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She Had Better Stop and Take a Good Look at Herself
With all the changes and challenges you face each day, there has never been a greater need to take the time to determine your priorities. The art of being wise is to know what to overlook. In 1993 Mexico signed the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with the United States of America and Canada. Within seven years, 3,500 maquiladora plants manufacturing everything from furniture to apparel to TV sets had sprung up along Mexico’s U.S. border, creating 1.4 million new, mainly assembly-line jobs for workers drawn from all parts of Mexico, and they important more than $51 billion in supplies into Mexico. However, in the late 1990s, with Guangdong and, indeed, all of China now competing in the cheap-labor derby, and estimated 250,000 to 300,000 of those Mexican jobs followed the great circle route across the Pacific. That put Alejandro Bustamante in a spot. When his employer, Plantronics, a leading manufacturer of telephone accessories, received an order, it called Mr. Bustamante. Although he ran the firm’s three factories in Tijuana, Mexico, he was told he must compete for each contract just like anyone else. However, Mr. Bustamante paid his workers an average of $2.20 an hour (including benefits) and had to bid against a Chinese manufacturer whose employees average only about 60 cents, which was nearly four times less than the Mr. Bustamante’s employees earned. There is nothing unique or new about that. Many maquiladora operators in norther Mexico face Chinese competition. However, what especially irked Mr. Bustamante was that the Chinese rival he faced was, in fact, itself also owned by Plantronics. This may be a case of serial outsourcing—sending jobs to China that had already been outsourced to Mexico. Outsourcing, while involving a small percentage of all jobs, has aroused fierce condemnation and prompted so much media coverage that there is no reason here to recap the familiar arguments, beyond recognizing that it is part of a much larger pattern of change in the spatial distribution of wealth and wealth creation. #RandolphHarris 1 of 18
Outsourcing enrages the critics of re-globalization who insist that it creates an unstoppable, brutalizing “race to the bottom.” They typically contend that companies go where labor costs are lowest and are ready to pick up and spatially relocate at a moment’s notice. If this were true, it would be easy to forecast where wealth is heading. It would be good news for African, which can offer a big pool of available labor at the lowest wages on Earth. (Africans should cheer each time workers in Asia join unions and drive wages up.) If labor cost were the sole consideration, why have not all those factories now in China wound up in Africa instead? The fact is that even for low-tech work, labor is cost, if ever, the exclusive basis for a company’s decision to relocate. Africa’s endless violence and war, inadequate infrastructure, stratospheric levels of violence, ravaging illnesses, and shameful regimes may rule out significant investment no matter what wage level. However, China has maintained its position as the largest investor in Africa over the last ten years by the number of new jobs created (18,562 on average), with a gradual substantial increase of newly created jobs on a yearly basis. China has spent 27 percent of its investments in Africa. Furthermore, since 2000, China’s foreign direct investment (FDI) flows to Africa have grown at an average annual rate of 40 percent, overtaking U.S. FDI in 2012. In 2019, FDI flows reached $2.7 billion, with the top destinations being the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Angola, two mineral-rich nations. China is also making space along a 30-mile coastline, in Africa, North of Dar Es Salaam, to make space for a $10 billion Chinese-built mega-port and a special economic zone backed by an Omani sovereign wealth fund. It seems Africa has more than just diamonds, gold, other precious minerals, people and animals that World wants to exploit. There are unspoiled beaches and bays; and lush vegetation. If the project goes ahead as planned, Bagamoyo will be transformed into the largest port in Africa. There is even talk of an international airport. #RandolphHarris 2 of 18
