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Fearfulness Hath Surprised the Hypocrites!
When a man has the right stuff in him, all he needs is just opportunity, and nothing else. If he possesses a sufficient degree of talent plus the determination to succeed, there is no stage so humble that it cannot be made a jumping-off ground to better things. The welfare principles of the Church are not simply good ideas; they are revealed truths from God—they hare His ways of helping the needy. In the Lord’s plan, our commitment to welfare principles should be at the very root of our faith and devotion to Him. Since the beginning of time, our Heavenly Father has spoken with great clarity on this subject: from the gentle plea, “If thou lovest me…thou wilt remember the poor, and consecrate of thy properties for their support”; the direct command, “Remember in all things the poor and the needy, the sick and the afflicted, for he that doeth not these things, the same is not my disciple”; to the forceful warning, “If any man shall take of the abundance which I have made, and impart not his portion, according to the law of my gospel, unto the poor and the needy, he shall, with the wicked, lift up his eyes in hell, being in torment.” The two great commandments—to love God and our neighbour—are a joining of the temporal and the spiritual. It is important to note that these two commandments are called “great” because every other commandment hangs upon them. In other words, our personal, family, and Church priorities must begin here. All other goals and actions should spring from the fountain of these two great commandments—from our love for God and for our neighbour. #RandolphHarris 1 of 20
We make attempts to preserve the “both-and” of Christ and culture and that is a dualism which holds them together in paradox. The dualist begins with two absolute principles: grace is in God, and sin is in man, and there is no bridging the chasm. This differs from the synthesis in that we see a deeper and more extensive corruption in man and culture, but over this human depravity is cast the cloak of divine forgiveness and reconciliation in Jesus as the Christ. As examples of this motif, we refer to St. Paul, Marcion, and especially Luther. The latter distinguishes but does not divide the Kingdom of God from the kingdom of the World. The dualism is spanned by attributing to Christ the spirit or the how of moral action, but leaving to an autonomous culture the what of the content: From Christ we received knowledge and the freedom to do faithfully and lovingly what culture teaches or requires us to do. Although sinful culture stands under the condemnation of God, the same divine authority commands us to participate in it. Hence the paradox of Christ and culture. The estimate is that this dualistic paradox corresponds to the human experience in which man is forever bumping up against the prevalence of sin, and yet always receiving the gift of grace. This dualist’s position inclines also to a cultural conservatism because it does not contribute to the content of culture, but views social and political institutions as bulwarks against sin rather than as beneficial agencies for good. However, we try to keep in our theonomy a beneficial side, religious substance in culture. #RandolphHarris 2 of 20
The Giver of all life has proclaimed, “All things unto me are spiritual, and not at any time have I given unto you a low which was temporal.” This means to me that, “spiritual life is first of all a life. It is not merely something to be known and studied, it is to be lived.” Unfortunately, there are those who overlook the temporal because they consider it less important. They treasure the spiritual while minimizing the temporal. While it is important to have our thoughts inclined toward Heaven, if our hands are not also inclined toward our fellowman, we miss the essence of our religion. Evil spirits sometimes work in “Christian” gatherings. Suppose “conviction of sin” by deceiving spirits…I untied with a number of brethren and sisters one whole week every month, in prayer to God to pour out more of His Spirit, gifts and power. After having done this for some time with great earnestness, such powerful and wonderful manifestations of God and His Holy Spirit (apparently) took place that we no longer doubted God had heard our prayer, and His Spirit had descended into our midst, and on our gathering. Amongst other things, this spirit, which we thought to be the Holy Spirit, used a fifteen-year-old girl as his instrument, through whom everyone belonging to our fathering, and having any sin or burden of conscience, had it revealed to the gathering. Nobody could remain in the meeting with any burden of conscience without it being revealed to the meeting by this spirit. #RandolphHarris 3 of 20
To further highlight this illustration: a gentleman of esteem and respect from the neighbourhood came to the meeting, and all his sins were exposed in the presence of the gathering by the fifteen-year-old girl. Thereupon he took me into an adjoining room, so broke down, and admitted to me, with tears, that he had committed all these sins which the girl had exposed. He confessed this and all other sins known to him. Then he came again into the meeting, but hardly had he entered when the same voice said to him, “Ha! you have not confessed all yet; you have stolen ten gulden, that you have not confessed.” In consequence, he took me again into the adjoining room and said, “It is true, I have also done this…” This man had never seen this fifteen-year-old girl in his life, neither she him. With such events, was it astonishing that a spirit of holy awe came over all at the meeting, and there was one controlling note which can only be expressed in the words, “Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? Who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings? Fearfulness hath surprised the hypocrites.” There was a most earnest spirit of adoration, and who could doubt when even the strong were broken down, and nobody dared remain in the meeting if they were a hinderance. And yet we had to unmask this spirit which had brought about these things—and which we took to be the Holy Ghost—as a terrible power of darkness. I had such an uneasy feeling of distrust which could not be overcome…As I made this know for the first time to an older brother and friend…he said, “Brother Winchester, if you continue to foster unbelief, you can commit the sin against the Holy Ghost which will never be forgiven.” #RandolphHarris 4 of 20
These were terrible days and hours for me, because I did not know whether we had to do with the Power of God or a disguised spirit of the ultimate negative, and once thing only was clear to me, that I and this meeting should not let ourselves be led by a spirit when we did not have clear light and confirmation whether this power was from above or below. Thereupon I took the leading brethren and sisters to the uppermost room of the house, and made known to them my position and said we must all cry and pray that we may be able to prove whether it was a power of light or darkness. As we came downstairs the voice of this power said, using the fifteen-year-old girl as his instrument, “What is this rebellion in your midst? You will be sorely punished for your unbelief.” I told this voice that it was true we did not know with whom we had dealings. However, if it was an angel of God, or the Spirit of God, we wanted to be in that attitude that we would not sin against Him, but if it was an ultimate negative, we would not be deceived by him. “If you are the power of God, you will be in accord as we handle the Word of God.” “Try the spirits whether thy be of God.” We all knelt down and cried and prayed to God in such earnestness, that He would have mercy upon us, and reveal to us in some manner whom we had dealings with. #RandolphHarris 5 of 20
Then the power had to reveal itself of its own accord. Through the person which he had been using as his instrument he made such abominable and terrible grimaces, and shrieked in such a piercing tone, “Now I am found out, now I am found out…” There are many good people and organizations in the World that are trying to meet the pressing needs of the less affluent and those who have not, everywhere. We are grateful for this, but the Lord’s way of caring for the less affluent is different from the World’s way. The Lord has said, “It must needs be done in mine own way.” He is not only interested in our immediate needs; He is also concerned about our eternal progression. For this reason, the Lord’s way has always included self-reliance and service to our neighbour in addition to caring for the less affluent. This very hour there are many members of the Church who are suffering. They are hungry, stretched financially, and struggling with all manner of physical, emotional, and spiritual distress. They pray with all the energy of their souls for succor, for relief. Brethren, please do not think that this is someone else’s responsibility. It is mine, and it is yours. We are all enlisted. “All” means all—every Aaronic and Melchizedek Priesthood holder, rich and poor, in every nation. In the Lord’s plan, there is something everyone can contribute. The lesson we learn generation after generation is that rich and poor are all under the same scared obligation to help their neighbour. It will take all of us working together to successfully apply the principles of welfare and self-reliance. #RandolphHarris 6 of 20
Not only are teachers more rare, but the most sensitive seekers feel shyly inhibited from approaching them. Statistical studies of psychotherapy consistently report that about two thirds of neurotic patients are improved immediately after treatment, regardless of the type of psychotherapy they have received, and the same improvement rate has been found for patients who have not received any treatment that was deliberately psychotherapeutic. It has been suggested that some sort of “systematic ideology” may be an essential element in successful therapy: Whether the therapist talks in terms of psychoanalysis or Christian Science is from this point of view relatively unimportant as compared with the formal consistency with which the doctrine employed is adhered to, for by virtue of this consistency the patient receives a schema for achieving some sort and degree of personality organization. In essence, psychotherapy is conversation with therapeutic intent. As conversation it entails all of the modes of communication (some facilitant and some deterrent) that are active whenever two persons speak to one another. Language carries the major mediational load and is the primary transmitter of communication in conversation. We have long been aware of the distinction between connotative and denotative language—words have “agreed upon” meaning as specified by the dictionary, but they also have more or less individualistic meanings for each person who uses them. If it were humanly possible for persons to restrict their language to purely denotative words, communication would be easier (simple and more accurate); it is not. #RandolphHarris 7 of 20
While members of a culture may share the same official dictionary, they naturally do not share in identical personal experiences whereby words acquire the personal connotations that individuals unconsciously seek to use in their conversations. Some words make for better communication because they have a scientifically precise definition, or in the nature of things to which they refer there is a limited range of possible connotations; other words tend to contribute a lot of “static” to communication because they do not permit of objective definition but rather represent certain personal meanings of high frequency in a particular group of persons. Th following lists will suggest this aspect of communication problem. More Denotative Words: Inch, minute, black, round, north. More Connotative Words: Good, strong, liberal, pretty, smart. This is only one of the problem areas receiving intensive investigation in the rapidly evolving technical fields known as psycholinguistics and communication theory. Man has long been aware that his oral communications are neither given nor received purely in terms of the words spoken (and their explicit or implicit meanings) but that additional and particular meanings are communicated by the general contextual communication is undoubtedly the facial expression of the conversants. The particular meaning of a word is frequently signaled by a frown or a smile or a grimace. And responses to questions or assertions may be wordlessly communicated by a nod, by a smile, by “silence freighted with meaning.” #RandolphHarris 8 of 20
When communication is emotionally charged, when the topic of conversation is loaded with emotional “meanings” as is frequently the case in psychotherapy, it is imperative that the therapist be skilled in receiving (and sending?) wordless messages or words whose meaning has been silently labeled by the emotional attitude of the sender. In accepting candidates for advanced training in the specialty of psychotherapy, it is generally true that considerable emphasis is given to intellectual ability, with applicants of every superior general intelligence being preferred. There is little in the nature of substantive information or treatment technique to be learned that justifies such emphasis. However, sensitivity to the subtle aspects of the wordless communications in psychotherapy is a most important dimension of therapeutic skill. This skill is not too readily learned but rather reflects native or very early acquired aptitudes that are highly correlated with general intelligence. And a high level of general intelligence is required to meet the scholastic requirements (many of them irrelevant to psychotherapy) that loom large in the formal education of the physician, psychologist, and social worker. This nonlinguistic aspect of oral communication is a difficult area for research but it is part of the total domain of psycholinguistics. Any general theory of communication must and will encompass the conversations of psychotherapy and, as a general theory, the researches generated by it must inevitably show those particulars of the communication process which are common to all such conversations. #RandolphHarris 9 of 20
Thus, the essentials of the communication process are identical regardless of the school of psychotherapy under whose aegis a particular therapeutic conversation is being conducted. The participants do not have access to special communication media beyond those of any other conversation—they are limited to words and sentences, to assertions and questions, to the silent “labels” of smiles and frowns, tics and tears, and to silences. Within the frame of the communality of the communication process which is shared by all approaches to psychotherapy is a particular common factor—the therapist. Regardless of his theoretical allegiance, the therapist is an expert conversationalist whose specialized equipment include: sensitivity to the emotional nuances of the patient’s communication, an ability to listen selectively, facility in encouraging the patient to start and continue conversations, deftness in leading the patient to particular topics, capacity both to tolerate the patient’s silences and to use his own silence in communication. These are basic common skills of all expert psychotherapists, contributing to their capacity to establish and maintain communication. The presence of these skills in high degree is, unfortunately, not necessarily correlated with the achievement of a valid understanding of the patient (a common goal of most schools) nor with achievement of successful treatment (the ultimate goal of all schools). #RandolphHarris 10 of 20
Closely related to the liberation of energies, the lifting of a repression frees the way for action. As long as a striving or feeling is repressed the person is caught in a blind alley. As long as he is entirely unaware of a hostility to others, for example, and knowns only that he feels awkward with people, he is helpless to do anything about his hostility; there is no possibility of understanding the reasons for it or of discovering when it is justified or of diminishing or removing it. However, if the pression is lifted and he feels the hostility as such, then and only then can he take a good look t it and proceed to discover the vulnerable spots in himself which produced it and to which he has been as blind as to the hostility itself. By thus opening up the possibility of eventually changing something about the disturbing factors, the insight is likely to produce considerable relief. Even if immediate change is difficult, there is the vision of a future way out of the distress. This holds true even though the initial reaction may be one of hurt or fright. If you remember or cast study on Clare, well, her insight into the fact that she had excessive wishes and demands for herself provoked a panic in her at first, because it shook the compulsive modesty which was one of the pillars supporting her feeling of security. However, as son as the acute anxiety subsided it gave her relief, for it represented the possibility of a liberation from the shackles that had tied her hand and foot. However, the first reaction to an insight may be one of pain rather than relief. #RandolphHarris 11 of 20
There are two principal kinds of negative responses to an insight. One is to feel it only as a threat; the other is to react in discouragement and hopelessness. Different though they appear, these two responses are essentially merely variations in degree. They are both determined by the fact that the person is not, or not yet, able and willing to give up certain fundamental claims on life. Which claims they are depends of course, on his neurotic trends. It is because of the compulsive nature of these trends that the claims are so rigid and so hard to relinquish. One who is obsessed by a craving for power, for instance, can do without comfort, pleasure, women, friends, everything that usually makes life desirable, but power he must have. As long as he is determined not to relinquish this claim, any questioning of its value can only irritate or frighten him. Such fright reactions are produced not only by insights disproving the feasibility of his particular striving but also by those revealing that its pursuit prevents him from attaining other objectives that are also important to him, or from overcoming painful disabilities and sufferings. Or, to take other examples, one who suffers from his isolation and his awkwardness in contacts with others, but is still basically unwilling to leave his ivory tower, must react with anxiety to any insight showing him that he cannot possibly attain the one objective—less isolation—without abandoning the other—his ivory tower. As long as a person basically refuses to relinquish his compulsive belief that he can master life through the sheer force of his will, any insight indicating the fictitious nature of that belief must arouse anxiety, because it makes him feel as if the ground on which he stands is pulled away from under him. #RandolphHarris 12 of 20
If he wants to become free, the anxiety produced by such insights is the person’s response to a dawning vision that he must eventually change something in his foundations. However, the factors that must be changed are still deeply entrenched, are still vitally important to him as a means of coping with himself and others. He is therefore afraid to change, and the insight produces not relief but panic. And if he feels deep down that such a change, though indispensable for his liberation, is entirely out of the question, he will react with a feeling of hopelessness rather than fright. In his conscious mind this feeling is often overshadowed by a deep anger toward the analyst. When he cannot do anything about them anyhow, he feels that the analyst is being pointlessly cruel in leading him to such insights. If they do not ultimately serve some purpose we affirm, this reaction is understandable because none of us is willing to endure hurts and hardships. A negative reaction to an insight is not necessarily the last word in the matter. Sometimes, in fact, it is of relatively short duration and quickly changes to relief. The factors that determine whether a person’s attitude toward a particular insight can change through further psychoanalytic work require that the change is within the range of possibility. Brainwashing—a scary word. No one wants to believe that they could be brainwashed, but it happens. It happens more than you ever know. Brainwashing is known by other names too—mind abuse, coercive persuasion, and thought control. What happens, is a person or even a group of people use systematic methods to get the victim to bend or conform to things they would not conform to otherwise. Think about members of a cult. #RandolphHarris 13 of 20
That is scary, but even scarier is the fact that advertisers have learned these dark techniques and use them regularly on the unsuspecting public. By controlling the physical and social environment, an attempt is made to destroy loyalties to any unfavourable groups or individuals, to demonstrate to the individual that his attitudes and patterns of thinking are incorrect and must be changes, and to develop loyalty and unquestioning obedience to the ruling party. The term is most appropriately used in reference to a program of political or religious indoctrination or ideological remolding. The techniques of brainwashing typically involve isolation from former associates and sources of information; and exacting regimen requiring absolute obedience and humility; strong social pressures and rewards for cooperation; physical and psychological punishments for non-cooper ranging from social ostracism and criticism, deprivation of food, seep, and social contact, to bondage and torture; and continual reinforcement. Furthermore, currently we do know for sure that our brain processes result from the interactions of different factors: genetics (for small part), experience and thus learning, as well as triggers deriving from internal and external environments. Without the constant relationships with the context, we could not exist. The complete absence of context is “impossible.” Every kind of triggers and stimuli leaves traces in our brain that, if beneficial, may become good incentives or memories somehow comforting us in bad days, but if negative, may represent a sort of “wound” that might lead to a permanent “scar.” #RandolphHarris 14 of 20
In both cases there are new fingerprints in the brain that continuously changes and remodels itself through neuroplasticity, that is one of its most peculiar functions permitting neuronal development, growth, repair and survival. Perhaps, while trying to answer the question of being or not being free, we could say that we are slavers of the dynamic activity of the brain working in the range of milliseconds, the so-called connectome that modifies functions through neuroplasticity, just to simply explain the complexity of these processes. People often persuade people that they need particular foods or products because they are good for them and will help them achieve goals that they want so people start to associate these items with their desires and consumer them. When people ask too many questions, like a series of questions, but are not having a conversation, that is an indication that they are up to something. It is also possible to use fear to control people and get them to do things that they would not do. These methods have been used to get people to commit suicide or jump out of buildings, when they were not actually in any danger. However, because individuals are naïve, or unaware, psychopathological offenders know that it is easy to use fear to manipulate individuals. Some may even use anger to try to control an individual, and make them do something they had not intended to do. A girl pushed her sister down the stairs and she died. However, she blamed in on her young brother and everyone believed that he was guilty. #RandolphHarris 15 of 20
Why did everyone believe the little brother was the guilty party? Well, when he was born, doctors discovered he had an extra Y chromosome (XYY). They told his parents that this was a killer gene because it makes men more aggressive. As a result, his father and mother called him a freak and just knew that he was going to grow up and be a killer. So, when his sister killed the other sister, they knew without a shadow of a doubt that he was guilty. However, he was innocent. Because he was blamed and sent to juvenile hall, when he got out, he fulfilled a self-fulfilling prophecy and because a kill. However, in the process, his sister also became a series killer because she was able to get away with murder at a young age. Had the boy not been stigmatized, and people listened to him, they could have got his sister the help she needed to become a well-rounded adult. Later research indicated that having an extra Y chromosome does not necessarily make someone more aggressive. So because this boy was stigmatized and framed, countless lives were ruined. Sometimes this kind of stigmatization is done intentionally so doctors can create a case study to back up their junk science. Isolation is also another way of brainwashing an individual. Psychopathological offenders like to isolate youth and convince them of certain things that are not true so these individuals grow up disoriented and disturbed, it is a method of control. For instance, if you can isolate someone in a community where everyone they come into contact with is crazy, incompetent, violent, and a criminal, they may believe that is how the World really is. However, there are some good people out there. #RandolphHarris 16 of 20
Awareness of what is good and evil is different from theoretical knowledge of what is called good and evil in most moral systems. To know on the authority of tradition that love, independence, and courage are good and that hate, submission, and cowardice are bad means little, as the knowledge is alienated knowledge learned from authorities, conventional teaching, etcetera, and is believed to be true only because it comes from these sources. Awareness means that the person makes that which he learns his own way, by experiencing it, experimenting with himself, observing others and, eventually, gaining a conviction rather than having an irresponsible “opinion.” However, deciding on the general principles is not enough. Beyond this awareness one needs to be aware of the balance of forces within oneself, and the rationalizations which hide the unconscious forces. Let us take a specific example: A man is greatly attracted by a woman and experiences a strong wish to have pleasures of the flesh with her. He thinks consciously that he has this wish because she is so beautiful, or so understanding, or so in need of being loved, or that he is so sexually starved, or so in need of affection, or so lonely, or…He maybe aware that by having an affair with her he might mess up both their lives; that she is frightened and seeking for protective strength, and hence will not easily let him go. In spite of knowing all this he goes ahead and has an affair with her. Why? Because he is aware of his desire but not of the forces underling it. What could these forces be? The forces are his vanity and narcissism. #RandolphHarris 17 of 20
If he has set his mind on the conquest of this young lady as a proof of his attractiveness and value, he will usually not be aware of this real motive. He will fall for all the rationalizations mentioned above, and many more, and thus act according to this true motive precisely because he cannot see it, and is under the illusion that he is acting according to other more reasonable motives. The next step of awareness is that of the full awareness of the consequences of his act. At the moment of decision his mind is filled with desires and soothing rationalization. If he could clearly see the consequences of his act; if he could see, for instance, a long-protracted, insincere love affair, his getting tried of her because his narcissism can be satisfied only by fresh conquests, yet his continuing to make false promises because he feels guilty and afraid of admitting that he never really loved her, the paralyzing and weakening effect of this conflict on him and on her, etcetera, his decision, however, might be different. However, even awareness of the underlying, real motivations and of the consequences is not enough to increase the inclination for the right decision. Another important awareness is necessary: that of when the real choice is made, and to be aware of what the real possibilities are between which a person can choose. Assume he is aware of all motivations and of all consequences; assume he has “decided” not to go to be with this woman. He then takes her out to a show and before taking her home he suggests, “Let’s have a drink together.” On the face of it this sounds harmless enough. #RandolphHarris 18 of 20
There seems to be nothing wrong in having a drink together; in fact, if the balance of forces were not already so delicate, there would be nothing wrong. If at the moment he could be aware of what “having a drink together” will lead to, he might not ask her. He would see that the atmosphere will be romantic, that the drink will weaken his willpower, that he will not be able to resist the next step of dropping into her apartment for another drink, and that almost certainly he will find himself enjoying pleasures of the flesh with her. With full awareness he would be able to foresee the sequence as being almost unavoidable, and if he could foresee it, he could refrain from “having a drink together.” However, since his desire makes him blind to seeing the necessary sequence, he does not make the right choice when he still would have the possibility of doing so. In other words, the real choice here is made when he invites her to have a drink (or perhaps when he asked her to the show) and not when he starts enjoying pleasures of the flesh with her. At least point of the chain of decision he is no longer free; at an earlier point he might have been free had he been aware that the real decision was to be made right there and then. The argument for the view that man has no freedom to choose the better as against the worse is to some considerable extent based on the fact that one looks usually at the last decision in a chain of events, and not at the first or second ones. Indeed, at the point of final decision the freedom to choose has usually vanished. #RandolphHarris 19 of 20
However, the freedom to choose may still have been there at an earlier point when the person was not yet so deeply caught in his own passions. One might generalize by saying that one of the reasons why most people fail in their lives is precisely because they are not aware of the point when they are still free to act according to reason, and because they are aware of the choice only at the point when it is too late for them to make a decision. 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. The thoughtless person passing a fire engine house and seeing the men and women sitting around or amusing themselves with games or sports sometimes conclude that the firefighter has an easy life, but a little reflection brings the conviction that they are under a watchful, waiting strain. With long hours, deprived of many of the pleasures of family life, the gong may at any moment send them to battle with the flames for days and nights without sleep or as long as human endurance permits. And the gong may also send them to their deaths. The firefight leads a strenuous life and faces death frequently. However, the victories of peace achieved by firefighters are their own best reward, though they should have a full mead of appreciation and support from the public they serve fearlessly, loyally, faithfully. Therefore be sure to open up your hearts to the Sacramento Fire Department and make a donation to ensure that they have support from the community and the resources they need to continue saying lives and property. #RandolphHarris 20 of 20
After Mrs. Winchester died in 1922, construction ceased. Carpenter left their tools and immediately stopped all work. The furniture was moved out of the home and auctioned off. It took six moving trucks, six weeks to empty her house of all the furniture. Although the house was empty, it did not seem to be. A caretaker had been closing the house one evening when he became aware of a sound issuing from somewhere inside of the house that was very much like the sawing of wood. Then other noises began to accompany this sound—among them knocking and hammering and planning. It was as if half a dozen carpenters were in busy employment. The caretaker was of a bold disposition and, wishing to discover more, took off his shoes, and quietly descended the stairs with a flashlight in his hand. The noises of work continued as he came down into the hallway; but then, when he unlatched the door and went into the parlour, all was silent and still. None of the tools had been touched. None of the wood had been moved. Having examined every part of the room, he began to doubt the evidence of his sense in this matter. However, after he was leaving the house, the noises of sawing and hammering began again and continued for approximately half an hour. When they ceased, he went home. He had decided to tell no one about his experience, but, instead, to listen the next day for any unusual sounds. On the following day they began again, just as before. So he confided in the board of trustees, and a few of them agreed to watch with him on the next day. The noises commenced once more but, instead of entering the parlour, many of them rushed horrified out of the house. A few months later, the haunted house was opened as a tourist attraction.
