best. In corporate America, competition can result in innovation and excellence. When people and ideas compete over something, it results in greater good for mankind. We all want a product that is more efficient, a process that is simpler, a person who is more skilled, and a business that is more profitable. Healthy competition is God’s way of providing the best for society. Does it make sense that we fought the last two World Wars for “freedom and democracy,” ending them with the demilitarization of the “enemies of freedom,” and that only a few years later we are rearming again for “freedom and democracy,” except that the former enemies of freedom are not its defenders, and the former allies are the enemies? I hope that the Lord’s people may be at peace one with another during times of trouble, regardless of what loyalties they may have to different governments or parties. Death of our military members seems to represent the contradictions of the peace of the gospel and the tides of war. The nations of the Earth have been divided over the possibility of World War III. Feelings run strong. There have been demonstrations for and against. #RandolphHarris 9 of 24
War, of course, is not new. The weapons change. The ability to defend and attack is constantly refined. However, there has been conflict throughout the ages over essentially the same issues. In the course of history, tyrants have arisen from time to time who have oppressed their own people and threatened the World. Such is adjudged to be the case presently, and consequently great and terrifying forces with sophisticated and fearsome armaments have engaged in battle. As citizens, we are all under the direction of our respective national leaders. They have access to greater political and military intelligence than do the people generally. Those in the armed services are under obligation to their respective governments to execute the will of the sovereign. When they joined the military service, they entered into a contract by which they are presently bound and to which they have dutifully responses. There are times and circumstances when nations are justified, in fact have an obligation, to fight for family, for liberty, and against tyranny, threat, and oppression. However, we are a people of peace. We are followers of our Redeemer, the Lord Jesus Christ, who was the Prince of Peace. However, even He said, “Think not that I am come to send peace on Earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword,” reports Matt 10.34. #RandolphHarris 10 of 24
This places us in the position of those who long for peace, who teach peace, who work for peace, but who also are citizens of nations and are subject to the laws of our governments. Furthermore, we are a freedom-loving people, committed to the defense of liberty wherever it is in jeopardy. I believe that God will not hold men and women in uniform responsible as agents of their government in carrying forward that which they are legally obligated to do. If we try to impede or hedge up the way of those who are involved in a contest with forces of evil and repression, it may even be that He will hold us responsible. If they have a military alliance with us, does it make sense to be deeply indignant against systems which do not grant freedom of speech and of political activity, while we call the very same systems, and even more ruthless ones, “freedom loving?” There is much that we can and must do in these perilous times. We can give our opinions on the merits of the situation as we see it, but never let us become a party to words or works of evil concerning our brothers and sisters in various nations on one side or the other. Political differences never justify hatred or ill will. I hope that the Lord’s people may be at peace one with another during times of trouble, regardless of what loyalties they may have to different governments or parties. #RandolphHarris 11 of 24
Let us pray for those who are called upon to bear arms by their respective governments and plead for the protection of Heaven upon them that they may return to their loved ones in safety. Does it make sense that we live in the midst of plenty, yet have little joy? Joy comes from exercising faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, worthily receiving and faithfully honouring sacred ordinances and covenants, and striving to become deeply converted to the Saviour and His purposes. Becoming more like the Saviour and receiving His image in countenance our Quest. Does it make sense that we are all literate, have radio and television, yet are chronically bored? Accept the reality of some boring routines. Not all of life is deeply meaningful and exciting. Avoid creating drama, intensity, or conflict to deal with boredom. Instead, appreciate and enjoy the good around you, and look for ways to improve and serve. Does it make sense that…We could go on for many more pages, describing the irrationalities, fictions, and contradictions of our Western way of life. Yet all these irrationalities are taken for granted and are hardly noticed by anybody. This is by no means due to the lack of critical capacity; we see these same irrationalities and contradictions quite clearly in our opponents—we only refuse to apply rational and critical judgement to ourselves. #RandolphHarris 12 of 24
The repression of the awareness of facts is, and must be, supplemented by the acceptance of many fictions. The gaps which exist because we refuse to see many things around us must be filled so that we may have a coherent picture. What are these ideologies which are fed into us? There are so many. We are Christians; we are individualists; our leaders are wise; we are good; our enemies (whoever these happen to be at the moment) are bad; our parents love us and we love them; our marriage system is successful; and so on, and so on. The Russian states have constructed another set of ideologies: That they are Marxists; that their system is socialism; that it expresses the will of the people; that their leaders are wise and work for humanity; that the profit interest in their society is a “socialist” profit interest and different from the “capitalist” profit interest; that their respect for property is that for “socialist” property and quite different from the respect for “capitalist” property; and so on, and so on. As if they were the result of men’s own thinking, all these ideologies are impressed on the people from childhood on by their parents, by the schools, churches, movies, television, newspapers, and they take hold of men’s minds. If this process takes place in societies opposed to our, we call it “brain washing,” and, in its less extreme forms, “indoctrination” or “propaganda”; in our, we call it “education” and “information.” #RandolphHarris 13 of 24
Even though it is true that societies differ in the degree of awareness and brain washing, and even though Western World is somewhat better in this respect than Russia, the difference is not enough to alter the fundamental picture of a mixture between repression of facts and acceptance of fiction. Why do people repress the awareness of what they would otherwise be aware of? Undoubtedly the main reason is fear. However, fear of what? Is it fear of castration, as Dr. Freud assumed? There does not seem to be sufficient evidence to believe this. Is it fear of being killed, imprisoned, or fear of starvation? That might sound like a satisfactory answer, provided repression occurred only in systems of terror and oppression. However, since this is not so, we have to inquire further. Are there more subtle fears which a society such as our own, for instance, produces? Let us think of a young executive or engineer in a big corporation. If he has thoughts which are not “sound,” he might be inclined to repress them lest he might not get the kind of promotion others get. This is, in itself, would be to tragedy, were it not for the fact that he, his wife, and his friends will consider him a “failure” if he falls behind in the competitive race. Thus the fear of being a failure can become a sufficient cause for repression. However, there is still another and, as I believe, the most powerful motive for repression: the fear of isolation and ostracism. #RandolphHarris 14 of 24
Empathy is an essential condition in the human relationship. An empathic understanding of another’s private World, and the ability to communicate some of the significant fragments of that understanding is very important. To sense if a confidant’s inner World of private personal meanings as if it were you own, but without every losing the “as if” quality, this is empathy, and this seems essential to a growth-promoting relationship. To sense his confusion or his timidity or his anger or his feeling of being treated unfairly as if it were your own, yet without your own uncertainty or fear or anger or suspicion getting bound up in it, this is the optimal condition. When another person’s World is clear to you and you can move about in it freely, then you can both communicate his understanding of what is vaguely known to the client, and you can also voice meanings in the client’s experience of which the client is scarcely aware. It is this kind of highly sensitive empathy which seems important in making it possible for a person to get close to himself and to learn, to change and develop. I suspect that each of us has discovered that this kind of understanding is extremely rare. We neither receive it nor offer it with any great frequency. Instead, we offer another type of understanding which is very different, such as “I understand what is wrong with you,” or “I understand what makes you act this way.” #RandolphHarris 15 of 24
There are the types of understanding which usually offer and receive—an evaluative comprehension from outside. It is not surprising that we shy away from true understanding. If I am truly open to the way life is experienced by another person—if I can take his World into mine—then I run the risk of seeing life in his way, of being changed myself, and we all resist change. So we tend to view this other person’s World only in our terms, not in his. We analyze and evaluate it. We do not understand it. However, when someone understands how it feels and seems to be me, without wanting to analyze me or judge me, then I can blossom and grow in that climate. I am sure I am not alone in that feeling. I believe that when the counselor can grasp the moment-to-moment experiencing occurring in the inner World of the client, as the client sees and feels it, without losing the separateness of his own identity in this empathic process, then change is likely to occur. Though the accuracy of such understanding is highly important, the communication of intent to understand is also helpful. If he perceives that I am trying to understand his meaning, even in dealing with the confused or inarticulate or bizarre individual, this is helpful. It communicates the value I place on him as an individual. It gets across the fact that I perceive his feelings and meanings as being worth understanding. #RandolphHarris 16 of 24
None of us steadily achieves such a complete empathy as I have been trying to describe, any more than we achieve complete congruence, but there is no doubt that individuals can develop along this line. Suitable training experiences have been utilized in the training of counselors, and also in the “sensitivity training” of industrial management personnel. Such experiences enable the person to listen more sensitively, to receive more of the subtle meanings the other person is expressing in words, gesture, and posture, to resonate more deeply and freely within himself to the significance of those expressions. I hope the above account of an empathic attitude will make it abundantly clear that I am not advocating a wooden technique of pseudo-understanding in which the counselor “reflects back what the client has just said.” I have been more than a little horrified at the interpretation of my approach which has sometimes crept into the teaching and training of counselors. If a person has made a pertinent observation or gained an insight into himself, he should examine how the peculiarity uncovered manifests itself in various areas, what consequences it has and which factors in his personality account for it. #RandolphHarris 17 of 24
Consciousness, the capacity to experience the World in its richness, is the evidence for life itself. You may say, “I am experiencing; therefore, I know I am alive!” Certainly a distinguishing characteristic of the healthy personality is openness to new experience. Indicative of the extent of the person’s consciousness is the ability to be responsive to new idea, new thoughts, new perceptions. However, does the person have to be selective about the particular experiences that are chosen and even about the ways new experiences are sought? If at all, chemical alterations in consciousness are at best a mixed blessing and need to be engaged in with great caution. New experiences that entail genuine effort and accomplishment differ from the chemically induced experience in important ways. Consciousness is a complex and important human characteristic, and the serious student should become familiar with a number of professional points of view concerning the expansion of consciousness in one’s own life. This is especially necessary in a time such as the present, when alternation or expansion of states of consciousness has become a popular and sometimes dangerous recreational activity. #RandolphHarris 18 of 24
It is essential that the student keep his romantic inclinations under constant surveillance of reason, caution, and reflection upon consequences. He is well advised to avoid emotional entanglements; for in this region there is often, for those who have a special spiritual destiny, a thorn concealed beneath every rose. When two people, emotionally involved with each other, have a misunderstanding or difference of opinion regarding the Quest itself, it is best that they deliberately discontinue their relationship for a while. In this way, they avoid a revival of the discussion which can only lead to exacerbation and further confusion. Time will solve the problem. Probably there are faults on both sides, since we are all human, but we have to carry on with the Quest despite these faults. Being on the Quest need not prevent the continuance and even the development of a friendship with one of the opposite gender, provided that it be kept on a high plane above the physical. Universal laws may be involved and these have to be carefully negotiated. The relationships can be beautiful, platonic, and mutually helpful but a strong discipline of the ego is called for. Great men can liberate great feelings in others or lift them toward acceptance of true ideas. #RandolphHarris 19 of 24
The mission of the Sacramento Fire Department is to provide the City of Sacramento with superior customer service and integrated emergency response to any situation that threatens life, safety, and well-being of people and property. “Firefighters, as a group, are different from other people. I think the thing that brings us you together is not the lives you save, it’s the fatalities that you see together. Most firemen can handle an adult fatality. But the one that gets everybody is the death of a child. Most firemen are family men, and they relate. There have been times when I have come home emotionally drained and have actually just sat down and cried, because things were beyond my control. Firemen need that feeling of being in control of a situation. At a fire you’re doing something not everybody else is doing—you’re going in when everyone else is coming out—but you feel that you have a grip on the situation and you can handle it. It’s not bravery, it’s a matter of fortitude, a little intelligence, with guts mixed in. And then once in a while it gets you, because you can’t handle it. The only thing worse than a child fatality is a fatality involving a fireman. It’s because of the brotherhood that’s there. You can share good times with any group of people, but I think it’s the bad times that bring people together, because you can’t really share it with anybody else. It’s only the guys in the room and the feeling, ‘This is what it’s about, this is what we’re doing this for.’ #RandolphHarris 20 of 24
“Some of the outsiders have the idea that what firemen do at a fire is throw things out the window. My fire department doesn’t do that. Our point of view is not to break anything in the interior unless it’s necessary in attacking the fire. Most all cities operate that way. These are people who are leaving their jobs and willing to put their lives on the line, for free, to help their neighbours out, or to fulfill something in their own lives, or whatever their reasons are. But they do it. Just as in any other job, there are various degrees of success. Not everybody is as good as everybody else in any field. That’s why there are superstars in baseball while there are guys in the minor leagues. Not everybody is going to be Hank Aaron. But they’re doing it, and doing it successfully throughout the country. For a country that’s as under the gun from fire as this country is, we have given it a good fight. I’ve been to fires all over Sacramento City, and the thing that amazes me is the blasé attitude of the populace. They will stop and look for a second and then just keep going. Here is somebody’s life tragedy being played out on the streets of Sacramento, and they’ll just stop for an instant and look. Or watch it on the television while they are cooking dinners. There is so much going on here that people are immune. They put walls around themselves. #RandolphHarris 21 of 24
“In small town America, everyone would be involved. There are some exceptional good Samaritans. When that helicopter went down in the East River, a jogger, who was a teacher, dove head first into cold water to help some people out. Nobody asked him to do it. He was in his mid-fifties. It was a pretty wild maneuver to jump in the water, because the water was moving. I’ve had close friends on teams I’ve been on and business companies I’ve worked for, and we were kind of like brothers. But it’s not like the brother feeling that you get with the firemen. Even if you don’t like the guy. I mean, I had an uncle I wasn’t too found of, but he was still related to me, and there was nothing I could do about it. It’s like that with the brotherhood of the fire department. They are your brothers. You might not like one of them on a given day, but he is your brother. It’s not the shared danger. There are lots of other jobs where you share danger, or sports like surfing, which I used to do a lot. It’s more the things you see, the shared grief, the loss of another fireman, the loss of a child at a fire, the unspeakable things. The things you can’t bring home and tell your family. You tell them about the rescues and the funny things, but you can’t go home and graphically explain. With other firemen, you don’t have to graphically explain, you just look. You just look into each other’s eyes after a fire, and you know that he is thinking what you are thinking. Because nobody else on the face of the Earth comes across what we come across on a regular basis. #RandolphHarris 22 of 24
“The fireman knows the awful dangers civilians manage to get themselves into, and that’s why he is willing to go to the point of killing himself to make a rescue, because he knows how bad it is. I’ve heard it said that firemen already know what hell is. That could very well be. I wouldn’t want my worst enemy to die by means of fire. I myself really don’t think about it. You wouldn’t be able to do the job you have to do. You get the job done, and you think about it later. You sit around and have a cup of coffee, and you shake your head: ‘I can’t believe I just got myself through that.’ One of the great things about a rescue company is that they are handpicked men, and they get unusual incidents to go to. I have been to building collapses, train crashes, plane crashes. Light planes. I haven’t gone to a jetliner yet, thank God. I hope I never see one of those. I’ve been in many successful rescues. At least four people are walking around today because of me personally, which makes me feel great. I’ve been extremely lucky. I’m lucky to be part of Rescue (number is being kept confidential), the best fire company in the World. There are tremendous people working in the Sacramento Fire Department. #RandolphHarris 23 of 24
“I was lucky to win awards. I used the award money to take my family to Hawaii, which was a lifetime dream of mine, having been a surfer most of my life. I use the word luck, and I don’t know another word for it. To make a rescue, you have to be working that day, there had to be a fire your company goes to, there unfortunately has to be somebody trapped, and you have to be in the right position to go get them. Luck stops, though, when you fine those few minor obstacles you have to overcome before you can make the rescue. All the brothers have a common interest, a shared understanding, and that is that we’re out there protecting life and property.” The goal of the Sacramento Fire Department is to continually strive for excellence and seek to improve the Fire Department through innovation, education, teamwork and open communication, making Sacramento a safer place to live and be a source of pride for all. You can help out by donating. Also, remember to raise your children to love America and to be patriotic, to love God and Jesus Christ, respect law and order and treat all people with dignity. I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic, for which it stands, One Nation, under God, Indivisible with Liberty and Justice for all. May America be blessed with angels a cohort, of peace and of rest. #RandolphHarris 24 of 24
The Winchester Mystery House
One day Mrs. Winchester’s niece Daisy accompanied her to the attic. While Mrs. Winchester was busy looking for dresses, Daisy wandered around the attic. Suddenly she came running out of the back room and beckoned her aunt to follow her. “There is a lady back there,” she explained. Immediately, Mrs. Winchester went back but she saw nothing this time. Whether this visit to the attic had stirred up some sort of psychic contact, or whether her years of living in the mansion now allowed her to see entities, Daisy had something more to say about Ghosts before long. Naturally, no one discussed such matters with her. Why frighten the young lady? “There is a man in the attic,” Daisy explained earnestly, “and his name is Gunther. He died. He was short in the head, and he’s buried in the back yard under the bushes.” Daisy led Mrs. Winchester to the dining room window and pointed at the bushes in the backyard. It’s under the bushes there,” Daisy repeated and stared out the window. Mrs. Winchester shuddered. It was a spot she had wondered about many times. No matter how she tried, no matter what she planted, nothing would grow on that spot!