Many villagers have already accepted compensation for the loss of their homes. This portion in African is supposed to be as prosperous as Shenzhen, China. Shenzhen, in southeastern China, is a modern metropolis that links Hong Kong to China’s mainland. Over the past 40 years, the establishment of the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone (SEZ), has been a transformation of Shenzhen from a fishing village to a metropolis of innovation. The total investment has been $28 billion USD. Shenzhen has also nurtured some World leading technology firms including Huawei, DJI, and Tencent. The sector has emerged as the pillar industry of the city. As a matter of fact, a total of $4.27 billion USD, was invested in research and development, putting it on the top list of the country. In addition to this, the city has seen 17,500 international patents filed, accounting for one third of the national total. So this is what could be done in Africa, and it is important to keep an eye on the moves of China because they could become the World leader by investing in and colonizing foreign markets, with the large population. Another thing, with China colonizing Africa, it will also become a melting pot and the standard of beauty will change from the traditional European standard and shift to value other features. The race-to-the-bottom theory, moreover, presupposes that workers are essentially interchangeable—which may largely be true in repetitive, assembly-line operations. The higher up the skill ladder one goes in a knowledge-based economy, however, the less valid it becomes. As the knowledge components of wealth creation—marketing, finance, research, management, communication, I.T., vendor and distributor relations, regulatory compliance, legal affairs and other nontangibles—all grow in complexity and importance, workers, like the work itself, become less interchangeable and the required skill sets more temporary. If they extrapolate tomorrow’s economy from existing or projected wage levels alone, attempts to forecast which cities, regions or, for that matter, countries will become the next Guangdong will be inaccurate and the speculations are doomed to fail. #RandolphHarris 3 of 18
Any such simplistic analysis becomes even more questionable because, where economies are transitioning from smokestacks and assembly lines to knowledge-based production, we are already radically changing the very criteria by which a location, city, region or country becomes a high-value-added place. What we are about to see is less racing to the bottom and more of a race to the top. To anticipate tomorrow’s surprising geography—including the location of high-pay jobs, prime real estate, business opportunities, wealth and power—another key point needs to be understood: We are changing not merely the where of wealth but they why—the criteria by which we value places. And that further changes the where. Seeking to woo industry in 1955, the state government of Indiana placed an advertisement in Fortune listing its economic advantages. These, it claimed, included low-cost coal, limestone, white clay, aluminum, gypsum, rock asphalt, dolomite, fluorspar, water, sand, gravel, wood, corn, soybeans and easy access to the Ohio River. In addition, it promised an “enviable strike and lockout record”—that is, a weak or dormant labor movement. That was then. Today Indiana’s development council boasts of breaking away from “over-reliance on traditional industries.” No limestone here. Inc. tells American small-business leaders that the “best” place to “start or grow a company” is Phoenix, Arizona, because of its growing high-tech workforce, sunny climate, renovated art museum and “four major sports franchises.” A group called the Small Business Survival Committee concludes that the place to invest is South Dakota because it imposes the fewest costs on business in the form of taxes, minimum-wage laws, number of state employees and the like. Still another rating system bases its conclusions about the future on the age and growth rate of companies in any given location. A contributor to Microsoft’s bCentral.com then confects a hybrid index out of these last two methods and concludes that Nevada is the place to pull out your wallet. #RandolphHarris 4 of 18
Citing the 1955 Indiana ad in 2002 study called the “State New Economy Index,” Robert D. Atkinson and Rick Coduri of the Progressive Policy Institute write: “In an economy in which fewer than 20 percent of economic activity consists of creating, processing, or moving physical goods, access to raw materials, transportation and markets means less. As an increasing share of economic inputs and outputs are in the form of electronic bits, the old locational factors diminish in importance.” Take, for example, nearness—proximity. Some economists today believe that because Mexico is so close to American markets, it can beat Chinese competitors in the long run. They assume that distance still plays the same role it did before the knowledge economy arrived. However, thanks to information intensive technologies, products are becoming smaller and lighter every day. To rely on proximity means, to the degree that transportation costs matter, that Mexico’s advantage would apply to the older, bigger, bulkier, heavier physical products—precisely those now being replaced. And it means still less to high-value-added intangible services whose transportation costs have little or nothing to do with distance—finance, software, satellite TV, airline reservations, music and the like. Continuing to count on proximity will