Take pleasure in the antiques, the gardens and experience the homemaking of Victorian times. Enjoy a delicious meal in Sarah’s Café. 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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Pursued by the Ghost of Several Generations
My butler Garth has suddenly and mysteriously disappeared. I gather that there is very little hope that he can still be alive; but whether it is accident or design that carried him off, I cannot judge. The facts are these. On Monday the 6th, he went as usual shortly before six o’clock to gather the silverware for dinner; and the housemaid brought him a message, in response to which he set off to the east wing of the house. He paid visit to the Sunshine Room, and started his journey back to the Venetian Dining Room at about half past seven. This is the last that is known of him. The servants and myself are very much grieved at his loss; he had been here many years, and though, he was not the most genial of men, and had more than a little of the martinet in his composition, he seems to have been active in good works, and unsparing of trouble to himself. Poor Mrs. Kurlander, who was the housemaid who called him away is quite overcome: it seems like the end of the World to her. Naturally, the house has been searched, as well as the fruit orchards and acres of fields, and the ponds dragged without result. There can be no question of foul play amongst the servants, nor is there the shadow of a probability that they or any of them should have agreed to decoy poor Garth out in order that he might be attacked on out the outskirts of the estate. He left some money when he went away and one of the servants show him cross int the fruit orchards. He was dressed as he always was. #RandolphHarris 1 of 5
I wandered around, and after a while I found myself in a long corridor where I had never been before. The walls were lined with portraits of our ancestors and the eyes of the stern-looking men and women seemed to watch me disapprovingly as I passed. I told myself it was just an optical illusion and that I should enjoy this opportunity to be alone, to really figure out my way around and to look at things that I might have felt self-consciously examining closely. As I passed the portraits, I was left in pitch darkness—such an absolute darkness as I have never before experienced. Suddenly, my eyes caught the glint of a light. At first it was but a lurid spark upon the mahogany floor. Then it lengthened out until it became a yellow line, and then, without any warning or sound, a gash seemed to open and a hand appeared, a white, almost womanly hand, which felt about in the center of the little area of light. For a minute or more the hand, with its writhing fingers, protruded out of the floor. Then it was withdrawn as suddenly as it appeared, and all was dark again save the lurid spark which marked the opening of the trap door in the floor. As I continued down the corridor, everything on the instant grew dark. The floors creaked beneath my feet. There was something Satanic about this wing of the house. Then, there was one long, loud, shuddering scream, as I glanced to see where it came from, I found myself looking straight into the face of a large owl, which was seated on my window-sill, holding up its wings like two shrouded arms. I caught the fierce glace of its yellow eyes, and then it was gone. #RandolphHarris 2 of 5
I repaired into a chamber at one end of the gallery. Having shut the door, I heard a strange noise, and on a sudden something was flung against the chamber door, with extraordinary violence, upon which the noise immediately ceased. Moments later, I went to go forth of the chamber door, but could by no means force it open. Behind me, a door opened in the darkness, and I felt a wave of night-air, cool and fragrant, come in against my neck. I had not known there was another door at the far end of the chamber, but I was out through it in a heartbeat. The connecting room was a soothing green. On one wall was a Monet. I was listening to the boom of my heart, and the noise from the storm outside. The wind had become louder, slamming the door against a wall. If it had just been the whine of the wind coming from below, no doubt my ambitions would have had me halfway down the stairs by now. However, there were other sound being carried on the back of the wind, some easy to interpret, others not so easy. I could hear the screech of bats, which was not too distressing. However, there were other species giving voice below. Looking at the doorway that led to the tower, I took a deep breath, and went out into the hallway. Reassuringly, the door had stopped slamming quite so hard. I took a deep breath, then headed down the flight. #RandolphHarris 3 of 5
I suddenly sensed someone was there. Watching me. I looked up. And I saw him, standing on the landing encircling one of the towers that rose from the house. It was the guy I had seen at the library window. He was looking down at me. However, not as me. Once more I was sure I had seen him before—before I saw him outside the library. I stared at the gentleman long enough. Suddenly, I felt queer and faint, and bent over and grabbed my knees. When I looked up again, the man—or whatever he was—had vanished from the tower. I could not imagine how he had gotten down or, into my house. Judging by the different voices heard at odd times within, it must be accessible through secret passages beneath. There are whisperings and frenzied screams, coupled with curious chants or invocations. On this night, however, they assumed a very singular and terrible cast as they ran the gamut betwixt dronings of dull acquiescence and explosions of frantic pain or fury, rumblings of conversation and whines of entreaty, pantings of eagerness and shouts of protest. They appeared to be in different languages, whose rasping accents were frequently distinguishable in reply, reproof, or threatening. Sometimes it seemed that several persons must be in this wing of the house; certain captives, and the guards of those captives. There were voices of a sort that I had never heard before despite my wide knowledge of foreign parts, and many that I did place belonging to certain nationalities. It sounded as if a guard was extorting some sort of information from terrified or rebellious prisoners. #RandolphHarris 4 of 5
However, besides a few ghoulish dialogues, most of the questions and answers I could understand were historical or scientific; pertaining to very remote places and ages. These ghosts were discussing a massacre in 1370. After a long pause of silence, there was a terrific shriek followed by silence and muttering and a bumping sound. The crack of a stick on the skulls had here a crushing sound as if the bone was giving way, and the victims quivered and kicked as the lay. The ghost wrung the neck of one of the victims, and if the choke or squeak which it gave were not real, I know nothing of reality. My home got perceptibly darked. I heard hard breathing and horrid muffled sound. Shortly after, a shadow was seen on the wall. Then faint cries and groans unmistakably came up from the solid mahogany floors. As I walked further down the gallery, I found an oaken door in a frame of heavy masonry, which was obviously an entrance into the caverns beneath my home. When or how these catacombs could have been constructed, I was unable to say. However, in the catacombs was poor Garth’s body, with a sack over the head, the throat horribly mangled. I cannot bring myself to describe the scene in greater detail. The events that attended the discovery bewildered me so completely that I needed what I could get of a night’s rest to enable me to face the situation at all. #RandolphHarris 5 of 5
Ancient philosophers suggested that the appearance of spirits is evidence that we are part of a larger community of intelligences, a universe of interrelated species, both physical and nonphysical. We might conclude, therefore, that corrupt stimuli cause objects to rise in the air or to be hurled about; create thundering noises, and violently slamming doors. If there are forms of energy that can indeed be responsible for this phenomenon, are we ready to deal with the powers of the dead?
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Sustained, Difficult Experiences that Make it Hard to Go On
A man must stay in his own orbit and take his directives from within. If through fear of loneliness, intimidation, or suggestion, he joins the marching groups of time, he will not reach his best. Covert hypnosis might sound like something that just would not work. After all, if they are going to be hypnotized, a person has to be aware of things. The back-and-forth action of an old pocket watch repeated words. You are getting sleepy. Those kinds of things cannot be done without the subject knowing what you are trying to do. Some people claim to be able to contact the unconscious mind of others. Manipulating thoughts of other without the subjects being aware of what they are doing is what covert hypnosis is. Of course, with something this sinister, there are huge controversies surrounding the subject. Who has not ever been sleep deprived? A lack of sleep degrades both short-term and long-term memory. Sleep deprived decision-makers are likely to have access to fewer strategic options, decision criteria and other information in their long-term memory. This knowledge, however, is crucial for making informed strategic decisions. That is why people use sleep deprivation to get others to do what they want. Intense emotions such as fear, anger, and shame can alter individuals’ capacities for decision-making, emotional regulation, and relating to others. It is well established that emotion plays a key role in human social and economic decision making. People evaluate objective features of alternatives such as expected return in a subjective way, and emotions are understood to influence these subjective evaluations. #RandolphHarris 1 of 20
People often play on old fears to get other to do what they want them to do. The history of neuroscientific research on fear has developed extensively over the last 50 years, in particular focusing on the neural structures involved in fear, and how fear can affect decision making processes. The neurocircuitry supporting fear conditioning has been extensively investigated in animal models and humans and highlights the central role of amygdala in fear acquisition, storage, and expression. The amygdala triggers the release of stress hormones epinephrine and cortisol, which increase heart rate, respiration, and blood pressure, helping the body prepare to enact fight or flight. Very often the effects of fear on cognition are beyond our control. It is easier for emotions to invade our thought processes than it is for us to take cognitive control of our emotions because the amygdala is better at driving the prefrontal cortex than vice versa. Although there may be some experiences of fear that agents find tolerable, enjoyable, or even worth seeking (exempli gratia, horror movies, haunted houses, roller coasters), experiences of genuine and sustained fear for the wellbeing of one’s self, one’s loved ones, or fear for the security of one’s environment are all forms of suffering. To be fearful in these senses is to suffer. These physiological components of fear experiences have been shown to alter a variety of everyday cognitive processes. Fear has been shown to alter processes of visual perception, risk perception, and information uptake. Fear has been shown to sometimes radically alter individuals’ practices of decision-making. #RandolphHarris 2 of 20
Perhaps unsurprisingly, experiences of fear sometimes prompt individuals to make more risk-averse decisions, and to be more pessimistic about the likelihood of beneficial events in the future. Fear in some cases alters study subjects’ capacity for making decisions by making them excessively focused on the possibility of catastrophic events. This means that fearful subjects are not able to proceed in decision-making as they ordinarily would, because they are held up by fear of risks or devasting outcomes. As such, fear can certainly have serious effect on belief, and in some cases, can have epistemic costs. In conjunction with the ways fears can augment what agents see, perceive as dangerous, how agents process information, and make decisions, fears can certainly alter individuals’ beliefs in relation to processes of perception, information-processing, and decision-making. If a fearful individual is more likely to visually process only some parts of their environment, or to be able to take in more limited amounts of new information, this can limit what they know about their environment. If a fearful agent is more likely to perceive some object or event as risky than their non-fearful counterpart, their beliefs about that object or event may not accurately reflect the actual risk posed. Fear can have serious implications for what agents believe, and for how accurately those beliefs reflect reality. In some cases, this can amount to epistemic damage. Fear can also disrupt agents’ ways of relating to others: subject can become more suspicious of others, less trusting, and more circumspect. #RandolphHarris 3 of 20
Both fears directly related to one’s relationship (exempli gratia, fears of the person with whom one is in relationship, or fears that something bad may happen to them) and unrelated fears (exempli gratia, fears of some other perceived danger) can stall one’s ability to relate to others: they can distract individuals, make one unable to focus on treating others well, or disrupt one’s capacity for trusting ways of relating. If fear can have these effect, causing suffering, fundamentally altering even one’s most basic capacities for visual perception, risk perception, information uptake, making subjects less sure of themselves and their futures, making it difficult or impossible to relate to others in practiced ways, it seems unsurprising that serious experiences of fear can, in some instances, be disorienting. In addition to the ways fears can disrupt these foundational capacities, they can also make one question who one is, and how one should continue to act in everyday life. Disorientation is sustained, difficult experiences that make it hard to go on. Disorientations regularly follow devasting experiences like the loss of a loved one, serious illness, trauma, o oppression, and they can also follow more neutral or beneficial events like migration, feminist education, queer identification, or consciousness-raising. In all cases, to be disoriented is to feel up in the air, and unsure of oneself, in more or less debilitating ways. Disorientations are not one-time events: they may be triggered by discrete events (exempli gratia, the death of a loved one), but to be disoriented in this sense is a sustained experience. #RandolphHarris 4 of 20
Less metaphorically, to be disoriented is to have difficulty making plans, feeling secure and confident in one’s actions, or being able to go about one’s daily life with ease. Think of the common feelings following the loss of a loved one or diagnosis of a serious illness: who am I now? How can I go one with my life? My home and job may not feel comfortable anymore. I may struggle to feel happy, and be constantly questioning myself and my decisions. Disorientation is used to capture a sense in which major life experiences can make it hard to know how to go on in the sense of becoming unsure of how we should identify ourselves, what we should believe, what projects we should pursue, and what actions we should prioritize. Psychopathological offenders also use panic to get victims to do what they want. An offender may scare a large group of people and keep repeating a fearful trigger word to get others to shout it and warn people, until there is total chaos in what was a peaceful environment. A moral panic is a widespread fear, most often an irrational one, that someone or something is a threat to the values, safety, and interests of a community or society at large. Typically, a moral panic is perpetuated by the news medica, fueled by politicians, and often results in the passage of new laws or politicians that target the source of panic. In this way, moral panic can foster increased social control. #RandolphHarris 5 of 20
Moral panics are often centered around people who are marginalized in society due to their race or ethnicity, class, sexuality, nationality, or religion. As such, a moral panic often draws on known stereotypes and reinforces them. It can also exacerbate the real and perceived differences and divisions between groups of people. Moral panic is well known in sociology of deviance and crime and is related to the labeling theory of deviance. Manipulators also use confusion as a method of control. One hypnotic process that stands out in this context is called, “the confusion technique.” This method can be employed by manipulators to induce a trance-like state by overwhelming the listener with a barrage of information that does not quite connect logically. They talk incessantly, and eventually, you submit and do what they want. Why do some people do this? The goal is to disorient you to the point where you seek any relief. When the instruction finally simplifies, offering a clear action, your brain latches on, grateful for direction instead of confusion. This is the essence of the confusion technique: it leads you through a maze until you are so desperate for a way out that you will latch onto the first clear directive which is often what the manipulator wants you to do. Confusion can be a manipulation that preys on our desire to escape discomfort, offering a solution that aligns with a manipulator’s wishes. Being aware of such techniques is crucial. The confusion technique is often employed without conscious intent; many manipulators are not studying manuals about unethical influence. They have simply learned that their method yield results they want. #RandolphHarris 6 of 20
The freedom to follow the commands of reason is a psychological problem. Let us return to our example of the man who is confronted with the choice of either smoking or not smoking this cigarette or, to put it differently, to the problem of whether he has the freedom to follow his rational intention. We can imagine an individual whom we can predict with near certainty that he will not be able to follow his intention. Assuming he is a man deeply bound to a mothering figure and with an oral-receptive orientation, a man who is always expecting something from other, who has never been able to assert himself, and because of all this is filled with intense and chronic anxiety; smoking, to him, is the satisfaction of his receptive craving, and a defense against his anxiety; the cigarette, to him, symbolizes strength, adultness, activity, and for this reason he cannot do without it. His craving for the cigarette is the result of his anxiety, his receptiveness, etcetera, and is as strong as these motives are. There is a point where they are so strong that the person would not be able to overcome his craving unless some drastic change went to occur in the balance of forces within him. Otherwise we can say that he is, for all practical purposes, not free to choose what he had recognized to be better. On the other hand, we may imagine a man of such maturity, productivity, lack of greed, that he would not be able to act in a way that is contrary to reason and to his true interests. He also would not be “free”; he could not smoke because he would feel on inclination to do so. This is a state of beatitude in which man is not free to sin. #RandolphHarris 7 of 20
Freedom of choice is not a forma abstract capacity which one either “has” or “has not”; it is, rather, a function a person’s character structure. Some people have no freedom to choose the good because their character structure has lost the capacity to act in accordance with the good. Some people have lost the capacity of choosing the evil, precisely because their character structure has lost the craving for evil. In these two extreme cases we may say that both are determined to act as they do because the balance of forces in their character leaves them no choice. In the majority of men, however, we deal with contradictory inclinations which are so balanced that a choice can be made. The act is the result of the respective strength of conflicting inclinations within the person’s character. It must be clear by now that we can use the concept “freedom” in two different senses: In one, freedom is an attitude, an orientation, part of the character structure of the mature, fully developed, productive person: in this sense I can speak of a “free” person as I can speak of a loving, productive, independent person. In fact, a free person in this sense is a loving, productive, independent person; freedom in this sense has no reference to a special choice between two possible actions, but to the character structure of the person involved; and in this sense the person who “is not free to choose evil” is the completely free person. #RandolphHarris 8 of 20
The second meaning of freedom is the one which we have mainly used so far, namely, the capacity to make a choice between opposite alternatives; alternatives which, however, always imply the choice between the rational and the irrational interest in life and its growth versus stagnation and death; when used in this second sense the best and the worst man are not free to choose, while it is precisely the average man with contradictory inclinations, for whom the problem of freedom of choice exist. If we speak of freedom in this second sense the question arises: On what factors does this freedom to choose between contradictory inclination depend? Quite obviously the most important factor lies in the respective strengths of the contradictory inclinations, particularly in the strength of the unconscious aspects of these inclinations. However, if we ask what factor support freedom of choice even if the irrational inclination is stronger, we find that the decisive factor in choosing the better rather than the wore lies in awareness. Awareness of what constitutes good or evil; which actions in the concrete situation is an appropriate means to the desired end; awareness of the forces behind the apparent wish; that means the discovery of unconscious desires; awareness of the real possibilities between which one can choose; awareness of the consequences of the one choice as against the other; awareness of the fact that awareness as such is not effective unless it is accompanied by the will to act, by the readiness to suffer the pain of frustration that necessarily results from an action contrary to one’s passions. #RandolphHarris 9 of 20