Please come and enjoy a delicious meal in Sarah’s Café, stroll along the paths of the beautiful Victorian gardens, and wonder through the miles of hallways in the World’s most mysterious mansion. For further information about tours, including group tours, weddings, school events, birthday party packages, facility rentals, and special events please visit the website: https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
Please visit the online giftshop, and purchase a gift for friends and relatives as well as a special memento of The Winchester Mystery House. A variety of souvenirs and gifts are available to purchase. https://shopwinchestermysteryhouse.com/
He Who Does Not Work Should Not Eat
We can forgive a child who is afraid of the dark, but it is deeply concerning when a man is afraid of the light. Man is a creature of desires, universally motivated by self-interest; the mechanism of competition, if free and fair, transmutes the self-seeking of the economic man into deeds that work for “the greatest good of the greatest number.” However, this machinery is delicate and must be permitted to operate under “normal” conditions and must not be overridden by government interference; to enjoy the fruits of an inherently beneficent natural economic law, men must permit it to operate unhampered; they must be industrious, frugal, temperate, and self-reliant; self-help, and not a weak recourse to state intervention, is the way of economic salvation. We must not, however, always have blind faith in the doctrines and simplicity of classical laissez faire economics, and its belief in the adequacy of self-interest as an explanation of human conduct. The historical method cannot lead to such doctrinaire extreme. This younger political economy no longer permits the science to be used as a tool in the hands of the greedy and the avaricious for keeping down and oppressing the labouring classes. It does not acknowledge laissez-faire as an excuse for doing nothing while people starve, nor allow the all-sufficiency of competition as a plea for grinding the poor. #RandolphHarris 1 of 18
Malthus assumed that man has a definite and unalterable set of attributes; but Darwinism holds that man is pliable and circumstances determine his characteristics. On true Darwinian premises one can assume no such thing as a permanent natural rate of increase; for the human rate of increase would be susceptible to change in accordance with man’s surroundings and circumstances. We regard the state as an agency whose positive assistance is one of the indispensable conditions of human progress. We believe that political economy as a science is still in an early stage of its development. While we appreciate the work of former economists, we look not so much to speculation as to the historical and statistical study of actual conditions of economic life for the satisfactory accomplishment of that development. The most fundamental things in our minds are on the one hand the idea of evolution, and on the other hand, the idea of relativity. A new World is coming into existence, and if this World is to be a better World we know that we must have a new economics to go along with it. If the consumer challenges the corporation to respond to his wishes, the management will begin to respond to this challenge. However, as it stands, many corporations are taking on the form of a dictator and demanding that the consumer be thankful for allowing them to purchase from their businesses and that the consumer accepts whatever the business gives them, even if it is substandard quality and service. #RandolphHarris 2 of 18
Accusations will not help to clarify or to improve the situation. Managers as well as consumers are part of the same alienated system; they are its prisoners rather than its creators. The managers tend to seduce the consumer into passiveness, but the consumer is attracted to his passive role; he makes it easy to be seduced. The resistance to basic change exists on both sides, but the wish for imaginative change, for liberation of energies, for new or creative solutions exists on both sides, too. A further measure would be legal restrictions on present methods of advertising. This point hardly needs an explanation. It refers to all semihypnotic and irrational advertising which has developed in the last three quarters of a century. It could be effected by a simple law, like the one requiring cigarette manufacturers to put a warning of danger to health on their product, or as fake and misleading advertising in interstate commerce and specifically false advertisements with respect to food, drugs, and cosmetics are forbidden by federal statutes. Whether such a law has a chance to be passed against the combined powers of the advertising industry, the newspapers, television, radio, and, most of all, that part of industry for which hypnotic advertising is an important aspect of its planning and production, depends on certain changes in our democratic process, and chance to be informed, to debate and to discuss this problem, and whether the power of citizens is superior to that of lobbies and those members of Congress who are influenced by lobbies. #RandolphHarris 3 of 18
What about a redirection of production itself? Assuming that the best experts and an enlightened public opinion came to the conclusion that the production of certain commodities is preferable to that of others in the interest of the population as a whole, could the freedom of the enterprise to produce that which is most profitable or requires least vision, experimentation, and daring be restricted within the framework of our Constitution? Legally this would not cause any great problem. While in the twentieth century such change might required the nationalization of industry, today it can be achieved by laws which require no change in our Constitution. The production of “useful” things could be furthered and the production of useless and unhealthy things could be discouraged by tax laws which favour those industries that agree to fit their production into the pattern of a sane society rather than into a pattern of “profit regardless.” The government could influence adequate production by loans or, in certain instances, by government-owned enterprises which would pave the way for private initiative, once feasibility of profitable investment was proved. It is also important to increase investment in the public sector in relation to investment in the private sector. #RandolphHarris 4 of 18
All investments in the public sector—like public transportation, housing, schools, parks, theaters, and so on—have a twofold merit: first, of fulfilling needs adapted to man’s aliveness and growth; second, of developing a sense of solidarity rather than one of personal greed and envy and hence competitiveness with others. Our society, like many of the past, has accepted the principle “he who does not work should not eat.” (American Communism has elevated this old principle into a “socialist” precept, phrasing it slightly different.) The problem is not whether a man fulfills his social responsibility by contributing to the common good. In fact, in those cultures which have explicitly or implicitly accepted this norm, the rich who did not have to work, were exempted from this principle, and the definition of a gentleman was a man who did not have to work to live in style. The problem is that any human being has an inalienable right to live regardless of whether he performs a social duty. Work and all other social obligations should be made sufficiently attractive to urge man to desire to accept his share of social responsibility, but he should not be forced to do so by the threat of starvation. If the latter principle is applied, society has no need to make work attractive and to fit its system to human needs. It is true that in many societies of the past the disproportion between the size of the population and the available techniques of production did not permit the freedom to dispense with the principle of what is, in fact, forced labour. #RandolphHarris 5 of 18
In the affluent industrial society there is no such problem, and yet even the members of the middle and upper classes are forced to follow norms laid down by the industrial system for fear of losing their jobs. Our industrial system does not give them as much leeway as it could. If they lose a job because they lack “the right spirit”—which means they are too independent, voice unpopular opinions, marry the “wrong” women—they will have great difficulties in finding another job of equal rank, and getting a job of inferior rank implies that they and their families feel that their personality has been degraded; they lose the new “friends” whom they had gained in the process of rising; they fear the scorn of their wives and the loss of respect from the children. We must uphold the principle that a person has an inalienable right to live—a right to which no conditions are attached and which implies the right to be treated at least as well as the owner of a dog or a cat treats his pet, which does not have to “prove” anything in order to be fed. Provided this principle were accepted, if a man, woman, or adolescent could be sure that whatever he did his material existence would not be in jeopardy, the realm of human freedom would be immensely enhanced. Acceptance of this principle would also enable a person to change his occupation or profession by using one or more years in preparing himself for a new and, to him, more adequate activity. #RandolphHarris 6 of 18
It happens that most people decide about their career at an age when they do not have the experience and judgment to know what activity is the most congenial to them. Perhaps in their mid-thirties they wake up to the fact that it is too late to start that activity which they now know would have been the right choice. In addition, no woman would be forced to remain unhappily married because she did not have what it takes even to prepare herself for a job at which she could make a living. If he knew he would not starve during the time he looks for a job more to his liking, no employee would be forced to accept conditions which to him are degrading or distasteful. This problem is by no means solved by unemployment or welfare dole. As many have recognized, the bureaucratic methods employed here are humiliating to such a degree that many people are afraid of being forced into the dole-receiving sector of the population, and this fear is sufficient to deprive them of the freedom not to accept certain working conditions. How could this principle be realized? Several economists have suggested as a solution an “annual guaranteed income” (sometimes called a “negative income tax”). The guaranteed annual income for work in order not to arouse resentment and anger in those who work. If it is to guarantee a modest but still adequate material basis, the present wage level would have to rise considerably. #RandolphHarris 7 of 18
It is feasible to determine a minimum standard of living which is as high as the present minimum standard for a modest and adequate material basis. Anyone who is attracted by a more comfortable life would be free to achieve a higher level of consumption. The guaranteed annual income could also serve, as some economists have observed, as an important regulating feature in our economy. What we need is some device that can be permanently instituted as a regular feature of the industrial economy by which demand can be made to keep pace with a constantly proliferating supply. The guarantee of a basic income to all members of the community irrespective of the earnings of employment, as Social Security payments are now guaranteed to all persons over the age of seventy-two years of age, would provide the flow of effective demand that the economy more and more desperately requires. However limited the impact of Darwinism on economic theory, one could doubtless compile a formidable list of obiter dicta in which competition was justified in Sumnerian fashion as a special case of the struggle for existence. The survival of the fittest was a precept of sheer brutality and nothing else. I must deem any man very shallow in his observation of the facts of life who fails to discern in competition the force to which it is mainly due that mankind has risen from stage in intellectual, moral, and physical power. #RandolphHarris 8 of 18
An aspect of the filter which makes awareness possible is the logic which directs the thinking of people in each culture. Just as most people assume that their language is “natural” and that other languages only use different words for the same things, they assume also that the rules which determine proper thinking are natural and universal ones’ that is what is illogical in one cultural system is illogical in any other because it conflicts with “natural” logic. A good example of this is the difference between Aristotelian and paradoxical logic. Aristotelian logic is based on the laws of identity which states that A is A, the law of contradiction (A is not non-A), and the law of the excluded middle (A cannot be A and non-A, neither A nor non-A). Aristotle stated: “It is impossible for the same thing at the same time to belong and not to belong to the same thing in the same respect…This, then, is the most certain of all principles.” In opposition to Aristotelian logic is what one might call paradoxical logic, which assumes that A and non-A do not exclude each other as predicates of X. Paradoxical logic was predominant in Chinese and Indian thinking, in Heraclitus’ philosophy, and then again under the name of dialectics in the thought of Hegel and Marx. The general principle of paradoxical logic has been clearly described in general terms by Lao-tse: “Words that are strictly true seem to be paradoxical.” And by Chuang-tzu: “That which is one is one. That which is not-one, is also one.” #RandolphHarris 9 of 18
Inasmuch as a person lives in a culture in which the correctness of Aristotelian logic is not doubted, it is exceedingly difficult if not impossible, for him to be aware of experiences which contradict Aristotelian logic, hence which from the standpoint of his culture are nonsensical. A good example is Dr. Freud’s concept of ambivalence, which says that one can experience love and hate for the same person at the same time. This experience, which from the standpoint of paradoxical logic is quite “logical,” does not make sense from the standpoint of Aristotelian logic. As a result, it is exceedingly difficult for most people to be aware of feelings of ambivalence. If they are aware of love, they cannot be aware of hate—since it would be utterly nonsensical to have two contradictory feelings at the same time. In therapy, the personal growth is facilitated when the counselor is what he is, when in the relationship with his client he is genuine and without “front” or façade, openly being the feelings and attitudes which at that moment are flowing in him. We have used the term “congruence” to try to describe this condition. By this we mean that the feelings the counselor is experiencing are available to him, available to his awareness, that he is able to live these feelings, be them in the relationship, and able to communicate them if appropriate. #RandolphHarris 10 of 18
Congruence means that he comes into a direct personal encounter with his client, meeting him on a person-to-person basis. It means that he is being himself, not denying himself. No one fully achieves this condition, yet the more the therapist can listen acceptantly to what is going on within himself, and the more he is able to be the complexity of his feelings without fear, the higher the degree of his congruence. I think that we readily sense this quality in our everyday life. We could each of us name persons whom we know who always seem to be operating from behind a front, who are playing a role, who tend to say things they do not feel. They are exhibiting incongruence. We do not reveal ourselves too deeply to such people. On the other hand, each of us knows individuals whom we somehow trust, because we sense that they are being what they are, that we are dealing with the person himself, and not with a polite or professional façade. This is the quality of which we are speaking, and it is hypothesized that the more genuine and congruent the therapist is in the relationship, the more probability there is that change in personality in the client will occur. Therefore, never accept more than you believe. A person may feel obliged, for instance, to accept whatever “bad” things emerge concerning himself, and to suspect a “resistance” if he hesitates to do so. However, if he regards his interpretation as merely tentative, and does not try to convince himself that it is definite, he will be on much safer ground. #RandolphHarris 11 of 18
The essence of analysis is truthfulness, and this should extend also to acceptance or nonacceptance of interpretations. The danger of making an interpretation that is misleading or at least unprofitable can never be excluded, but one should not be overawed by it. If one does not weaken, but carries on in the right spirit, a more profitable path will open sooner or later, or one will become aware of being in a blind alley and perhaps even learn from that experience. Clare, for instance, before embarking on her analysis of the dependency, had spent a couple of months digging after an alleged need to have her own way. From the data that emerged later we can understand how she was led in that direction. She told me, though, that during these attempts she had never had a feeling of conviction remotely like those she experienced later, during the period reported. Also, the ultimate reason why she had taken that earlier course was that Peter (her boyfriend) often reproached her for being dominating. This illustrates the importance of following one’s own interests; and the importance of not accepting anything without full conviction. However, while this early search of Clare’s meant a waste of time it petered out without harm and did not prevent her from doing highly constructive work afterward. #RandolphHarris 12 of 18
The constructive character of Clare’s work was due not only to the essential correctness of her interpretations but also to the fact that her analysis in this period showed a remarkable degree of continuity. Without intending to concentrate on one problem—for a long time she did not even know what it was—everything she embarked upon turned into a contribution to the problem of her dependency. This unanswering unconscious concentration upon a single problem, which made her approach it relentlessly from ever-new angels, is desirable but rarely attained to the same degree. We can account for it in Clare’s case, for at that period she was living under a formidable pressure—how formidable she fully recognized only later—and hence she unconsciously bent all her energies into solving the problems that contributed to it. Such a compelling situation cannot be created artificially. However, the more absorbing one’s interest in a problem, the more will a similar concentration be approximated. Clare’s self-analysis illustrates the recognition of a neurotic trend; understanding its implications; and discovering its interrelations with other neurotic trends. In Clare’s analysis, the steps overlapped to some extent: she recognized many of the implications before she finally detected the trend itself. Nor did she make any effort to cover definite steps in her analysis: she did not deliberately set out to discover a neurotic trend, and she did not deliberately examine the connections between her dependency and her compulsive modesty. #RandolphHarris 13 of 18
The recognition of the trend came of itself; and, similarly, the connecting links between the two trends almost automatically became more and more visible as the analytical work proceeded. Clare did not select the problems—at least not consciously—but the problems came to her, and in their unfolding they displayed an organic continuity. There was in Clare’s analysis a continuity of still another kind, even more important, and more possible to emulate: at no time was there any insight that remained isolated or disconnected. What we see develop is not an accumulation of insights that a person gains in an analysis is correct, he may still deprive himself of the greatest benefits of his work if the nights remain scattered. Thus Clare, after recognizing that she let herself be immersed in misery because she secretly believed she could thereby command help, might merely have traced the origin of this trait in childhood and regard it as a persistent infantile belief. That might have helped some, because nobody really wants to be miserable for no good reason; the next time she found herself succumbing to a spell of misery, she might have caught herself up short. However, at best this handling of her insight would have diminished in the course of time the gross attacks of exaggerated unhappiness. And these attacks were not the most important expression of the trait. #RandolphHarris 14 of 18
Or Clare might have gone no further than the next step, connecting her finding with her actual lack of self-assertion and recognizing that her belief in magic help substituted for an active dealing with life’s difficulties. This, although still inadequate, would have helped considerably more, because it would have opened a new incentive to do away with the whole attitude of helplessness lying behind the belief. However, if she had not linked up the magic-help belief with her dependency, and seen the one as an integral part of the other, she could not thoroughly have overcome the belief, because she would always have made the unconscious reservation that if she could only find the permanent “love,” help would always be forthcoming. It was only because she saw that connection, and because she recognized the fallacy in such an expectation and the excruciating price she had to pay for it, that the insight had the radically liberating effect it did. Wilhelm Reich, originally a psychoanalyst, became more and more convinced that healthy personality was impossible if a person defended himself or herself from the experience of vitality, pleasures of the flesh, and other emotional repression. Such repressions produce muscular tension. He gave the name muscular armor to those groups of muscles that a person keeps in chronic tension in order not to feel unwanted dimensions of experience. One indication that a person is not living a chronically “armored” life is the capacity to experience an enjoyable experience during pleasures of the flesh. #RandolphHarris 15 of 18
Alexander Lowen adapted some of Reich’s ideas and techniques and founded a school of therapy that he calls bioenergetic analysis. He observes a person’s body, noting peculiarities of chronic tension and posture that are the outcome of the way the person lives. For example, a person with chronically hunched shoulders, who breathes shallowly, may reveal thereby a sense of personal helplessness in a hostile World. Lowen has his patients do certain stretching exercises to identify areas of tension; but he also encourages them to yell, and to beat a pillow or mattress with a tennis racquet, or fists and feet, to release tension. “Unarmoring” a person frees that person from repressions that protect one from pain but also destroy the capacity for pleasure. The man who reposes his emotional strength or mental peace on any single person is taking a chance whose outcome may disappoint him. The feelings of the transformed man no longer come out of the ego but out of the Overself’s life deep within the ego. A fuzzy sentimentality which passes for mystical feeling is only its counterfeit. If a man had trained himself to reject self-pity as an emotional egoism that is harmful, he is not likely to encourage its display in other men merely because they conventionally expect him to be sympathetic. Yet it must always be remembered that when pity, which begins in the emotions, is filtered through the reasons, it is not destroyed but balanced. #RandolphHarris 16 of 18
The Sacramento Fire Department must be as technically advanced as their communities so that when an emergency involving technology occurs, they are equipped and trained effectively to deal with the issue that results. Often lives depend on their readiness and skill levels as new hazards develop into emergency incidents. “I had been through EMT experience, and I had learned all the basic firefighting techniques from the local firehouse, where they let me take the pipe and open roofs. My brother was on the truck, and he’d take me on the roof with him. The knowledge I got there was unbelievable. And then, I had twelve relatives of one kind or another who are or have been firemen. When I went to training school, I probably knew as much as some of the instructors there. But you’re in there to learn, so you keep your mouth shut and do as you’re told. That’s just what I did, and I never had a problem. We were in training school five months, and the last month and a half we would go to school for a day and be assigned to a fire company for a day, wherever they needed us. I’m a very proud fireman. My wife thinks I’m crazy. I’ve got pictures all over my wall of my father, my brother, because I like to walk by them and think of me following in my father’s and brother’s footsteps. #RandolphHarris 17 of 18
“The first time I went to a fire in a special unit, I felt excited, yes, also proud I was here following my father. This is what I always wanted to be. A person could go to college for years and years and never gain the goal they want. And here I am, a couple of years out of high school. I got what I want.” The challenge for today’s leaders in the fire service is to create a vision for the future and make it happen. They have no way of knowing what the future will be like, however. You can do your part to help save lives by donating to the Sacramento Fire Department. Also, remember to raise your children to love America, be patriotic, love God and Jesus Christ, respect law and order and show reverence their elders. It is a privilege to be an American citizen, and one of the many benefits of that privilege is the ability to earn an education. Stay in school and study hard. In tribute to the Founding Fathers of this blessed Republic, may we strive to keep these United States of America forever righteous and just. May ours be a land where none shall prey upon or exploit his fellowman, where bigotry and violence shall not be tolerated, where poverty shall be abolished, and all men live amicably as bothers. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic, for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. #RandolphHarris 18 of 18
The Winchester Mystery House
The Winchester Mystery House calls to mind cracking thunder above the secretive mansion, howls of strange animals in the night, and spiky iron gates. Inside this legendary fortress may lurk angels, ghosts, and demons. The Winchester Mystery House is celebrating 101 years of giving tours. As many of you know, when Mrs. Winchester died in 1922, it took six moving vans, six weeks to remove all her furniture. On the last day, when almost everything had already been removed, Daisy stood in the now almost empty mansion once more. There were still a few boxes left in the basement. Two of the movers went back into the basement to get them out, while Daisy waited for them upstairs. The bell in the belfry started to strike twelve midnight. They loaded the boxes into the van, carefully locked the front door of the house and then the garden gate. At this precise moment, all three clearly heard the front door open and close again, and loud steps reverberated inside the empty mansion. “There must be someone in there,” one of the movers said. Quickly he unlocked the gate and front door once more and re-entered the dark house. After a few moments, he returned, relocked the door and gate, and somewhat sheepishly, shook his head. “Nothing. It’s all empty.” Not at all, Daisy thought, as the car pulled out into the night, not at all. That was only the reception committee for the tours that were to begin in 1923.