set Mexico even farther behind—and keep it there. Today, in their race to the top, competing states boast less about limestone and coal than about their great universities, low communication costs, advanced technology, frequent airline service, low crime, good climate and superior quality of life. The economy has been transformed along with workers’ values and way of life. The very categories with which we describe spatial units and relationships change as new economic networks emerge. We are seeing, for example, the rise of an entire ecology of airports linked to one another more strongly than with their local and national governments. Each airport is increasingly surrounded by its own ring of shopping malls, conference centers, 24/7 gyms, chapels, post offices, dentists and doctors, rooftop pools and luxury hotels. #RandolphHarris 5 of 18
The result has been a sprint—no longer just in the United States of America—to create what might be called higher-value-added places tht will attract the brightest, most creative workforce capable of producing knowledge-intensive, higher-value-added products and drawing businesses from around the World. The historical shift toward Asia, the digitalization of many economic functions, the emergence of cross-national regions and the change in the criteria by which we value place or location are all parts of a larger transformation in our relations with the deep fundamental of space. They merely form the background against which even bigger changes loom. One’s stumblings and one’s falling may depress one’s heart and reduce one’s aspiration. They may deter one’s will from further endeavour. For those monsters of hate and cruelty, either utterly materialistic and God-denying or fanatic and taking the name of God in vain, there is no shelter where they can hide once they are forced across the barrier of death. The qualities of determination, intelligence, and persistence—so useful in philosophy—can be used for good or evil. They can make a more successful criminal as well as a better philosopher. The upsurge of well-thought-out, daring, resourceful, and highly ambitious crime in modern times is a sign of misapplied powers, while its violence is a sign of merciless egocentricity. The end for such persons is commensurate. Then many come a crippling deformation future birth, or a sudden and radical awakening to the grave peril toward which they are heading—and a change of course to a better life. The unfortunate experiences which sometimes befall an individual’s Worldly life are, or may be, partly indued by one’s own psychic practices of the period immediately preceding them. One may have been drawn into a vortex of psychic evil which has harmed one’s spiritual life and brought suffering into one’s Worldly existence. What are the inner causes which can produce these dismal outer effects? Here are come of them: shock, worry, fear, resentment, anger, excessive, criticism, condemnation of others. #RandolphHarris 6 of 18
The English woman novelist named Ouida, who wrote during the earlier part of this century, was so successful that she became the highest-paid fiction writer of her time. Yet when she died she was alone, penniless, half-blind, and dwelling in a back alley of Viareggio, Italy. Why? She was brilliant, fluent, and vibrant in her style, but most of her written work was scathing, bitter, highly critical, filled with prejudices and even hates. To what extent did a mind and heart holding so many negatives contribute to these unpleasant results? Yet she was unquestionably a lady in manners, breeding, dress, and way of life. She wrote her letters and even her manuscripts on the finest quality paper. She was highly independent and refused an offer to write her own life story, even though a substantial amount of money was the prize. Her reply was that it would be lowering herself to feed her own egotism and vanity to do so! It is quite true and utterly obvious that bad physical conditions make their contribution also, but it I even more true that bad inner conditions are the fundamental causes which turn outward remedies to disappointments in the end. Blind selfishness brings mutilated lives and ugly minds. Pessimism is practical defeatism and psychological suicide. It is the child of despair and the parent of dissolution. If we make room in our minds for negative, bitter thoughts of complaint, outrage, or injury against those who mistreat us, we shall not be free and will remain unable to find peace. Beware of giving birth to thoughts of hate, envy, malice, or wrath and sending them to another person. For they will reach one, yes, but will then return like a boomerang to their source. Wicked humans may gain the fruits of their aggressions and desires, may win victories over others, but at the end they are destroyed at the roots. The coldly calculated torture of animals in the name of scientific progress must be paid for in different degrees by those who allow it as well as by those who perpetrate it. The practice of vivisection is a sinful one. The humans who do it will have to pay the penalty one day, quite often by being born into a maimed and hurt body. Some among them, who gradually lose every vestige of pity from their character, become heartless monsters. #RandolphHarris 7 of 18