Many of the patient’s difficulties in expressing his thoughts and feelings are related to the analyst. Thus the person who is unable to associate freely—whether because it would threaten his defenses or because he has lost too much of his own initiative—is likely to transfer to the analyst his aversion to the process of his chagrin at failure, and react with an unconscious defiant obstruction. That his own development, his happiness, is at stake is practically forgotten. And even if the process does not give rise to hostility toward the analyst, there is the further fact that fears concerning the analyst’s attitude are always present to some degree. Will he understand? Will he condemn? Will he look down upon me or turn against me? Is he really concerned with my own best development, or does he want to mold me into his pattern? If I make personal remarks about him, will he feel hurt? If I do not accept his suggestions, will he lose patience? It is this infinite variety of concerns and obstacles that makes unreserved frankness such an extremely difficult task. As a result, evasive tactics will inevitably occur. Th patient will deliberately omit certain incidents. Certain factors will never occur to him in the analytical hour. Feelings will not be expressed because they are too fleeting. Details will be omitted because he considers them trivial. “Figuring out” will take the place of a free flow of thoughts. He will stick to a long—winded account of daily occurrences. There is almost no end to the ways in which he may consciously or unconsciously try to evade this requirement. #RandolphHarris 10 of 20
A second task confronting the patient in analysis is to face his problems squarely—to gain an insight into them by recognizing factors that were hitherto unconscious. This is not only an intellectual process, however, as the word “recognize” might suggest; as emphasized in analytical literature since Ferenczi and Rank, it is both an intellectual and an emotional experience. If I may use a slang expression, it means gaining information about ourselves which we feel in our “guts.” The insight may be a recognition of an entirely repressed factor, such as the discovery made by a compulsively modest or benevolent person that actually he has a diffuse contempt for people. It may be a recognition that a drive which is at the level of awareness has an extent, intensity, and quality that were never dreamed of: a person may know that he is ambitious, for instance, but never have suspected before that his ambition is an all-devouring passion determining his life and containing the destructive element of wanting a vindictive triumph over others. Or the insight may be a finding that certain seemingly unconnected factors are closely interrelated. A person may have known that he has certain grandiose expectations as to his significance and his achievements in life, and have been aware also that he has a melancholy outlook and a general foreboding that he will succumb to some pending disaster within a brief span, but never have suspected that either attitude represents a problem or that the two have any connection. #RandolphHarris 11 of 20
In this case his insight might reveal to him that his urge to be admired for his unique value is so rigid that he feels a deep indignation as its nonfulfillment and therefore devalues life itself: like an inveterate aristocrat who is faced with the necessity of stooping to a lower standard of living, he would rather stop living than be satisfied with less than he feels entitled to expect. Thus his preoccupation with impending disaster would actually represent an underlying wish to die, partly as a spiteful gesture toward life for not having measured up to his expectations. It is impossible to say in general terms what it means to a patient to obtain an insight into his problems, just as it would be impossible to say what it means to a person to be exposed to sunshine. Sunshine may kill him or save his life, it may be fatiguing or refreshing, its effect depending on its intensity and also on his own condition. Similarly, an insight may be extremely painful or it may bring an immediate relief. There are several reasons why an insight may produce relief. To begin with the least important consideration, it is often a gratifying intellectual experience merely to learn the reasons for some phenomenon not hitherto understood; in any situation in life it is likely to be a relief merely to recognize the truth. If such memories help one to understand precisely what factors influenced one’s development at the start, this consideration applies not only to elucidations of present peculiarities but also to memories of hitherto forgotten childhood experiences. #RandolphHarris 12 of 2019
More important is the fact that an insight may reveal to a person his own true feelings by showing him the speciousness of his former attitude. When he becomes free to express the anger, irritation, contempt, fear, or whatever it was that was hitherto repressed, an active and alive feeling has replaced a paralyzing inhibition and a step is take toward finding himself. The inadvertent laughter that frequently occurs at such discoveries reveals the feeling of liberation. Even if the finding itself is far from agreeable, even if the person recognizes, for instance, that all his life he has merely tried to “get by” or has tried to hurt and dominate other, this may hold true. In addition to producing this increase in self-feeling, in aliveness, in activity, the insight may remove the tensions generated by his former necessity to check his true feelings: by increasing the forces that were needed for repression it may increase the amount of available energies. The extent to which the patient has gained true and lasting insight into his personality, or the degree to which he has learned how to use the natural equipment of his personality in achieving more effective adaptation to future problems or stresses are vital dimensions in the patient’s total response to psychotherapy. Some of these criterion measures are relatively objective, accessible, and easy to record. Others require the development of particular methods of assessment, direct and indirect. Some are of a nature that demand clinical appraisal and subjective judgment; with these it is necessary to avoid so far as possible the usual sources of error in the fallible human observer-evaluator, especially the bias which operate if the expert responsible for an activity is asked to be a judge of its success. #Randolphharris 13 of 20
Through the joint efforts of psychiatrist, psychologists, and social workers there is presently available a sturdy armamentarium of psychometric and sociometric devices that can yield complex measures of the patient’s level of mental health. There is increasing evidence of readiness to use multiple measures in evaluating the effectiveness of treatment. With all of the above evidences of the vitality of the research endeavour in psychotherapy, it is to be hoped that within the next 25 years we shall have a fair answer to our questions: Does psychotherapy work? Does a particular method of therapy work better with certain patients than another method? It is probable that, in addition to perfection of research techniques, the answering of these crucial questions will require establishment of special research clinics in order to assure the participation in the evaluation studies of therapists who represent them major schools and who presumably practice different forms of psychotherapy. In this regard, it is interesting to note that the often-voiced opinion that different approaches may be differentially effective with different problems has no led to a general pattern of staffing clinics or hospitals with therapists representing schools of apparently divergent orientation and practice. The homogeneity of the theoretical “climate” in most treatment centers is probably not so much a function of administrative policy (or oversight) as a “mating” tendency among therapists. To paraphrase the old saw about the birds, “Psychotherapists of persuasion agglutinate.” #RandolphHarris 14 of 20
This tendency toward professional cohabitation of therapists trained in a particular school is probably only a natural response to subtle psychological pressures, and it might be hypothesized that such homogeneous clinics have a higher therapeutic effectiveness on the average than would a group of therapists of diverse persuasion. Obvious differences of conviction interfere with certainty, reduce certainty depress confidence, and impaired confidence is likely to lower competence! Again and again, an “objective” and a “wile” are quite distinct. The wile is a means used by the foe to gain an objective. The evil spirits must use “wiles” to carry out their objective. Their objective is deception, but their “wiles” will be counterfeits. They are liars, but how can they succeed in getting their lies into the mind of a man? They do not need wiles to make themselves liars, but they need the wile to get the lies accepted by the self-actualized. The wiles of the ultimate negative and his emissaries are countless and fitted to the individual self-actualized. If he is to be moved by suffering from any course of action detrimental to their interests, they will play upon his sympathies by the suffering they cause to someone near and dear to him. Of if he shrinks from personal suffering, they will work upon this to make him change his course. To those who are naturally sympathetic, they will use a counterfeit love. Those who can be attracted by intellectual things will be drawn from the spiritual sphere by being driven to excessive study, or be given mental attractions of many kinds. #RandolphHarris 15 of 20
While others—those who are oversensitive and conscientious—may be constantly charged with the blame of apparently continuous failure. They lying spirits lash the person for what they themselves but, but if the believer understands how to refuse all blame from them, he can use their very doings as a weapon against them. For this conflict with the powers of darkness the self-actualized must learn by experience how to take and use the armour for the battle. The objective is clearly not victory over sin—this is assumed—but VICTORY OVER THE ULTIMATE NEGATIVE. The call to stand in armour; to stand in the evil day; to stand against the powers of darkness; to stand after accomplishing the work of overthrowing them—having overcome all—by the strength of God. The armour is provided that the child of God should be able to stand against the wiles of the ultimate negative—clearly showing that the self-actualized can be made able to conquer all the principalities and powers of hell if he fulfills the necessary conditions, and uses the armour provided for him. If it is provided for meeting a real foe, and God evidently demands a real knowledge of it on the part of the self-actualized—to whom the fact of the provision, the real fact of the foe, and the fact of the fight must be as real facts as any other facts declared in the Scriptures, it must be a real armour. The armoured Christians is armoured with truth, righteousness of life, marking and keeping peace. Self-preservation (the root meaning of the word “salvation) and control, faith as a shield, scriptures on hand and often memorized, and praying without ceasing. #RandolphHarris 16 of 20
The non-armoured Christian is much different. One is opened to lies, through ignorance. Unrighteousness through ignorance, divisions and quarrels, reckless unwatchfulness, doubt and unbelief, relying on reason instead of God’s Word. Relaying on work without prayer. The self-actualized who takes up the whole armour of God as a covering and protection against the foe should himself then start walking in victory over the enemy. To do this he must have his spirit indwelt by the Holy Spirit, so that he is strengthened with the might of God to stand unshaken—and to be given continuously a supply of Jesus as the Christ to keep his spirit sweet and pure; have his mind renewed so that he has his understanding filled with the light of truth, displacing the lies of the ultimate negative, and destroying the veil with which the ultimate negative once held it—the mind being clarified so that he intelligently understands what the will of the Lord is; have his body subservient to the Spirit, and obedient to the will of God in life and service. Let a person be brought before your tribunals who is plainly under demonical possession. The wicked spirit, bidden to speak by a follower of Jesus as the Christ, will as readily make the truthful confession that he is a demon as elsewhere he has falsely asserted that he is a god. Or, if you will, let there be produced one of the “god-possessed,” as they are supposed. If they do not confess, IN THEIR FEAR OF LYING TO A CHRISTIAN, that they are demons, then and there pray for their souls, or bodies void of a soul. #RandolphHarris 17 of 20
ALL THE AUTHORITY AND POWER WE HAVE OVER THEM IS FROM OUR NAMING THE NAME OF CHRIST, AND RECALING TO THEIR MEMORY THE WORD WITH WHICH GOD THREATENS THEM AT THE HAND OF JESUS AS THE CHRIST, THEIR JUDGE, AND WHICH THEY EXPECT ONE DAY TO OVERTAKE THEM. FEARING CHRIST IN GOD AND GOD IN CHRIST, THEY BECOME SUBJECT TO THE SERVANTS OF GOD AND CHRIST. SO AT ONE TOUCH AND BRETHING, OVERWHELMED BY THE THOUGHT AND REALIZATION OF THOSE JUDGMENT FIRES, THEY LEAVE AT OUR COMMAND THE BODIES THEY HAVE ENTERED, UNWILLING AND DISTRESSED, AND BEFORE YOUR VERY EYES, PUT TO AN OPEN SHAME. Numberless demoniacs throughout the whole World and in your city, many of our Christian men—exorcising them in the name of Jesus as the Christ who was crucified under Pontius Pilate—have healed and do heal, rendering helpless, and driving the possessing demon out the men, though they could not be cured by all other exorcists, and those who use incantations and drugs. CYPRIAN expressed with confidence that they are evil spirits that inspire the false prophets of the Gentiles, and deliver oracles by always mixing truth with falsehood to prove what they say, he adds: “Nevertheless these evil spirits adjured by the living God IMMEDIATELY OBEY US, SUBMIT TO US, OWN OUR POWER, and are forced to come out of the bodies they possess.” The one under demon-power is an involuntary victim. (The willing soul is known as a medium.) The chief characteristic of demonomania is distinct “other personality” within. (This is different to demon-influence, for in this, men follow their own wills, and retain their own personality.) #RandolphHarris 18 of 20
These demons have a longing for a body to possess, as it seems to give then some relief, and they enter the bodies of animals as well as men. There are distinctly individual peculiarities of the spirits. They converse through organs of speech, and give evidence of personality, desire, fear. They give evidence of knowledge and power not possessed by the subject. In Germany, Pastor Blumhardt gives instances of demons speaking in all the European languages, and in some languages unrecognizable. In France there were some cases having the “gift of tongues,” speaking in German, Latin, Arabic. The demon possession of the body entirely changes the moral character of those they enter, compelling them to act entirely contrary to their normal behaviour. Reserved, reticent men will weep, sing, laugh, talk; meek souls will rage; ordinarily pure-tongued men and women will speak of things not to be named among children of God, and act in manner and conduct contrary to their normal dignity and behaviour—all of which they are not responsible for while under “control” of this other personality within them. In brief, they will exhibit traits of character utterly different from those which belong to them normally. There are also nervous and muscular symptoms peculiar to demon possession in the body. There is also an afflatus of the breast, which is a special mark of demon possession. Oracular utterances are given in jerks and sentences, quite unlike the calm coherent sequence of language seen in the utterances of the apostles at Pentecost. There is “levitation” of the body—well known by spiritists—when the subject will say he is quite unconscious of possessing a body; and there is invariably a passive mind. There is often a distinct voice which speaks through the lips of the subject, expressing thoughts and word unintentionally. #RandolphHarris 19 of 20
How different would be the history of the World without keeping the fire department in mind—a department that has changed or arrested the course of civilization, and the effect of which has been as far-reaching as that of wars. In every day life the human hazard, the risk of losing all of one’s Earthly possessions, is ever present. When you consider that sixty-four percent of all fires in the United States of America occur in dwelling houses, the question of an adequate fire department is brought home. With the growing number of skyscrapers, enormous factories, and a constantly growing use of chemicals in these factories, and other features of modern life that tend to make fire-fighting more difficult, the fireman’s calling has been raised to the dignity of profession. The fire department must know something of electricity and various branches of mechanics to be efficient. They must have training, skill and judgment. All fires are not alike, and the best fire fighters knows at a glance from the colour of the flames the temperature of the blaze, the amount of water pressure and the size of the nozzle to use, for an inadequate stream would only make the fire worse. Furthermore, the prevention of panics in theaters, schools, and other public buildings have become an important function of the fire department. Statistic show that more persons are killed by being trampled and crushed than actually burned. A cool heard and quick wits and special training are required on the part of the fire fighters to take such measures as will reassure and control the people. Let us make sure that the Sacramento Fire Department receives adequate funding by making a donation. Without them, there would not be a United States of America. 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
Spectral dogs are familiar throughout the Winchester Estate. They tend to be black, and hairy. They are known as “barhgasts.” Suicides, and hanged men, were reputed to come again in that guise, haunting the place of their death. Unbaptised babies also took that form, in order to pursue their offending parents. Mrs. Winchester’s dog known as “Zip” often appears on the estate as a spectral dog. The Winchester Mansion is apparently his lair, but not his alone. The Devil and his Hell Hounds are said to run, howling, across the estate. On 18 April 1906, many people saw and heard a hunting pack in full cry. The dogs were as black as pitch with large and staring eyes. Throughout the night, fire fighters heard the hunters sounding and blowing their horns. These black dogs have been observed jumping over hedges, and frequenting a certain path. One caretake of the mansion “saw a black dog with a chain dangling from its collar, which passed him absolutely noiselessly, and went through a closed door.”
There is a room in the Winchester Mansion, with the largest cupboard in the house, and something used to pass through the cupboard, cross the room, and walk through the wall. The “thing” was large, dark, and animal-like. There are also accounts of a dog, commonly described as white with blood dripping from its fangs. It is believed to presage death. The ghost that brings news of death is known as a “fetch.” Some dogs in the house are invisible, but their panting can be heard as they walk beside a guest; these are believed to be friendly guardians. Dogs are, in addition, held to be highly sensitive to unusual activity that human beings construe as ghost-like. The natural human body has it senses, the spirit also has its senses. There are busy senses within, examining and judging, approving and condemning, joying and grieving, hoping and fearing, after a fashion of their own, which no bodily sense can imitate. There is a spirit within which we call ourselves, and it is perfectly distinct from the body in which we dwell.
If our spirits, which are generated in or without bodies, are elaborated from immaterial substances into separate existences, constituting individual spirits, these individual spirits must be presumed to be composed of spirit substance or substances, and possessed of different faculties. Our very language implies that human spirit is an organism composed of parts mutually related, which though individually different, are generically the same. It is a well-established doctrine of Scripture, that the body is animated by an intelligent and immortal spirit, that feels and acts by means of its material mechanism, without being itself material. The activity given the name of “Poltergeist” is so well known and so frequently attested that it may seem unnecessary to detail its particular manifestations. However, as if something were trying to announce its presence, the activity generally begins with “knocking” or “rapping” in certain rooms. Then characteristically there follow lounder or more frightened noises such as the thumping on floors and walls or the sounds of scratching. These in turn tend to be followed by noises as of furniture being thrown violently around a room that can increase in frequency and intensity within a matter of days or weeks. In one recent case there was heard the distinct noise of someone “grinding his boot heel in a scattering of grit or gravel.”