Please come and enjoy a delicious meal in Sarah’s Café, stroll along the paths of the beautiful Victorian gardens, and wonder through the miles of hallways in the World’s most mysterious mansion. For further information about tours, including group tours, weddings, school events, birthday party packages, facility rentals, and special events please visit the website: https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
Please visit the online giftshop, and purchase a gift for friends and relatives as well as a special memento of The Winchester Mystery House. A variety of souvenirs and gifts are available to purchase. https://shopwinchestermysteryhouse.com/
The Slave of Blind Forces
The idea that we belong to communities and that these communities provide benefits and responsibilities is one that has gained a growing appreciation in the last few decades. As a reaction to the urbanization faced by many people, globalization, cross-national forms of media and their impact on cultures, physical and social isolation from family and friends, and a growing fear of change and the unknown, images of community, belonging and support have become paramount. However, what is meant by community, how a community functions, and what are the benefits and costs of community membership has not necessarily been well explored. For many, the idea of community evokes images of the small town or close neighbourhood. People know each other, often have been resident for some generations, and provide various types of instrumental or emotional support to other members of the community. It is an idealization in place and time of other members of the community. It is an idealization in place and time of feeling a part of a place, with those around knowing us and caring about us. In many ways, it is a village in which relationships are governed by kinship and centered on the parish church. Integration and fulfillment of needs reflects the benefits that people derive from their membership of a community. Some of the needs can be fulfilled through community membership status achieved through group membership, demonstration of competence by members, and the shared values that are exhibited by the group. For them, strong communities can provide these opportunities for their members, thus reinforcing the value of membership of the community. #RandolphHarris 1 of 20
There is also a shared emotional connection. This refers to the sharing of significant events and the amount of contact that members have with each other. Because the community has had significant events, whether the members have taken part in them, there is a bond that can be developed between the members. The number of events, the salience of these events, and the importance of them in conferring merit or status to the community and its members all influence the development of a shared emotional connection between community members. Whether the events are positive or negative, they still have significant impacts on the development of emotional connections between members. Intelligence has an effectiveness as an instrument in modifying the World. Thinking is not a series of transcendent states or acts interjected into a natural scene. Knowledge is a part of nature, and its end is not mere passive adjustment but the manipulation of the environment to provide consummatory satisfactions. An idea is a plan of action rooted in the natural impulses and responses of the organism. The “spectator theory of knowledge” is pre-Darwinian. The biological point of view commits us to the conviction that mind, whatever else it may be, is at least an organ of service for the control of the environment in relation to the ends of the life process. #RandolphHarris 2 of 20
The ultimate refuge of the standpatter in every field, education, religion, politics, industrial and domestic life, has been the notion of an alleged fixed structure of mind. If mind is conceived as an antecedent and ready-made thing, institutions and customs may be regarded as its offspring. Intelligence operates within a series of objectively “indeterminate” situations. It is from the indeterminateness of the situations, from the element of contingency in nature, that the discriminating intellect derives its special significance. The significance of morals and politics, of religion and science, have their source and meaning in the union in Nature of the settled and the unsettled, the stable and the hazardous. Without this union there can be no such things as “ends,” either in the form of human consummations or as purposes. There is only a block universe, either something ended and admitting of no change, or else a predestined march of events. There is no such thing as fulfillment where there is no risk of failure, and no defeat where there is no promise of possible achievement. Philosophers must shift their attention from the sterile aspects of epistemology and metaphysics to politics, education, and morals. Philosophy will become, among other things, a moral and political diagnosis and prognosis. When psychology is founded upon the primary fact of impulse, the positive motivation of the organism is just the fact needed to give firm support to the main contentions in life. #RandolphHarris 3 of 20
The elimination of conflict from society is a hopeless and self-contradictory ideal, but it is possible to direct the struggle to eliminate waste. In the continual sacrifice of the individual to the conditions of progress, we see a hopeless confusion about the relation of ends and means. The individual forever sacrifices himself to the welfare of future generations, but since the individual of future generations do the same, the process never reaches any consummation in human satisfactions. Man always sacrifices toward an end which is by definition never attained. It is the reductio ad absurdum of the philosophy of progress. Direct participation in events is necessary to genuine understanding. No universal proposition can be laid down to determine the functions of a state. We must bring to order out of the moral confusion caused by the apparently conflicting aims of morality and science. What man thinks consciously is determined by forces which operate behind his back, that is, without man’s knowledge; man explains his actions to himself as being rational or moral and these rationalizations (false consciousness, ideology) satisfy him subjectively. However, being driven by forces unknown to him, man is not free. He can attain freedom (and health) only by becoming aware of these motivating forces, that is of reality, and thus he can become the master of his life (within the limitations of reality) rather than the slave of blind forces. #RandolphHarris 4 of 20
The ethical process, like the activity of the gardener, is one of constant struggle. We can never allow things simply to go on of themselves. If we do, the result is retrogression. However, what is the significance of this apparent opposition between the ethical process and the cosmic process, in the light of our idea of the evolutionary process as a whole? The conflict is not one in which man is pitted against his entire natural environment, but one in which man modifies one part of the environment with relation to another. He does not work with anything that is totally alien to his entire environment. The gardener may introduce foreign fruits or vegetables into a particular locale, and he may assist their growth by conditions of sunlight and moisture unusual on his plot of ground; but these conditions fall within the wont and use of nature as a whole. The survival of the fittest is different from the survival of the ethically best. Yet must not the conditions be interpreted as a whole complex, including the existing social structure with all the habits, demands, and ideals which are found in it? Under such an interpretation the fittest would in truth be the best. The unfit would be practically equivalent to the antisocial, but not to the physically weak or the economically dependent. The dependent classes in society may be quite “fit” when measured by the whole of the environment. The prolongation of the period of dependency in man has developed foresight and planning and the bonds of social unity; the care of the sick has taught us how to protect the healthy. #RandolphHarris 5 of 20
What was fit among carnivora is not fit among men. Man lives in such a changing and progressive environment that in his case it is flexibility, readiness to adjust to the conditions of the morrow as well as the present, that constitutes fitness. As the meaning of environment changes, the meaning of the struggle for existence changes also. The biological promptings of self-assertion have potentialities for good as well as evil. The essence of the human problem is controlled foresight—ability to maintain the institutions of the past while remaking them to suit new conditions; in short, to maintain a balance between habits and aims. The term “selection” can mean not only that one form of life, one organism, is selected at the expense of another, but also that various modes of action and reaction are selected by an organism or a society because of their superiority over other modes. Society has its own mechanisms, public opinion and education, to select the modes it finds most suitable. There is, then, no bifurcation between the ethical process and the cosmic process. The difficulty has been created by static interpretations of biological functions and their applications out of context to the unique and dynamic conditions of human environment. It is not necessary to go outside of Nature to find warrant for the ethical process; one need only recognize the natural situation in its totality. #RandolphHarris 6 of 20
Man’s consciousness is determined by his being, his being by his practice of life, his practice of life by his mode of producing his livelihood, that is, by his mode of production and the social structure, mode of distribution and consumption resulting from it. Pragmatism, the cash-value of ideas, is not an abject apology for the acquisitive spirit of business culture. Society only influences his being by greater or lesser repression of his innate physiological and biological equipment. Dr. Freud believed that man can overcome repression without social changes. Marx on the other hand, was the first thinker who saw that the realization of the universal and fully awakened man can occur only together with social changes which lead to a new and truly human economic and social organization of mankind. For any experience to come into awareness, it must be comprehensible in accordance with the categories in which conscious thought is organized. I can become aware of any occurrence, inside or outside of myself, only when it can be linked with the system of categories in which I perceive. Some of the categories, such as time and space, may be universal, and may constitute categories of perception common to all men. Others, such as causality, may be a valid category for many, but not for all forms of conscious perception. Other categories are even less general and different from culture to culture. For instance, in a pre-industrial culture people may not perceive certain things in terms of their commercial value, while they do so in an industrial system. #RandolphhHarris 7 of 20
However this may be, experience can enter into awareness only under the condition that it can be perceived, related, and ordered in terms of a conceptional system. With the problem of childhood amnesia of childhood memories, and with the difference between the categories (“schematas”) employed by the child and those employed by the adult, the incompatibility of early childhood experience with the categories and organization of adult memory is largely due to the conventionalization of memory. Furthermore, the problem is not only that of memory, but also that of consciousness in general. This system is a result of social evolution. Every society, by its own practice of living and by the mode of relatedness, of feeling and perceiving, develops a system, or categories, which determines the forms of awareness. This system works, as it were, like a socially condition filter: experience cannot enter awareness unless it can penetrate this filter. The question, then, is to understand more concretely how this “social filter” operates, and how it happens that it permits certain experiences to be filtered through while others are stopped from entering awareness. First of all, we must consider that many experiences do not lend themselves easily to being perceived in awareness. Pain is perhaps the physical experience which best lends itself to being consciously perceived; desires for pleasures of the flesh, hunger, etcetera, also are easily perceived; quite obviously, all sensations which are relevant to individual, or group survival have easy access to awareness. #RandolphHarris 8 of 20
However, when it comes to a more subtle or complex experience, like “seeing a rosebud in the early morning, a drop of dew on it, while the air is still chilly, the sun coming up, a bird singing” –this is an experience which, in some cultures, easily lends itself to awareness (for instance, in Japan), while in modern Western culture this same experience will usually not come into awareness because it is not sufficiently “important” or “eventful” to be noticed. Whether or not subtle effective experiences can arrive at awareness depends on the degree to which such experiences are cultivated in each culture. There are many affective experiences for which a given language has no word, while another language may be rich in words which express these feelings. In a language in which different affective experiences are not expressed by different words, it is almost impossible for one’s experiences to come to clear awareness. It may be said that an experience rarely comes into awareness for which the language has no word. This fact is of social relevance about such experiences which do not fit into our intellectual rational scheme of things. In English, for instance, the word “awe” (like in Hebrew “nora”) means two different things. Awe is the feeling of intense fright as it is still indicated in “awful”: and awe also means something like intense admiration, as we still find it in awesome (and in awed by). #RandolphHarris 9 of 20
One general consideration may be introduced at this point concerning the concept of happiness. The term “happiness” has a long history, and this is not the place to go into the meaning of the concept from its derivation from Greek hedonism to its contemporary usage. It may suffice to say that what most people experience as happiness today is really a state of full satisfaction of their desires regardless of their quality; if it is conceived in this sense, it loses the important qualifications which Greek philosophy gave it, namely, that happiness is not a state of fulfillment of purely subjective needs but of those needs which have an objective validity in terms of the total existence of man and his potentialities. We would do better to think of joy and intense aliveness instead of happiness. The sensitive person, not only in an irrational society but also in the best of all societies, cannot help being deeply saddened by the inevitable tragedies of life. Both joy and sadness are unavoidable experiences for the sensitive and alive person. Happiness in its present meaning usually implies a superficial, contented states of satiation, rather than that condition accompanying the fullness of human experience; “happiness” may be said to be the alienated form of joy. #RandolphHarris 10 of 20
It is a crazy gift we have, this trickery. My inside knowing of it is remembered only as far back as my own third year when: My mother and father laugh at me because I am enchanted by a hole in the ground. The hole is being dug on the next street so I cannot go there alone. I wait with excitement for my father to take me. When he does, I look into that ever-deepening hole with the same fascination that I watch my mother peel potatoes, noticing the changing form, the changing colour, the changing texture, and the changing fragrance of both holes in the ground and potatoes. My father tells my mother, “A hole in the ground!” (the way that he says it, I know is not much.) “You’d think there was a magnet at the bottom. If I didn’t hold her hand, she’d tumble right in.” (I do not catch all those words at the time. There are too many that I do not know. I hear them later on, when my father tells someone, and I remember my pain, and what I did about it.) My mother and father laugh together and are tender with me and love me, but they do not understand. I feel alone, and my enchantment is bleeding around the edges. I am the angry which is hurt. Being at the moment true to me, I scowl at my parents. They jolly me then, because children must be kept happy. And then I am not true to me. I laugh, because in that grownup World of which I would like to be a part, that is the thing to do. (A few years later, when I am attracted by a hole in the ground, I drop a marble into it, so that if anyone comes along I can say that I am looking for my marble, not that I am enjoying the hole, which would be ridiculed.) #RandolphHarris 11 of 20
There are times when I scowl at my parents not because I am misunderstood, or not understood, but because I have discovered that that is a way to get their attention. And then, when they have brought me around from scowls to laughter they are very pleased with both themselves and me. And I am pleased with myself for having figured this out. That is a long way from being happy with a hole in the ground. Less than three years in this World, and I have got involved in cleverness. I did not develop that all by myself. Already my parents have been tricking me, and I have watched other trickery go on with aunts and uncles, grandpa…My parents and I love each other and enjoy each other. Most of the time we are sensitive to each other at some level. We do not know that increasingly we are being superficial, that there is a dimension missing, and that their lack of respect for me is developing into me a lack of respect for them. They respect me in the outside things, like letting me paint the railings on the porch and carry things that would break if I dropped them, but they do not respect my insides because they think I have not any. When I am playing on the floor, they talk together or with other people about things I am “too little to understand” and so it is all right to say to them. However, they do not know what my understanding is, and I have no way to tell them. So it goes round and round inside my head. Sometimes I understand some things, and I am hurt. Other times, I do not understand and I try to put things together, with not enough information in my head to arrive at making sense. So what I make of it is nonsense, but I do not know that. And sometimes what I make of it will not stay put. #RandolphHarris 12 of 20
I think if it one way and I hurt, so I think of it another way so I will feel comfortable. However, it slips around, and I do not know which way it is. I am too young to know that the word for my trouble is confusion. To my parents, aunts and uncles, my life is good: I have loving parents, aunts and uncles, and “How blessed it is to be a child and have no worries.” To me, if often seems that I must have been born to the wrong parents, or that these are not my parents, because my real parents would know me. My sister, older than I, bewilders me, because sometimes she is a child with me, and then suddenly she switches and talks like a grownup. She tells me what to think and feel. What I thinking and feel she says is silly. A moment ago, she was agreeing with me. Sometimes I fight my sister about this. However, sometimes I say that I think and feel what she does, and then I feel BIG. However, then I get all mixed up and I am crying “Who am I?” And no one helps me with that because it is a silly question. I am me. Who else could I be? This seems so to me, too, so why is it that I do not know? There must be something so wrong with me that no one will tell me about it. I talk to my puppy and my dolls, and to the trees. They do not confuse me because they listen, and I can say anything I want and they do not talk back. They go on listening. And then I begin to hear myself and know it is me. No possessive relationship between two human beings can last forever. To ask such a thing is to ask for the impersonal universe to change its laws of growth for the sake of pleasing its ungrown progeny. God is entirely self-sufficient and if God’s children are to grow increasingly into his likeness, they can do so only by becoming less dependent on others, more sufficient unto themselves. #RandolphHarris 13 of 20
A false, showy, and pretentious cheerfulness which ignores facts, represses truths, and hides evils is not really cheerful at all. It is well to remember not to let oneself become the victim of negative feelings or harsh thoughts. They do not mend matter but only make you suffer more, and also suffer needlessly. It is one of the side effects of philosophy that it purifies human affection, takes the littleness out of it, and lifts it to a higher and wider plane. This may bring some pain or it may bring a shared pleasure, depending on those involved in the experience. If ignorance, credulity, naivete, or imbalance are the accompaniment, it is excellent but not enough to be well-meaning, to have a pure intent, to be guided by feeling alone. For there are traps and quicksands, illusions, and deceits in life as on the quest. No human being has the right to claim another as his own. Each stands ultimately alone and essentially isolated. Each is born out of and must find his way back to spiritual solitude. For each must learn to be divinely self-reliant and self-sufficient. This is so because the soul is of the nature of God. How much misery has come into contemporary life through non-recognition of this fact! How much bitterness has come to the unwilling possessed ones or to the defeated would-be possessors! The way to get rid of an obstinate negative feeling is to supersede it by a new positive one of greater intensity. If success is to be attained, right thoughts about the wrong feeling will help to correct it, right imaginations about the new one will help to bring it in, but feeling itself must be invoked and fostered. In most human relations, egoism in one person is replied by egoism in the other. He has feelings but they are so poised that they never disturb, so balanced with reason that they never agitate, and so harmonized with intuition that they never excite him. If anyone is to carry out Christ’s bidding of reconciliation with enemies and forgiveness of those who have harmed him, he can do so only by giving up the ego. #RandolphHarris 14 of 20
Our dear friend Clare, her whole self-analysis illustrated the validity of one who was able to choose the factors which were involved in her problems which she could grasp at the time, and she refrained from embarking upon problems that were still deeply repressed. With apparent insouciance she never bothered to tackle any problem that did not elicit a response in her, though it might almost stare her in the face. Without knowing anything about the principle of guidance through interest she intuitively applied it throughout her work, and it served her well. One example may stand for many. In the series of associations ending with the first emergence of the daydream of the great man, Clare recognized merely the role that the need for protection played in her relationships. The suggestions concerning her other expectations of men she discarded entirely, though they were an obvious and prominent part of the daydream. This intuitive choice took her on the best course she could have followed. By no means did she merely move on familiar ground. The finding that a need for protection was an integral part of her “love” was a discovery of a factor hitherto unknown. Furthermore, as will be remembered, this discovery constituted the first inroad on her cherished illusion of “love,” a painful and incisive step. To have taken up at the same time the aggravating problem of her sponging attitude on men would certainly have been too hard, unless she had dealt with it in a superficial way. This brings up a last point: it is not possible to absorb more than one important insight at a time. An attempt to do so will be detrimental to both, or all, of them. If it is to “sink in” and take root, any relevant insight needs time and undivided concentration. #RandolphHarris 15 of 20
Most of the previous writers developed their theories out of an interest in the unhealthy personality. However, almost all of them found it necessary to make some postulations, some suggestions for the concept of the idealized personality. The oldest, most venerable school, that of Dr. Freud and psychoanalysis, fixed the pattern of such emphases. Dr. Freud contented himself by stating that health consisted in the ability to love and to do productive work. Healthy personality, in psychoanalytic terms, is an outcome of harmony among id, ego, and superego. According to the psychoanalysts, personality is divided into three substructures—the id, the ego, and the superego. Id is the term used to refer to instincts. Ego refers to the active, controlling, perceiving, learning functions of personality. Superego refers to the moral ideals and taboos a person acquires as he or she grows up. It is the task of the ego to scan external reality and inner experience and then choose action that will gratify needs without violating moral taboos—in other words, to mediate between id and superego. A healthier personality would be able to gratify needs and yet remain free of guilt or of social blame. Because one would be less prone to prevent some feelings from coming to the surface (such repression consumes energy), energy would be available for productive work. Because one would not be ashamed of feelings and emotions (because of a reasonable conscience), one could be freer in expressing oneself in loving relationships. Hence, the relationship between ability to love and work, and the concept of harmony among id, ego, and superego, can assume greater meaning. #RandolphHarris 16 of 20
The Sacramento Fire Department looks for the most qualified applicants that they can find, and many people cherish their jobs. “I went to college in bits and pieces. I took some fire science work at the community college. I went back to Santa Clara University for a term to get a degree in public administration. The trouble was, I was an officer of our union, a local of the International Association of Firefighters, while most of the professors were management oriented. We had serious ideological clashes about management relations, and finally I just didn’t go back to school. I’ve had some misgivings about that. The fire service did two things for me, really. I provided a service, and yet, for a young man who was looking for some excitement, it provided that, too. Our fire department has changed. When I joined in 1975, it was a very conservative kind of environment. The music in the firehouses was mostly country and western. Not too long ago, I remember getting back from an alarm at two in the morning, and the guys in the day room were watching MTV. I was thirty-three years old and the oldest guy on the crew. It just shows you how things have changed. When I first joined, there was this generational thing. The hair code was a major issue. A lot of social stuff spilled over into the fire service. A guy who came on probation with me had a mustache. The battalion chief told him, ‘You know, we’ve never had anyone with a mustache make it through probation.’ I’m not sure if this guy was naïve or was jacking the chief around, but his response was, ‘Oh, you mean I’ll be the first.’ #RandolphHarris 17 of 20
“We had four weeks of basic training, eight to five, Monday through Friday. We were the first group to use the International Fire Service Training Association material. We were assigned homework each night, and the next morning there would be a quiz. If you failed any of the quizzes, you were out of the program. There were also classes on mechanical proficiency and on the use and maintenance of breathing apparatus. At that you could join the department and be a firefighter, period. Now the program goes for seven weeks and includes emergency medical training and learning how to drive the vehicles. They didn’t have a very good burn facility in our department for training purposes, so they had buildings scheduled for destruction, and they would burn them. They would actually give us a live fire and out us in a real fire station. As it turned out, buildings to burn were in short supply, so my class did not actually get a chance to be in a burning building. As a result, the first actual fire that I went to was a real fire. I was assigned to our downtown station. On my second or third shift, we had a fire in the middle of the night. It was a modular classroom set up behind a grade school. I was in the second-due engine. We used to do a lot more blitz attacks, where the first company would pull a line and go in without masks, and then the second company would lay a fire line from a hydrant and mask up. #RandolphHarris 18 of 20
“We were second in, and the lieutenant said to me, ‘Just get a mask on and hang on to my coat. Just follow me. Whatever you do, keep track of where the line is, because if you get lost and go sideways, the line is the only way you have to get back out.’ I remember crawling in there with the old mask that had a full face piece and an eyehole on either side. I couldn’t see a damn thing, the room was filled with smoke. I remember thinking, ‘These people are crazy.’ It was just nuts. And yet, I followed right in, took a turn on the nozzle, and got out. In those days, in the late fifties, we didn’t get much training, just two weeks at the training towers. It’s interesting that we had about 220 firefighters who did around two thousand alarms a year. This year we have 1,100 people in the fire department, and we are going on over a hundred thousand alarms. Big changes obviously. I was twenty years old, so I was a baby in the fire department, and in a very middle-class kind of way. I had worked in construction in the summers when I was going to college, I was a hod carrier when I came into the fire department. So I was used to construction guys, who were strong characters. They wanted you to be tired at the end of the day. I went to Santa Clara University for three semesters and graduated with a degree in fire protection technology, which is what they called it in those days. #RandolphHarris 19 of 20
“If you look at the Sacramento Fire Department today, we are probably just a typical fire department. Thirty years ago, it was inhabited by a lot of very good leaders. They had been in the Second World War, they had been through the tail end of the Depression, and they had tattoos. They were tough guys—good leaders, guys who had a strong set of values. If you got out of line, they kicked your expletive. They didn’t know about participatory management, they hadn’t been screwed up in graduate school. They were street guys, and these are the people I look back on, who raised me.” The Sacramento Fire Department is a very important organization. They help keep our community safe and save lives. You can save lives and property, too, by donating to the Sacramento Fire Department. Remember to have a safe and happy Independence Day. Be sure to raise your children to love America, love God and Jesus Christ, respect law and order and treat their elders with kindness and honour. It is a great privilege to be American and never forget that. Lord, God of our fathers, as we gather to pay homage to the founders and builders of this, our country, we ask Thy blessing. With courage and vision, they made of these Untied States of America a land of freedom and opportunity. For all that they have so firmly established, we render thanks unto Thee. “Our lines are fallen in pleasant places; yea, we have a goodly heritage.” I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic, for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. #RandolphHarris 20 of 20
The Winchester Mystery House
If you are up for a day away with the chance sighting of a ghost, The Winchester Mystery House is open July 4th, 2024 from 10am PST to 5pm PST.