Through violent aggression whereby impassioned men seek to destroy others, they work their own destruction—at first moral, in the end, physical. These undesirable thoughts and feelings are bad for others as well as oneself, besides wasting so much of one’s own energies. An evil human’s mistakes sometimes strike back at one later when one least expects them, and can least afford them. Is it prudent to heed all this talk of coming calamity? Is it a mistake to read material speculating on its likelihood or imagining its horrors? Each person must answer such a question for oneself, but the philosophic person approaches it in a different manner. On general principles one dislikes negative thoughts and repels them. One seeks a clear recognition of what is happening in the World around one, but one trains oneself—disciplines one’s mind and detaches one’s emotions—to do so without picking up the accompaniments of panic or depression. One practices living with complete calm in the face of provocations and irritations, keeping one’s head, when others all around are losing theirs. When these disaffected find one another and form a subculture, they tend to see their choice, fraught with crisis, as a religious movement. One of the favorite spokesmen of the Hipster Generation announces: For the crucifix I speak out, for the Star of Israel I speak out, for the divinest man who ever lived who was a person I speak out, for sweet Mohammed I speak out, for Buddha I speak out, for Lao-tse and Chuang-tse I speak out, for D.T Suzuki I speak out. This is typical speaking; like an address by Eisenhower it includes all voting creeds and betrays a similar lack of acquaintance. (The bother is that the speaker is in his late thirties and out to know better.) However, as we shall see, this formless ultimate experience is not irrelevant to the plight of being resigned, for there is no available World to give experience a form. #RandolphHarris 8 of 18
However, let me at once give a similar strain of rhetoric of a seasoned public spokesman in the organized system itself. I quote from an address to the National Recreation Congress of 1957 by Dr. Paul Douglass. He is concerned with the terrifying Problem of Leisure, namely that with a shorter work week and automation many millions of adults might simply goof off and get into mischief. “The assimilation of leisure into the folkway tomorrow makes essential the reconstruction of the goals and values of life, the evolution of a new ethics, and the definition of an esthetic suitable for the upreaching taste, the deeper comprehension and enjoyment of beauty in its many forms, and a more meaningful existence. Of course this is not serious. A “new ethics” would, presumably, be the work of an Isaiah or Ezekiel or at least Socrates. If someone’s lips were touched with fire and one got oneself rejected by us and swept our children wake, it would solve other problems than out leisure time for it would be convenient for us. –The Hipster spokesman, surprisingly, seemed to be satisfied with the ethics that we have inherited. (As an artist I find this kind of public speech vaguely insulting. Do we need an esthetic? I cannot cope with the artistic tradition that we have, especially its modern triumphs, so that my own work is both unclassical and dated according to standards right on my bookshelf. Does Dr. Douglass mean a popular esthetic? Is it news to him that the popular taste is systematically debauched by Hollywood, Broadway, Madison Avenue? that by the unanimity of publishers, producers, and broadcasters, assisted by the censorship, it is almost impossible to get an honest or vivid word to the public? and that if something slips by it is swamped by trash and singled out for neglect by ignorant critics?) Dr. Douglass cannot mean what he says, yet he does mean something. Under what conditions do public spokesmen use this kind of language, asking for new ethics and a meaning for existence, when there are concrete tasks glaring in the face? #RandolphHarris 9 of 18