Only after the stage of sound has been passed is there evidence of actual movement. Pieces of furniture seem to shift of their own accord. Doors are flung open or violently closed. The drawers of cupboards also open and close of their own volition. Plates are smashed. Light bulbs explode or flicker uncontrollably. This activity can then be followed by the witnessing of objects being thrown into the air, apparently of their own accord. The curious thing is that if these objects strike a human being, they generally inflict no injury. However, if they strike inanimate objects, they can cause damage. What strange disorders of the night can prompt these accounts? Take pleasure in the antiques, the gardens and experience the homemaking of Victorian times. Enjoy a delicious meal in Sarah’s Café. 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/
I Could be Stringing Pearls for the Joy of Heaven
The great man knows he has limitations, he knows his defects and faults—but he is not afraid of them. The power of persuasion is one way to get what you want. And it is not that evil to persuade people to do things, is it? Advertisements are powerful persuasions. Everyone uses ads to get what they want. Politicians use them, and companies use the. So how bad can it be, really? When used for beneficial purposes, this power is not anything bad. However, when used for unethical, immoral, illegal, and dangerous things, persuasion can get people into real trouble. There are some errors, which have a major importance. One error lies in the habit of speaking of the freedom of choice of man rather than that of a specific individual. Choice, by definition, lies between alternatives. That an alternative is genuinely and psychologically open to choice can be supported by the observation that people have chosen it. That people have sometimes failed to choose it, has no tendency to show that it is closed to choice. As soon as one speaks of the freedom of man in general, rather than of an individual, one speaks in an abstract way which makes the problem insoluble; this is so precisely because one man has the freedom to choose—another has lost it. If applied to all men, we either deal with an abstraction, or with a mere moral postulate in the sense of Kant or of William James. Deception is something we have to deal with every day. Therefore, trusting what someone says about anything is not always the best practice. #RandolphHarris 1 of 18
Another difficulty in the traditional discussion of freedom seems to lie in the tendency, especially of the classical authors from Plato to Aquinas, to deal with the problem of good and evil in a general way, as if man had the choice between good and evil “in general,” and the freedom to choose good. This view greatly confuses the discussion because, when confronted with the general choice most men choose “good” as against “evil.” However, there is no such thing as the choice between “good” and “evil”—there are concrete and specific action that are means toward what is good, and others that are means toward what is evil, provided good and evil are properly defined. Our moral conflict on the question of choice arises when we have to make a concrete decision rather than when we choose good or evil in general. Still another shortcoming of the traditional discussion lies in the fact that it usually deals with freedom versus determinism of choice, rather than with the various degree of inclinations. The problem of freedom versus determinism is really one of conflict of inclinations and their respective intensities. Finally, there is confusion in the use of the concept of “responsibility.” “Responsibility” is mostly used to denote that I am punishable or accusable; in this respect it makes little difference whether I permit others to accuse me or whether I accuse myself. If I find myself guilty, I punish myself; if others find me guilty, they will punish me. There is another concept of responsibility, however, which has no connection with punishment or “guilt.” In this sense responsibility only means “I am aware that I did it.” #RandolphHarris 2 of 18
In fact, as soon as my deed is experienced as “sin” or “guilt” it becomes alienated. It is not I who did this, but “the sinner,” “the band one,” that “other person” who now needs to be punished; not to speak of the fact that the feeling of guilt and self-accusation creates sadness, self-loathing, and loathing of life. Whoever talks about and reflects upon an evil thing he has done, is thinking the vileness he has perpetrated, and what one thinks, therein is one caught—with one’s whole soul one is caught utterly in what one thinks, and so he s still caught in vileness. And he will surely not be able to turn, for his spirit will coarsen and his heart rot, and besides this, a sad mood may come upon him. What would you? Stir filth this way and that, and it is still filth. To have sinned or not to have sinned—what does it profit us in Heaven? In the time I am brooding on this, I could be stringing pearls for the joy of Heaven. That is why it is written: “Depart from evil, and do good”—turn wholly from evil, do not brood in its way, and do good. You have done wrong? Then balance it by doing right.” We become alive as we take, knowingly, fully responsibility for our own life and as we stop blaming circumstances. What then does it mean to be free? Freedom means to have matured to the full knowledge of our dangerously many responsibilities as a human being. We have learned that everything we do, and even say or think, has consequences. We realize that too long we have believed that we were victims of circumstances. In the Gospel of John, 8.32, we read that following: “And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” #RandolphHarris 3 of 18
As we open our hearts to the message of God’s truth, as it was restored in our time, we begin to understand why there was, and still is, so much misery, pain, suffering, and even starvation. In the same dimension as we are learning to accept the revealed truth in our own life, our faith in the living Son of God will grow, and therefore we will receive spiritual gifts of heretofore unknown capacity. We will learn that nothing is impossible for those who believe in Jesus as the Christ. False bondages will be loosened. Narrow thinking born in tragedies of false traditions will disappear. The more our understanding of the vastness and the completeness of the plan of salvation is developing, the more we see ourselves in our smallness, in our incompleteness. And seeing ourselves in that humility, with a broken heart and a contrite spirit, will let us understand and finally accept this most sacred covenant with our Heavenly Father in the form of baptism. We gladly will submit ourselves into this covenant, knowing that there is a big difference between mere desire and covenant. When we just desire something, we will work towards achieving it only when convenient. However, when we are bound by a sacred covenant, like baptism, we are learning to overcome all obstacles through obedience, and in so doing we will be blessed with the presence of the Spirit and therefore eventually with achievement. One thing, of course, we know: having “freedom to” means that we have the potential of making wrong choices. Wrong choices have their merciless consequences, and when they are not stopped and corrected, they lead us into misery and pain. #RandolphHarris 4 of 18
If not corrected, wrong choices will lead us to the ultimate possible disaster in each person’s life: to become separated from our Heavenly Father in the World to come. Jesus as the Christ wants to empower our lives, according to our own righteous choices, to that dimension that, through our faith and our doings, the circumstances whose prisoners we were in the past will eventually change. It is in the same spirit that the Old Testament word chatah, usually translated as meaning “sin,” actually means “to miss” (the road); it lacks the quality of condemnation which the words “sin” and “sinner” have. Similarly, the Hebrew word for “repentance” is teschubah, meaning “return” (to God, to oneself, to the right way), and it also lacks the implication of self-condemnation. This the Talmud uses the expression “the master of return” (“the repentant sinner”) and says of him that he stands even above those who have never sinned Assuming we agree that we speak of the freedom of choice between two specific courses of action which one specific individual is confronted with, then we might begin our discussion with one concrete, commonplace example: the freedom of choice between smoking or nor smoking. Let us take a heavy smoker who has read the reports on the health hazard of smoking and has arrived at the conclusion that he wants to stop smoking. He has “decided that he is going to stop.” This “decision” is no decision. It is nothing but the formulation of hope. He has “decided” to stop smoking, yet the next day he feels in too good a mood, the day after in too bad a mood, the third day he does not want to appear “asocial,” the following day he doubts that the health reports are correct, and so he continues smoking, although he had “decided” to stop. #RandolphHarris 5 of 18
All these decisions are nothing but ideas, plans, fantasies; they have little or no reality until the real choice is made. This choice becomes real when he has a cigarette in front of him and has to decide whether to smoke this cigarette or not; again, later he has to decide about another cigarette, and so on. It is always the concrete act which requires a decision. The question in each situation is whether he is free not to smoke, or whether he is not free. Several questions arise here. Assuming he did not believe in the health reports on smoking or, even if he did, he is convinced that it is better to live twenty years less than to miss this pleasure; in this case there is apparently no problem of choice. Yet the problem may only be camouflaged. His conscious thoughts maybe nothing but rationalizations of his feelings that he could not win the battle even if he tried; hence he may prefer to pretend that there is no battle to win. However, whether the problem of choice is conscious or unconscious, the nature of the choice is the same. It is the choice between an action which is dictated by reason as against an action which is dictated by irrational passions. According to Spinoza, freedom is based on “adequate ideas” which are based on the awareness and acceptance of reality and which determine actions securing the fullest development of the individual’s psychic and mental unfolding. Human action, according to Spinoza, is casually determined by passions or by reason. When ruled by passions, man is in bondage; when by reason, he is free. #RandolphHarris 6 of 18
Irrational passions are those which overpower man and compel him to act contrary to his true self-interests, which weaken and destroy his powers and make him suffer. The problem of freedom of choice is not that of choosing between two equally good possibilities; it is not the choice between playing tennis or going on a hike, or between visiting a friend or staying at home reading. The freedom of choice where determinism or indeterminism is involved is always the freedom to choose the better as against the wore—and better or worse is always understood in reference to the basic moral question of life—that between progressing or regressing, between love and hate, between independence and dependence. Freedom is nothing other than the capacity to follow the voice of reason, of health, of well-being, of conscience, against the voices of irrational passion. In this respect we agree with the traditional views of Socrates, Plato, the Stoic, Kant. The freedom to follow the commands of reason is a psychological problem that can be examined further. Free associations do not work miracles, but if carried out in the right spirit they do show the way the mind operates, as X-rays show the otherwise invisible movements of lungs or intestines. And they do this in a more or less cryptic language. #Randolphharris 7 of 18
To associate freely is difficult for everyone. Not only does it contrast with our habits of communication and with conventional etiquette, but it entails further difficulties which differ with each patient. These may be classified under various headings though they are inevitably overlapping. In the first place, there are patients in whom the whole process of association arouses fears or inhibitions, because if they should permit free passage to every feeling and thought, they would trespass on territory that is tabu. The particular fears that will be touched off depend ultimately on the existing neurotic trends. A few examples may illustrate. An apprehensive person, overwhelmed since his early years by the teat of the unpredictable dangers of life, is unconsciously set upon avoiding risks. He clings to the fictitious belief that by straining his foresight to the utmost he can control life. Consequently, he avoids taking any step of which he cannot visualize the effects in advance: his uppermost law is never to be caught off guard. For such a person free association means the utmost recklessness, since it is the very meaning of the process to allow everything to emerge without knowing in advance what will appear and whither it will lead. The difficult is of another kind for a highly detached person who feels safe only when wearing a mask and who automatically wards off any intrusion into the precincts of his private life. Such a one lives in an ivory tower and feels threatened by any attempt to trespass into its vicinity. For him free association means an unbearable intrusion and a threat to his isolation. #RandolphHarris 8 of 18
And there is the other person who lacks moral autonomy and does not dare to form his own judgments. He is not accustomed to think and feel and act on his own initiative but, like an insect extending its feelers to rest out the situation, he automatically examines the environment for what is expected of him. His thoughts are good or right when approved by others, and bad or wrong when disapproved. He, too, feels threatened by the idea of expressing everything that comes into his mind, but in quite a different way from the others: knowing only how to respond, not how to express himself spontaneously, he feels at a loss. What does the analyst expect of him? Should he merely talk incessantly? Is the analyst interested in his dreams? Or in his sexual life? Is he expected to fall in love with the analyst? And what does the latter approve or disapprove of? For this person the idea of frank and spontaneous self-expression conjures up all these disquieting uncertainties, and also threatens an exposure to possible disapproval. And finally, a person caught within the traps of his own conflicts has become inert and has lost the capacity to feel himself as a moving force. He can proceed with an endeavour only when the initiative comes from the outside. He is quite willing to answer questions but feels lost when left to his own resources. Thus he is unable to associate freely because his capacity for spontaneous activity is inhibited. And, if he is one to whom success in all things is a driving necessity, this inability to associate may provoke in him a kind of panic, for he is likely then to regard his inhibition as a “failure.” #RandolphHarris 9 of 18
These examples illustrate how for some persons the whole process of free association arouses fears or inhibitions. However, if it is touched upon, even those who are capable of the process in general have in them one or another area that gives rise to anxiety. Thus in the example of Clare, who on the whole was able to associate freely, anything approaching her repressed demands on life aroused anxiety at the beginning of her analysis. Another difficulty lies in the fact that an unreserved expression of all feelings and thoughts is bound to lay bare traits that the person is ashamed of and that he is humiliated to report. As mentioned in the report on neurotic trend, the traits that are regarded as humiliating vary considerably. If he betrays idealistic propensities, a person who is proud of his cynical pursuit of material interests will be bewilder and ashamed. A person who is proud of his angelic façade will be ashamed to betray signs of selfishness and inconsiderateness. And the same humiliation will occur when any pretense is uncovered. The problem is not anxiety. The problem is what causes the person to experience anxiety and what determines the pattern of his reaction to the experience of anxiety. We do not presently possess a broadly based and reasonably detailed classification of the anxiety-generating problems of the twenty-first century man which cuts across all dimensions of our society. We know that problems of the very young man are different from those of the very mature, but this is hardly a sufficient differentiation on which to base selective approached to problem solutions. #RandolphHarris 10 of 18
Among adolescents, there are some who experience acute anxiety because of problems of school achievement. There are others who are greatly distressed by the complexities of heterosexual maturation. There are some who suffer from conflicts and frustrations in both of these areas. All of them may show comparable amounts and patterns of anxiety. However, anxiety is not the problem, and no single, uniform approach to the counseling of these youths is likely to prove equally effective with all. Experts in the mental health filed generally accept the professional platitude that one must not “treat the symptoms,” but rather one must attack the cause. There is also general acceptance of the motion that anxiety is only a symptom of an underlying pathology. However, the overwhelmingly predominant approach to the current psychotherapy of the neuroses is based on a theory in which anxiety plays a most central role and in which the basic source of anxiety is traced to the circumscribed sphere of psychosexual development. Furthermore, that theory evolved basically from clinical observations of a handful of upper-class patients from Dr. Freud’s late nineteenth-century Vienna. Elaborations and revisions of the basic Freudian theory while to some extent correcting for the differences between the culture of nineteenth-century Europe and twenty-first century U.S.A. have not significantly broadened the clinical observations on which the theory and the technique of treatment are based. It is still an orientation to etiology and treatment based on experience with middle-class and upper-class patients. #RandolphHarris 11 of 18
In the absence of detailed information about the nature, frequency, and patterning of psychological problems across the complete range of those major demographic variables that we know are related to personality functioning, we cannot know what manner of psychological approach is most likely to prove effective. In turn, we cannot know what program of training is best adapted to the production of therapists who will be maximally effective either with the complete spectrum of psychoneurosis, if this is a reasonable goal, or with the dynamics of special forms of personality disruption which very well may prove to be particular to the members of certain subcultures. We have mentioned the peculiar ambiguities of diagnosis of mental illness. These ambiguities are especially troublesome in the diagnosis of the psychoneuroses, those forms of emotional disturbance for which psychological treatment is indicated. We have mentioned in the prevailing system of diagnosis by symptom pattern rather than by underlying problem. And we have indicated the extreme paucity of information about the psychological problems of people who represent the complete range of our population in regard to defining characteristics of major psychosocial classes—age, gender, and so on. Finally, we have commented on the absence of agreed upon “rules of exclusion.” All of these factors conjoin to create a situation in which the person who presents himself as a candidate for therapeutic conversation has made a self-diagnosis—and, significantly, he is most generally accepted on the basis of that diagnosis. #RandolphHarris 12 of 18
This fact presents the possibility that out limited resources for psychotherapy may be overburdened in pat by the presence of individuals who in fact are not proper candidates for that type of therapeutic conversation which the major therapists of our present professional culture are equipped to give. This likelihood is enhanced by still other considerations. There is good reason to believe that the major impact of the mental hygiene movement has been on the members of the upper social classes. It is these persons whose education has made them psychologically sensitive and whose sophistication has made them socially receptive who, while not the prime target of the mental hygienists any more than any other social class, have the greatest readiness for self-referral. It is a corollary of the readiness for self-referral that the problems which the psychological sophisticate takes to the psychotherapist may be not only of lesser severity but may in fact be not focally psychoneurotic. Thus, any reasonably critical and honest therapist of long experience will have to confess that he has been confronted by some supplicants who have suffered not from anxiety nor from depression but rather from a loss of meaning in the lives, an absence of purpose, a failure of faith. Some of these persons suffer what has been termed “alienation.” Their condition has been characterized by one thoughtful clinician as a very special disturbance, that noogenetic neurosis. Frequently they are successful, effective, productive people. #RandolphHarris 13 of 18
These individuals, together with many others who lack the customary symptomatic hallmarks of anxiety, depression, obsession, or compulsion yet who present themselves to the psychotherapist for help, might be uniformly described as unhappy. Their lives may be rewarding in a variety of ways and generally comfortable, but nonetheless joyless. They are responsive to certain implicit messages of the mental hygiene movement—namely, that unhappiness is a gorm of mental illness and that the psychiatrist or psychologist is an expert in treating unhappiness. It would be well for those who are responsible for programs of public mental health education to consider carefully whether or not there are any conditions of man’s psychic life which, while painful or distressing, do not constitute neurosis and are not in their essential nature responsive to the techniques of the psychotherapist. Our Declaration of Independence claimed as one of the rights of our citizens the “pursuit of Happiness.” However, freedom for this pursuit, like any other search, entails the possibility of failure. This possibility need be threatening only in an atmosphere which suggests that an absence of happy emotion is a sign of illness. Our capacity for introspection and our inwardly directed sensitivity to our own feelings can be major sources of satisfaction and of pleasure. From these same sources spring much of our most painful experiences. We cannot have the luxury of introspective sensitivity without the cost of self-questioning and doubt. #RandolphHarris 14 of 18
When sensitive persons become stuck in an introspective rut of uncertainty, when they become immobilized by doubt, or when they are struggling against surrender to a conviction in an area in which all final convictions must necessarily be acts of faith, then they can be heled in their struggle by the challenge of perspectives elicited in the questions and suggestions of wise men. However, the wisdom needed to elicit such perspectives is hardly the exclusive possession of any existing professional group. Neither the psychiatrist nor the psychologist is trained to be wise. They should be trained to recognize those cases that call not for psychotherapy but for exposure to wise counsel. All the work of the ancient World in vain: I have no words to express my feelings about something so monstrous. And considering that its work was preliminary work, that the foundations for the work of millennia had just been laid with granite self-confidence, the entire meaning of the ancient World in vain! Wherefore Greeks? Wherefore Romans? All preconditions for a learned culture, all scientific methods were there already, the great, incomparable art of reading well had already been established—that precondition for a tradition of culture, for the unity of science; natural science, in concert with mathematics and mechanics, was moving along the best paths—the sense for facts, the ultimate and most precious of all senses, had its schools, its already centuries-old tradition! Do we understand this? #RandolphHarris 15 of 18
Everything essential for moving forward with the work had been found—the methods, it must be said ten times, are precisely what is essential, and most difficult, and are what have for the longest time faced the obstacles of habit and laziness. What we today have reconquered, with incomparable self-mastery—for we all somehow still have bad instincts, Christian instincts in our bones—a clear view of reality, a careful hand, patience and seriousness, in the smallest matters, complete integrity in knowledge: it was already there! Already, more than two thousand years ago! And in addition good, subtle tact and taste! Not as brain training! Not as “German” education with loutish manners! However, as body, as gesture, as instinct—as, in word, reality…All in vain! Overnight, just memory! Greeks! Romans! The refinement of instinct, of taste, methodical research, the genius for organization and administration, the faith, the will to a future of man, the great Yes to all thing visible as an imperium Romanum, visible to all the senses, the grand style become not just art but reality, truth, life…And not buried overnight by natural events! Not crushed by Germanic tribes and others trampling them underfoot! However, done in by sly, sneaky, invisible, anemic vampires! Not vanquished—merely sucked dry! Covert vindictiveness, petty envy become master! Everything pathetic, suffering of itself, afflicted with bad feelings, the entire ghetto World of soul on top, all at once! #RandolphHarris 16 of 18
One need only read any Christian agitator, Saint Augustine, for example, in order to grasp, to grasp, to smell what sort of filthy hirelings have thereby risen to the top. One would be deceiving oneself in assuming any intellectual inferiority among the leaders of the Christian movement—oh, they are smart all right, smart to the point of saintliness, these gentle church fathers! What they lack s something altogether different. Nature has neglected them—she forgot to bestow upon them a modest dowry of respectable, decent, clean instincts. The self-actualized is to be able to stand against the wiles of the ultimate negative, and put on the whole armour for doing this. However, if he does not know what the wile is, how does man stand against a wile? There is a difference between the temptation and wiles—between the principles and working of the ultimate negative (and his emissaries) and their wiles; id est, they themselves are tempters. Temptation is not a while. A wile is the way they scheme to tempt. If one is able to stand against their wiles, of these wiles can be detected, then the ultimate negative’s objective can be frustrated and destroyed. The spiritual man needs the fullest concentration and sagacity of mind for reading quickly his spirit-sense, and detecting the active operations of the foe; he also requires alertness in using the message his spirit conveys to him. A spiritual believer ought to be able to read the sense of his spirit with the same instinctive adroitness as a person recognizes cold by his physical sense when he feels a draft, and then immediately uses his mental faculties for actively protecting himself from it. #RandolphHarris 17 of 18
So the spiritual man needs to use his spirit-sense in locating and dislodging the foe by prayer. 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. Do not be afraid of evil tidings; let your heart be steadfast, trusting in the Lord. Happy are they that keep justice, that do righteousness at al times. Happy are they that are upright in the way, who walk in the law of the Lord. Happy are they that keep His testimonies, that seek Him with their whole heart. Happy is the people that thus know Him, happy is the people whose God is the Eternal. It is important to keep in mind the heroism and hardships, sacrifices and brilliant achievements of the Sacramento Fire Department and their history of fighting and the development of fire prevention and fire control, which has become an exact science. When you stop to think of the loss of life, and that the fire losses in the United States of America alone, the cost of property fires in 2022 is estimated at $18 billion. Local fire departments responded to an estimated 1.5 million fires. These fires caused 3,790 civilian fire deaths, and 13,250 reported civilian fire injuries. You must realize how important it is for the Sacramento Fire Department to be efficient and have all the resources they need. You must know that insurance rates are based on fire loses, and no matter how great may be the care and skill exercised in construction of buildings to prevent fires, no matter what precautions may be taken, the need of efficient firemen and women is ever preset for the saving of life and property. In this poor economy, the Sacrament Fire Department is not receiving all of their resources, please make a donation to ensure they have adequate support. #RandolphHarris 18 of 18
The Winchester Mystery House
One afternoon in December of 2007, two caretakers were walking around the mansion with a guest. “As we were walking up the path to the Grand Ballroom,” he wrote, “I stopped and said,” ‘The organ is playing.’ My first though was that maybe the was a Christmas party. The other caretaker stopped and looked at me. He turned to beckon me with a smile, so I thought that he had found it was just someone practicing. To my amazement the Grand Ballroom was empty and silent. We sat down near the organ for a moment and he said, ‘Have you heard the story of the organ playing before?’ I assured him that I had not…We afterwards went up and down the hallway sever times to see if we could hear it again but could not. The whole event was over in half a minute, and it was absolutely impossible for anyone to have escaped in that time.” There have been many attempts at explanation or elucidation of the events surrounding The Winchester Mystery House. It has been calculated that the phenomena connected with the house and garden have been described by over three thousand separate witnesses. It has even been conjected that the witnesses themselves have been the agents of the unusual activity; unknow to themselves, some force draws their energies. This is true of many “ghost stories.” However, while one can be skeptical about any individual instance, the sum total presents a body of evidence that is impossible to ignore.
Take pleasure in the antiques, the gardens and experience the homemaking of Victorian times. Enjoy a delicious meal in Sarah’s Café. 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/
Dreams Do Not Come While You’re Awake!