Please come and enjoy a delicious meal in Sarah’s Café, stroll along the paths of the beautiful Victorian gardens, and wonder through the miles of hallways in the World’s most mysterious mansion. For further information about tours, including group tours, weddings, school events, birthday party packages, facility rentals, and special events please visit the website: https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
Please visit the online giftshop, and purchase a gift for friends and relatives as well as a special memento of The Winchester Mystery House. A variety of souvenirs and gifts are available to purchase. https://shopwinchestermysteryhouse.com/
That is Just Slavery in Another Form
Sometimes it seems the times of some people are so fatally lacking in geniality, humour, picturesqueness, and poetry; and are so explicit, so mechanical, so flat in the panorama which it gives to life. Many are overcome by the awfully monotonous quality and there is no twilight region in their minds, and no capacity for dreaminess and passivity. All parts of it are filled with the same noonday glare, like a dry desert where every grain of sand shows singly, and there are no mysteries and shadows. It is harmful to be overcome by a dry school-master’s temperament, to display a preference for cheap makeshifts in argument, where one is lacking education even in mechanical principles, and in general the vagueness of all one’s fundamental ideas, their whole system is wooden, as if knocked together out of cracked hemlock boards. Human beings gain knowledge within their souls. “The true lover of learning then must from his earliest youth, as far as in him lies, desire all truth,” says Plato. Nothing justifies the development of abstract principles but their utility in enlarging our concrete knowledge of nature. The ideas on which mathematical Mechanics and the Calculus are founded, the morphological ideas of Natural History, and the theories of Chemistry are such working ideas, finders, not merely summaries of truth. It is possible for “accidents” or novelties to arise which are not predictable from our knowledge of their antecedents—for example, the evolution of self-consciousness, or the application of the voice to social communication. #RandolphHarris 1 of 19
In particular instances, the facts are certain to show irregular departures from the law. A thoroughly consistent evolutionist must regard the laws of nature themselves as the results of evolution, and hence as limited rather than absolute. There exists an element of indeterminacy, spontaneity, or absolute chance in nature. Evolution is a change from a nohowish untalkaboutable all-alikeness by continuous stick-togetherations and somethingelseifications. When the whole training of life is to make us fighters for the higher, why should it be extraordinary or wrong to protest against a philosophy the acceptance of which is acceptance of the defeat of the higher? If it means anything at all, calling a thing bad means that the thing ought not to be, that something else ought to be in its stead. Determinism, in denying that anything else can be in its stead, virtually defines the universe as a place in which what ought to be is impossible—in other words, as an organism whose constitution is afflicted with an incurable taint, an irremediable flaw. Determinism is consistent only with the direst pessimism or a romantic mood of resignation. However, fi moral judgments are to be effective there must be some minimum of uncertainty in the universe; this does not necessitate a completely haphazard World, but only one in which there are occasional choices. #RandolphHarris 2 of 19
The necessity of retaining choices remains, even though one’s dream of universal fatalism be as optimistic in the ultimate advent of a peaceful millennium. Even if no preference can succeed unless it is in harmony with the ultimate triumph of peace, justice, and sympathy, we are still free to decide when to settle down on an equitable and peaceful basis. Until it is finally revealed with certainty what shall succeed, we are all free to try for our own preference. Intelligent mental reactions as those that minister to survival by arranging internal relations to suit the environment, but the critical factor in the cognitive situation, the desire for survival or welfare, is a subjective element which many ignore. The idea of correspondence between inner and outer relations, to be made meaningful as the criterion of mental acts, must be qualified by some subjective or teleologic reference. Furthermore, it is not simply a mirror floating with no foothold anywhere, and passively reflecting an order that he comes upon and finds simply existing. The knower is an actor, and coefficient of the truth on one side, whilst on the other he registers the truth which he helps to create. Mental interests, hypotheses, postulates, so far as they are bases for human action—action which largely transforms the World—help to make the truth which they declare. In other words, there belongs to mind, from its birth upward, a spontaneity, a vote. It is in the game, and not a mere looker-on; and its judgements of the should-be, its ideals, cannot be peeled off from the body of the cogitandum as if they were excrescences, or meant, at most, survival. #RandolphHarris 3 of 19
It is habitual to speak as if the mere body that owns the brain has interests, to treat the body’s survival as an absolute end without reference to any commanding intelligence. The reactions of an organism cannot be considered useful or harmful; it can only be said of them that if they occur in certain ways survival will incidentally be their consequence: but the moment you bring a consciousness into the midst, survival ceases to be a mere hypothesis. No longer is it “if survival is to occur, then so and must brain and other organs work.” It has now become an imperative decree: “Survival shall occur, and therefore organs must so work!” Real ends appear for the first time upon the World’s stage…Every actually existing consciousness seems to itself at any rate to be a fighter for ends, of which many, but for its presence, would not be ends at all. Its powers of cognition are mainly subservient to these ends, discerning which facts further them and which do not. What causes communities to change from generation to generation? Changes are the result of innovations by unusual or outstanding individuals, playing the same role in social change as variations in Darwin’s theory of evolution; such persons are selected by society and elevated into positions of influence because of their adaptability to the social situation into which cause of their adaptability to the social situation into which they happen to be born. Social changes can also be attributed to geography, environment, external circumstances—in brief, to everything except human control. The existence of a universal web of causation is one in which the finite human intellect becomes hopelessly entangled. #RandolphHarris 4 of 19
The most that sociology can predict is that if a great man of such nature appears under certain circumstances, he will affect society in such and such a way; but that he does affect it should not be denied. The great man is himself part of the environment of everybody else. However, a metaphysical creed is a mood of contemplation, an emotional attitude rather than a system of thought; and in its neglect of spontaneous variations in human thinking and their effect upon society, it is an absolute anachronism reverting to a pre-Darwinian type of thought. Without spontaneity, without some possibility that the individual may in measure alter the course of history, there is no chance for betterment of any kind, and the whole romance of struggle with its attendant alternatives of triumph or failure is banished. There is a zone of insecurity in human affairs in which all the dramatic interest lies. The rest belongs to the dead machinery of the stage. That life should be deprived of its dramatic interest by a scheme of universal causality was an intolerable thought, the most pernicious and immoral of fatalism. When people wish to illustrate the problem of evil, they choose spectacularly brutal murders rather than wars or the homeless crisis in America. Through their hardness and inflexibility of tone, many politicians believe that they are superior to the constituents and entertainment supersedes basic human needs. The interests of the citizens are harshly overridden. #RandolphHarris 5 of 19
Society has undoubtedly got to pass toward some newer and better equilibrium, and the distribution of wealth has doubtless slowly got to change; such changes have always happened, and will happen to the end of time. However, if, after all that I have said, any of you expect that they will make any genuine vital difference, on a large scale, to the lives of our descendants, you will have missed the significance of my entire lecture. The solid meaning of life is always the same eternal thing—the marriage, namely, of some unhabitual ideal, however special, with some fidelity, courage, and endurance; with some man’s or woman’s pains. And, whatever or wherever life may be, there will always be the chance for that marriage to take place. I sometimes wonder what did my love of Latin in high school have to do with my life? The only connection that I can find is that I liked words, and the meanings of words, and the derivations of words. However, after a year I had got the hang of that and could look up the rest for myself when I needed it. How did my daughter become so interested in cowboys, when her life had been in Hawaii, New York City, England and the New England coast—before the days she was allowed to stream TV and when she had not seen many movies? I think the answer is that she loved horses. At three, when she said that she felt sick and I asked her what would make her well, she said, “A wide on de pony in de park!” When she was five, the school reported that she was doing well in piano and suggested that she have private lessons. I asked her if she would like this and she said, after only a moment’s pause, “Well, I would rather ride a horse.” She always wanted the horse she did not have, and that may have been her problem, that she solved by being with horses in books. #RandolphHarris 6 of 10
When I went to live in Hawaii, for the first time I got interested in studying history. At that time, the written history was only about a hundred years old and all the sources were available to me. At the same time, I could question people for whom much of that past was a part of their own experience, and another lot of it had come to them through their immediate forebears. As I was living in the Islands, all this contributed to my understanding of what I was living in, and I liked this. I think another factor may have been that in the Islands I was exposed to a different way of thinking about life, and I got really interested in Island history in that sense. If “problems” entered into this, I think it may have been chiefly that when I was first in Hawaii, I did have problems, particularly during the first six months. Although I had driven in New York Labour Day traffic and all that, when I go to Hawaii, the traffic in Honolulu scared me so that I parked on Punchbowl and walked into town, until I could figure out how to drive in it. Time after time, as I went around in Honolulu doing errands, I watched the traffic to try to get the hang of it. At last, it became clear to me: instead of going by rules, the drivers went by noticing. They noticed other cars and they noticed pedestrians and moved in accord with them. Then I drove into town and drove as they did and enjoyed it. I had a problem with the slowness of everything in Hawaii: it was what I wanted for myself, but it was still a problem to me because I got irked by it and had to find my way out of that. #RandolphHarris 7 of 10
I had to slow down myself: then I enjoyed the ease and the lack of friction in moving slowly. I had the problem of living where it seemed to me that everyone had dark hair, dark skin, dark eyes. It was not race prejudice, just homesickness. When I returned to the white skins on the mainland eight years later, it seemed to me that everyone looked sick. I loved the mangoes, papayas, soursops, guavas, mountain apples, cherimoyas, pohas, and all the rest, but it seemed to me that if I could get to California (a place I had never really liked) and eat apricots, peaches, grapes, pears, apples for ten days, then it would be easier for me to go on living in the Islands. I had the problem of ants: I thought I must be a sloppy housekeeper because there were always ants in my house. Sometimes I dived in to help people—and got bumped. The people were somehow different from those I had lived with before. There were all these re-evaluations and adjustments going on, and this seems to open up my mind and lead to questions in other areas too. In trying to answer them, I run into problems, but it does not seem necessary for me to have the problem first. This suggests to me that in trying to provide our children with “security” by keeping them within a closed environment we may be stupidizing them. Then, when we make them specialize at an early age, we are stupidizing them still further. However, is it only the “problem,” anyway? It seems to me that I could have resolved my problem of being sick in another way, but when I found out how little medicine knows about the whole field of chronic illness, I was intrigued by the unknown territory that I lived in. #RandolphHarris 8 of 19
It scared me at first, but then I began to get used to it, and I like moving in the unknown, even when it scares me and is painful. I do not like the scare and the pain, but I do like the exploring. With the doctor, I explored what is known by medicine about chronic illness, with particular reference to my own. Through his honesty, I learned how much is not known. All this churned around in my head until I had the feeling of a dead end, of being somehow on the wrong track. That was when I side-slipped into psychology. It happened. This could lead me back into medicine sometime. That happens too. This suggests that telling children what is not known may be as helpful as telling them what is. When I am told only what is known, it seems to be “all there”—nothing that I can contribute to it. I can only learn what others have found out. It is a closed World. When I know how small the known is in relation to the unknown, the whole World opens up before me. I am free to explore and make my own discoveries instead of being a passive recipient of what is known—to the point that I think that everything is known by someone else and that it is only through others that I can acquire knowledge. I have seen this happen recently with several people, individually, when they discovered how chaotic the field of psychotherapy is, how much is not known. One of them said, with such freedom, “Each man is on his own!” and the others expressed themselves in much the same way. They moved from the limitation of trying to find a specific answer already known to the freedom of making their own discoveries. #RandolphHarris 9 of 19
More is known about how we get into the troubles that we do than is known about how to get out of them. With this knowledge of how things go wrong, these people are now trying to find out for themselves how to go about the undoing, both in the sense of curing and of prevention, by intelligent trial and error. If we all did this, it seems to me that we would get out of our difficulties a lot faster. Some people are very afraid of this, because people will make mistakes. That certainly will happen. However, these will not be such persistent mistakes as taught mistakes are, and I think it is the persistent mistakes that foul us up. It seems to me that much damage has been done by psychotherapists who believed that because they had been trained, they know the answers, and so went on and on with their mistakes. Being sure that the answers they had were right, they did not ask enough questions, and when things did not go well, the questions that arose were answered in terms of the answers they already had. That is a good way to get stuck. If all psychotherapists had done that, we would not have arrived at the new concepts that we have today. Holding to a belief seems to be a large part of our trouble. If I am sure that beating a child is good, or that permissiveness is good, poor results will only lead me to push harder with whatever it is that I believe. That seems to have happened with education. “It has not produced what we wanted, so let us have more of it” seems to sum up what I hear from all kinds of people all the time. #RandolphHarris 10 of 19
When a profession makes a mistake, a whole generation or more is damaged by it—like four-hour feedings and no rocking the baby. An individual’s mistake just does not reach that far. Another good thing about everyone trying to work out psychotherapy on his own (and including himself) is that all these people would not be Authorities. If I try out something in my relations with other people and it does not work well for them, they will be resistant to me in a way they would not be to an authority, who is believed to know what he is doing. It is my experience of most authorities that “working with them” means that I do as they say even if it gives me hell. That is just slavery in another form. “Working with authorities” make sense to me only when the professional and the amateur each say, “Of what you offer, I go along with this, but not with that,” or “Let us try this and see how it works out.” Then, there is continuing education on both sides, and each one at the same time is responsible for himself, through the choices he makes. That actually makes it much easier on the authorities, and it seems to me that any authority in his right mind would welcome this: he has contributed the best that he has to offer, but the choice is made by the other person. The authority, likewise, is responsible for his choices—for himself, not for anyone else. I know how this works out because I have tried it in medicine, education, and psychology. #RandolphHarris 11 of 19
When I meet with authorities who permit this, I become more intelligent, and I enjoy democracy. When I, a parent-authority, permit this, I become more intelligent, and I enjoy democracy. When they are made clearly responsible for themselves, children, in my experience, become more accountable. When they see the responsibility as being up to someone else, they are less so. This happens to grownups, too. It seems to me that democracy has not failed: we just have not really tried it yet. As a boy in grade school said to his teacher, “Mr. P—how do you reconcile your teaching of democracy with the way that you conduct this class?” We need to be more congruent. No one can be devoid of feelings, and the philosopher will not be exempt from this rule. Cheerfulness is an excellent mental attribute and worth cultivating; but where it results from mental blindness it is not worth having, for then it may become a real danger. Feelings, emotions, and passions should not be allowed to submerge reason, unless the feeling is genuinely intuitive, the emotion truly impersonal, and the passion a desire for the highest Truth. Feeling can be trained to become finer, more delicate, responsive to higher urges and ideals. The baser feelings go away of their own accord as the higher ones are let in and encouraged. The man who is seeking regeneration of his character will not often have repose of his feelings, for he is called by himself to struggle with himself. It is in the very nature of emotion to vary like the wind. Consequently, he who would attain inner peace cannot base his attainment upon emotion alone. He must find something much more stable than that, much more constant than that. This is not to say that life of the spirit is without feeling, but it is a calm, unbroken feeling. #RandolphHarris 12 of 19
One may legitimately take pride in the fact that he is called to the philosophic life, that he has accepted the philosophic ideal. For it is not the kind of pride which can vaunt itself over other men; its aims are to be fulfilled rather by humbling the ego and reducing its sway. The Roman Stoics, who sought to control their emotions and master their passions, placed character above knowledge. We pursue a similar albeit less rigorous discipline in controlling feelings by reason because we place knowledge above character. The latter is made a preliminary to attainment of the former. Goethe says: “I prefer the harmful truth to the helpful falsehood. Truth will heal the wound which she may have given.” And again, he says: “A harmful truth is helpful, because it can be harmful only for the moment, and will lead us to other truths which must become ever more and more helpful. On the other hand, a helpful lie is more harmful, because it can help only for the moment, and then lead to other lies which must become more and more harmful.” When he can brin himself to see clearly that no woman has anything to offer him which the Overself cannot offer more satisfyingly—be it ecstasy or beauty, intimacy or love, comfort or companionship—the glamour of pleasures of the flesh will pall. Roberto Assagioli, an Italian psychiatrist, developed a theory of healthy personality and a set of techniques for fostering this goal that he named psychosynthesis. He combined contributions from psychosomatic medicine, psychology of religion, study of higher modes of consciousness, parapsychology, Eastern philosophy, personality theory, anthropology, and finally, active techniques for fostering personality growth. #RandolphHarris 13 of 19
His theory of personality structure states that the human being comprises seven levels, or modes, of functioning: The lower unconscious, which includes drives and urges, repressed feelings, and the like (similar in meaning to the id, which harbours primitive pleasures of the flesh and aggressive demands, in Dr. Freud’s writings). The middle unconscious, which comprises the background of our ordinary waking consciousness and is like Dr. Freud’s preconscious, or to the “background” of awareness described by Gestalt psychologists. The superconscious, which Assagioli states is the source of “higher” feelings, such as altruistic love, and higher inspirations and intuitions, which give rise to truly creative works. The field of consciousness, which designates our ordinary awareness of perceptions, memories, feelings, and urges. The conscious self, or “I” designates a “point of pure self-awareness” independent of the content of one’s awareness. The self, or “I,” he claims, is an enduring center in our consciousness, like a light illuminating the objects that are seen. The higher self, of which we are generally unconscious, and which transcends the “I,” our conscious self. This higher self seems to stand for the possibility of more fully developed experiencing and acting. The collective unconscious, a term that Assagioli borrowed from Jung, refers to the beliefs, assumptions, traditions, myths, and symbols that form a source for and background to a persons ordinary consciousness, a source he or she shares with the other members of the society. #RandolphHarris 14 of 19
The task for human beings, says Assagioli, is to free themselves from enslavement by ignorance and unconsciousness, to attain a “harmonious inner integration, true self-realization, and right relationships with others.” The goal of such integration—true psychosynthesis—is achieved in four stages: through the knowledge of one’s personality. Control of the various elements of personality. This is achieved by a technique called disidentification. As Assagioli states, “We are dominated by everything with which our self becomes identified. We can dominate and control everything from which we dis-identify.” Realization of one’s true self, the discovery or creation of a unifying center. This stage entails the quest for the best, most fully functioning person that one can be through commitment to a worthwhile mission. Psychosynthesis, the formation or reconstruction of the personality around the new center. This phase calls for the commitment, study, struggle, and action to actualize the mission and, thereby, the image of the best possible self. How can man attain the goal of freeing himself from illusions? Marx thought his goal could be achieved by reform of consciousness. The reform of consciousness consists exclusively in the fact that one lets the World become aware of its consciousness, that one awakens the World from the dream it is dreaming about itself, that one interprets its own actions to the World…our motto must be: reform of consciousness, not through doctrines but by analyzing the mystical self-confused consciousness, whether it has a political or a religious content. One will see, then, that the World has possessed already for a long time the dream of something, of which it must only have consciousness to possess it in reality. #RandolphHarris 15 of 19
One will see that we are not dealing with a big hiatus between past and present but with the realization (Vollziehung) of the thoughts of the past. Eventually one will see that mankind does not begin any new task but accomplishes its old task with consciousness…this is a confession, nothing else. To have its sins forgiven, mankind has only to explain them for what they are. A group of psychologists, sociologist, economists, and representatives of the consuming public could undertake a study of those needs which are “humane,” in a sense that they serve man’s growth and joy, and those synthetic needs suggested by industry and its propaganda in order to find an outlet for profitable investment. As in so many other problems, the question is not so much the difficulty in determining the difference between these two types of needs and certain intermediate types but rather the raising of an extremely important question which can be brought up only if the social scientists begin to be concerned with man, instead of the alleged smooth functioning of our society or their function as apologists. It is true that to be guided by one’s interest means to take the way of least resistance. The principle means essentially the pursuit of those subjects which at the time being are least repressed. And this is exactly the principle that the analyst applies when he chooses those factors for interpretation which he believes the patient can fully grasp at the time, and he will refrain from embarking upon problems that are still deeply repressed. #RandolphHarris 16 of 19
Life safety. The primary purpose of firefighters is to help ensure the safety of lives and that means saving people’s lives by preventing and extinguishing fires and it also means by offering medical care during emergencies. “There was no training in the fire department at that time. I learned to run a pumper by myself, by being an observer, and then, on off hours, I’d go over to the station and practice on my own. The first time I ever got into the truck, of course I got my butt chewed up by the old-timers, because that was their job. That was a prestige job in those days. My business was only a block from the fire station, so I was one of the first one there on calls, and when I felt confident with that damn pumper I’d jump in the seat and have it sitting outside when those guys showed up. Some of them didn’t like that. They wouldn’t tell you anything. Same way with the breathing apparatus. At the Fireman’s Association summer meeting, which we had every year in June, we used to have hose-laying contests—two hundred feet of two-and-a-halfs and a Siamese arrangement of two one-and-a-halfs, a hundred feet long. And they timed you from when they said “Go” until water came out of both inch-and-a-half nozzles. We practiced over here every night for six weeks, because there was a particular town in the country that kept walking away with the prize. We were bound and determined that we were going to beat those guys, and we have that thing down pat. Make and break, set that up, and really get her going. #RandolphHarris 17 of 19
“Then we went over the conference, ready for this contest, and they gave us an old, beat-up ex-forestry truck that our engineer had never seen before. And he messed up the connection to the hydrant, so we got a little screwed up there. Then we got going, and after it was over, there was a big battle over the timers. Anyhow, we ended up losing. And then the fight was on. With fists. My guys were mad, and those guys thought we tried to cheat them. And one thing led to another. I’m strictly a lover, not a fighter, so I had to laugh. When I’m in charge at a fire scene, the guys I send in to make a search are those ones that attend all the training sessions, because I know they’re not going to panic or anything like that. I never send in just one man, I’ll generally send two and a captain to be their eyes and ears and guide. We practice that way. I got an old building where we practice our firefighting tactics with live fire. We get a little bit more of it each time. It’ll probably take us three or four months before that thing finally goes to ground. Great training for these guys. The state has a training program, but in recent years it hasn’t been able to fund enough instructors. So they are trying to develop self-training programs, by training somebody from each fire department to become the instructor for that particular department. And this works out pretty good, because that’s exactly what I’m doing, following my own training plans. We do ours in the evenings, Monday through Friday, and the guys get their certificate, and so on. I enjoy doing it.” #RandolphHarris 18 of 19
The Sacramento Fire Department is the all-hazards response team. It is important to keep them fully funded so they have the resources to save the community. You can help save lives and property by making a donation to the Sacramento Fire Department. And remember parents, teach your children what a privilege it is to live in America and be America. Raise them to love America, love God and Jesus Christ and respect law and order and their elders. We can help raise the next generation of patriotic leaders. Let justice well up as the waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. In future days which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a World founded upon four essential human freedoms: freedom of speech and expression—everywhere in the World; freedom of every person to worship God in his own way—everywhere in the World; freedom from want which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants—everywhere in the World; freedom from fear, which means a Worldwide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbour—everywhere in the World. And they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks, nation shall not lift sword against nation, neither shall they learn way anymore. However, they shall sit every man under His vine. And none shall make them afraid. #RandolphHarris 19 of 19
The Winchester Mystery House
In the summer of 1899, Mrs. Winchester found herself alone on the stairs on one occasion, when she suddenly heard a voice speak to her. “It’s all right…she can come out now,” some woman said somewhere in back of her. There was no one visible who could have spoken these words and no one nearby. Besides, it was not a voice she recognized. It sounded strangely hollow and yet imperious at the same time. Someone was giving an order, but who, and to whom? Clearly, this someone still considered herself a member of this house. The servants from two were half frightened out of their wits at the idea of living in such a beautiful, but bizarre, pagan-looking place; especially when they got together in the servants’ hall in the evening, and compared notes on all the hobgoblin stories picked up in the course of the day. They were afraid to venture alone about the gloomy, black-looking chambers. One of Mrs. Winchester’s chambermaids declares she could never sleep alone in such a “gashly rummaging old building”; and the footman, who was a kind-hearted young fellow, did all in his power to cheer her up. Mrs. Winchester was struck with the lonely appearance of the house. Before going to bed, therefore, she examined well the fastness of the doors and windows; locked up the plate with her own hands, and carried the keys, together with a little box of money and jewels, to her own room; for she was a notable woman, and always saw to all things herself.