The conditions are disappointment in oneself according to a lofty ethics, and resignation about doing anything. Not early resignation, but after the profound disappointment of experience. Spoken as if miracles were for the asking, the buoyant abstractions ward off pain and uneasy conscience when one is no longer going to try to do anything practical. (The crisis will occur “tomorrow.”) The tone, if not the content, fits the American style, optimistic about expedients. And the disappointment is more profound because the American promise was so bright. Achieving most of what we set out to get, we are surprised to find that it is useless, and worse. For after the century of progress, the folk who are wealth and pretty healthy are not only not happy or wise, but they are uneasy. Their own writers hold them in contempt. Foreigners keep saying that the atom bombs were dropped for no good reason. The beautiful American classlessness is freezing into statuses. People ask for a stop to immigration. In the modern World, we Americans are the old inhabitants. We first had political freedom, high industrial production, an economy of abundance. Naturally we are the first to be disappointed. Europeans, when they ape and deny envy us, are like children. Disappointed and resigned, adults do not see a future for their own children, for they do not know the Way themselves. Immigrants of the first generation wanted their children to make good and have careers; it the third generation they just “want their children to be happy.” And perhaps children being happy is exactly why America is in such a mess today. People should have wanted their children to work hard, honor their family name and practice chastity. Then maybe they would be more respectful and more industrious instead of having a sense of entitlement. We are not saying you should not help your children, by every means you should, but help them so they can focus on their education. If you can afford it, there is nothing wrong with buying a child a brand-new car when they are in high school, paying for insurance and gasoline, and giving them a monthly allowance. #RandolphHarris 10 of 18
By treating your child some luxuries, you will ensure they do not have to work and can spend more time preparing for college, and that they will have time for high school clubs and sports. Do not thrust your child off to work while they are still a child. Let them enjoy being young. When their brain power has increased and they reach college, perhaps by sophomore, when they are acclimated to college education and know how much time to spend getting back and forth to class, then talk to them about seeing if they are ready to be more mature and get a job to help pay for their education. Of course, if you can that is a great idea. Not everyone is lucky to have affluent parents have to work in high school and it makes life more difficult. So if you can help your child financially to become more successful, it is only your family name and image you are helping to become a success. Now, in tropical Africa, what anthropologists call terminal abstinence is a widespread phenomenon. What it refers to is the deliberate—and often deliberated—decision to terminate conjugal relations involving pleasures of the flesh. For example, Yoruba women—but not men—know that permanent celibacy awaits them down the road. Sometimes husbands impose celibacy on their wives because they wish to take or concentrate on a younger wife, but twice as often the woman themselves decide to adopt it. Most commonly, this happens when a woman becomes a grandmother. Throughout Africa, and in Yorba society in particular, child-rearing is predicated upon extensive grandmother participation. The transition from mother to grandmother is complex. Each has different rights and obligations, and sometimes the simplest or only way to navigate between their conflicting demands is to renounce childbearing altogether. Renouncing pleasures of the flesh relations is no hardship for these grandmothers. Usually, a woman’s greatest emotional satisfaction comes from her children and family, not from an intense love affair with her husband. #RandolphHarris 11 of 18
A woman may also declare terminal celibacy as a protest against a new wife or because she has proven her fertility and can now rest. It is not a rejection of her husband so much as a redeployment of energies. For women whose marries represent dynastic bonds and courtyards full of children rather than romantic attachments to their husbands, and for the millions of women who have operations to protect their celibacy, terminal celibacy can be a release rather than a loss. Indeed, it is often no loss at all. In North America, many aging women (who have had operations) also retire from pleasures of the flesh service without the slightest regret. Some consider pleasures of the flesh as purely for reproduction, while others say that, at their age, it is no longer necessary, proper, or dignified. Many older men and women claim they must abstain from pleasures of the flesh activities because of illness, though the medical reality is that their arthritis, heart disease, or hypertension does not require it. In fact, their newly adopted celibacy may disguise or excuse an antipathy to pleasures of the flesh. In the late 1870s, when pregnancy was an interesting condition, underwear one of many of life’s unmentionables, and death a delicate passing away, feminists cleverly softened their demands for an instrument to control when and how often they gave birth by referring to it as Voluntary Motherhood. After all, birth control had ugly connotations, namely, freedom from the consequences of, well, a coming together, as it were, a very intimate sort of carnal knowledge. From one perspective, feminists shared the common fear that contraceptives would lead directly and inevitably to wanton pleasures of the flesh. The various “washes, teas, tonics, and various sorts of appliances [were a] standing reproach upon, and a permanent indictment against, American women,” declared one feminist, articulating the disgust shared by many antifeminist men. So pronounced was their alarm that legislation actually prohibited the distribution of information about birth control. #RandolphHarris 12 of 18