The places and spaces of the dead always maintain a deep connection with time. Always at nightfall, the halls were not exactly pitch-black, but in fear of discovering of other people in my house, in fear of ghosts, and whatever else I may find, I lock all of the doors. All of the windows were covered by heavy curtains. And although I had all six hundred rooms memorized, nothing was every laid out in the way I expected. Would you not think that a hall would eventually lead to a room? Nonetheless, some halls only led to other halls that right angled and doubled back. One evening in particular, I went up a winding staircase and down a corridor, then up a staircase, across a short bridge, and down another staircase. However, I could not tell how far I had come or what floor I was on. The distinct spaces and unique features became new epicenters or “auras” of the dead, as Llanada Villa itself became a haunting and haunted maze of corridors and rooms, miles of twisting hallways and winding staircases teeming with specters of the past, present, and even the future. As I proceeded to the fourth floor a spider web started to envelop me, as if some invisible force was trying to wrap me into a wet, cold silken sheet. When I touched the web, however, there was nothing to be seen or felt, and yet, the clammy, cold force was still with me. Doors that had been locked were now wide open, the locks turned by unseen hands. As I looked behind me, there was a man on the stairs. A big man, trying to pull himself up the stairs. His eyes were blazing red with pain as he tried to call out to me. Apparently, he had been hurt, for his britches were torn and his shirt covered with blood. #RandolphHarris 1 of 7
“Oh, Heavens, it cannot be true,” I thought to myself as I continued down the hallway. When I dared to look behind me again, the man was still holding out his hands in a desperate attempt to get my attention. However, when I did not respond, he became upset and starting shouting. At that very moment, trembling with fear, I screamed, ran into a room and locked the door. The house had been secured, and I did not understand how anyone could have gained entrance. In this room was a row of chairs, which ringed the mirrored walls. In the middle of the floor was a gigantic pool tale. A giant cobweb covered half the table, and as the pale light from the skylight trickled in, I thought I saw something scurry through the webbing. After an hour, I backed out of the billiards room and headed down another hall, then up another flight of stairs very steep and narrow. When I reached the landing, I was immediately impressed by all the beautiful wainscot oak, and garlands-like foliage and fruit, and the lovely old gilding work on the coats of arms and the organ pipes. Still, I felt a brooding sense of oppression. This was a dreadful night. I got another fright; for I heard something rustling outside in the passage. Now to be sure I thought I was done when someone whispered outside the door. I could not see anything. Then right down in the shadow under a buttress I made out what I shall say was two spots of red—a dull red it was—nothing like a lamp or a fire, but just so as you could pick them out of the black shadow. I turned my head to make sure of it, and then looked back into the shadow for those two red things, and they were gone, and for all I peered about and stared, there was not a sign of them. #RandolphHarris 2 of 7
With the physical powers drawn from the living, apparitions play and continue to exist in a World which they are no longer a part of. The presence lets you know it is its house and not yet yours, and the disturbances to attract your attention to make sure you realize that you are never really alone—those are the earmarks of the Llanada Villa, and if you are only a little bit psychic, sooner or later you will come in contact with the spirits. The spirits of the Llanada Villa are so complex that they involved both the living and the dead in a mutually entwining relationship that cannot exist one without the other, and to ever arbitrarily that which nature has evidently ordained somehow, would be as wrong as not heeding the cry for help from those who desperately want help and release. Man’s inhumanity to man has created countless remnants of tragic events that persist in the areas of their demise and even the walls are able to talk and tell posterity what has happened in them. Emotions cling to the surroundings forever. If you step into my home today, or a century from now, the vortex of feelings will still be here and you may relieve the moments as if the time in between had never passed. I have stared death in the eye many times, and I was not afraid. I listened hard and sure enough, it was coming to the door of the Daisy Bedroom. I gently slid out of bed and turned on the light, waiting. The host was just outside the door. I looked at the door knob, and it was being turned slowly. I did not panic, but nothing further was heard. Later that night when I awoke from a deep sleep with the fearful feeling that I was not alone in my room. In the semi-darkness my eyes fell upon the left side of the pillow where I distinguished the outline of a man. Finally I overcame my fears, and sat up in bed. #RandolphHarris 3 of 7
Before me stood my late husband, dressed in dark clothes, looking directly at me. Without saying a word, he left slowly and quietly. I heard the steps, but when he reached the stairs, he did not go down, but through a wall. Afterwards I went downstairs, and checked the doors, looked in closets, and there was no one there. Dense fog began wrap around me with a cold clammy embrace, so thick that I could not see where I was going. Doors started opening and closing by themselves and spectral figures could be seen flinting from room to room. As I made my way to the Crystal Bedroom, I saw a solider. He was dark and had a noose around the neck; the rope was cut and his face seemed almost luminous. Suddenly I found it hard to breathe. Something was gripping me by the throat. It I was lifted off the ground by an unseen force and was unable to move even so much as a finger! It felt as if someone were strangling me. It felt like man, because his hands were so big, and his breath smelled of decayed teeth. I tried to scream, but could not move my lips. I tried to see who it was, but could only see the cold, white mist. The pain shot through me, as I appeared to be floating in the air/ “Help me! Somebody, please save me!” I cried out. Moments later, I fell to the floor. Dizzy, and struggling to catch my breath, I tried to stand, but lost my balance and fell to my knees. Every part of my body felt battered and bruised. Then curious sounds seemed to overwhelm the mansion. There were voices everywhere, shouting and calling out words that I could not understand. And the whole time, there was the sound of heavy footsteps, pounding furiously against the floor. Then a deep, weird groaning filled my home. I was just able to see across the darkened room, dimly lit from a yellow glow of the lamps from outside. A cooling breeze drifted beside me. Echoes of angry shouting drifted down from the floors above. Horrified, I just stood there in the darkness. #RandolphHarris 4 of 7
It is a pleasant house. Often flooded with light. The afternoon sun poured through white lace curtains and sparkled beautiful colours in the stained-glass windows. The light gave a glow to the freshly polished wood floors, but frequently I hear strange raps at night, raps that did not come from the pipes or other natural sources. Whenever I heard those noises, I would simply turn to the wall and pretend I did not hear them. When one night I was awakened from deep sleep by the feeling of a presence in my room. I sat up in bed and looked out. There, right in front of my bed, was the kneeling figure of a man with extremely dark eyes in a place face. I rubbed my eyes and looked again, but the apparition was gone. Before long, I had accepted the phenomenon as simply a dream, but again I knew this was not so, and I was merely accommodating my sense of logic. However, who had the stranger been? My ears were growing sensitive to a preternatural and intolerable degree. The darkness always teemed with unexplained sound. I rose from my bed. As I sat by the fire, trying to gather my senses. I felt silly being so frightened. But again, I was disturbed when I heard clawing and scratching noises coming from the hallway. I was too afraid to move or turn on the light to see what was causing it. After what seemed to be hours, it stopped. The next morning, I found my precious Lincrusta-Walton wallpaper ripped to shreds and blood splattered on the walls. The plaster had claw marks in it, exposing the lath. My ornately carved Victorian chairs and several of the marble-topped tables were knocked over and laying on top of the oriental rugs. The carved rosewood settee had been completely destroyed. The servants were deeply concerned. However, they understood and fearfully accepted the situation when I told them what happened. The threatening aura of the house was scaring me, but I would not admit that to the servants. #RandolphHarris 5 of 7
January 13, 1889, the east wing was finally completed. I spent one night in the Mahogany Bedroom. The first night I was very, very frightened—hearing walking up and down the halls, and I was the only one in the house! There was a pervasive feeling of eeriness and a feeling that there was someone in the house. There were footsteps in the hall outside my bedroom door. I could hear the door knob turning, but I could not see through the misty vapour. Owls hooted and frogs croaked. Every rustle in the grass of leaves moving on the trees made me think of creatures of prey. The howl of a wolf made me envision ghosts and ghouls outside of my window. Shuttering with revulsion, I could not calm the restless apprehension bedeviling me. In the morning, the beckoning aroma of fresh coffee freed me from my thoughts. I went into the kitchen and filled a white coffee up, as I was adding cream and sugar, the kitchen door opened itself and closed itself, without anyone being visible. I carried the cup in to the morning room, when I noticed the front doors did the same thing—opened and closed themselves. The smell of damp Earth became overwhelming. Then, along with the footsteps I heard things being dragged upstairs in the Cupid Bedroom, heavy objects, it seemed. My heart stopped, and I questioned, “What is this? What is going on?” So I got up and went up there to look. However, I did not see anyone and nothing was disarranged. Wait. Something moved in the corner, almost hidden in the encroaching darkness. It was more dense fog. The fog started growing and encroaching upon the room. My heart started pounding hard. Frozen, I stood, watching in horror as the fog took on the form of a large woman with porcelain cerulean eyes, in a long dress. She looked directly into my eyes, and started to glid across the floor towards me. I was terribly frightened. But then I felt a warm, calming presence enveloping me. The apparition smiled and psychically communicated with me. Although she did not move her lips, I could hear her voice inside of my head. “Sarah, don’t fear me. As long as you stay here and continue to build, I will protect you.” Then, suddenly she disappeared. Early the next morning the golden dawn of dawn faded to a bright blue. #RandolphHarris 6 of 7
The next morning, I woke with a start and sat up in bed before I knew what had awakened me. The room was filled with the somber light of dawn, and I was astonished to see William standing near the foot of the bed. “William? What are you doing here? You are—” My voice broke off as though it had been cut by something sharp. It was not right, I realized. He was not right. I could see the curtains through him. A coldness grayer than the dawn seeped into my body, into my very bones, and I heard myself make an anguished sound when William seemed to reach out toward me, his handsome face tormented. “No,” I whispered. “Oh, no…” I reached my had out toward him, but even as I did so, he was gone. And I was alone in the stark down. As I made my way down stairs, I saw a man with auburn hair, and it was William. I stood frozen, and when our eyes met, I almost cried out. Then the door bell rang and I looked away. When I turned back around, William was gone. I stood there and rushed down the stairs, there was no sign of Willian. No. No, of course there was not. Because he is dead. Realizing that my legs were actually shaking, I took a seat. When the housemaids arrived, one of them asked, “Are you all right, Mrs. Winchester?” she returned with a steaming cup. “You look sort of upset.” “I am fine, my dear.” I managed a smile that I doubted was very reassuring, but it was enough to satisfy the young housemaid. Left along again, the housemaid went up into the attic to clean, taking Zip with her, while the other was preparing breakfast. Suddenly she dropped her cleaning supplies and screamed as if in pain. She said that Devil had grabbed her. And reported that there was a man, whose fingernails had been ripped off, eyes poked out, hung lifeless from his shackles, his buttocks had been removed, a stick was protruding from a gaping hole that had been drilled into the top of his skill, which had evidently been used to “stir” his brains. She also said that Zip was so frightened that he steadfastly refused to cross the threshold. However, upon inspection, I could find no evidence to substantiate these claims. #RandolphHarris 7 of 7
Not all of the Victorian ghosts live in the mansion. Some mysterious things have been seen in the gardens. Down Palm Lane, dancing lights are seen there at night. The flowers are sometimes seen shimmering. Do not believer such things can happen? Neither did two handymen employed at The Winchester Mystery House years ago. That changed when they swore that William Wirt Winchester’s regular stroll across the squeaky floors of the Daisy Bedroom ended when he climbed in the coffin. An amazing sight it must have been when one evening when Mr. Willliam Winchester clambered onto the verandah still mounted, pounded through the doorway, down the hall and through the wall. There are phantoms of several generations. Formal gardens enhance the grounds; stables were once filled with the swiftest horses, and elaborate dinner parties were helped for aristocracy. Come experience and admire the timeless beauty of centuries old architecture. Enjoy the antiques, the gardens and experience the homemaking of Victorian times. Enjoy a delicious meal in Sarah’s Café.
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 Hanging is Over—All that Remains is the Trial
One must delve into the sometimes-wicked minds of top management in Corporate America to understand the powerplay and politics in order to understand these executives. Whether you have always been one to see the best in this World or not, you will come to understand that every person may not be what they seem to be. If only to make them look better, many people are out not only to take something from you but to try to keep you down. These people try to make their evil deeds and use other to get in positions that they do not deserve. Many people in television news are being discredited by others for following the path of darkness. However, using negativity will only bring negativity upon you. It is possible to understand darkness without being part of it. Manipulation is the art of making people think they actually want to do or say something that they really do not. Using insidious tactics to turn a person’s mind around to benefit oneself is an unfair act that can leave a victim confused. Some people genuinely do not understand what made them say or do the thing they did. And all the while, the manipulator knows what they did wrong. Sometimes people say things that seem to support an individual to make the victim think on the terms they want them to. They try to seductively persuade a person to behave in a way that they usually would not or say things that they never would say. One might wonder how terrorist groups get any followers at all. When the people are able to conspire and use social engineering, they are able to assert themselves as authorities and use the threat of hell to keep their followers in line. #RandolphHarris 1 of 20
It is always in your best interest to know and understand when people are trying to subtly use coercion. When people know that you can see through them, they will leave you alone. However, often these manipulative individuals are part of groups of others like them and think they are too intellectual for anyone to recognize their evil intentions. People who display an unhealthy level of narcissism pretend to empathize with others, but they actually have no care or concern about you. Their belief is that this is their World, and everyone in it is their servant. Machiavellianism is the practice of deceptive manipulation. These confidence men and women want to use—exploit people to serve them and their missions. They often times have no moral character nor the mortality people are typically born with, or are taught as they develop. Psychopathy is one of the most important character traits people use to become successful and it is often an attribute of people in television news. These people can pretend to be the most charming people you have ever met. However, the charm is not always there; it is used as a lure to get the victim into the presence where the suspect will impose their will on the victim once they are in a compromising or unsafe situation. Once a suspect has control over their victims, they will do things without caring about the outcome, or who might get hurt in the process. This is due to their selfish nature. The suspect with feel no guilt, embarrassment, or remorseful for the victim because they do not care. Therefore, do not allow people to bait you. #RandolphHarris 2 of 20
People are often used, abused, and drained of all their emotional and financial resources because they are naïve or seeking love and these are traits monsters will take advantage of. Do not let someone ruin your World or the World of someone you love as the psychopath did in Tyler Perry’s film Acrimony. Do not become hard on yourself because you have fallen prey to a monster. However, do not seek revenge, it is best to accept that you have been taken advantage of and move on. Most everyone has fallen victim of some sort of crime in their lifetime. Learn from past mistakes. Know that in most cases people did not change. Everything happens for a reason. If you are naïve, then it is probably because you have a trusting nature and/or were brought up in a home and community where you did not see or experience a lot of evil. As an adult, it is important to watch for the signs that you are being victimized or manipulated. People you love and trust may even victimize for profit or to save themselves. When you are told or asked to do something you feel uncomfortable doing, unsafe doing, or that is not your responsibility to do, just say “No.” When questioned about why you will not do it, just say, “Because I do not want to.” If a person tries to convince or persuade you into making a bad decision, just let them know that you have to go. Say, “Goodbye.” It takes practice standing up for yourself, but it is better than ending up dead, losing something or someone you love, or going to prison. #RandolphHarris 3 of 20
Often times people will use love or loyalty to manipulate you. One way to respond to this is by saying, “I love your affection, but it is not something that you can use to control me.” When someone wants something from you, they will often lie. If you do not feel comfortable or do not want to, just let them know that you cannot get involved in that situation because it may be a violation of the law, your morals and/or ethics. Even if this person loves you, do not let them trap you into a situation because they may be trying to set you up after the fact. Be careful of people who withdraw from you and ignore you when you are not willing to do something you want. This is a tool they will use to manipulate you by telling you if you comply with you, they will give you the love they know you deserve. These manipulators want you to feel terrible for not complying with them. You have to remain strong and calm. Let them learn that they cannot manipulate you. A calm voice and reasonable response always helps to get someone’s attention. However, sometimes you just have to walk away from a situation. There are time when there is nothing you can do to escape the situation, so removing yourself from the equation may be the best thing to do. What holds true of groups holds true also of individuals. In ever person there is a potential of archaic forces which we have just discussed. Only the thoroughly “evil” and the thoroughly “good” no longer have a choice. Almost everybody can regress to the archaic orientation, or progress to the full progressive unfolding of one’s personality. In the first case we speak of the outbreak of severe mental illness; in the second case we speak of a spontaneous recovery from illness, or a transformation of the person into full awakening and maturing. #RandolphHarris 4 of 20
It is the task of psychiatry, psychoanalysis, and various spiritual disciplines to study the conditions under which the one or the other development occurs and, furthermore, to devise methods by which the favourable development can be furthered and the malignant development stopped. It is important for our problem to recognize that, aside from the extreme cases, each individual and each group of individuals can at any given point regress to the most irrational ad destructive orientations and also progress toward the enlightened and progressive orientation. Man is neither good nor evil. If one believes in the goodness of man as the only potentiality, one will be forced into rosy falsification of the fact, or end up in bitter disillusionment. If one believes in the other extreme, one will end up as a cynic and be blind to the many possibilities for good in others and in oneself. A realistic view sees both possibilities as real potentialities, and studies the conditions for the development of either of them. These considerations lead us to the problem of man’s freedom. Is man free to choose the good at any given moment, or has he no such freedom of choice because he is determined by forces inside and outside himself? A common opinion prevails that the juice has ages ago been pressed out of the free-will controversy, and no new champion can do more than warm up stale arguments which everyone has heard. #RandolphHarris 5 of 20
This is a radical mistake. I know of no subject less worn out, or in which incentive genius has a better chance of breaking open new ground—not, perhaps, of forcing a conclusion or of coercing assert, but of deepening our sense of what the issues between the two parties really is, and of what the ideas of fate and of free will really imply. Psychoanalytic experience may throw some new light on the question of freedom and thus permit us to see some new aspects. The traditional treatment of freedom has suffered from the lack of using empirical, psychological data, and thus has led to a tendency to discuss the problem in general and abstract terms. If we mean by freedom freedom of choice, then the question amounts to asking whether we are free to choose between, let us say, A and B. The determinists have said that we are not free, because man—like all other things in nature—is determined by causes; jut as a stone dropped in mid-air is not free not to fall, so man is compelled to choose A or B, because of motives determining him, forcing him, or causing him to choose A or B. determinism in this sense is to be distinguished from the kind of theory which is sometimes called “soft determinism” and according to which it is consistent to believe in determinism and in human freedom. While my position here is more akin to “soft” than “hard” determinism it is not that of the former either. The opponents of determinism claim the opposite; it is argued on religious grounds that God gave man the freedom to choose between good and evil—hence that man has this freedom. Second, it is argued that man is free since otherwise he could not be made responsible for his acts. #RandolphHarris 6 of 20
Third, it is argued, man has the subjective experience of being free, hence this consciousness of freedom is a proof of the existence of freedom. All three arguments seem unconvincing. The first requires belief in God, and a knowledge of His plans for man. The second seems to be born out of the wish to make man responsible so that he can be punished. The idea of punishment, which is part of most social systems in the past and in the present, is mainly based on what is (or is considered to be) a measure of protection for the minority of “haves” against the majority of “have nots,” and is a symbol of the punishing power of authority. If one wants to punish, one needs to have someone who is responsible. In this respect one is reminded of Mr. Shaw’s saying, “The hanging is over—all that remains is the trial.” The third argument, that the consciousness of freedom of choice proves that this freedom exists, was already thoroughly demolished by Mr. Spinoza and Mr. Leibniz. Mr. Spinoza pointed out that we have the illusion of freedom because we are aware of our desires, but unaware of their motivations. Mr. Leibniz also pointed out that the will is motivated by tendencies which are partly unconscious. It is surprising indeed, the most of the discussion after Mr. Spinoza and Mr. Leibniz has failed to recognize the fact that the problem of freedom of choice cannot be solved unless one considers that unconscious forces determine us, though leaving us with the happy conviction that our choice is a free one. However, aside from these specific objections, the arguments for the freedom of will seem to contradict everyday experience; whether this position is held by religious moralists, idealistic philosophers, or Marxist-leaning existentialists, it is at best a noble postulate, and yet perhaps not such a noble one, because it is deeply unfair to the individual. #RandolphHarris 7 of 20
Can one really claim that a man who has grown up in material and spiritual poverty, who has never experienced love or concern for anybody, whose body has been conditioned to drinking by years of alcoholic abuse, who has had no possibility of changing his circumstances—can claim that he is “free” to make his choice? Is not this position contrary to the facts; and is it not without compassion and, in the last analysis, a position which in the language of the twenty-first century reflects, like much of Sartre’s philosophy, the spirit of bourgeois individualism and egocentricity, a modern version of Max Stirner’s Der Einzige und sein Eigentum (The Unique One and His Property)? The opposite position, determinism, which postulates that man is not free to choose, that his decisions are at any given point caused and determined by external and internal events which have occurred before, appears at first glance more realistic and rational. Whether we apply determinism to social groups and classes or to individuals, have not Freudian and Marxist analysis shown how weak man is in his battle against determining instinctive and social forces? Has not psychoanalysis shown that a man who has never solved his dependency on his mother lacks the ability to act and to decide, that he feels weak and this is forced into an ever increasing dependency on mother figures, until he reached the point of no return? Does not Marxist analysis demonstrate that once a class—such as the lower middle class—has lost fortune, culture, and social function, its members lose hope and regress to archaic, necrophilic, and narcissistic orientations? #RandolphHarris 8 of 20