Having put the keys under her pillow, and dismissed her maid, she sat by her toilet arranging her elaborate hair; for being in spite of her grief for Mr. William Winchester and Annie Winchester, rather a buxom widow, she was somewhat particular about her person. She sat for a little while looking at her face in the glass, first on one side, then on the other, as ladies are apt to do when they would ascertain whether they have been in good looks. All of the sudden she thought she heard something move behind her. She looked hastily round, but there was nothing to be seen. Nothing but the grimly painted portraits of her poor dear man, and late newborn daughter hanging against the wall. She gave a heavy sigh to their memories, as she was accustomed to do whenever she spoke of them in company, and then went on adjusting her night-dress, and thinking of them. Her sigh was reechoed, or answered by a long-drawn breath. She looked round again, but no one was to be seen. She ascribed these sounds to the wind oozing through the windows of the mansion and proceeded leisurely to put her hair in papers, when all at once, she thought she perceived one of the eyes of the portrait move, as her eyes were fixed on its reflection in the glass. It struck a momentary chill to her heart; for she was a lone woman, and felt herself fearfully situated.
Please come and enjoy a delicious meal in Sarah’s Café, stroll along the paths of the beautiful Victorian gardens, and wonder through the miles of hallways in the World’s most mysterious mansion. For further information about tours, including group tours, weddings, school events, birthday party packages, facility rentals, and special events please visit the website: https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
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Faith is in the Very House I Have Been Looking After
My thoughts were elsewhere, in another time, caught in a more powerful vortex…I shuddered, became aware of the present once more. I breathed in deeply, vapoured air rushing into my throat; I released it in a long sigh, forcing my fluttering nerves to settle. Despite my tension, returning to my bedroom was almost overwhelming. I latched the door behind me and went to the bureau where my notes and plans of the house were spread. There was a hot cup of tea by my side. I took a large swallow, then another, waiting for the warmness to reach my chest before approaching the window. I stared down into the gardens at the shadows cast by single trees and shrubbery. Could I be sure that is all they were? Ghosts, spirits, lost souls, did not, could not exist. Disgustedly, I turned away from the window and crossed the room to the bed, taking my cup of tea with me. I placed it on the bedside cabinet where it would be close at hand, and climbed into bed. The coldness of the sheets made me shiver. When I switched off the bedside lamp, the smothered moon afforded no light. My eyes remained open. I stared up at the dark gray mass that was the ceiling No lights, no glow from within. Llanada Villa was a vast black bulk that merged with the blackness of night clouds. The house was Victorian style, complete with ornamental gingerbread, a wide covered porch and those turreted rooms that look like a witch’s conical hat. The roof reached up into the clouds, birds of grace stood like ghosts on the chimney tops. #RandolphHarris 1 of 7
Enfolded in darkness, entirely solitary, remote, eloigned, on my heavily wooded estate, a breeze stirred through the gardens, ruffling foliage, disturbing trees. The housemaids, one by one, crept up yawning to their quarters. And, although it was night, birds were twittering busily, the insects were droning, and creatures hunted, their skirmishes violent but brief. Honey fungus glowed blue green on the evergreen trees, and fairies scuttled in the undergrowth. The moon was a pale ghost seen only behind slow-moving monoliths. People often eyed the house curiously as they approached. Inside the house, I slept; but I did not rest. The Psalmist speaks of the terror of the night, the business that walketh about in the dark, and of the noonday devil. Their assemblies generally are held at dead of night when the Powers of Darkness reign; or, sometimes, at high noon, even as the Psalmist saith, when he speaks of “the noonday devil.” The nights they prefer are Monday and Thursday. The time at which these Sabbats began was generally upon the stroke of midnight. Tonight, my dream was a terrible churning of pressure all around me. The Devil met me being alone, and commanded me to be at the Grand Ballroom the next night, and accordingly I made my way there as I was bid and waited at the room about eleven hours at even. In this case, however, the Sabbat was preceded by a dance of nearly one hundred persons, and so probably did not commence until midnight. #RandolphHarris 2 of 7
Thomas Leyis, Issobell Coky, Helen Fraser, Bessie Thorn, and the rest of the Aberdeen witches, thirteen of whom were executed in 1597, and seven more who had been banished were resurrected and standing before my very eyes. There was a midnight dance and reveling. I remained there for hours until the crowing of a cock dissolved the enchantment. The clapping of the cock’s wings made the power of the demons ineffectual and broke the magic spells. It was so prudent that the night-wandering demons, who rejoiced in the darkest shades trembled and scattered in sore affright, and the rites of Satan ceased because the Holy Office of the Church began. The bird at the held of dawn arouses men to worship God; and many an odious sin which darkness shrouds is revealed in the light of the coming day. I awoke, my cry little more than a whimper. The terror of my nightmare remained in my wide eyes. And soon a different emotion tinged them: a deep sadness, perhaps more remorse. My flesh was coldly damp. Early morning light crept through the window, a seeping grayness that offered no cheer. After freshening up, I escorted myself down the large staircase, composed of loads of mahogany; and through the rigmarole passages, hung with priceless works of art, till at length I arrived at the morning room. Just as I reached the door, I heard a strange noise within. I paused and listened. It seemed as if someone were trying to hum a tune in defiance of the asthma. I recollected the report of the room being haunted; so I gently pushed the door open and pepped in. #RandolphHarris 3 of 7
Oh my dear Heavens, there was someone carrying on within enough to have astonished St. Aldric himself. By the light of the fire, I saw a pale weazen-faced fellow, in a long dressing gown and a tall white night-cap, who sat by the fire. He was twitching about with a thousand queer contortions, and nodding his head. I was about to demand what business he had to be in my quarters, when a new cause of astonishment met my eye. From the opposite side of the room a long-backed, bandy-legged chair, covered with leather, and studded all over in a coxcombical fashion with little brass nails, got suddenly into motion, thrust out first a claw-foot, then a crooked arm, and at length, making a leg, slide gracefully up to a baroque chair, and vanished through the floor. A fierce music begun to play with such a mania that I sprang from the room and in a rush down the stairs and slipped, but something kept me from falling! Some force stronger than gravity held on to my skirts and pulled me back onto my feet. It was not my imagination and it was not a supreme effort of my own that did it. I was already half into the air, falling, when I was yanked back, upright. Shortly after, I managed to repair to the attic. As I sat there, resting, I suddenly felt something went and cold across my legs. I reached down only to feel a soft, moist mass that dissolved rapidly at my touch! This was enough to give me the willies, and I began to fear for my life. It was bad enough to have ghost, but to be known, as a haunted family was even worse. However, I found myself turning to my ghostly protector. It was not just me and my servants who experienced these strange things. #RandolphHarris 4 of 7
Even Mr. Hansen, who was not exactly given to belief in ghosts, was impressed when he saw a chair move from under a desk by its own force. He tried several times afterwards, hoping he could duplicate the phenomena by merely stomping his feet or gently touching the chair, but it required full forced to move it. The man from The Philadelphia Contributionship who had been servicing us for years was just as doubtful about the whole thing, when he heard about it. “No such thin as a ghost, Mrs. Winchester,” he commented as he stood in the hallway. At this moment the banister started to vibrate to such an extent they thought it would explode. He grabbed his hat and took his doubts to the nearest saloon. One night, I got into bed, and drew over me one of those great bags of down, under which they smother a man in the Low Countries; and there I lay, melting between two feather beds, like a turkey sandwich between two slices of toasts and butter. Sure enough, in a little time it seemed as if a legion of imps were twitching at me, and all the blood in my veins were in a fever-heat. Suddenly, I felt something cold lie down in bed beside me. All of the movables got into motion; pirouetting hands across, right and left, like so many devils; all except a great clothes-press was preforming a corpulent dance. With a scream, I jumped out and pushed the button to illuminate the room. The chairs and tables slunk in an instant as quietly into their places as if nothing had happened, and an apparition vanished up the chimney, leaving nothing but a chill still pervading the entire area! #RandolphHarris 5 of 7
The mansion shook as though it had been struck by an earthquake. The entire staff had been alarmed. The housemaid hurried up with a candle to inquire the cause. I revealed the marvelous scene I had witnessed, but there was no evidence. The chambermaids declared that they had all witnessed strange carryings on in this room; and they declared this “upon their honours,” there could not remain a doubt upon this subject. Where I passed the rest of the night was a secret I never disclosed. In fact, because of the geography of my mansion, I was apt to make blunders in my travels about inns at night, which would puzzle me sadly to account for in the morning. The phantoms in my home were not the same as those in the cemetery. I feared more the ghostly manifestations in this house more. Often times, there was an ancient crone who was apparently demented who appeared, walking about the place dressed in a strange outfit. It was dirty, loose, flowing. Sometimes she would shake her fist and scream epithets. “Get out of my house!” she would yell. “You’ve no business here. It’s mine! Get out—or you’ll be sorry!” “Who is that old witch?” I demanded angrily of the chambermaid. “Mrs. Winchester, that’s Hattie. She ain’t right in the head.” “What is she doing around here?” I replied. “What does she mean this is her house?” I had already determined that she was definitely in the flesh—and ditty flesh at that. It was a new experience for us. Here we are faced with an apparition—but this was one we could actually see! #RandolphHarris 6 of 7
Many of the servants have lived in the house for months and everyone was used to elusive shadows—shadows with no personality or features. However, Hattie added a colour to the mansion with could do without. One night, Daisy came home mad and said, “Aunt Sarah, why don’t you stop coming out and walking up and down without coming in where I’m working?” I looked at her and assured her that I had not been doing that. She said that she never saw anyone, but could hear them walk on the gravel in the aviary, halfway between the laundry room and one of the kitchens. A few nights ago, she was asleep. It was about one o’clock in the morning, and she had just turned out the light, after reading for a while. I was asleep upstairs. Daisy was lying in bed, and she was not asleep, when she noticed a light tight in the corner of her room. She did not pay any attention to it, but rolled over. As she rolled over, she looked out the two windows which are right above her bed, and there was no light outside. It was a very dark night. So she became curious, and she rolled back over and looked at the light and it was still there. She sat up, turned on the light and nothing was there. So, she runed out the light and pulled the duvet over her heard. About five minutes later, she thought she would look again. This light was still there. It was a strange light, not a flashing beam but sort of a translucent, shimmer and pulsating that would grow. The next morning, she offered me a deep apology and confided in me that she was afraid. #RandolphHarris 7 of 7
The Winchester Mystery House
In the beginning of April 1889-90, the nephew Mrs. Sarah L. Winchester came to his aunt and spent every evening with her reading for their amusement. About the twenty second of the same moth, after the nephew had been reading to his aunt, who was at this time in very good health, The Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan, he retired to his chamber, a large back room, near the 7-11 staircase, and having latched the door, went to bed and feel asleep before ten o’clock. A little before the clock struck twelve, he was awakened by the drawing of the curtain of his bed, and, starting up, saw by a glimmer light, resembling that of the moon, the shadow of his uncle in the nightgown and cap, standing on the right side, near the head of the bed, holding the head curtain back with his left hand. His uncle William had a cheerful look on his face, and seemed as if he was stroking him with his right hand. They lived in the greatest amity prior to his uncle William Wirt Winchester dying of tuberculosis March 7, 1881. Shortly after, rumors circulated that Mrs. Winchester gave her nephew a check and no one laid eyes on him ever again. The staff argued about the size of that check for years.
When President Theodore Roosevelt’s entourage passed The Winchester House in 1903 to plant the city of Campbell’s famous redwood tree, he expressed desire to visit this now World-famous dwelling. At the great front door our nation’s leader was more than astonished to be coldly told by the Butler, “Mrs. Winchester is not at home!” Theodore Roosevelt was an avid fan of The Winchester Rifle. In African Game Trails, Roosevelt clearly stated his esteem for these Winchesters, with such affectionate allusions as “my medicine gun for lion,” “the beloved Winchester,” and “the faithful Winchester.” The Winchester public relations and advertising staff could not have been happier; endorsements from not only the President of the United States of America, but a recognized authority on guns and shooting and the World’s leading conservationist. One of Theodore Roosevelt’s favorites was the stalwart Model 1876 half-magazine .45-70 rifle. As each new lever-action was announced by Winchester, Roosevelt would add one (or more) to his growing collection. No amateur of arms, he was as expert on shooting and ballistics as most of his contemporaries, and often more experience in the field.
Please come and enjoy a delicious meal in Sarah’s Café, stroll along the paths of the beautiful Victorian gardens, and wonder through the miles of hallways in the World’s most mysterious mansion. For further information about tours, including group tours, weddings, school events, birthday party packages, facility rentals, and special events please visit the website: https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
Please visit the online giftshop, and purchase a gift for friends and relatives as well as a special memento of The Winchester Mystery House. A variety of souvenirs and gifts are available to purchase. https://shopwinchestermysteryhouse.com/
The Curse of Bigness
Approximately sixty six percent of Americans report that high inflation has made their financial situation worse. Families with lower incomes are especially suffering. Another twenty percent of Americans have reported that the rising prices have made their financial health much worse. Housing costs in California have long been higher than the national average. In recent years, these costs have grown substantially—in some cases, growing at historically rapid rates. California’s home prices have far exceeded the rest of the country and the state is about thirty three percent more expensive than a mid-tier home in the rest of the country—a gap that has widened over the last decade. Monthly payments for a newly purchased mid-tier home—including mortgage, taxes, and homeowners’ insurance—have increased dramatically over the last couple of years. Payments for a mid-tier home were over $5,000 a month in March 2024—an eighty percent increase since January of 2020. Payments for a bottom-tier home versus renting are near levels that have not been seen since the housing bubble in the mid-2000s. This rapid increase in monthly costs for homebuyers was driven by higher home prices and increasing mortgage rates. #RandolphHarris 1 of 18
Costs of buying a home have grown by more than median income. Affordability depends on both the costs of the housing, as well as the income and/or wages of households. Annual household income needed to qualify for a mortgage on a mid-tier California home in March 2024 was about $235,000—over two times the median California household income in 2022 ($85,300). For a bottom-tier home, about $140,000 in annual income is required to qualify for a mortgage—more than 50 percent higher than median household income in 2022. Furthermore, rental prices are unaffordable for a record number of American with half of all renters paying more than thirty percent of their income on rent and utilities. In New York, rent for a 1-bedroom apartment is $4,300 a month; Santa Clara the number is $3,290 per month; and in Sacramento the average 1-bedroom apartment is $2,135 per month. If it were true that the terrible results of the degrading conditions forced upon the dwellers in the slums were transmitted to their children by heredity, and within few generations they become fixed character, the hope for a regenerated society would be much more difficult to realize. If that were the case, these unfortunate creatures would continue to act in the same way for several generations, no matter how their environment had been transformed by the corporate actions of society. #RandolphHarris 2 of 18
The poverty line for a family of four is $62,300. Many of the people who make this amount of money are those with high school diplomas and graduate degrees as well as blue-collar and white-collar workers who live in both rural and urban American. Also, about 4o percent of Americans are unable to plan beyond their next paycheck, while nearly fifty percent of them said they do not have $500 saved for emergencies. Price increases are devasting for lower-income Americans because they tend to spend more their paychecks on necessities and have less money to save. The typical American household needed to pay $227 more a month in March to purchase the same goods and services it did one year ago because of still-high inflation. Americans are paying on average $784 more each month compared with the same time two years ago and $1,069 compared with three years ago. For those on Social Security retirement, cost of living adjustments are not helping them much. Our affair is not with the evolution of life and its adaptation to the natural environment, but with the evolution of man, and the adaptation of life to his purposes. And even the control of life around us matters less than that of our psychological evolution and of social progress. If no Utopia is in the making, at least, some believe there should be a shift away from the free competitive order. #RandolphHarris 3 of 18
Capitalism is beginning to turn into the welfare capitalism; the frustrations of the middle class and the needs of the poor are accelerating the change. Men sense that a different order is slowly arising. Although they can seldom describe it, they have expressed it variously in their slogans and titles: they speak of the New Nationalism, the Square Deal, the New Nationalism, the Square Deal, the New Freedom, the New Competition, the New Democracy—and, in time, of the New Deal. Previous reform and protest movements have been disjointed and uncoordinated uprisings of workers and farmers; now the middle class is drawn into the fray. The middle-class citizen, as producer and consumer, is beginning to feel the growth of inflation and fears that he will be grounded between large combinations of capital, labour, and Artificial Intelligence. As the standard of living, the figure of the great capitalist entrepreneur, hitherto heroic, lost much of his glamour. He is condemned as an exploiter of labour and an extorter from the consumer, pilloried as an unfair competitor, and exposed as a corrupter of political life. In a society of great collective aggregates, the traditional emphasis upon the exploits of the individual lost much of its appeal. #RandolphHarris 4 of 18
The old problem of defending competition from critics on the left now pales as people are forced to face “the curse of bigness,” the more imminent threat to competition from the offspring of competition itself. Our industry is a fight of every man for himself. The prize we give the fittest is monopoly of the necessary life, and we leave these winners of the powers of life and death wield them over us by the same “self-interest” with which they took them from us. “There is no hope for any of us, but the weakest must go first,” is the golden rule of business. There is no other field of human associations in which any such rule of action is allowed. The man who should apply in his family or in his citizenship this “survival of the fittest” theory as it is practically professed and operated in business would be a monster, and would be speedily made extinct. It is laissez faire as policy that is most completely discredited. While the old, simple apotheosis of competition has faded, few have ceased altogether to believe in it. One of the primary aims, indeed, of the middle-class revolt is to restore so far as possible the pristine conditions of competitive business. However, even if the supposed benefits of competition were to be retained, some form of government regulation is needed to restrain monopoly. #RandolphHarris 5 of 18
American industry is not free, as once it was free. The man with only a little capital is finding it harder to get into the field, more and more impossible to compete with the big fellow. Why? Because the laws of this country do not prevent the strong from crushing the weak. This the small entrepreneur and his sympathizers are trying to change the laws because the middle class is grasping for life and capital and many fear becoming homeless. The little individualist, recognizing his individual impotence, realizing that he does not possess within himself even the basis of a moral judgement against his big brother, begins to change his point of view. He no longer hopes to right all things by his individual efforts. He has turned to the law, to the government, to the state. The right of competition must be limited to preserve it. For instance, the American Automobile industry produces some of the best designed and best performing vehicles in the World, but when Japanese automobiles flooded the markets back in the 1970s and 80s, during the gas crisis, people got hooked on them and have yet to return to their roots. To encourage people to buy American cars, we need to put tariffs on Japanese cars to not kill the American automobile industry. For excesses of competition leads to monopoly, as excesses of liberty lead to absolutism. #RandolphHarris 6 of 18
The issue therefore is: Regulated competition versus regulated monopoly. In the past, as serious attempts to alter the business structure through legislation increased, there came a flood of laws to relieve the working class. Intellectuals, humanitarians, and social workers threw themselves on the side of labour, and drew support from a middle class which had no desire to see industrial oppression bring collectivism from the left. In increasing numbers, state legislatures adopted laws increasing minimum wage, limiting worker’s compensation, and similar measures of reform. Sympathy for union activity grew stronger among intellectuals. If we are not careful, with the amount of inflation we are experiencing today, Americans could return to child labour, more people may engage in selling pleasures of the flesh and peddling contraband. We could see comfort stations popping up in suburban communities and becoming as popular as liquor stores in the cities. We already have drug shops peddling illegal drugs to anyone who walks through the doors. And 65,000 catalytic converters were stolen in 2022. #RandolphHarris 7 of 18
Women have been convinced that their place is no longer in the home. They are encouraged to hire nannies and order already prepared meals kits. They are sent the message that they are no longer homemakers and care givers to their families. If there is a “housing shortage” and people cannot afford the supply of housing, means that there is too much demand from overpopulation. The masses as well the classes must be judged impartially through the arbitrament of the universal struggle. The state is conceived by all reformers to be an indispensable instrument of the new reconstruction. We must have a fervent plea for the abandonment of the traditional American mixture of optimism, fatalism, and conservatism in favour of a more positive attempt to realize the national promise. Americans must learn to think in terms of purpose rather than destiny, and, without fear of the centralizing powers of government, to realize their purpose through a national policy. We can no longer treat life as something that has trickled down to us. We must deal with it deliberately, devise its social organization, alter its tools, formulate its method, educate and control it. #RandolphHarris 8 of 18