Form a different optic, birth control was criticized for being unromantic and removing the spontaneity from pleasures of the flesh. Women’s greatest fear, however, was that widespread contraception would work against them. They would no longer be able to keep their husbands at arm’s length by invoking the argument that pleasures of the flesh might lead to conception. These devices also smacked of “looseness” and abandon of pleasures of the flesh and seemed unsuited to respectable people living respectable lives. Contraceptives might also send husbands galloping off to bed with “fallen women” they no longer needed to worry about producing a child with. Jealousy was only a partial factor. Horror of the illnesses that unfaithful husbands quite frequently passed on to their wives was a more urgent issue. For all these reasons, many women, including Voluntary Motherhood feminists, accepted birth control in only one form: continence in pleasures of the flesh, the World’s oldest and most widely practiced method of contraception. Voluntary Motherhood supporters were concerned above all with a woman’s right to control her body and, by extension, her fertility. They saw celibacy as the only moral way to achieve this and condemned artificial devices as instruments of immorality that permitted consequence-free indulgence of pleasures of the flesh. In an era where women had few legal and social rights, demanding control of their relations in pleasures of the flesh with their husbands was considered extremely radical. Their endorsement of celibacy softened its impact, but only slightly. Under the aegis of Voluntary Motherhood, married celibacy could take two forms: the couple’s mutual or the woman’s unilateral decision. Usually, the wife’s unilateral declaration of celibacy was at the core of Voluntary Mothers. On the difficult battleground of her home, each determinedly celibate woman defined not only her husband and her society’s norms but even the law, which required her to submit both body and will to her husband. #RandolphHarris 13 of 18
In these circumstances, she needed immense courage to dictate her availability for pleasures of the and to withhold it except when she was prepared to conceive a child. “Our religion, laws, customs, are all founded on the belief that woman was made for man,” remarked feminist Elizabeth Cady Stanton. “Womanhood is the primal fact, wifehood and motherhood its incidents…Must the heyday of her existence be wholly devoted to the one animal function of bearing children? Shall there be no limit to this but woman’s capacity to endure the fearful strain on her life?” Like a great many other nineteenth-century women, Mrs. Stanton had no romantic notions about intercourse involving pleasures of the flesh. It led to an endless series of being with child, and when desperate mothers sought advice on how to avoid conception, they were given false information. Medical “expert” Dr. Ezra Heywood, for example, told them that if they abstained from pleasures of the flesh until ten to twelve days after starting their cycle, conception could be avoided. This woefully wrong interpretation of the fertility cycle misled women, who ended up with child yet again. No wonder, then, that pleasures of the flesh soon lost is magic. Too often, it exhausted, impoverished, disabled, and ended their lives. A woman grieving for a miscarried child was a typical victim: “I am nearly wrecked and ruined by…nightly pleasures of the flesh, which is often repeated in the morning. It is almost nonconsensual because I am trying to produce a child to please my husband. This and nothing else was the cause of my miscarriage…he went to work like a man a-mowing, and instead of a pleasure as it might have been, it was most intense torture.” To end these all-too-frequent personal tragedies, the Voluntary Motherhood movement preached that woman had the right to practice celibacy. Any other form of contraception was not only morally questionable, but would deprive her of the ability to control when she had pleasures of the flesh. #RandolphHarris 14 of 18