Yet neither Marx or Dr. Freud were determinists in the sense of believing in an irreversibility of causal determination. They both believed in the possibility that a course already initiated can be altered. They both saw this possibility of change rooted in man’s capacity for becoming aware of the forces which move him behind his back, so to speak—and thus enabling him to regain his freedom. Both were—like Spinoza, by whom Marx was influenced considerably—determinists and indeterminists, or neither determinists nor indeterminists. Both proposed that man is determined by the laws of cause and effect, but that by awareness and right action he can create and enlarge the realm of freedom. It is up to him to gain an optimum of freedom and to extricate himself from the chains of necessity. For Dr. Freud the awareness of the unconscious, for Marx the awareness of socioeconomic forces and class interest, were the conditions for liberation; for both, in addition to awareness, an active will and struggle were necessary conditions for liberation. Basically the same position is taken in classic Buddhism. Man is chained to the wheel of rebirth, yet he can liberate himself from this determinism by awareness of his existential situation and by walking along the eightfold path of right action. The Old Testament prophets’ position is similar. Man has the choice between “blessing and curse, life and death” but he may arrive at a point of no return if he hesitates too long in choosing life. Certainly every psychoanalyst has seen patients who have been able to reverse the trends which seemed to determine their lives, once they become aware of them and made a concentrated effort to regain their freedom. However, one need not be a psychoanalyst to have this experience. #RandolphHarris 9 of 20
Some of us have had the same experience with ourselves or with other people: the chain of alleged causality was broken and they took a course which seemed “miraculous” because it contradicted the most reasonable expectations that could have been formed on the basis of their past performance. The traditional discussion on freedom will has suffered not only from the fact that Spinoza’s and Leibniz’s discovery of unconscious motivation did not find its proper place. There are also other reasons which are responsible for the seeming futility of the discussion. Self-analysis is an attempt to be patient and analyst at the same time, and therefore it is desirable to discuss the tasks of each of these participants in the analytic process. It should be borne in mind, however, that process is not only the sum of the work done by the analyst and the work done by the patient, but is also a human relationship. The fact that there are two persons involved has considerable influence on the work done by each. There are three main tasks that confront the patient. Of these the first is to express himself as completely and frankly as possible. The second is to become aware of his unconscious driving forces and their influence on his life. And the third is to develop the capacity to change those attitudes that are disturbing his relations with himself and the World around him. Complete self-expression is achieved by means of free association. It was Dr. Freud’s ingenious discovery that free association, hitherto used only for psychological experiments could be utilized in therapy. #RandolphHarris 10 of 20
To associate freely means an endeavour on the part of the patient to express without reserve, and in sequence in which it emerges, everything that comes into one’s mind, regardless of whether it is or appears trivial, off the point, incoherent, irrational, indiscreet, tactless, embarrassing, humiliating. It may not be unnecessary to add that “everything” is meant literally. It includes not only fleeting and diffuse thoughts but also specific ideas and memories—incidents that have occurred since the last interview, memories of experiences at any period of life, thoughts about self and others, reactions to the analyst or the analytical situation, beliefs in regard to religion, morals, politics, art, wishes, and plans for the future, fantasies past and present, and, of course, dreams. It is particularly important that the patient express every feeling that emerges, such as fondness, hope, triumph, discouragement, relief, suspicion, anger, as well as every diffuse or specific thought. Of course the patient will have objections to voicing certain things, for one reason or another, but he should express these objections instead of using them to withhold the particular thought or feeling. Free association differs from our customary way of thinking or talking not only in its frankness and unreservedness, but also in its apparent lack of direction. In discussing a problem, talking about our plans for the weekend, explaining the value of merchandise to a customer, we are accustomed to stick fairly closely to the point. From the diverse current that pass through our minds we tend to select those elements for expression which are pertinent to the situation. Even when talking with our closest friends we select what to express and what to omit, even though we are not aware of it. #RandolphHarris 11 of 20
In free association, however, there is an effort to express everything that passes through the mind, regardless of where it may lead. Like many other human endeavours, free association can be used for constructive or for obstructive purposes. If the patient has an unambiguous determination to reveal himself to the analyst his associations will be meaningful and suggestive. If he has stringent interest not to face certain unconscious factors, his association will be unproductive. These interests may be so prevailing that the good sense of free association is turned into nonsense. What results then is a flight of meaningless ideas having merely a mock resemblance to their true purpose. Thus the value of free association depends entirely on the spirit in which it is done. If the spirit is one of utmost frankness and sincerity, of determination to face one’s own problems, and of willingness to open oneself to another human being, then the process can serve the purpose for which it is intended. In general terms this purpose is to enable both analyst and patient to understand how the latter’s mind works and thereby to understand eventually the structure of his personality. There are also specific issues, however, which can be cleared up by free associations—the meaning of an attack of anxiety, of a sudden fatigue, of a fantasy or a dream, why the patient’s mind goes blank at a certain point, why he has a sudden wave of resentment toward the analyst, why he was nauseated in the restaurant last night, was impotent with his wife, or was tongue-tied in a discussion. The patient will then try to see what occurs to him when he thinks about the specific issue. #RandolphHarris 12 of 20
To illustrate, a woman patient had a dream in which one element was a distress about something precious being stolen. I asked her what occurred to her in connection with this particular fragment of the dream. The first association that appeared was a memory of a maid who has stolen household goods over a period of two years; the patient had dimly suspected the maid, and she remembered the deep feeling of uneasiness she had before the final discovery. The second association was a memory of childhood fears of gypsies stealing children. The next was a mystery story in which jewels had been stolen from the crown of a saint. Then she remembered a remake she had overheard, to the effect that analysts are racketeers. Finally it occurred to her that something in the dream reminded her of the analyst’s office. The associations indicated beyond doubt that the dream was related to the analytical situation. The remark about analysts being racketeers suggested a concern about the fees, but this track proved to be misleading; she had always regarded the fees as reasonable and worthwhile. Was the dream a response to the preceding analytical hour? She did not believe that it could be, because she had left the office with a pronounced feeling of relief and gratitude. The substance of the precious analytical session was that she had recognized her periods of listlessness and inertia as a kind of subversive depression; that these periods had not appeared to her or others in this light because she had had no feelings of despondency; that actually she suffered more and was more vulnerable than she admitted to herself. #RandolphHarris 13 of 20
The woman also had often repressed hurt feelings because she felt compelled to play the role of an ideally strong character who could cope with everything. Her relief had been similar to that of a person who at great expense to himself has lived above his means all his life and now understands for the first time that such a bluff is not necessary. This relief, however, had not lasted. At any rate, it now struck her suddenly that after the session she had been quite irritable, that she had had a slight stomach upset and had been unable to fall asleep. The most important clue proved to be the association of the mystery story: I had stolen a jewel out of her crown. The striving to give herself and other the impression of outstanding strength had been a burden, to be sure, but it had also served several important functions: it gave her a feeling of pride, which she badly needed as long as her real self-confidence was shaken; and it was her most powerful defense against recognizing her existing vulnerability and the irrational trends accounting for it. Thus the role she was playing was actually precious to her, and our uncovering the fact that it was merely a role constituted a threat to which she had reacted with indignation. Free association would be entirely unfit as a method for making an astronomical calculation or for gaining clarity as to the means of a political situation. These tasks require sharp and concise reasoning. However, free association constitutes a thoroughly appropriate method—according to our present knowledge, the only method—for understanding the existence, importance, and meaning of unconscious feelings and strivings. #RandolphHarris 14 of 20
However, the value of free association for self-recognition: it does not work magic. It would be wrong to expect that as soon as rational control is released all that we are afraid of or despise in ourselves will be revealed. We may be fairly sure that no more will appear this way than we are able to stand. Only derivatives of the repressed feelings or drives will emerge, and as in dreams they will emerge in distorted form or in symbolic expression. Thus in the chain of associations mentioned above the saint was an expression of the patient’s unconscious aspirations. Of course, unexpected factors will sometimes appear in a dramatic fashion, but this will happen only after considerable previous work on the same subject has brought them close to the surface. Repressed feelings may appear in the form of a seemingly remote memory, as in the chain of association already described. There the patient’s anger at me for having injured her inflated notions about herself did not appear as such; only indirectly she told me that I was like a low criminal who violated holy tabus and robbed values precious to others. There is another aspect of the diagnostic problem that contributes to the great heterogeneity of psychotherapy patients and makes even more frustrating our almost complete lack of specific information as to what kinds of persons they are, what manner of conflict they experience, what symptoms they suffer, and what assets and abilities they manifest. We have noted ambiguities of formal diagnoses in past reports and certain subtle operations of social class membership which impair the consistency of neurotic diagnoses. These very ambiguities plus the effects of spontaneous intraclass empathy create a situation in which large number of patients in therapy are self-diagnosed “neurotics.” #RandolphHarris 15 of 20
Heterogeneity of patients in psychotherapy is increased by the absence of any adequate explicit treatment of the problem of identifying the individual who is not an appropriate candidate. This is not simply a question of prognostic differentiation. We do know some indictors from which we can predict whether psychotherapy is more or less likely to be effective with a particular neurotic. However, there is a general absence in our psychiatric and psychological texts and other professional literature of description of the quasi-neurotic, the person whose very real problem is nonetheless not neurotic and for whom psychotherapy as we ordinarily define it not an answer. We must ask if there are person who are in some way psychologically uncomfortable and maladjusted (or maladapted), who are neither psychotic nor neurotic, who would be likely to seek psychotherapeutic help, and for whom intensive psychotherapy is not indicated. The social worker knows better than the psychiatrist and psychologist the extremes of misery that the underprivileged members of our society must experience in the face of sheer physical deprivations and situational stresses. The mother who has inadequate clothing for her school-age children has a right to complain and to be depressed, but neither the fact of her complaint nor her depression makes her neurotic. The person with an alcoholic spouse is faced with a variety of torments and stresses; she deserves sympathy and counsel, but her need to evolve an adjustment to the very real problem of her chronically ill husband does not per se make her a neurotic. #RandolphHarris 16 of 20
The individual who has suffered through death the irremediable loss of a cherished companion has a painful emotional adjustment to make; it may require time and during that time he may show “symptoms” of despondency; he may need to seek emotional support, but neither his needing nor seeking is necessarily neurotic. The normal parents of a child with an intellectual disability will have emotional problems in their relations to each other and to their child; they may experience conflicts, insecurities, and frustrations; they will benefit from information and guidance, but they need not necessarily be candidates for intensive psychotherapy. These are but a few examples of very common situational stresses, with marked potential for normal emotional response and psychological discomfort. The persons suffering such stresses are very likely to respond to wise and restricted counsel. However, it is in the nature of the human personality to accept rather than reject offers of continued emotional support. If the counselor is more impressed with the symptoms of these unhappy persons than with the situation of stress which precipitate them, he can be induced to an inappropriately extended effort at psychotherapy of pseudoneuroses. Apart from the probable dissipation of time and skill needed in treatment of truly neurotic disorders, failure to give adequate attention to the circumstances underlying reactive emotional symptoms may result in failure to take steps to correct those reality factors. #RandolphHarris 17 of 20
Are there persons who suffer essentially from a failure to have learned “how to live” (without having learned necessarily a pattern of neurotic adjustment)? And, for such persons is the professional psychotherapist the best teacher? Yes and no. However, psychotherapists are generally not taught to recognize their own limitations or the possible existence of individuals who would seek their help without suffering a disturbance for which orthodox psychotherapy is in fact therapeutic. We lack detailed, thorough knowledge of what the persons who present themselves for psychotherapy are really like. We know best the more common symptoms for which they ask help. We do not know in any comprehensive way the patterning of the unsolved problems which generate their symptoms. We do not have basic information on the nature of the frustrated aspirations, the conflicts of impulse and inhibition, the particular stresses of daily reality, the confusion of goals or values, the particular frictions of their personal relationships that constitute the seedbed from which their symptoms flower. We do know that susceptibility to neurotic ruptures of personality is not limited by age, by gender, or by class membership. The apparent greater incidence of neuroses in the upper social classes is not likely to prove to stem from a greater constitutional susceptibility to anxiety, to conflict, or to depression. Rather, the social class differential in rate of neuroses appears directly related to the differences in extent and nature of education. The members of the upper social classes are more prone to self-examination, are more ready to label symptoms as “psychological,” are more accepting of the possibility of being “emotionally ill,” and are quicker to seek specialized professional help. #RandolphHarris 18 of 20
As a symptom, the depression of the upper-class executive is not clinically different from the depression of the lower-class housewife. Feelings of hopelessness, loss of interest, a general slowing up of mental processes and physical activity, and tendencies to withdraw from social commerce are common to the depression of both. And if the depressive symptoms are sufficiently severe, it may happen that both the executive and the housewife will receive comparable somatic treatment (drugs, or electroconvulsive therapy) aimed at alleviation of the depression. However, the problem is not depression. The problem is whatever has caused the depression, and the causes of depression in the executive are likely to be very different from the factors that have generated the same symptoms in the house wife. There is little concrete evidence to support either the notion that anxiety is more prevalent in contemporary culture than in earlier periods of man’s history or the idea that there are more powerful, more widespread, and more omnipresent sources of anxiety in modern life. If it appears that anxiety is “too much with us, late and soon,” this is largely an artifact of a culture which has given a name to the phenomenon, defined its presence as the equivalent of deep-seated psychopathology, and suggested that it is a public health menace which can and must be eradicated. The true World attainable for the wise, the pious, the virtuous man—he lives in it, he is it. (Oldest form of the idea, relatively intelligent, convincing. Circumlocution for the proposition “I, Plato, am the truth.”) #RandolphHarris 19 of 20
True World, unattainable for now, but promised to the wise, the pious, the virtuous (“for the sinner who repents”). (Progress of the idea: it becomes more subtle, more insidious, more elusive—it becomes woman, it becomes Christian…) The true World, unattainable, unprovable, unpromisable, and yet conceived as a consolation, an obligation, an imperative. (The old sun in the background but seen through mist and skepticism; the idea that has become sublime, pale, Nordic, Konign-bergian.) The true World—unattainable? In any case, unattained. And become unattained, also unknown. And consequently not consoling, redemptive, obligating: how could something unknow obligate us? (Gray morning. First yawn of reason. Cockcrow of positivism.) The “true World”—an idea that is no longer good for anything, no longer even obligating; an idea that has become useless, superfluous, consequently a refuted idea: let use dispense with it! (Broad daylight; breakfast, return of bon sens and cheerfulness; Plato’s blush; pandemonium of all free spirits.) We dispense with the true World: which World was left? The apparent one, perhaps? But no! With the true World we have also dispensed with the apparent one! (Midday; moment of the shortest shadow; end of the longest error; highpoint of mankind; INCIPIT ZARATHUSTRA.) I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stand, one nation, under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. The Sacramento Fire Department should be celebrated for their endurance, sacrifice, courage, and compassion that is characterized by their truly heroic deeds. To help them to continue to make brave choices every day, please make a donation to ensure that they have all of their resources and provide hope and show appreciation. #RandolphHarris 20 of 20
The Winchester Mystery House
Mrs. Winchester went out into the hall one evening; to her surprise she discovered that all of the pictures had been taken from the walls of the staircase and had been deposited face down on the floor of the hallways itself. Walking sticks were seen to move. An emerald and gold ring was found outside the door of the bathroom. It belonged to no one in the house, but its hallmark showed it to have been made in Germany in 1743. The ring was gone the following day, and the house had become an echo chamber for the sounds of footsteps and doors slamming. On January 3, 1888, “The light was clear,” Mrs. Winchester wrote. “The footsteps continued, but there was no one near. I sensed someone passing me, there was a chilliness in the air, and I felt a slight pressure. Whatever it was, I knew and felt that it was essentially evil. I also knew that I resented in some way hearing and not seeing. I then heard the sound of a key in the lock, then the creak of the door hinges as the door opened. I heard the door close. A few seconds later I heard soft notes and chords from the organ in the Grand Ball Room.”
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/
This is a Journey Not Meant for the Faint of Heart
Welcome to The Winchester Mystery House. If you choose to visit, you will find out things you never knew existed. This is a journey not meant for the faint of heart. Secrets of darkness will be revealed, some of which you may leave you baffled. You may even find out what lies behind the eyes of what seem to be innocent people. This labyrinth represents a journey. A pilgrimage of change, growth, discovery, movement, transformation. This house was continuously expanding Mrs. Winchester’s vision of what is possible by stretching her soul, as she was learning to see clearly and deeply. Listening to her intuition and taking courageous architectural challenges at every step along the way, whether it be on easy riser or stains to the ceiling. Mrs. Winchester knew she was on the right path, exactly where she wanted to be. Moving forward as each turret rose and dormer was crowned, and the house expanded nine stories, shaping Llanada Villa into a magnificent legend of triumph, healing, courage, mystery, beauty, and power. This fortress is an ancient symbol that represents union with the eternal. The hallways create an illusion of walking in circles, yet never passing by the same room more than once. It is believed that the miles and long and twisting hall in The Winchester Mystery House were used as pathways of prayer and meditation. Llanada Villa is a metaphour of Mrs. Winchester’s journey. This house is a living memorial, a sacred space; it is a puzzle that allows each and every one of us to solve the enigma of Mrs. Winchester. However, once you enter, there is no way out. #RandolphHarris 1 of 4
To understand The Winchester Mystery House one needs intuition, creativity, and imagery. If you do not get lost along the way, as some have disappeared into the fabric of this home, this is a journey to the center of the Victorian Ear and then back out into the modern World. The archetype has symbols incorporated into the architecture and floors of this gothic pilgrimage which date back centuries. Perhaps the most impressive features are the steeply pitched roofs, the plush gardens, or ornate hand craved wood details. The nine-story tower, which was removed in 1906, was said to reach 328 feet into the style. The Winchester Mystery House is also just as famous for its several stained glass windows and one of the double hung wooden windows. These remarkable windows, the most complete collection of ancient stained-glass windows in America, are particularly celebrated for their vibrant colours. Many of the stained-glass windows remain in position, but some were removed and kept sage in an onsite museum. If the pilgrims were seeking redemption, they would often crawl along the route to the Witches Cap, or go to the height of the nine-story tower for repentance, or as an attempt to be closer to God. In some cases, walking the labyrinth would symbolize an actual pilgrimage of the Holy Land known as America, and came to be known as the “Chemin de New World,” or road of the New World. The wings of the Winchester Mansion and nonstop construction have a deep symbolic meaning, including representing the six days of Creation, the Holy Spirit, or simply enlightenment. #RandolphHarris 2 of 4
One of the most unusual names attached to the Winchester Mansion is “Llanda Villa,” which means small village. No matter how forbidding some of the dark places in the house are, people have used labyrinths throughout history—often surprisingly, to stay safe. In 1923, a man knocking down a wall inside The Winchester Mystery House made an amazing find. He discovered a human unexplored area of the mansion—that had been forgotten for decades. There was a long hallways and secrets rooms where some suspected Mrs. Winchester would go for solitude. There were also kitchens, storage rooms, and even schools and séance rooms. Thick stone doors were used to seal off the entrance to some of the rooms. In this sprawling mansion are several miles of passage ways, galleries, and chambers. One of the most amazing chambers is the Blue Séance Room, which has been a place of worship since about 1896. It was once lit by a huge chandelier made with glass-like crystals, and had an altar, statues, and detailed cloth sheets with architectural details on them. The Winchester Mystery House is hauntingly beautiful. After the death of Mrs. Winchester, the movers wondered would the prevail against encroaching malevolence, as some were entangled in the inescapable clutches of shadows. The people of the town spread rumours about an evil presence that was said to be hiding within the shadows of the basement. They spoke of lost and vengeful souls who were tormented by their past. There are secret passages in the walls, honeycombing the mansion, making it a kind of parallel universe within. To this day, something lives in the basement and in the attics, there are strange apparitions. #RandolphHarris 3 of 4
Within the framework of this medieval teratology, there is an “otherness.” Many have traversed an upward or downward path, with monsters becoming either saintly, angelic beings, or animals and demons. Sometimes these entities are reabsorbed into the into the soul of the house in a blink of an eye. Although there have been intrusive forensic investigations of the house, the growing mystery of what lies behind the walls and beneath the floors is still unknown. The ghosts are indifferent to material barriers; they can pass through solid objects and manifest themselves in defiance of dimensional logic. This house is a border between life and death. An entire unknown World exists. The door-to-nowhere is at times closed, bolted, pad-locked. At others, it is open, that is to say wide open. The walls, ceilings, and floors are home to the invisible but audible lives that are carried on beyond them and can evoke some of the familiar moods of the vast castles and monasteries of the Gothic romance. The “roar” that can be heard in the house must be the scream of a spirit as it was torn from its body. It represents the terror, the crisis, the pain, and individual suffering the spirits that call this house home live with. On 16 January 2024, a caretaker was walking along the upstairs landing in the afternoon when he heard footsteps behind him; he turned and saw the figure of a man that promptly disappeared. He saw the same man on other occasions; he was wearing an old fashion suit and cowboy hat and was carrying a shotgun. Later, on seeing photographs he realized it was Oliver Winchester. Objects often disappear, and reappear in other places. Most curiously of all, books appear out of nowhere. One evening a caretaker found a collection of books stacked at the top of the stairs to the ceiling. These books were of some age, and were of a historical nature. #RandolphHarris 4 of 4
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/
Is Man Nothing but a Social Ensemble in which He Lives?