In endless ways we put intention where custom has reigned. We break up routines, make decisions, choose our ends, select means. The managed society which we anticipate must become a reality. If our children are to survive, the state of intervention must come of age. Despite the interruption of the Obama administration, the trend toward social cohesion must keep growing so the sons of the generation can witness the creation of a state machinery as great as any that could have appeared in the Victorian individualist’s worst nightmares. Whatever the human potentialities of this apparatus, for good or evil, the ideals of a cohesive and centralized society will become increasingly triumphant over those of the heyday of the age of information. While individualism has by no means disappeared, it is increasingly on the defensive. The religious keynote, the economic keynote, the scientific keynote of the twenty first century must be the overwhelming realization that mankind has such a mental and spiritual powers and such control over nature that the doctrine of the struggle for existence is definitely outmoded and placed by the higher law of cooperation. #RandolphHarris 9 of 19
We live in a consumer drive economy, and the attempt to question the pattern of unlimited consumption meets with a difficulty. Compulsive consumption compensates for anxiety. The need for this type of consumption stems from the sense of inner emptiness, hopelessness, confusion, and tension. By “taking in” articles of consumption, the individual reassures himself that “he is,” as it were. If consumption were to be reduced, a good deal of anxiety would become manifest. Resistance against the possible arousal of anxiety would result in an unwillingness to reduce consumption. The most telling example of this mechanism is to be found in the public’s attitude toward cigarette consumption. In spite of the well-known dangers to health, the majority goes on consuming cigarettes. It is because they would rather take a chance of earlier death than forgo pleasure? An analysis of the attitude of smokers shows that this is largely a rationalization. Cigarette consumption allays hidden anxiety and tension, and people would rather risk their health than to be confronted with anxiety. Yet, once the quality of the process of living becomes more important than it is now, many people will stop smoking or overconsuming, not for the sake of their physical health but because only when they face their anxieties can they find ways to more productive living. (If they are compulsive, most urges for pleasures, including pleasures of the flesh, are not caused by the wish for pleasure but by the wish for avoidance of anxiety.) #RandolphHarris 10 of 18
The problem of limits to consumption is so difficult to assess because, even in the affluent society of the United States of America, not all unquestionably legitimate needs are fulfilled. This holds true for at least 52 percent of the population. When the optimum consumption level has not been reached, how can we even think of reduced consumption? First, in the affluent sector, we have already reached the point of harmful consumption; second, the aim of ever-increasing consumption creates, even before the optimal consumption level is reached, an attitude of greed in which one wishes not only to have one’s legitimate needs fulfilled but dreams of a never-ending increase in desires and satisfactions. In other words, the idea of the limitless rise of production and consumption curve greatly contributes to the development of passivity and greed in the individual, even before peak consumption is reached. Despite these considerations, the transformation of our society into one which serves life must change the consumption and thereby change, indirectly, the production pattern of present industrial society. Such a change would obviously come not because of bureaucratic orders but of studies, information, discussion, and making on the part of the population, educated to become aware of the problem of the difference between life-furthering and life-hindering kinds of needs. #RandolphHarris 11 of 18
Awareness of illusions is the condition for freedom and human action. Religious distress is at the same time the expression of real distress and the protest against real distress. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless World, just as it is the spirit of an unspiritual situation. It is the opium of the people. The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is required for their real happiness. The demand to give up the illusions about its condition is the demand to give up a condition which needs illusions. The criticism of religion is therefore in embryo the criticism of the vale of woe, the halo of which is religion. Criticism has plucked the imaginary flowers from the chain not so that man will wear the chain without any fantasy or consolation, but so that he will shake off the chain and cull the living flower. The criticism of religion disillusions man, to make him think and act and shape his reality like a man who has been disillusioned and has come to reason, so that he will revolve round himself and therefore round his true sun. Religion is only the illusory sun, which revolves round man as long as he does not revolve round himself. How can man attain the goal of freeing himself from illusions? The behaviourists try to explain human activity without recourse to terms referring to consciousness, such as reward or satisfaction. #Randolphharris 12 of 18
Instead, behaviourists invoke a circular argument, stating that behaviour is “shaped” (into skills, or patterned habits) by reinforcers. A reinforcer is any consequence to action which strengthens, that is, increases the probability of the recurrence of, a response. To an observer who is not a behaviorist, the “reinforcing stimulus” may look suspiciously like a reward or a pleasant experience; the behaviourist prefers to avoid such subjectivistic terms. Skinner and his followers have been consulted by officials concerned with the management of prisoners’ behaviour in prisons and the behaviour of patients in mental hospitals, and by administrators of school systems who wish to make teaching and learning more efficient. There is considerable controversy between humanistic and behaviouristic psychologists about the issue of behaviour control, and the student should become familiar with the points of debate. Healthy personality, according to a behaviouristic view, calls for competence and self-control—the ability to suppress action that no longer yields positive reinforcers, and to learn action that is successful in attaining the good things. Such rapid adaptability is mediated by the ability to discern the contingencies, or rules implicit in nature or in society, according to which needs are gratified and dangers averted. #RandolphHarris 13 of 18
I have always been uneasy about the behaviouristic approach to human nature, because it appeals to the power motive in the behaviour scientist. Moreover, research in behaviourism is frequently funded by agencies interested in controlling the behaviour and experience of other persons for the institution rather than the person. If a definite distinction is thus established between freely associating and understanding, when does one stop associating and try to understand? Fortunately, there are no rules whatever. If thoughts flow freely there is no sense in arresting them artificially. Sooner or later, they will be stopped by something stronger than themselves. Perhaps the person arrives at a point where he feels curious about what it all may mean. Or he may suddenly strike an emotional chord that promises to shed light on something that is troubling him. Or he may simply run out of thoughts, which may be a sign of resistance but also may indicate that he has exhausted the subject for the time being. Or he may have only a limited time at his disposal and still want to try himself at interpreting his notes. As the understanding of associations, the range of themes and combinations of themes that they may present is so infinite that there cannot possibly be any fixed rules regarding the meaning of individual elements in individual contexts. #RandolphHarris 14 of 18
When a person stops associating and begins to go over his notes to understand them, his method of work must change. Rather than being entirely passive and receptive to whatever emerges, he becomes active. Now his reason comes into play. He no longer excludes reason. Even now he does not use it exclusively. It is difficult to describe with any accuracy the attitude he should adopt when he tries to grasp the meaning of a series of associations. The process should certainly not degenerate into a mere intellectual exercise. If he wants, he will do better to play chess or predict the course of World politics or take to crossword puzzle. An effort to figure out completely rounded interpretations, not missing any possible connotation, may gratify his vanity by proving the superiority of his brains but will scarcely take him much closer to a real understanding of himself. Such an effort entails a certain danger, for it may hamper progress by engendering a smug know-it-all feeling while he has only catalogued items without being touched by anything. The other extreme, a merely emotional insight, is far more valuable. If it is not further elaborated this is not ideal either, because it allows many significant leads, not yet altogether lucid, to drop out of sight. However, as we have seen from Clare’s analysis, an insight of this kind may set something going. #RandolphHarris 15 of 18
Early in her work, Clare experienced an intense lost of feeling in connection with her dream of the foreign city; it was mentioned than that although it is impossible to prove whether this emotional experience had any effect upon the further analysis, through its disquieting nature it may well have loosened her rigid tabu against touching any of the complex ties that fastened her to Peter. Another instance occurred during Clare’s final battle with her dependency, when she felt her defiance against taking her life into her own hands; she had then no intellectual grasp of the meaning of this emotional insight, yet it helped her to get out of a state of lethargic helplessness. Instead of wanting to produce a scientific masterpiece, the person who is working alone should let his interpretation be directed by his interest. He should simply go after what arrests his attention, what arouses his curiosity, what strikes an emotional chord within him. If he is flexible enough to let himself be guided by his spontaneous interest, he can be reasonably certain that he will intuitively select those subjects which at the time are most accessible to his understanding, or which fall in line with the problem on which he is working on. #RandolphHarris 16 of 18
When I first learned to read, I was absorbed in the joy of my learning. At the same time, it is true that until I could read for myself, I was dependent on my mother’s time: I had to wait for her to read to me. That could be called a problem. However, when I was eight and went to German school on Saturday mornings, I was lost in the enchantment of writing German script, the light lines up, the heavy lines down. It was utter fascination to find that a completely different set of sounds and “pictures” (letters)—like frau—meant in another part of the World what my mother was. To discover that kindergarten, to which I had gone, was a German word, not an English one, was like discovering that I had been in Germany instead of America. Then there were the words that were same as ours, and others that were nearly the same, which brought together what had seemed so far apart. I do not think I had a problem that led to my learning German. I did have some familiarity with it, to begin with. My German grandfather still spoke German when he had someone to speak it with. German was in this sense already a part of my life. However, what did my love of Latin in high school have to do with my life? The only connection that I can find is that I liked words, and the meaning of words, and the derivations of words. However, after a year I had got the hang of that and could look up the rest for myself when I needed. #RandolphHarris 17 of 18
No one can be devoid of feeling, and the philosopher will not be exempt from this rule. However, whereas the ordinary man’s feelings are transient emotions, passions, stresses, or moods, the philosopher’s feelings nourish a sustained, elevate state. The mistake of taking personal feelings as fit judges of truth or reality is a grave barrier which often lies across the portal of philosophy. People put a grossly exaggerated value on them and are thus led astray from the true knowledge of a fact or a situation. Without changing a person’s feelings, no change for the better in his own life, in himself, and in his relationship with other persons can be stable. When his feelings are really a conscious or subconscious cover for other feelings, nothing will help, save the uncovering of what the ego has hidden. Generous feeling must be directed by sound judgment, fervent devotion must be led by wise discrimination. The longing for inward security and invulnerable peace is one which a man can certainly satisfy. However, he cannot satisfy it on his own terms. Life has always and inseparably dictated the price which must be paid for it. It is easy to talk vaguely of lofty ideas, hard to put them where they belong—in our personal relationships. The line of conduct which impulse suggests is often different from that which deliberate reflection or deeper intuition suggests. Only when a man so develops himself that the two lines harmoniously coincide will he know the peace of never being torn in two—either mentally or emotionally. Then only, when desire and duty agree perfectly with one another, will he be happy. For, when reason approves what feeling chooses, and the inner balance is perfect, the resulting decision is more likely to be a right one than not. #RandolphHarris 18 of 18
The Winchester Mystery House
In 1890, there was an abundance of evidence concerning unspeakable horror lurking in the blackness beyond. The butler was sleeping in the front left bedroom on the second floor, and he felt that something was in there; he could hear someone breathing. He got up and turned the light on, and at that every moment he saw something go up the wall and up the fireplace. He did not know what it was. He could hear the noise, and saw it go up the chimney and then take off. That scared him. He sat up the rest of the night. Other times he has heard something walking behind him. Four or five different servants had the same experience.
Please come and enjoy a delicious meal in Sarah’s Café, stroll along the paths of the beautiful Victorian gardens, and wonder through the miles of hallways in the World’s most mysterious mansion. For further information about tours, including group tours, weddings, school events, birthday party packages, facility rentals, and special events please visit the website: https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
Please visit the online giftshop, and purchase a gift for friends and relatives as well as a special memento of The Winchester Mystery House. A variety of souvenirs and gifts are available to purchase. https://shopwinchestermysteryhouse.com/
Freedom to be King of the Supermarket
The struggle for existence is in a sort of hopeful fatalism, of which current literature is full. The injustice of society, not the stinginess of nature, is the cause of the want and misery which we attribute to overpopulation. The new mouths which an increasing population calls into existence require no more food than the old ones, while the hands they bring with them can in the natural order of things produce more. The process is the results of forces which work slowly, steadily and remorselessly, for the elevation of man. War, slavery, tyranny, superstition, famine, and pestilence, the want and misery which fester in modern civilization, are the impelling cases which drive men on by eliminating poorer types and extending the higher; and hereditary transmission is the power by which advances are fixed, and past advances made the footing for new advances. The individual is the result of changes thus impressed upon and perpetuated through a long series of individuals, and the social organization takes its form from the individuals of which it is composed. Radical to a degree beyond anything which current radicalism conceives, since it anticipates a change in human nature itself, civilization holds that no change can avail, save these slow changes in men’s natures. #RandolphHarris 1 of 20
The prevailing view of civilization accounts neither for the failure of some peoples to progress, nor for the failure of others to maintain a level of civilization once achieved. History suggests that civilizations rise and fall in a wavelike rhythm. It is possible that each national or race of life has a stock of energy which it expends as the energy is dissipated the nation declines. America, many believe, is currently in a decline because of the immigration crisis, overpopulation, destruction of gender roles, the church, the nuclear family, inflation, low wages, high cost of housing and corruption. That obstacles which finally bring progress to a halt are raised by the course of progress are association and equality, and society is not threatened by the division and inequality it breeds. The seeds of the destruction of the existing order can be found in its own poverty; in its squalid cities which are breeding and welcoming in the barbarian hordes which might overwhelm it. As Artificial Intelligence puts a major strain on electric grids, civilization must either prepare itself for a new forward leap or plunge downward into a new barbarism. Each man must swim for himself in a crossing river, ignoring the fact that some have been artificially provided with corks and others artificially loaded with lead. #RandolphHarris 2 of 20
Human nature itself must have changed very much. Not all, but the conditions of human life have changed, and with them the motives of human action. As wonders of the cooperative order have unfolded, it has become clear that this change of conditions is centered about the abolition of strife. Selfishness was their only science, and in industrial production selfishness is suicide. The elimination of strife, by automating jobs and tasks, has only produced more strife. Competition, which is the instinct of selfishness, is another word for dissipation of energy, while combination is the secret of efficient production. The principle of the Brotherhood of Humanity is one of the eternal truths that govern the World’s progress on lines which distinguish huma nature from brute nature. The principle of competition is simply the application of the brutal law of the survival of the strongest and most cunning. Therefore, so long as competition continues to be the ruling factor in our technological system, the highest development of the individual cannot be reached, the loftiest aims of humanity cannot be realized. The final pleas for any form of brutality in these days is that it tends to the survival of the fittest; and very properly this plea has been advanced in favour of the system which is the sum of all brutalities. #RandolphHarris 3 of 20
If the richest were in fact the best, there would have been no social question, and disparities of condition would have been willingly endured; but the competitive system apparently causes the unfittest to survive, not in the sense that the rich are worse than the poor, but that the system encourages the worst in character of all classes. The difference between the animal and human economy will bear study as furnishing the best of ammunition for replying to the “survival of the fittest” against the argument of nationalism. Evolutionary biology does not provide a justification for competitive individualism. There is a healthy emulation that will go on in a cooperative commonwealth and the unhealthy competition of capitalism. The organic character of social life demands increasing centralization and management. Through capitalism, some American corporations and the government, through costs and fees, are gauging citizens, underpaying workers, and each year, redistributing billions of dollars of American wealth and tax money to other countries, instead of reinvesting in the American people and America. Conscious evolution is a far different thing from the unmodified natural evolution of the past, and human intervention must play an increasingly important role in development. #RandolphHarris 4 of 20
The rise of trusts is paving the way for socialism, and the continuing “trustification” of industry is a proof of the superiority of combination over competition. The combination is the inevitable next step in social evolution, leaving them a choice between monopolized capitalism and a collectivized social order. If you wish to enjoy art, you must be an artistically cultivated person; if you wish to influence other people, you must be a person who really has a stimulating and encouraging effect upon others. Every one of your relations to man and to nature must be specific expressions, corresponding to the object of your will, of your real individual life. If you love without evoking love in return, id est, if you are not able, by the manifestation of yourself as a loving person, to make yourself a beloved person, then your love is impotent and a misfortune. The aim of the activation of man in the technological society requires another step as important and as difficult as replacement of the alienated bureaucratic structure by methods of humanist management. Again, I wanted to ask the reader to take the following proposals only as illustrations of desirable possibilities, not as definite aims and methods. Up to the present, our industrial system has followed the principle that anything man wants or desires is to be accepted indiscriminately, and that is possible society should satisfy all of man’s desires. #RandolphHarris 5 of 20
We make a few exceptions to this principle; for instance, certain laws which restrict or even forbid the use of liquor regardless of a person’s desire to drink as much as he likes; stronger ones against the taking of drugs, where even the possession of drugs like marijuana (the degree of whose harmfulness is still under debate) is penalized severely; we also restrict the sale and exhibition of so-called pornography. Furthermore, our laws forbid the sale of harmful food under the Food and Drug Act. In these areas, there is consensus, crystallized in state and federal laws, that there are desires which are harmful to man, and which should not be fulfilled although a person craves for the satisfaction of these desires. While one can argue that so-called pornography does not constitute a real threat and, furthermore, the hidden lasciviousness of our advertisements are at least as effective in arousing cupidity of pleasures of the flesh as straight pornography would be, the principle is recognized that there are limits to the freedom of the satisfaction of subjective desires. Yet these restrictions are essentially based on only two principles: the concern for bodily harm, and the vestigial remnants of the Puritan morality. It is time we began to examine the whole problem of subjective needs and whether their existence is a sufficiently valid reason for their fulfillment; to question and examine the generally accepted principle of satisfying all needs—while never asking about their origins or effects. #RandolphHarris 6 of 20
In trying to find adequate solutions, we meet with two powerful obstacles. First, the interests of industry, whose imagination is fired by too many alienated men who cannot think of products which would help to make a human being more active rather than more passive. Besides this, industry knows that by advertising it can create needs and cravings which can be calculated in advance, so that there is little risk in losing profit if one continues the safe method of creating needs and selling the products which satisfy them. The other difficulty lies in a certain concept of freedom which gains ever-increasing importance. The most important freedom in the twenty-first century is the freedom to use and invest property in any form which promised profit. Since managers of enterprises were at the same time the owners, their own acquisitive motivations made them emphasize this freedom of the use and investment in capital. Because of inflation, many Americans do not own property—even though there are a relatively large number of people who own large fortunes. The average American is employed, and he is satisfied with relatively small savings, either in cash, stocks, bonds, or life insurance. For him, the freedom of investment of capital is a relatively minor issue; and even for most people who are able to buy stocks, this is a form of gambling in which they are counseled by investment funds. #RandolphHarris 7 of 20
However, the real feeling of freedom today lies in another sphere, in that of consumption. In this sphere, everybody except those who live a substandard existence experiences the freedom of the consumer. Here is an individual who is powerless to have any influence—beyond a marginal one—on the affairs of the state or the enterprise in which he is employed. He has a boss, and his boss has a boss, and the boss of his boss has a boss, and there are very few individuals left who do not have a boss and do not obey the program of the managerial machine—of which they are a part. However, what power does he have as a consumer? There are dozens of brands of cigarettes, toothpastes, soaps, deodorants, radios, social media networks, cellular phones, Smart TVs, movie and television stream services, etcetera, etcetera. And they all woo his favor. They are all there “for his pleasure.” He is free to favour the one against the other and he forgets that essentially there are no differences. This freedom to give his favours to his favourite commodity creates a sense of potency. The man who is impotent humanely becomes potent as a buyer and consumer. Can one make any attempt to restrict this sense of potency by restricting the freedom of choice in consumption? It seems reasonable to assume one can do so only under one condition and that is that the whole climate of society changes and permits man to become more active and interest in his individual social affairs, and hence less in need of that fake freedom to be king of the supermarket. #RandolphHarris 8 of 20
We are determined by forces outside of our conscious selves, and by passions and interests which direct us behind our backs. Inasmuch as this is the case, we are not free. However, we can emerge from this bondage and enlarge the realm of freedom by becoming fully aware of reality, and hence of necessity, by giving up illusions, and by transforming ourselves from somnambulistic, unfree, determined, dependent, passive persons into awakened, aware, active, independent ones. The aim of life is liberation from bondage, and the way to this aim is the overcoming of illusions and the full use of our active powers. Dr. Freud’s position is essentially the same; he spoke less of freedom versus bondage than of mental health versus mental sickness. He, too, saw that man is determined by objective factors (the libido and its fate) but he thought that man can overcome this determination by overcoming his illusions, by waking up to reality, and by becoming aware of what is real but unconscious. Dr. Freud’s principle as a therapist was that awareness of the unconscious is the way to the cure of mental illness. As a social philosopher he believed in the same principle: only if we become aware of reality and overcome our illusions can we attain the optimal strength to cope with life. Perhaps those who do not suffer from the neurosis will need no intoxicant to deaden it. They will, it is true, find themselves in a difficult situation. #RandolphHarris 9 of 20
They will have to admit to themselves the full extent of their helplessness and their insignificance in the machinery of the universe; they can no longer be the center of creation, no longer the object of tender care on the part of a beneficent providence. They will be in the same position as a child who has left the parental house where he was so warm and comfortable. However, surely infantilism is destined to be surmounted. Men cannot remain children forever; they must in the end go out into “hostile life.” We may call this “education to reality.” Our God, Logos, is perhaps not a very almighty one, and he may only be able to fulfill a small part of what his predecessors have promised. If we must acknowledge this, we shall accept it with resignation. We shall not on that account lose our interest in the World and in life…no, our science is no illusion. However, it would be to suppose that what science cannot give us we can get elsewhere. When I study my own, I discover that while many things can be quite well known in a general way, they cannot be accurately or permanently pinned down. I become less dogmatic, and at the same time more free, living with the uncertainty that is a reality of life. Through reading authors of many different periods, I notice how each has been conditioned by his times, and this leads me to seek out in which ways my own view is affected by times. #RandolphHarris 10 of 20
I notice where this is freeing and where it binds me, and then I can begin to cut the bonds, which are, I discover, not contemporary but a hangover from the past, prevalent but dying. I move, then, with what is truly contemporary, with what is appearing now—the living change, not the dying. I find authors whose views have changed in successive books, which tends to keep my mind more open about both of us. I discover that when I re-read a book out of my own interest, what is says to me the second time may be quite different from what it said the first time. This brings me closer to reality about myself and books. All this in itself has an effect on my interpersonal relations, apart from the fact that when I am ranging freely I am happy—not happy about, just happy—and that affects my interpersonal relations too. These facts to me are significant learning. They are basic, universal, applicable to any people, place and time. When I am aware of them, I am in touch with the unchanging reality of change. With this awareness first, then what I do in the ephemeral World of my own lifetime is more intelligent, including my relations with other people. At the same time, I am a more autonomous person, able to find out for myself, and with trust in my ability to find my way. That my way includes the help of others in no way diminishes my independence because I do the choosing for myself. #RandolphHarris 11 of 20
I accept what I can use at the time, what is meaningful to me. Even if I spent a lifetime doing it, then, all that I learn is linked together, inside me, with more connections than could be written down because new ones are constantly being made while I am writing. All of these connections are available to me through my inner computer, as I need them. One part of me is such a fantastic machine, contained in such a littler space and so easy to take with me, that it is idiotic to get excited about the feats of machines that are made by men. If we use them properly, they are convenient, and that is all. I must use my own machine properly too, by not interfering with it, because when it is interfered with it goes haywire. It does not seem to me that a problem is necessary for this kind of learning, although a problem certainly can stimulate me. However, perhaps I am using the word “problem” in a too limited way. Philosophy will create within him a disgust for evil, a disdain for what is ignoble, a taste for what is refined and beautiful, a yearning for what is true and real. It is not in the process of dying to self he is to become a man without feelings, but that he is to die to the lower phases of feeling. Indeed, such a victory can only be achieved by drawing the needed forces from the higher phases of feeling. In the World of values, the truth is the synthesis of opposites, as for instance the synthesis of optimism and pessimism. #RandolphHarris 12 of 20
One more word as to the technique of free association: it is essential to abstain from reasoning while associating. Reason has its place in analysis, and there is ample opportunity to use it—afterward. However, as already stressed, the very essence of free association is spontaneity. Hence the person who is attempting it should not try to arrive at a solution by figuring out. Assume, for instance, that you feel so fatigued and so limp that you would like to crawl into bed and pronounce yourself ill. You look out of a second story window and detect yourself thinking miserably that if you fell you would at most break an arm. This startles you. You had not known that you were desperate, even so desperate to want to die. Then you hear a podcast turned on above you, and you think with moderate irritation that you would like to shoot the fellow operating it. You conclude that there must be rage as well as despair behind your feeling ill. So far you have done a good job. You already feel less paralyzed, because if you are furious at something you may be able to find the reasons for it. However, now you start a frantic conscious search for what might have infuriated you. You go over all the incidents that occurred before you felt so tired. #RandolphHarris 13 of 20
It is possible that you will hit upon the provocation, but the probability is that all your conscious digging comes to nought—and that the real source will occur to you half an hour later, after you have become discouraged by the futility of your attempts and have given up the conscious search. As unproductive as such attempts to force a solution is the procedure of a person who, even while he lets his mind run freely, tries to get at the meaning of his associations by putting two and two together. Whatever prompts him to do so, whether it is impatience or a need to be brilliant or a fear of giving way to uncontrolled thoughts and feelings, this intrusion of reason is bound to disturb the relaxed condition necessary for free association. It is true that the meaning of an association may dawn upon him spontaneously. Clare’s series of associations ending with the text of religious song is a good example of this: here her associations showed an increasing degree of lucidity although no conscious effort had been made to understand them. The two processes—self-expression and understanding—may sometimes coincide. However, as far as conscious efforts are concerned, they should be kept strictly separate. The quest remains unfinished and unsuccessful so long as it lacks this element of rich feeling, so long as it has not become a warm devotion. The Quest is not all a matter of psychological readjustment, of severe self-improvement. Man is not just a character to be remolded. Deep reverential feelings have also to be cultivated. #RandolphHarris 14 of 20
The quest for health and happiness has existed as long as people have been able to reflect upon the human condition. American philosophers concerned themselves many centuries ago with the problem of how human beings could liberate themselves from cramping habits to attain a happier, freer existence. Some of those who attained “liberation and enlightenment” became teachers, seeking to help others attain the same degree of emancipation from stifling life. There is a parallel between the state of enlightenment and the state of healthy personality. Neurotic suffering is a result of separating oneself too radially from nature, from other humans, and from one’s own organism. Most people equate their very identity with a concept of themselves instead of with their whole being. In the process of separating self, one loses contact with the flow or process of life, which is essentially spontaneous. People replace spontaneity in their experience, thinking, and behaviour with efforts to make them happen. Liberation (and, by implication, healthy personality) occurs when a person can adopt the attitude of “letting be,” or “letting happen.” That is, one “lets go” the conscious, controlling ego, or self, and experiences life in somewhat the following fashion: instead of a person’s “trying” to swim, “liberated” swimming is experiences as “swimming is permitted to happen” or “swimming is going on.” #RandolphHarris 15 of 20
When a person stops trying to make things happen, when one stops truing to make oneself behave in some desired way, it is argued that the desired events or behaviours will spontaneously happen. Learning theorists, surprisingly, offer a similar argument for some skill learning. Healthy personality entails liberation from effortful constraint on, and control over spontaneous thinking, feeling, and action; it entails attainment of an attitude of “letting oneself be” and letting other and nature “be.” His life will be extraordinarily enriched, and not bleakly impoverished, by discovering the higher relationship that is possible between men and women that which begins and ends with the flesh. Intense concentrated feeling may fill a man with self-destructive or murderous antagonism but lead another into self-realization—depending upon the thoughts and acts which flow from him at its bidding. First comes the capacity to recognize these higher feelings; then to understand them for what they are; next to appreciate their intrinsic worth; and finally, to give oneself up to them entirely. The real philosopher feels what he knows: it is not a dry intellectual experience alone but a living one. Why become resentful and bitter at the loss? Why not be grateful at having had the good fortune at all, and for possessing memory of it that cannot be lost? Why not regard it as enough to have experienced such happiness, even for a little time, when in the chances of life, it could have passed you by altogether? Why not receive the gifts of destiny humbly without trying to own them with a tight vampire-like grip? #RandolphHarris 16 of 20
The higher human feelings such as kindness and sympathy, patience and tolerance must nurtured. This species called Man has shown its finer possibilities in the kindness of Jesus as the Christ, the compassion of Dr. Freud, the love of Saint Aldric Bishop of Le Mans, the leadership of King Rudolf I of Germany, the skill of Michelangelo, and the design of William Randolph Hearst, and the craftmanship of Sarah L. Winchester. Man will not lose the capacity to feel; in this he will still be like other men: but it will be free from false sentimentality and debased animality. He who enters upon this quest will have to revise his scale of values. Experiences which he formerly thought bad, because they were unpleasant, may now be thought good, because they are educative or because they reveal hitherto obscured weaknesses. The Sacramento Fire Department has invested millions of dollars into research and development. They have years of hard work dedicated to their success. Also, they have proven themselves to save the lives of those individuals who place their lives in the hands of the skilled heroes who use the concept. Their purpose is to save your life, and the lives of their fellow firefighters, and the community they serve and who trusts them wholly. #RandolphHarris 17 of 20
“We trained on the job over the course of one summer, in the mountains of Santa Clara County. We walked at least eight hundred miles, mostly at a forty-five-degree angle, fighting brush fires. We did an hour of calisthenics every day, including a twenty-foot rope climb without using your feet. It’s very hot there in the summer. We were always learning things, always sweating. The first forest fire we had was real hard and lasted a few days. We ran out of water and had to pace ourselves. The mountains have a lot of tall trees, mostly coast redwoods, various kinds of brush, and dry grass. A fire will burn sixteen and a half times faster uphill than down. It preheats, spreads, and has a convection column that will carry embers clear across a canyon and start a fire on the other side. It darkens the sky, and it’s just a big hellstorm that can cover hundreds of thousands of acres. When we get trapped by the fire, we have aluminum shields we use. They fold into a packet about eighteen inches long, three inches thick, and about eight inches wide that we wear around our waist. Unfolded, it looks like a big baked potato about six feet long and comes to a triangular top like a tent. You lie inside it, and in each corner there’s a strap. You hold the straps down with your feet and your hands, and you dig a hole where your face will go and fill it with water, if you have any, and put a wet cloth over your face. #RandolphHarris 18 of 20
“You usually face the fire, as it’s making headway toward you, because the wind is going to be blowing from the fire toward you. That way, you can put your head down and hold the thing down with your hands more securely. Facing the other way, you have more of a chance of taking heated gases into the tent. In my first forest fire, there were about three hundred of us in a big field that formed a natural firebreak. We expected a wind change that would change the direction of the fire, and we couldn’t run away from it. So we gathered there and waited for the fire to pass over. We didn’t have to use the shields on that occasion, but when the fire passed over it involved some big electric towers and there were lots of explosions. It was a pretty awakening experience. I didn’t know what was going to happen, because it was the first time I had ever been in that situation. That time, we were protected by the clearing. But when you use the aluminum shield, the heat from outside isn’t usually the main problem. The shield will sustain a pretty good temperature, but you could have a burning tree fall on you. In the Sacramento Fire Department, I’ve taken a lot of classes and furthered my education as much as I can. I’m an emergency medical technician, and most of our calls are medical, having to do with accidents and heart attacks. #RandolphHarris 19 of 20
“We deal with human emotions. It’s given me an opportunity to pursue my medical education. In our drills we learn a lot about hazardous materials, different aspects of fighting fire, ventilation. I have an AA from San Jouse City College, and they equate our first year in the fire department to about twelve units of college. We have to know all 1,500 miles of streets in town, learn our rules and regulations, how to use our equipment safely. We have ongoing classes and can sign up for classes ordered by the state. For instance, I recently came back from a heavy rope rescue class, bring people up cliffs and across rivers, dealing with earthquake type emergencies, how to shore up a building that’s falling down. It’s a real concentrated time for us.” Aesthetic appreciation, the feeling of delight in art, is not enough by itself to bring humanity into the perception of reality, that is, into truth. Artistic feeling, even poetic emotion, is not less exempt from the need of being equilibrated by reason than other functions of man’s nature. Please raise your children to love America, love God and Jesus Christ, to respect law and order, and practice the art of forgiveness. You can help save lives by dontating to the Sacramento Fire Department. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic, for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. #RandolphHarris 20 of 20
The Winchester Mystery House
Mrs. Winchester’s daughter died six weeks after she was born. In 1888, Mrs. Winchester was awakened, and she saw the apparition of a little girl between her curtain and her pillow, who told her she was her daughter, and that she was happy. The next day, Mrs. Winchester desired that the chaplain might be called to read prayers, and when prayers were ended, she played a song on the piano so melodiously that her music-master, who was then there, admired at it.
Please come and enjoy a delicious meal in Sarah’s Café, stroll along the paths of the beautiful Victorian gardens, and wonder through the miles of hallways in the World’s most mysterious mansion. For further information about tours, including group tours, weddings, school events, birthday party packages, facility rentals, and special events please visit the website: https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
Please visit the online giftshop, and purchase a gift for friends and relatives as well as a special memento of The Winchester Mystery House. A variety of souvenirs and gifts are available to purchase. https://shopwinchestermysteryhouse.com/
Are they Restless Spirits that Trouble this Place?
One evening, I was sitting till the October sun had fallen and hidden himself for the night, thinking of William. I could still hear his words echoing in my ear, “It is love love true and enduing such love as never warmed this yearning heart before.” While such pleasing reflections were stealing over my mind, and gradually lulling me to slumber, I was suddenly aroused by a sound of a rustling of a silken gown. More of a fluttering noise, as of a bird, followed by the apparition of a woman, a young woman. The woman appeared to have a soft halo, the effect caused by the candle held close to her bosom. It went to the narrow doorway leading to the Observational Tower. The rising passageway beyond glowed with candlelight as the robed figure began to climb the steps, that soon diminishing, overwhelmed by the shadow cast. I quietly shuffled along the hall, then sped toward the altar where candles that had been removed from their holders now stood burning. Reflections shone from the liquid that had been spilled there. There was something very wrong about this, something very wrong, something ghostly sacrilege. I rested against the wall. The apparition was huge against the far wall. The bell chimed, its thunderous sound almost unbearable. Yet, gazing at the belfry, it had not moved. #RandolphHarris 1 of 5
As the wind rumbled in the chimney, howling in the house, the shadows came out of their lurking-places, and made a deeper stillness about me. It was some time before I dared open my eyes, least they should again encounter the horrible spectacle. When, however, I summoned the courage to look up, she was no longer visible. It occurred to me, then, that it was not what might get into the house that bothered me. It was what was already here. I will not pretend to describe what hot and cold fever-fits tormented me for the rest of the night, through broken sleep, weary vigils, and that dubious state which forms the neutral round between them. An hundred terrible objects appeared to haunt me; but there was the great difference betwixt the vision which I have described and those which followed, that I knew the last to be deceptions of my own fancy and over-excited nerves. However, many time I would close a door, only to see it stand wide open again a moment later when I knew very well it could not do that by itself. I began to wonder whether there was not perhaps a hidden tunnel beneath the back of the tower. Frequently I would hear a booming sound below the floor, coming from the direction of the cold storage room below. #RandolphHarris 2 of 5
I carefully went all over the tower, examining the walls, floors, and especially the doors. They were for the most part heavy hinged doors, the kind that do not slide easily but require a healthy push before they will move. I looked into the room where the apparition had been, and I must confess I felt very uneasy in this part of the house. I had an oppressive feeling, as if I was in the presence of something tragic, though unseen. The doors continually opened, and I knew the servants could not very well be blamed for playing pranks on me. There were swarms of ghosts. They stood lowering in the corners of rooms, and frowned out from behind half-opened doors. They danced upon the floors, and walls, and ceilings of chambers while the fire was low, and withdrew like ebbing waters when it sprung into blaze. I wanted to go on, but instead I stopped dead in my tracks. My gaze had been drawn, possibly by an unexpected movement, to a shape in the hallway. It was a dark and sinister countenance that made my blood run cold. It appeared as if the thing was half man, half reptile. It had an eerie oblate head with a face that was wider than it was high. Oversized flanked an inhumanly large mouth and a horrific ophidian snout. It was downright hideous. #RandolphHarris 3 of 5
Its features were enough to spark horror in the strongest mind, as if the various parts of a face—the nose, lips, teeth and cheeks—had been thrown together crazily by a small child. And set in that hideous visage were the being’s loathsome eyes, yellow and filled with detestation. Sheer terror fought my growing fatigue. Those eyes focused on my face. Its maw was already open, and I could see the double rows of razor-sharp teeth. The thing actually looked as if it was grinning at me. I screamed and threw a hand across my face and at once I was seized by a violent bout of vertigo. The floor beneath me seemed to melt as I plunged into a dark formless pit. I think I screamed. The monster shook with anger and moved in a blur of speed. I found I could no longer see it. I was cast unconscious. Day at last appeared, and I rose from my bed ill in health and humiliated in mind. I was ashamed of myself. When I opened my eyes all I saw was colourful sunlight flooding in from the art-glass windows. Birds chirped and sang in the aviary. There was a deep sense of loss inside me. I knew this monster was going to get another chance. I could feel it in the night. The room grew darker and colder, and the gloom and shadow gathering was heavier. #RandolphHarris 4 of 5
I took the lantern through the long dark passages. Ghastly and cold it was. The shadow thickened behind me, in that place where it had been gathering so darkly, it took, by slow degrees, or out of it there came, by some unreal, unsubstantial process, not to be traced by any human sense. This was the dread companion of those who are haunted. I could see the apparition in the fire. I could hear his music in the wind, in the dead stillness of the night. The downstairs parlour was as “unsafe” from the incursions of the ghost as was the attic, and before long even the gardens were no longer free from whatever it was that wanted attention. It was as if the unseen and visible forces were engaged in a campaign of mounting terror to drive home the feeling that I was not in possession of my home: the ghosts were. Lights would go on and off by themselves. Water would gush in the bathroom. I only knew that I had several narrow brushes with death and was fortunate to be alive. I thought about the blessed privilege of being able to breathe as morning neared. At the moment of twilight, all secrets of the past and my own curiosity regarding them were forgotten. Afterward, I saw ghosts everywhere, swarming in all the great chambers and corridors, tending to the vaulted ceilings and racing along the vast hallways. I ceased to ne afraid of them, for they seemed to continue to manifest, and a few appeared to be under some kind of restraint. The recital of them would be too horrible; it is enough to say that in yon fatal apartment incest and unnatural murder were committed. I will restore it to the solitude. #RandolphHarris 5 of 5
The Winchester Mystery House
One morning a servant was in Mrs. Winchester’s garden, when her carriage arrived. “I was greatly startled,” the servant said, “as on remarking the thing most acutely, I at once observed that the wheels made no noise. All at once I took about thirteen steps towards the carriage. As I went to greet Mrs. Winchester, to my utter astonishment and horror, the whole thing vanished.”