The wise and good dead men who have left their examples for imitation or their words for germination, and any living men whom we have heard, met, or read about—all these are our spiritual guides; if we only make them so, all these can become our masters. However, is man good or evil? Is he free or is he determined by circumstances? Or are these alternatives wrong and is man neither this not that—or is he both this and that? Can one speak of the essence or nature of man, and if sone, how can it be defined? One view point says that there is no such thing as an essence of man; this viewpoint is held by anthropological relativism, which claims that man is nothing but the product of cultural patterns which mold him. On the other hand, the empirical discussion on destructiveness is rooted in the view held by Dr. Freud and many others that there is such a thing as the nature of man; in fact, all dynamic psychology is based on this premise. The difficulty in finding a satisfactory definition for the nature of man lies in the following dilemma: If one assumes a certain substance as constituting the essence of man, one is forced into a nonevolutionary, unhistorical position which implies that there has been no basic change in man since the very beginning of his emergence. Such a view is difficult to square with the fact that there is a tremendous difference to be found between our most undeveloped ancestors and civilized man as he appears in the last four to six thousand years of history. #RandolphHarris 1 of 18
On the other hand, if one accepts an evolutionary concept and thus believes that man is constantly changing, what is left as a content for an alleged “nature” or “essence” of man? This dilemma is also not solved by such “definitions” of man as that he is a political animal (Aristotle), an animal that can promise (Nietzsche), or an animal that produces with foresight and imagination (Marx); these definitions express essential qualities of man, but they do not refer to the essence of man. The essence of man is not a given quality or substance, but is rather a contradiction inherent in human existence. This contradiction is to be found in two set of facts: Man is an animal, yet his instinctual equipment, in comparison with that of all other animals, is incomplete and not sufficient to ensure his survival unless he produces the means to satisfy his material needs and develop speech and tools. Man has intelligence, like other animals, which permits him to use thought processes for the attainment of immediate, practical aims; but man has another mental quality which the animal lacks. He is aware of himself, of his past and of his future, which is death; of his smallness and powerlessness; he is aware of others as others—as friends, enemies, or as strangers. Man transcends all other life because he is, for the first time, life aware of itself. Man is in nature, subject to its dictates and accidents, yet he transcends nature because he lacks the unawareness which makes the animal a part of nature—as one with it. #RandolphHarris 2 of 18
Man is confronted with the frightening conflict of being the prisoner of nature, yet being free in his thoughts; being a part of nature, and yet to be as it were a freak of nature; being neither here nor there. Human self-awareness has made man a stranger in the World, separate, lonely, and frightened. This is essentially the same as the classic view that man is both body and soul, angel and animal, that he belongs to two Worlds in conflict with each other. However, it is not enough to see this conflict as the essence of man, that is to say, as that by virtue of which man is man. It is necessary to go beyond this description and to recognize that the very conflict in man demands a solution. Certain questions arise immediately from the statement of the conflict: What can man do to cope with this fright inherent in his existence? What can man do to find a harmony to liberate him from the torture of aloneness, and to permit him to be at home in the World, to find a sense of unity? There is one condition which every answer must fulfill: it must help man to overcome the sense of separateness and to gain a sense of union, of oneness, of belonging. Therefore, keep in mind that the various forms of human existence are not the essence, but they are the answers to the conflict which, in itself, is the essence. The regressive answer demonstrates that if man wants to find unity, if he wants to be freed from the fright of loneliness and uncertainty, he can try to return to where he came from—to nature, to animal life, or to his ancestors. #RandolphHarris 3 of 18
Man can try to do away with that which makes him human and yet tortures him: his reason and self-awareness. It seems that for hundreds of thousands of year man tried just that. The history of primitive religions is a witness to this attempt, and so is severe psychopathy ology in the individual. In one form or another both in primitive religions and in individual psychology, we find the same severe pathology: regression to animal existence, to the state of pre-individuation, the attempt to do away with that which is specifically human. However, if regressive archaic trends are shared by many, we have the picture of a folie a millions; the very fact of the consensus makes the folly appear as wisdom, the fiction as real. The individual who participates in this common folly lacks the sense of complete isolation and separation, and hence escapes the intense anxiety he would experiences in a progressive society. It must be remembered that for most people reason and reality are nothing but public consensus. One never “loses one’s mind” when nobody else’s mind differs from one’s own. The alternative to the regressive, archaic solution to the problem of human existence, to the burden of being man, is the progressive solution, that of finding a new harmony not by regression but by the full development of all human forces, of the humanity within oneself. The progressive solution was visualized for the first time in a radical form (there are many religions which form the transition between the archaic regressive and humanist religions) in that remarkable period of human history between 1500 B.C. and 500 B.C. #RandolphHarris 4 of 18
It appeared in Egypt around 1350 B.C. in the teachings of Ikhnaton, with the Hebrews around the same time in the teachings of Moses; around 600 to 500 B.C. the same idea was announced by Lao-Tse in China, by Buddha in India, by Zarathustra in Persia, and by the philosophers in Greece as well as by prophets in Israel. The new goal of man, that of becoming fully human and thus regaining his lost harmony was expressed in different concepts and symbols. For Ikhnaton the goal was symbolized by the Sun; for Moses by the unknown God of history; Lao-Tse called the goal Tao (the way); Buddha symbolized it as Nirvanah; the Greek philosophers as the unmoved mover; the Persians as Zarathustra; the prophets as the Messianic “end of days.” These concepts were to a large extent determined by the modes of thought, and in the last analysis by the practice of life and the socioeconomic-political structure of each of these cultures. However, while the particular form in which the new goal was expressed depended on various historical circumstances, the goal was essentially the same: to solve the problem of human existence by giving the right answer to the question which life poses it, that of man’s becoming fully human and thus losing the terror of separateness. When Christianity and Islam, five hundred and one thousand years later, respectively, carried the same idea to Europe and the Mediterranean countries, a large part of the World had learned the new message. #RandolphHarris 5 of 18
However, as soon as man had heard the message he began to falsify it; instead of becoming fully human himself, he idolized God and dogmas as manifestations of the “new goal,” thus substituting a figure or a word for the reality of his own experience. And yet again and again man tried also to return to the authentic aim; such attempts manifested themselves within religion, in heretic sects, in new philosophical thoughts and political philosophies. Different as the thought concepts of all these new religions and movements are, they have in common the idea of the basic alternative of man. Man can choose only between two possibilities: to regress or to move forward. He can either return to an archaic, pathogenic solution, or he can progress toward, and develop, his humanity. We find the formulation of this alternative in various ways; as the alternative between light and darkness (Persia); between blessing and curse, life and death (the Old Testament); or the socialist formulation of the alternative between socialism and barbarism. The same alternative is presented not only by the various humanist religions, but it appears also as the basic difference between mental health and mental illness. What we call a healthy person depends on the general frame of reference of a given culture. With the Teutonic Berserks a “health” man would have been one who was capable of acting like a wild animal. The same man would be a psychotic today. #RandolphHarris 6 of 18
All archaic forms of mental experience—necrophilia, extreme narcissism, incestuous symbiosis—which in one form or the other have constituted the “normal” or even the “ideal” in regressive-archaic cultures because men were united by their common archaic strivings are today designated as severe forms of mental pathology. In a less intense form, when opposed by contrary forces, these archaic forces are repressed, and the result of this repression is a “neurosis.” The essential difference between the archaic orientation in a regressive and in a progressive culture, respectively, lies in the fact that the archaically oriented person in an archaic culture does not feel isolated but, on the contrary, is supported by the common consensus, while the opposite is true for the same person in a progressive culture. He “loses his mind” because his mind is in opposition to that of all others. The fact is that even in a progressive culture such as today’s, a large number of its members have regressive tendencies of considerable strength, but they are repressed in the normal course of life and become manifest only under special conditions, such as war. Therefore, the nature or essence of man is not a specific substance, like good or evil, but a contradiction which is rooted in the very conditions of human existence. This conflict in itself requires a solution, and basically there are only the regressive or the progressive solutions. What has sometimes appeared as an innate drive for progress in man is nothing other than the dynamics of a search for new solutions. #RandolphHarris 7 of 18
At any new level man has reached new contradictions appear which force him to go on with the task of finding new solutions. This process goes on until he has reached the final goal of becoming fully human and being in complete union with the World. Whether man can each his final goal of full “awakening” in which greed and conflict have disappeared (as Buddhism teaches) or whether this is possible only after death (according to the Christian teaching) is not our concern here. What matters is that in all humanist religions and philosophical teachings, the “New Goal” is the same, and man lives by the faith that he can achieve an ever increasing approximation to it. (On the other hand, if solutions are sought for in a regressive way, man will be bound to seek for complete dehumanization which is the equivalent of madness.) If the essence of man is neither good nor the evil, neither love nor hate, but a contradiction which demands the search for new solutions which, in turn, create new contradictions, then indeed man can answer his dilemma, either in a regressive or in a progressive way. Recent history gives us many examples of this. Millions of Germans, especially those of the less affluent class, who has lost money and social status reverted under the leadership of Mr. Hitler to the Teutonic ancestors’ cult of “going berserk.” The same happened in the case of the Russians under Mr. Stalin, with the Japanese during the “rape” of Nanking, with the lynch mobs in the American South and with renegade during the 2020s. #RandolphHarris 8 of 18
For the majority the archaic form of experience is always a real possibility; it can emerge. However, it is necessary to distinguish between two forms of emergence. One is when the archaic impulses remained very strong but were repressed because they were contrary to the culture patterns of a given civilization; it this case specific circumstances such as war, natural catastrophes, or social disintegration can easily open channels, permitting the repressed archaic impulses to surge forward. The other possibility is when in the development of a person, or of the members of a group, the progressive stage had really been reached and solidified; in this case traumatic incidents like those mentioned above will not easily produce a return of the archaic impulses, because these had been not so much repressed as replaced; nevertheless even in this case the archaic potential has not entirely disappeared; under extraordinary circumstances such as prolonged imprisonment in concentration camps, or certain chemical processes in the body, the entire psychic system of a person may break down and the archaic forces may surge forward with renewed strength. There are, of course, innumerable shadings between the two extremes—the archaic, repressed impulses, on the one hand, and their full replacement by the progressive orientation, on the other. The proportion will be difficult in each person, and also the degree of repression versus the degree of awareness of the archaic orientation. #RandolphHarris 9 of 18
There are people in whom the archaic side has been so completely eliminated, not by repression but by the development of the progressive orientation, that they may have lost the capability of even regressing to it. In the same way there are persons who have so completely destroyed all possibilities for the development of a progressive orientation that they too have lost the freedom of choice—in this case, the choice to progress. It goes without saying that the general spirit of a given society will influence to a large extent the development of the two sides in each individual. Yet, even here individuals can differ greatly from the social patter of orientation. There are millions of archaically oriented individuals in modern society who consciously believe in the doctrines of Christianity or Enlightenment, yet who behind this façade are “berserks,” necrophiles, or worshipers of Baal or Astarte. They do not even necessarily experience any conflict, because the progressive ideas they think have no weight, and they act upon their archaic impulses only in hidden or veiled forms. On the other hand, many times there have been in archaic cultures individuals who have developed a progressive orientation; they become the leaders who under certain circumstances brought light to the majority of their group, and who laid the basis for a gradual change of the entire society. When these individuals were of unusual stature, and when traces of their teachings remained, they were called prophets, master, or some such name. #RandolphHarris 10 of 18
Without them mankind would never have moved from the darkness of the archaic state. Yet they have been able to influence man only because in the evolution of work man liberated himself gradually from the unknown forces of nature, developed his reason and objectivity, ceased to live like an animal of prey or of burden. The wisdom is latent in the bad as well as the good man. Any moral condition is a starting point. There is hope for all, benediction for the poor and the rich, the good and the bad, for every man to come into this great light. Yet, we can only proceed by trial and error. In self-analysis it may be that there is less temptation to tackle a factor prematurely, because the person will intuitively shirk a problem that one is not yet able to face. However, if one does notice, after grappling with a problem for some time, that one is not getting any nearer to a solution, one should remember that one may not yet be ready to work at it and that perhaps he better leave it alone for the time being. And he need not be discouraged at this turn of events, for every often even a premature attack provides a significant lead for further work. It need hardly be emphasized, however, that there may be other reasons why a solution that presents itself is not accepted, and he should not resort too quickly to the assumption that it is merely premature. And information of the kind is helpful not only in forestalling unnecessary discouragement but also in more beneficial ways, for it helps one to integrate and understand peculiarities which otherwise would remain disconnected observations. #RandolphHarris 11 of 18
A person may realize, for example, that he finds difficulties in asking for anything, from inquiring the right way on a motor trip to consulting a doctor for an illness, that he conceals his going to analysis as if it were a disgrace, a despicable easy road, because he feels he should be able to deal with his problems all by himself, that he becomes irritated if anyone shows him sympathy or offers advice and feels humiliate if he must accept help; and is he has some knowledge of neurotic trends the possibility will occur to him that all these reactions emanate from an underlying trend toward compulsive self-sufficiency. Naturally, there is no guarantee that the surmise is right. The assumption that one is generally weary of people might explain some of his reactions, though it would not account for the feeling of hurt pride that arises on some occasions. Any surmise must be made tentatively and kept in abeyance until one has plenty of evidence for its validity. Even then one must ascertain over and over again whether the assumption really covers the ground or is only partially valid. Naturally, one can never expect that one trend will explain everything: one must remember that there will be countercurrents. All one can reasonably expect is that the trend surmised represents one of the compelling forces in his life and therefore must reveal itself in a consistent pattern of reactions. His knowledge will be of beneficial help also after he has recognized a neurotic trend. #RandolphHarris 12 of 18
An understanding of the therapeutic importance of discovering the various manifestations and consequences of a trend will help him to focus attention deliberately on these instead of getting lost in a frantic search for the reasons of its power, most of which can be understood only later on. Such an understanding will be particularly valuable in directing his thoughts toward a gradual recognition o the price paid for the pursuit of the trend. In regard to the conflicts the practical value of psychological knowledge lies in the fact that it prevents the individual from merely shuttling to and fro between disparate attitudes. Clare, for instance, at the time when she analyzed herself, lost considerable time shuttling between a tendency to put all blame on others and a tendency to put all the bale on herself. Thus she became confused because she wanted to solve the question which of these contradictory tendencies she really had, or at least which was prevailing. Acutally, both were present and emerged from contradictory neurotic trends. The tendency to find fault with herself and to recoil from accusing others was one of the results of her compulsive modesty. The tendency to put the blame on others resulted from her need to feel superior, which made it intolerable for her to recognize any shortcomings of her own. If at this time she had thought of the possibility of conflicting trends, arising from conflicting sources, she might have grasped the process a good deal earlier. #RandolphHarris 13 of 18
From a major research investigation into the relationship between social class membership and mental illness, we have some information as to how the forms of neurotic disturbances under active treatment by psychiatrists are distributed in terms of social classification. Every thoughtful person with a serious interest in mental illness and its treatment should have direct and thorough knowledge of the major report of this study. Investigators developed an index for determining the social class membership of an individual. This index is based on a summation of weighted ratings of education, occupation, and place of residence, and provides a five-step hierarchy of social class. Class I, the highest social class, is composed of individuals who have had post-graduate professional education, who are executive of large concerns and engaged in one of the major professions, and whose home is located in the very finest residential area of their community. By contrast, members of the lowest social class, Class V, have had less than seven years of formal schooling, are unskilled workers, and occupy the poorest residential area of the community. While the population sampled was restricted to the greater New Havnen (Connecticut) community, there is no reason to believe that the findings would not hold true for comparable metropolitan areas. This study resulted in three major findings: there is a significant relationship between the over-all prevalence or rate of mental illness and social class; the types of mental illness are significantly related to social class; and for a given type of illness, exempli gratia neuroses, the form of treatment received by patients is significantly related to their social class. #RandolphHarris 14 of 18
Antisocial and immaturity are mostly found among Class IV people, they account for more than of the patients in each class. Their illness is characterized by unapproved and intolerable behaviour with minimal or no overt sense of distress to the patient. It is a moot point whether antisocial reactions should be group with the neuroses. This diagnostic label [character neurosis] is used to describe patients who do not belong in one of the specific reaction types classified in the scheme. They exhibit mixed symptoms as well as relatively mild character and, to a lesser extent, some behaviour disturbances. It is notable that the “borderline” and vague diagnosis of antisocial and immaturity reaction does not reveal an orderly difference in frequency in the different social classes. The middle and lowest classes (III and V) show many more diagnoses of antisocial reaction than do the highest classes (I-II). By contrast, the nonstandard diagnosis of character neurosis is the most frequent diagnosis of patients from the two highest social classes, with its frequency in the lowest class (V) being less than half that in the two highest classes (I-II). It is important to recognize that these variations in diagnostic frequency probably reflect the attitudes of the diagnostician (arising from ways of perceiving himself and others that are a function of his own social class membership) as much as the objective facts of the patients’ behaviours. #RandolphHarris 15 of 18
We take the position that a neurosis is a state of mind not only of the sufferer, but also of the therapists, and it appears likewise to be connected to the class positions of the therapist and the patient. Within the more orthodox neurotic diagnosis, only two, namely obsessive-compulsive reactions and hysterical reactions, show a distinctly different, nonoverlapping frequency of occurrence in the highest and lowest social classes. The differences among the social classes in the distribution of the various neurotic diagnoses are certainly less striking than the differences between the frequency of neurosis versus psychosis in the five levels of social stratification. Only in the two highest social classes does the base rate of neurosis exceed that of psychosis. For all lower social classes there is an excessive rate of psychoses over neuroses, and the excess is progressively larger for each consecutively lower social class. Thus, for a member of the lowest social class of whom nothing else is determined except that he is in need of psychiatric treatment the probability that he will be diagnosed as psychotic is essentially seven times as great as the probability of a neurotic diagnosis. For a psychiatric “candidate” from the highest social class, the odds are 2 to 1 that he will be given a neurotic diagnosis. However, the psychological equipment required for the development of a neurosis is a biologically common property of most persons. The same assertion might be made with respect to psychosis. However, there are studies that suggest that certain forms of psychosis, notably schizophrenia, have a special genetic factor as a necessary (but no sufficient) etiologic contributor to the illness; such a factor appears, fortunately, not to be general in the population. #RandolphHarris 16 of 18
Stress, while it may vary in content or source, is not limited by class boundaries nor can it be readily established that it is greater at one social class level than another. Anxiety is experienced by most persons on occasion regardless of their class membership. This raises a serious question as to whether the class differences in diagnostic frequencies are directly reflective of differences in basic symptomatology or may not be more reflective of differences in the “diagnostic habits” of the clinician. One of the most ubiquitous of such habits is his more ready identification with and acceptance of the individual of his own class, the less understanding and more ready rejection of the person from a lower-class matrix. In this regard, psychotherapists are members of the upper social classes. The person from an upper social class, regardless of symptomatology, tends in general to manifest many features which make him a more attractive candidate for psychotherapy. These beneficial attributes for therapy include good education, superior general intelligence (including the ability to communicate effectively at a level of discourse which is natural and comfortable for the therapist), and an ability to pay well for his treatment. Add to this the fact that psychotherapy is generally considered to be the therapy of choice for neurosis. Then, when confronted by a prospective patient from the upper social classes, the potential psychotherapist is subtly constrained to see the patient’s illness as neurotic rather than psychotic, even if this requires forcing the diagnosis into an ambiguous category of “character neurosis.” #RandolphHarris 17 of 18
Problem: why the notion of the other World has always been to the disadvantage of “this” World, a criticism of it—what does that indicate? A people proud of itself, a people in the ascendency of life, always thinks of being other as being lower, being worthless; it regards the strange, the unknown World as its enemy, as its opposite; it is without curiosity, wholly dismissive of the strange…A people would never admit that another people were the “true people”….That such a distinction is possible at all—that one takes this World for the “apparent” one and that one for the “true”—is symptomatic. The points of origin of the idea of an “other World”: the philosopher, who invents a World of reason where reason and logical operations are adequate: this is the source of the “true” World; the religious man, who invests a “divine World”: this is the source of the “denaturalized, counternatural” World; the moral man, who feigns a “free World”: this is the source of the “good, perfect, just, holy” World. What is common to the three points of origin: the psychological blunder, psychological confusions. The “other World,” as it actually appears in history, defined by what predicates? By the stigmata of philosophical, religious, moral prejudice. The “other World,” as it is illuminated by these facts, as a synonym of nonbeing, of not living, of not wanting to live…General insight: the instinct of a weariness of life, not the that of life, is what created the “other World.” Implication: philosophy, religion, and morality the symptoms of decadence. We have art lest we perish of the truth. #RandolphHarris 18 of 18
For many years The Winchester Mystery House has had the reputation of being “the most haunted house in the World.” It has been the subject of several books and innumerable articles, some of which can be said to be conclusive. During the Victorian Era, there were peculiar incidents and sightings confirming the overwhelming feeling that this was a “bizarre” house. Mrs. Winchester and her niece Daisy were returning from a garden party one June afternoon; when they entered the garden of the house, both of them saw a figure of a nun walking slowly on the other side of the lawn. This nun had been often seen at dusk or at twilight, but not before on a bright afternoon. The family had already been intrigued by the phenomenon. The specter of the nun was supposed to walk along a path that skirted the lawn of the estate, soon becoming known and the Ghost’s Crossing, and in fact Mrs. Winchester constructed a summerhouse on the other side of the lawn so that guests could wait and watch for the dark figure. One of the windows in the dining room, overlooking the garden, was bricked up so that Mrs. Winchester would not be disturbed at her meals.