Please come and enjoy a delicious meal in Sarah’s Café, stroll along the paths of the beautiful Victorian gardens, and wonder through the miles of hallways in the World’s most mysterious mansion. For further information about tours, including group tours, weddings, school events, birthday party packages, facility rentals, and special events please visit the website: https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
Knights of Labour and Social Gospel
Many Americans endorse solidarism; they see the group (the species, family, tribe, class, or nation) as the unit of survival, and minimize or overlook entirely the individual aspects of competition. It is precisely this, which critics found objectionable, in the current trend of evolutionary thought. Although social solidarity is a basic fact in evolution, solidarity is a thoroughly natural phenomenon, a logical outgrowth of natural evolution. The transition to solidarism, which is part of a larger reconstruction in American thought, first became apparent in the 1890s—the period that saw the publication of Drummond and Kidd, of Huxley’s essay, and, in preliminary form, of Mutual Aid. Rising with solidarism were other streams of criticism. In the realm of philosophy, the new spirit was marked by the ascendancy of the pragmatic movement, especially significant because it rejected the cold determinism of Spencer’s philosophy and constructed a new psychology, in part out of Darwinian materials. As social dissent became more vociferous, there arose a new concern with conscious social control. Inspired by events in the political and industrial arena, social science also reassessed its aims and methods. Earlier conceptions of the social significance of Darwinism were undergoing profound changes. #RandolphHarris 1 of 23
The sincere and candid reformer can no longer consider the national Promise as destined to automatic fulfillment. The reformers…proclaim their conviction of an indubitable and beneficent national future. However, they do not and cannot believe that this future will take care of itself. As reformers they are bound to asset that the national body requires for the time being a good deal of medical attendance, and many of them anticipate that even after the doctors have discontinued their daily visits the patient will still need the supervision of a sanitary specialist. From the disorders and discontents that plagued America in the eighteen seventies, eighties, and nineties, there arose a stream of dissenting opinion on the merits of the free competitive order. Two panics followed by long and harrowing depressions racked the economic life of the nation in the first and last of these decades; and in the intervening one, hardly a period of uninterrupted prosperity, labour uprisings of unprecedented scope and violence took place. The growth of the Knights of Labor and the strikes of the eighties, climaxed by the eight-hour movement and the Haymarket affair, gave to labour strife a central place in public attention. In the depression of the nineties, agricultural protest combined with labour unrest to create the national political upheaval of 1896. #RandolphHarris 2 of 23
Outside the immediate ranks of labour, an articulate source of reform sentiment in urban communities was the social-gospel movement. Many Protestant clergymen now criticized industrialism as their predecessors had criticized slavery, and their protest gave to the dissent of the post-bellum period a strong Christian flavour. The clergy of the cities had direct experience with industrial evils. They saw the living conditions of the workingmen, their slums, their pitiful wages, their unemployment, the enforced labour of their wives and daughters. Many ministers were troubled because the churches were out of touch with the working class, and sensed the unreality of talk about moral reform and Christian conduct in such an oppressive and brutalizing environment. They were not only shocked but alarmed by the industrial scene. Although they sympathized with trade unions, especially as defensive organizations, they were troubled by the ugly potential of industrial violence. They were learning about the doctrines and methods of European socialism, and, at the outset at least, feared their spread in the United States of America. What they sought, therefore, was a compromise between the harsh individualism of the competitive order and the possible dangers of socialism. Although agrarian discontents played a prominent role in national and state politics, the clergy focused their attention almost exclusively upon the problem of labour. There lay the menace; there lay the promise. #RandolphHarris 3 of 23
Most social gospel leaders worked in this urban setting. The most famous and the most active of them was the prolific Washington Gladden (1836-1918), a preacher in several cities and for a time a writer on the editorial staff of the Independent. Among Gladden’s contemporaries who shared his moderate reformism were Lyman Abbott, one of the most influential clergymen of the age; the Rev. A.J.F. Behrends, who hoped to persuade Christians to forestall the menace of socialism by anticipating its more acceptable proposals; and Francis Greenwood Peabody, who taught Christian ethics at Harvard. Other advocates of the social gospel were closer to socialism. William Dwight Porter Bliss (1856-1926) of Boston organized a Protestant Episcopal reform group, the Church Association for the Advancement of the Interests of Labour (CAIL), and published a radical paper, the Dawn, which supported sundry left-wing movements. George Herron (1862-1925), a famous platform speakers and professors of Applied Christianity at Iowa College who joined the Socialist Party in 1889, was a leading propagandist of the movement. Walter Rauschenbush (1861-1918), another convert to socialism, exerted through his writings a profound influence on Christian social thinking in the Progressive period. #RandolphHarris 4 of 23
The greatest literary success of the movement were produced by Midwesterners. Josiah Strong’s discussion of national problems, our Country, was a best seller in the 1880’s. A Kansas minister, Charles M. Sheldon, wrote a crudely novelized tract, In His Steps (1896), describing the social experiences of a small-town congregation that patterned its conduct on the precepts of Jesus as the Christ; the volume sold about 23,000,0000 copies in English between the day of its publication and 1925. The movements inspired by Henry George and Edward Bellamy were of one piece with the social gospel. Both men, products of pious home environments, were intensely religious; their writings were filled with a moral protest thoroughly familiar to readers of social-gospel literature. That the social gospel and the followers of George and Bellamy shared a common outlook was shown by the adherence of many socially minded clergymen to both the Nationalist and single-tax movements. On another front the social gospel was linked to those academic economists who had begun to criticize individualism; such progressive economists as John R. Commons, Edward Bemis, and Richard T. Ely formed a bridge between churchmen and other professional economists. At one time over sixty clergymen were listed as members of the American Economic association. #RandolphHarris 5 of 23
The social-gospel movement arose during the years when evolution was making converts among the progressive clergy, and since ministers who were liberal in social outlook were almost invariably liberal in theology also, the social theory of the movement was deeply affected by the impact of naturalism upon social thought. The growing secularization of thought hastened the trend among clergymen to turn from the abstractions of theology to social questions. The liberalization of theology broke down the insularity of religion. Social-gospel leaders were also inspired by the vistas of development opened both forward and backward in time by the evolutionary perspective; their belief in an inevitable progress toward a better order on Earth—the Kingdom of God—was fortified by the evolutionary dogma. Wrote Walter Rauschenbusch: “Translate the evolutionary theories into religious faith, and you have the doctrine of the Kingdom of God. This combination with scientific evolutionary thought has freed the kingdom ideal of its catastrophic setting and its background a demonism, and so adapted it to the climate of the modern World.” Spencer’s organic interpretation of society also appealed to the progressive clergy, although they usually put it to uses of which he would have sternly disapproved. #RandolphHarris 6 of 23
To them the social-organism concept meant that the salvation of the single individual had lost its meaning, and that in the future men would speak with Washington Gladden of “social salvation.” It also implied a harmony of interests between classes which served as a framework for their appeals against class conflict and for extended state intervention. Lyman Abbott, however, thought that the social-organism idea provided an argument for slow and gradual reform. No longer under the influence of the theological concept of the total depravity of human nature, some social-gospel writers also accepted the idea that the social order should be transformed by changing the character of individuals—a conception in which they were close to Spencer and other conservatives. In one critical respect the pioneers of social gospel departed from prevailing social uses of evolution: they detested and feared the free competitive order and all its works. However profoundly influenced by individualism, however timorous about socialism, they were in general agreement on the need to modify the free workings of competition to abandon Manchesterian economics and the social fatalism of the Spencerians. “Christianity,” wrote the Rev. A. J. F. Behrends, “cannot grant the adequacy of the ‘laissez-faire’ philosophy, cannot admit that the perfect and permanent social state is the product of natural law and of an unrestricted competition.” #RandolphHarris 7 of 23
Citing Emile de Laveleye, a Belgian expositor of socialism, as having said that followers of Darwin and advocates of a natural-law political economy “are the real and only logical adversaries at once of Christianity and of socialism,” Behrends continued: “Our contention is not against Darwinism as a philosophy of unconscious and irresponsible existence; it may be in purely biological science; but the gifts of reason and of conscience, the powers of self-consciousness and of self-determination, make man more than animal or a plant, and so invest him with the power to modify and control the law of natural selection and to mitigate the fierceness of the struggle for existence. It is time that the poor and oppressed should understand that their deliverance will never come from the political economy which allies itself with the school of Haeckel and Darwin. It knows nothing of the duty of mercy, it recognizes only the right of the fittest to survive.” Of like mind was Washington Gladden, who often asserted his opposition to Spencer and all the glorifiers of selective competition. He warned that the weaker classes would unite to attack a competitive system in which they were threatened with annihilation, and that huge warring combinations of capital and labour would be the natural consequence of accepting the law of strife as a norm for industrial society. He urged an “industrial partnership” between employers and employees as an alternative to disaster. #RandolphHarris 8 of 23
The development of trade unions in manufacturing industries represented a step in putting the consumer in the decision-making process. Events in recent decades have unfortunately turned these organizations away from their original broad social purposes. Today they provide a measure of workers’ control over internal conditions; however, their sphere of action often does not extend much beyond wages, hours, and certain work practices. Furthermore, if they are to fulfill their commitment to full membership participation, because they have developed along dehumanized bureaucratic lines, they now must reorganize themselves. To further highlight this illustration, in a factory, the participants would discuss the basic problems about which decisions have to be made: course of production, changes in techniques of production, working conditions, housing for participants, supervision of workers or employees, etcetera. The various possible courses of action would have to be mapped out, and the arguments in favour or against each of these alternatives made explicit. #RandolphHarris 9 of 23
The participant face-to-face group should become part of all enterprises, whether in business, or education, or health. The participant groups would operate within the various departments of the enterprise and be concerned with the problems of their department. As far as discussion referring to the enterprises are concerned, they could take place within all groups, whose decisions would be tailed. Again, since the working out of details requires a great deal of experimentation, there is no point in proposing details for this kind of organization. What holds true of participation in all kinds of enterprises holds true for political life too. In the modern national state with its size and complexity, the idea of expressing popular will has deteriorated to a competition between various parties and professional politicians, most of whom, at election time, tailor their program to what the polls say will gain them votes and when elected act according to various pressures brought to bear on them, of which the will of the voters is only one—but only a few according to their knowledge of the issues, their concern, and their conviction. The fact is that there is a striking correlation between education and the political opinion of voters. The least informed voters lean more toward irrational, fanatical solutions, while the better educated ones show a tendency toward more realistic and rational solutions. #RandolphHarris 10 of 23
Since, for many reasons, it is neither feasible nor desirable to restrict general suffrage in favour of the educated, and since the democratic form of society is superior to an authoritarian form which offers little hope that the philosophers will be kings, there is in the long run only one chance of the twenty-first century by a political process through which the voters become informed, interested, and concerned with the problems of their society, as the members of a Town Meeting were with the problems of their town. The development in communications techniques can become very helpful in this process. Briefly, an equivalent of the Town Meeting which is feasible in a technological society could be the following: to form a kind of Lower House, composed of many thousands of groups of Town Meeting size, which would be well informed and debate and make decisions about principles of political actions; their decisions would form a new element in that of the existing systems of checks and balances; computer technique would allow a very fast process of tallying the decisions made by the participants in these Town Meetings. As political education grew, they would become increasingly a part of the decision making on the national and state level. Because these meetings would be based on information and debate their decisions would be fundamentally different from those of a plebiscite or an opinion poll. #RandolphHarris 11 of 23
However, a condition for even the possibility of these changes is that the power in the United States of America be returned to those organs which the Constitution has made responsible for the exercise of power in various areas. The military-industrial complex threatens to take over many functions of the legislative and executive branches. The Senate has lost a great deal of its constitutional role in influencing foreign policy; the armed forces have become ever more influential in shaping of politics. Consider the size of our defense budget of $825 billion, which increased from $816 billion in 2023; it is not surprising that the Defense Department (and the CIA, operating without effective control by other branches of the governmental system) should tend to expand more and more. While this is understandable, it constitutes a crucial danger to our democratic system, a danger which can be averted only by the firm expression of the part of the voters of their intention of reasserting their will. Given its vastly superior resources—the fact that even in peacetime it gets the majority of the taxes collected by the Federal government—the Department of Defense was bound to become the most influential of all the executive departments. Man is serving the aims of history without his own knowledge. It is the cunning of reason which makes man an agent of the absolute idea while he is subjectively driven by his own conscious goals and individual passions. #RandolphHarris 12 of 23
When we descend from the Heaven of ideas to the Earth of human activity, one begins to understand that it is not consciousness that determines life, but the life determines consciousness. It is the consciousness of men that determines his existence, but on the contrary, it is their social existence that determines consciousness. While man believes that his thoughts mold his social existence, the facts are the reverse: his social reality molds his thoughts. The production of ideas, of conceptions, of consciousness, is at first directly interwoven with the material activity and the material intercourse of men, the language of real life. Conceiving, thinking, the mental intercourse of men, appear at this stage as the direct efflux from their material behaviour. The same applies to mental production as expressed in the language of politics, laws, morality, religion, metaphysics of a people. Men are the producers of their conceptions, ideas, etcetera—real, active men, as they are conditioned by the definite development of their productive forces and of the intercourse corresponding to these, up to its furthest forms. Consciousness can never by anything else than conscious existence, and the existence of men is their actual life-process. If in all ideology men and their circumstances appear upside down as in a camera obscura, this phenomenon arises just as much from their historical life-process as the inversion of objects on the retina does from their physical process. #RandolphHarris 13 of 23
Because of the cunning of reason, in the Germany Ideology the class achieves an independent existence over and against individuals whose existence and personal development are predetermined by their class. Language is as old as consciousness, language is practical consciousness, as it exists for other men, and for that reason is really beginning to exist for me personally as well; for language, like consciousness, only arises from the need, the necessity of intercourse with other men. Where there exists a relationship, it exists for me: the animal, its relation to others does not exist as a relation. Consciousness is therefore from the very beginning a social product, and remains so as long as men exist at all. Consciousness is at first, of course, merely consciousness concerning the immediate sensuous environment and consciousness of the limited connection with other persons and things outside the individual who is growing self-conscious. At the same time, it is consciousness of nature, which first appears to man as completely alien, all-powerful, and unassailable force, with which men’s relations are purely animal and by which they are overawed like beasts; it is thus a purely animal consciousness of nature [natural religion]. #RandolphHarris 14 of 23
If every momentary passion is to cloud a man’s judgment and confuse his reason, if he is to become angry with every doctrine which he dislikes, if he is swept away by the emotional claims of mere prejudice when examining a theory or a viewpoint, if his heart is agitated with bitterness over personal injustices incurred to the extent that he declines to see both sides of the matter, he can never come to a right conclusion but will be tossed about like a rudderless ship—his emotions of hate, fear, or love forever interposing themselves between him and the truth. He who exhibits anger at views which he dislikes, for instance, is exhibiting his unfitness to study philosophy. For psychoanalysis of his state of mind yields the fact that he gets angry not because the views are untrue, but because they are repugnant to him, the individual named “X.” We must learn to seek after the truth not by our heartfelt emotions, nor by our vivid imagination, but by our keen reason. The kind of truth you will find will depend on the kind of person you are, the kind of thinking of which you are capable, the kind of experience you have had, and the kind of instruction you have received. The man with a distorted mind, for instance, will discover only distortions of truth; that is, there will be a basis of truth beneath his ideas, but their structure will be perverted or distorted. #RandolphHarris 15 of 23
Now, our friend Clare was determined by a desperate need to restore her own self-regard. However, by trying to escape humiliation, she had injured her dignity more than anything else. These efforts had been particularly pernicious since they involved not only an uncritical bending to Peter’s wishes but also an unconscious inflation of her feeling for him. She realized that the more her actual feeling for him diminished the more she had worked it up to a pitch of false emotion, thus ensnaring herself still more deeply in her bondage. Her insights into the needs that constituted this “love” had lessened the tendency toward an inflation of feelings, but it was only now that her feelings dropped sharply to their actual level; in all simplicity she discovered that she felt very little for him. This recognition gave her a feeling of serenity that she had not had for a long time. Instead of wavering between longing for Peter and wanting to take revenge, she took a calm stand toward him. She still appreciated his good qualities, but she knew that it would be impossible for her ever to be closely associated with him again. With this last finding to be reported here, Clare tackled the dependency from a new angle. The work done up to this point was a gradual recognition that she was dependent because of her huge expectations of the partner. She realized step by step the nature of these expectations, this work culminating in the analysis of the “private religion.” #RandolphHarris 16 of 23
Now Clare saw in addition how the loss of spontaneous self-confidence had contributed to the dependency, and her repressed aggressive and insecurity. I feel confident that she could have done this work by herself, though perhaps it would have taken a longer time. The analysis of the repressed aggressive trends contributed in turn to a still better understanding of the dependency. Also, by rendering her more assertive, it removed any danger that might still have existed that she would ever relapse into another morbidly dependent relationship. However, the power exercised on her by her need to merge with a pattern was essentially broken by the analytical work that she had done alone. Canting moralists busy themselves with drawing up the catalogue of virtues. They could better employ their time by first coming to an understanding of the one who is to possess these admirable virtues, the Self. For then they would find, if they find the Self, the very fountainhead of all virtues. Clarity of vision goes much better with purity of heart. We must not crucify truth to assist a political cause. Nevertheless, however ready to come to terms with an imperfect society, however intimidated by the political powers of an institutional religion, the philosopher will not feign one’s assent to false doctrines. When such an assent is demanded of one, one must be true to the best that is in oneself. The use of falsehood to propagate truth has always ended, historically, in the persecution and suppression of truth. When a human begins to excuse in one’s own mind an evil course for the sake of an excellent objective, one begins unconsciously to change one’s objective. #RandolphHarris 17 of 23
A few years ago, I read a little book on the process of education, most of which was devoted to describing how learning takes place, based on studies in psychology. This was all very sound, as anyone could know by being with young children or by observing himself. However, the rest of the book was devoted to the question, How can we make this happen? It seems to me that since that is what happens (learning), all that we must do is let it happen. We are so back-end-to, it is pitiful. I have even heard teachers say that children must be taught how to play. An awful thing about what I am taught is that it does not grow. In school, I was taught that the past had changed—and for the better—but the present was “the end.” We had arrived. So, the longer I lived, the more misinformation I had in my head—like 6 percent maximum legal interest, a country named Bohemia, the chief exports of Japan, and the English economic system—not to mention our own. What ours is still seems to me sometimes to be wrong because it is not what I was taught it was. When I was taught it was completely irrelevant. Repeatedly, when I have discovered myself clinging tenaciously to something that is not so, I have found that it is something that I was taught. What I learn myself is more flexible. My own observations may be fallible—I know they are—but they are a lot less fallible than anything I have been taught because change is part of what I notice, and I do not get stuck. #RandolphHarris 18 of 23
Mentally ill persons are regarded as those who a deficient in some of the skills essential to full communication with others, for example, ability to transmit “messages” (thoughts and feelings), perceive messages, or decode (understand the meaning of) them. Healthy personality, from this point of view, entails mastery of the many problems involved in communication with others. Dread of communication and certain aspects of one’s experience to others can seriously impair health, whereas frank and free communication makes possible the fulfillment of love and growth. Human beings are born with appetites. These include hunger, thirst, elimination, rest, change, and pleasures of the flesh. When any of these appetites is deprived, or when a child encounters some problem, he or she is said to be in a state of insecurity. Such insecurity is natural for a person; it cannot be avoided. When confronted by insecurity, a person can seek to overcome it in a dependent way, by appealing to others to intervene in one’s behalf. When a person has been able to assume that the person upon whom he or she relies on to gratify needs and to make decisions are always available and are willing to act in one’s service, dependent security is achieved. When it comes to Sacramento, the city has a dependent security on the Sacramento Fire Department. “When I was in the Navy, I learned a lot of rope stuff, so when I would come back on leave to the Engines, I would make the apparatus fancy. I would braid the handrails with rope, so the guys’ hands wouldn’t get cold in the winter. Then, when I would go out of the Service, Sacramento City was looking for fire patrolmen, so I joined the Sacramento City Fire Patrol. #RandolphHarris 19 of 23
“The fire patrol is associated with the fire department, but it is hooked up with the fire department’s alarm circuit, and when an alarm comes in, they respond at the same time as the firefighters. The patrol’s main job is to protect merchandise insured by the insurance companies. We would spread canvas covers over the goods and push water out of the building even whole the firefighters were fighting the fire. Fire patrolmen are experts in forcible entry, probably better than the truck companies, because the firemen concentrate on the fire floor and above, whereas the fire patrol concentrates on everything below the fire floor. So if there was a fire on the eighteenth floor, we would open seventeenth, sixteenth, fifteenth, all the way down to where we could stop the water. We came across every type of door imaginable, and we forced them. We did more door forcing than the fire department because that’s what we had to do—stop the water. I was assigned to Fire Patrol (some number that will remain private). Years ago they used to have ten fire patrol houses and four hundred men. Today there are three patrol houses and about ninety men left in them. The patrol was very careful about the type of people it hired, because it couldn’t have people going in there and ripping off things like furs, jewelry, and cameras. If anything was missing, you’d have a big investigation. Not only that, you’d involve the fire department, because after the fire was knocked down on the fire floor, the patrol had to go in and push the water out. So we have to be very careful with what we did and how we touch things. #RandolphHarris 20 of 23
“One night we had a special call to a fire at a hotel. When we didn’t have work for ourselves to do, we often assisted the fire department, helped stretch a line or force doors. It was a real cold and windy night. The temperature was eighteen or nineteen degrees. Cold enough, anyway, to make ice with your breath. There was an elderly woman in a window on the twelfth floor of the hotel, and Ladder was raising a 144-foot aerial to try to rescue her. Two guys when up the last extension of the ladder, and, believe me, in that cold wind it was hairy. At the top, the ladder is only about 12 inches wide, not much room when you’re swinging twelve stories above the ground. The woman was on the windowsill, and I remember that she had a shoe box in one hand and a cat in the other. The ladder was at its max, and they were still three feet short of the twelfth floor. And the whole floor behind the woman was on fire. The guys were talking to the woman, telling her to stay. The next thing, the room lit up, and out she went, on fire. I don’t think she had a chance to jump at them. I think that when the room went up, it pushed her right out. My captain and I were on the eleventh floor. We saw the whole thing, and we watched her right down to the pavement. Later on you always think about what you could have done. #RandolphHarris 21 of 23
“They could have lowered a line and pulled up a scaling ladder, using it to go one more floor. That’s what I imagined, because I had seen a rescue where two guys from Ladder went from the raised aerial two floors with a scaling ladder and made a rescue. A scaling ladder is one with a long hook on the end of it that you can hook over the windowsill above you. Anyway, that went through my mind. But those guys had their hands full, and both of them got department medals for trying to get to her. The firefighters respected the fire patrol because they used us when they needed us. I remember at a hotel fire, there was no truck company in, and the fire patrol did all the forcible entry and the ventilation until the truck company got there. We didn’t have masks, and we took a beating. I remember coming back and being sick for three days. I took the fire department test. This was my big chance. I was going to be a Sacramento City fireman. A year later I received my letter that I was going to be appointed. I was so happy because I had prepared myself for it. I went to the Cal Poly Humbolt to study fire science, and I also worked out for the physical. The list had two and a half years to go, and there was no way I was not going to get in the department. In fact, I even bought a house in Pocket, a suburb of Sacramento. I had two captains in Sacramento just waiting for me to come. They knew me and wanted me in their particular companies. #RandolphHarris 22 of 23
“The letter said I was going to be appointed July 1, but a month before that the sky fell in, and life changed drastically. In June I got this other letter saying they were going to freeze the list because of cutbacks. It was a real blow. They actually froze the list for two and a half years and let it die. I was devastated. Here I had my house, and I was all ready to go, and then boom. There was an upspring of fires and many areas became burnt out prairie land, and the fires shifted to the next area. The same thing. I never accepted it until about a year ago. I had so much hate.” Many people never take budget cuts and a loss of firefighters into consideration. We have become such dependent security of the Sacramento Fire Department that no one considers what happens when they are overwhelmed and understaffed. You can save lives and property by contributing to the Sacrament Fire Department. And remember, teach your children to love America, to respect law and order, respect their elders and love God and Jesus Christ. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Righteousness maketh no nation great, but sin is a reproach to any people. We here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the Earth. Behold, how good and pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity. #RandolphHarris 23 of 23
The Winchester Mystery House
Happy Father’s Day from Winchester Mystery House!
Pictured: Sarah’s ranch foreman, John Hansen, and his son, Carl.
Please come and enjoy a delicious meal in Sarah’s Café, stroll along the paths of the beautiful Victorian gardens, and wonder through the miles of hallways in the World’s most mysterious mansion. For further information about tours, including group tours, weddings, school events, birthday party packages, facility rentals, and special events please visit the website: https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
Please visit the online giftshop, and purchase a gift for friends and relatives as well as a special memento of The Winchester Mystery House. A variety of souvenirs and gifts are available to purchase. https://shopwinchestermysteryhouse.com/
Randolph Harris II International Institute 