However, there were frequent episodes of intense activity. There were footsteps, tappings and spectral appearances. Diasy was woken up at night by the sound of screws hitting the floor. Mrs. Winchester was so aware of strange sounds within the mansion itself, in particular, odd knockings that seemed to approach the door-to-nowhere, enter the mansion, and then work their way around its walls. On one occasion a group of servants distinctly heard footsteps coming from outside of the door-to-nowhere. When Mrs. Winchester arrived a few moments later, the door was closed and locked. On numerous occasions, in the room where the door-to-nowhere is located, they heard the sounds of “slow dragging footsteps.” However, the door was unaccountably locked from the inside. The annunciator in the house would ring unexpectedly, and for no reason; lights were seen burning in empty and unlocked rooms. Heavy wooden shutters were pulled sharply together. The mirror on Mrs. Winchester’s dressing table would begin tapping whenever she came close to it.
On one occasion, Mr. Hansen was crossing the hallway on the fourth floor, when he heard what he described as “whisperings” above his head, which were quickly followed by “mutterings.” He declared that it was a woman’s voice; he could not make out any of the words expect for a clearly enunciated, “Tell Mrs. Winchester.” One maidservant from Germany left after only two days of employment, asserting that she had seen a demon; her successor knowing nothing of the precious maid’s experience. The most puzzle aspects of their experience were writings on the walls. Scrawled messages appeared in blood, without warning, asking “Mrs. Winchester” for “help.” The longest of them was found on the floor in the room of the door-to-nowhere, “Exorcists. Demons here.” Some of these appeared even as the wall was being investigated by other witnesses. The jagged nature of the writing suggests that it was done with difficulty but urgently and almost impatiently; the letters begin firmly but then trail off, as if the apparition had weakened or been interrupted. Their appearance has never been explained.
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Today We Begin the Harrowing Story
I have many beautiful art glass windows in my house, but the most expensive in the house was specially designed for me by Tiffany’s of New York. I originally installed it in an outside wall, but later added a series of rooms that blocked off all direct sunlight. There is a peculiar apparition that is seen in the window itself. The form seen is that of a figure dressed in white walking across the window. At first there was only one figure, and then thirteen appeared. The figures began to move across the window long before the carpenters noticed them. They did so as many as twenty or thirty times a day, and would stop shortly after noon. Of the three figures, one was a man, stone was a woman, and one was a child. the man was an average commonplace British tradesman, obese, pompous, and slow. He wore rather baggy gray shepherd’s-check trousers, not over-clean black frock coat, unbuttoned in the front, and a drab waistcoat with a heavy brassy Albert chain, and a square pierced bit of metal dangling down as an ornament. A frayed top hat and a faded brown overcoat with a wrinkled velvet collar. Altogether, look as I would, there was nothing remarkable about the man save his blazing red head and the expression of extreme chagrin and discontent upon his features. The woman was very distinct in appearance. She was tall and very graceful. The two-year-old boy showed signs of disturbed behaviour, laughed hysterically and talked of “funny drinks.” The order of the apparitions in the window had a slight variation: the mother came alone from the northside of the window, and having gone about halfway across, she would stop, turn around, and wave her arms towards the quarter whence she had come. #RandolphHarris 1 of 9
This gesture was answered by the entry of the father with the child. Both parents then bent over the child, and seemed to bemoan his fate; but the mother was always the most endearing in her gestures. The father then moved towards the other side of the window, taking the child with him, leaving the mother in the center of the window, from which she gradually retired to the north corner, whence she had come, waving her hand, as though making signs of farewell, as she retreated. After some little time she again appeared, bending forward, and evidently anticipating the return of the father and son, who never failed to reappear from the south side of the window where they had disappeared. The same gestures of distress and despair were repeated, and then all three retired together to the north side of the window. One evening, about nine o’clock, I was at the south-west door with Mr. Hansen. As I was unlocking it, I said, “Did you ever find anybody locked in here by accident?” “Mrs. Winchester, twice I saw shadows moving in that beautiful window. What a noise they did make!” Mr. Hasen then waited, leaning against the pillar, and watched the light wavering along the length of the landing. Mr. Hansen said they were well worthy seeing. “I suppose,” he said, as we walked toward the steps to the third floor, “that you’re too much used to going about here at night to feel nervous—but you must get a start every now and then, don’t you, when a book falls down or a door swings to?” “No, Mr. Hansen, I can’t say I think much about noises, not nowadays: I’m much more afraid of finding an escape of gas or a burst in the stove pipes than anything else. Still there have been times, years ago. #RandolphHarris 2 of 9
“If you have an have half an hour to spare, sir, when we get back down to the second floor, Mr. Hansen, I could tell you about a tomb that was unearthed. I will not begin now; it strikes cold here, and we do not want to be dawdling about all night.” “Of course, Mrs. Winchester, I should like to hear it immensely.” “Very well, sir, you shall. Now if I might put a question to you,” I went on, as we passed down the hallway of the third floor, “in my little local guide—and not only there, but in the little book on Llanada Villa in the series—you will find it stared that this portion of the mansion was erected previous to the twelfth century. Now of course I should be glad enough to take that view, but—mind your step, sir—but, I put it to you—doe the lay of the stone here in this portion of the wall (which I tapped with my key), does it to your eye carry the flavour of what you might call Saxon masonry? No, I thought not; no more it does to me: now, if you will believe me, I have said as much to the other carpenters. However, there it is, I suppose every one’s got their opinions.” The discussion of this peculiar trait of human nature occupied Mr. Hansen almost up to the moment when we returned to the second floor. Usually the apparitions appeared during musical performances in the Grand Ballroom, and especially during one long eight-line hymn, when—for the only occasion without the child—the two parents rushed on (in stage phrase) and remained during the whole hymn, making the most frantic gestures of despair. Indeed the louder the music in that hymn, the more carried away with their grief did they seem to be. #RandolphHarris 3 of 9
Nothing could be more emphatic than the individuality of the several figures; the manner of each had its own peculiarity. If the stained glass were removed, I do not doubt that a much plainer view would be obtained. I think so, because the nearer the center of the window, where the stained glass was thickest, there the less distinct were the forms. It was like catching glimpses of them through leaves. However, nearer the edge of the window, where the colours were less bright, they were perfectly distinct; and still more so on the pane of unstained glass at the edge. There they seemed most clear, and gave one the impression of being real persons, not shadows. Mental disturbance, it is true, will age one rapidly; but the face of Mr. Hasen since working on this project had taken on a subtle cast which only the very aged normally acquired. While standing on the landing looking at the window, I noticed his respiration and heart action had a baffling lack of symmetry; the voice was lost, so that no sounds above a whisper were possible. His skin had a morbid chill and dryness. Of course, we were witnessing the most remarkable and perplexing incident in the whole spectacle. When the father and the child had taken their departure, the mother waved her hands, and after walking slowly to the very edge of the window, turned round whilst on the pane of unstained glass and waved her arm towards the other two with what one would call a stage gesture, and then I most distinctly saw, and emphatically declare I did see, the arm bare nearly to the shoulder, with beautiful folds of drapery hanging from it like a picture of a Greek vase. Nothing could be plainer than the drag of the robes on the ground after the figures as they retired at the edge of the window, where the clear glass was, previous to going out. #RandolphHarris 4 of 9
The impression produced was that one saw real persons in the air, for though the figures were seen on the window, yet they gave one the impression of walking past the window outside, and not moving upon the glass. I am not inclined to think that the trees outside the mansion at the east end can originate the appearance by any optical illusion produced by waving branches. I could see their leaves rustling in the air, and their movement was evidently unconnected with the appearance and movement of the figures. So I began making enquires on my estate. I discovered that several people had indeed seen the shapes upon the glass. One spoke of a female figure with a slightly skipping step. Another servant said he saw an ancient gravestone from the window. The belief that the tree beside the Tiffany window were somehow responsible for the optical illusion was soon dashed; the trees were cut down, but the figures appeared still. One correspondent wrote to me in the winter of 1889, explain that “as I have no faith in ghost, I have been most wishful to have the matter cleared up. On 25 March 1687, the land you now own was involved in a remarkable satanic horror story. A young girl came to the farmhouse for help, saying that she wanted to get away from a group of satanists who had threatened to kill her. She confessed to the owner that she had murdered her own baby in ‘frenzied ritual.” He befriended the girl, twenty-three-year-old Caludia, and allowed her to stay in his home. She kept telling him that she couldn’t stand hearing the screams of her children inside of her head. And on April 20th, 1687, she died from an overdose of Laudanum and postmortem examination revealed thirteen scars and burns on her body which he tended to and which supported her claims of having been involved in satanic ritual. #RandolphHarris 5 of 9
“Further, Claudia left a 13-page diary in which she said he had been involved with a satanic group since she was hired to work on a nearby farm at age thirteen and her writings went on to make incredible claims. She described how she went to coven meetings with a boy named Dorian whom she had met while living on the farm. The boy’s mother was a High Priestess and his father was The Master—a known satanic term for the leading member of the group. She described other practice which are known to be common in satanic altar initiations—that of having her armed pricked and blood drained into a chalice from which it was drunk. ‘Much sexual perversion went on that night…later I learned more of Satan and practiced my arts calling on my power of darkness. Satan had become my Lord and Master.’ Later she described how she aborted a baby she was expecting by Dorian then made the claim that Dorian himself was sacrificed by his own father in retribution, and how she was forced to watch as he was hung upside down. She claimed to have seen other sacrifices of many new born babies, stabbing them at orgies in which Laudanum was taken heavily. She also appeared to have had another child of her own which was also offered up for sacrifice. At her inquest of 13 May, the midwife recorded an open verdict after the she noted that Claudia’s body had signs which confirmed she had given birth at least once, and had been subject to sexual abuse. The constables took up the case, but no charges were brought and the investigation was closed without further action.” #RandolphHarris 6 of 9
I was shocked of these allegations which seemed to be more than enough to inspire the most lurid of headline writers, more than to testify to the credibility of all who were proffering these dramatic and barely believable accounts of satanic abuse. Everything these people said was being taken as gospel in the village because the allegations were coming from the mouths of so-called experts. However, there were claims of rampant satanic worship in Nova Albion at this time, which was documented by English charters led by Sir Francis Drake for England. There were horrifying claims that fifty women were suffering from the after-effects of cannibalism and an average of ten occult survivors a week were being sacrificed. Dr. Harley said he read of several cases recorded by Theodorous de Bry where children had been killed. There were, of course, also several stories concocted around these three figures in my home. Some said that they issued from the grave beside the east window. Other said that they were victims of the plague, and were burned outside where this window now stands. It may or may not be relevant that the figures seemed to appear when the sound of the organ and of voices raised in song. The case was thoroughly investigated in 1889 by Dr. Robert Radakovic of The Ghost Club, where it was revealed that Llanda Villa had been “haunted” for two or three hundred years by the same figure or figures. Optical tests on the possible patterns of light and reflection had come to no results. It was remarked that “the ghost has been seen from the inside while outside nothing was visible.” #RandolphHarris 7 of 9
The interior of Lalanda Villa was much altered in the late nineteenth century, and a complex of rooms was built behind this haunted window. However, no satisfactory explanation has ever been given for the strange phenomena reported here. While designing Lalanda Villa, I was gaining my tastes from the venerable town around me, and from the relics of the past which filled every corner of my mansion. With the years, my devotion to ancient things increased; so that history, genealogy, and the study of gothic architecture, furniture, and craftsmanship at length crowded everything else from my sphere of interests. These tastes are important to remember for they outwardly concealed knowledge of bygone matters so that one would have fancied the they are literally transferred to a former age through some obscure short of autohypnosis. However, the true madness, I am certain, came with a later change; after the portrait and ancient papers of Saint Adalrich the Duke of Alsacre had been unearthed. Some terrible invocations being chanted under strange and secret circumstances; after certain answers to these invocations had been plainly indicated, and a frantic letter penned under agonizing and inexplicable conditions; after the wave of vampirism and the ominous legends of Neustria; and after the farmer’s memory commenced to exclude contemporary images whilst his voice failed and his physical aspect underwent the subtle modification so many subsequently noticed. He was later diagnosed with porphyria. And a final investigation resulted which virtually proved the authenticity of the papers and of their monstrous implications at the same time that those papers were borne forever from human knowledge. Loving antiquities so keenly, the papers and portrait were secretly concealed. #RandolphHarris 8 of 9
Bedroom fashions changed dramatically over the Victorian years due to several factors. Early in the period, homes were heated by fireplaces and therefore could be uncomfortable in the colder mothers, although a heated bedroom was considered an indulgence and windows were left open during the winter. In reality, only the rich had fireplaces in their bedrooms. Still, one had to keep warm while asleep and bed drapery, consisting variously of canopies, tents, and other enclosures used to shut out drafts, was essential, as was heavy draper on windows. Even doors had decorative, but also functional, drapes called portieres that served to keep out drafts when covering the door.
Mrs. Winchester was wealthy and her wealth and prosperity were even envied among the elite. She had no less than 47 fireplaces in her home. By the end of the century, two things had changed that affected bedroom styles. First, coal and woodburning parlour stoves came into use, were more efficient at heating a house, and could be installed in any room. (Central heating, though available after the Civil War, was really only for the very rich.). Secondly, and more importantly, was an increased knowledge of diseases, germs, and bacteria and how to combat them. Plenty of fresh air with good circulation, and the elimination of materials such as bed draper that not only impeded air circulation but provided a place for dust and bacteria to collect were deemed essential. Since the bedroom served as the place where daily and weekly ablutions were performed (until bathrooms became separate entities), and as a birthing and maternity room, it was important that it have a healthy environment.
Styles of bedroom furniture were affected by this new found interest in and concern for prevention of illness and diseases. The classic English styles of Sheraton, Chippendale, and Hepplewhite migrated from the eighteenth century into the Victorian period. Tall, four-poster canopied beds enclosed the sleeper in heavy drapes of wool or lined damask of velvet, a carryover from the time when houses were built without corridors, and enclosures around the bed were needed for privacy, as well as warmth. By the time mid-century had arrived, the full enclosure had receded to the half-tester, or half-canopy, from which hung draperies that covered only the head and shoulders. Fully enclosed beds were now considered unhygienic, as they limited air circulation and the yards of fabric attracted dust. Dust ruffles and window valances were also discarded in the same house cleaning. In the southern climates, netting was still necessary to protect against insects, and its slightness did not impede air movement.
Gothic Revival furniture was the style into the 1840s and its massiveness was particularly suited to bedrooms. Closets were not an architectural feature at this time; clothing was stored in large cabinets called armories or wardrobes, usually with double, mirrored, and washstand, topped with marble or wood, were manufactured for middle-class homes in the cottage style. “Spool” beds were popular, nicknamed “Jenny Lind beds” because the Swedish Nightingale was rumoured to have slept in when she toured the United States of America. Made of less costly woods like maple or pine, the simple furniture could be elaborately painted with floral or foliage patterns. The well-to-do preferred the more opulent style of Rococo Revival or Renaissance Revival in woods or walnut, mahogany, or rosewood with carvings and applied moldings. As with other furniture in the house, golden oak, promoted by the Arts and Crafts Movement, was popular at the end of the century. Additional pieces of furniture found in the bedroom were writing desks, chaises, or other upholstered furniture.
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 Winchester Mystery House
On December 25, 1905 there was a sudden terrible noise from the nine story Observational Tower. Mrs. Winchester was convinced that the tower was falling but, on hasty inspection, there was nothing whatever the matter with the fabric of the building. More strange incidents continued to occur. Doors rattled as if someone were attempting to get in; there were sounds of footsteps, chandeliers exploded. Mrs. Winchester also a phantom battalion in the hallway on the fourth floor. One of the young men appeared to be the leader and was ahead of the column. He wore dark trousers, a tan coloured shirt, and a dark vest which he wore open. One his head he had a brown hat with an upturned brim and a satin hatband. Perhaps the oddest part was that they were not carrying military arms, but picks and shovels, as if they were some work detail. They also had packs on their backs and marched wearily as if returning from the fields of toils.
The column was only about fifty feet away from two housemaids, so they got a good look at them. They joked about how strange they seemed, and kidded each other that they may have just seen an apparition. Suddenly, as if realizing exactly where they were, the housemaids got serious and decided to turn around just after they passed by the balcony to see if she could find out where the men were going. In a matter of moments, they were back at the site where the party had been seen…but the oddly-dressed boys and their picks and shovels were gone.
These incidents were widely reported to the local press. Of course The Winchester Mansion soon became known as “the most haunted house in the West.” Mrs. Winchester was also blessed with the faculty of second sight. A few months later, 5.13 Pacific Standard Time on Wednesday, April 18, 1906, the coast of Northern California was struck by a major Earthquake with an estimated moment magnitude of 7.9 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of XI. It severely damaged Mrs. Winchester’s home, toppling the nine-story Observational Tower and some cupolas. She herself was badly shaken, trapped in her favourite Daisy Bedroom near the front of the mansion. It took several caretakers hours to locate her and then pry open the door and rescue her.
It had been reported that Mrs. Winchester felt the Earthquake was a warning from the spirits that she had spent too much time and money on the front section of the house, which was nearing completion. After having the structural damage repaired, she immediately ordered the front thirty rooms—including the Daisy Bedroom, Grand Ballroom, and the beautiful front doors—sealed up. The heavy, ornate front doors, which had been installed just prior to the Earthquake, had only been used by three people—Mrs. Winchester and the two carpenters who installed them.
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 