The Voluntary Motherhood movement was both inherently radical and relatively conservative in its stance. In an era when the notion that a man could have nonconsensual pleasures of the flesh with his wife was seen as ludicrous because marriage gave him unlimited access to her temple, wives who resisted on ideological grounds were social rebels. Their commitment to Voluntary Motherhood, and to celibacy except for protection, was their means of empowering themselves vis-à-vis their husbands, and in a large sense, within the families they wished to space out and control, and even withing the society whose laws they so quietly and privately defied. In this contact, they justified their celibacy as an instrument or a weapon they needed to fight for the very noblest of causes. People with histrionic personality disorder, once called hysterical personality disorder, are extremely emotion—they are typically described as “emotionally charged”—and continually seek to be the center of attention. Their exaggerated, rapidly changing moods can complicate life considerably, as we see in the case of Suzanne: Suzanne, an attractive and vivacious woman, sought therapy in hope that she might prevent the disintegration of her third marriage. The problem she faced was a recurrent one, her tendency to become “bored” with her husband and increasingly interested in going out with other men She was on the brink of “another affair” and decided that before “giving way to her impulses again” she had “better stop and take a good look” at herself…Suzanne was quite popular during her adolescent years. Rather than going to college, Suzanne attended art school where she met and married a fellow student—a “handsome, wealthy, ne’er-do-well.” Both she and her husband began “sleeping around” by the end of the first year, and she “was not certain” that her husband was the father of the daughter. A divorce took place several months after the birth of this child. #RandolphHarris 15 of 18
Soon thereafter she met and married a man in his forties who gave both Suzanne and her daughter a “comfortable home, and scads of attention and love.” It was a “good life” for the four years that the marriage lasted. In the third year of this marriage she became attracted to a young man, a fellow dancing student. The affair was brief, but was flowed by a quick succession of several others. Her husband learned of her exploits, but accepted her regrets and assurances that they would not continue. They did continue, and the marriage was terminated after a stormy court settlement. Suzanne “knocked about” on her own for the next two years until she met her present husband, a talented writer who “knew the scoop” about her past…She had no inclination to venture afield for the next three years. She enjoyed the titillation of “playing games” with other men, but she remained loyal to her husband, even though he was away on reportorial assignments for periods of one or two months. The last trip, however, brought forth the “old urge” to start an affair. It was at this point that she sought therapy. People with historic personality disorder are always “on stage,” using theatrical gestures and mannerisms and the most grandiose language to describe ordinary everyday events. Like a chameleon, they keep changing themselves to attract and impress an audience, and in their pursuit they change not only their surface characteristics—according to the latest fads—but also their opinions and beliefs. In fact, their speech is actually scanty in detail and substance, and they seem to lack a sense of who they really are. Approval and praise are the life’s blood of these individuals; they must have others present to witness their exaggerated emotional states. Vain, self-centered, demanding, and unable to delay gratification for long, they overreact to any minor event that gets in the way of their quest for attention. Some make suicide attempts, often to manipulate others. People with this disorder may draw attention to themselves by exaggerating their physical illnesses or fatigues. They may also behave very provocatively and try to achieve their goals through seductions involving pleasures of the flesh. Most obsess over how they look and how others will perceive them, often wearing bright, eye-catching clothes. They exaggerate the depth of their relationships, considering themselves to be the intimate friends of people who see them as no more than casual acquaintance. Often, they become involved with romantic partners who may be exciting but who do not treat them well. #RandolphHarris 16 of 18
This disorder was once believed to be more common in women than in men, and clinicians long described the “hysterical wife.” Research, however, has revealed gender bias in past diagnoses. When evaluating case studies of people with a mixture of histrionic and antisocial traits, clinicians in several studies have a diagnosis of the histrionic personality disorder to women more than men. The latest statistics suggest that around 2 percent of adults have this personality disorder, with males and females equally affected. They psychodynamic perspective was originally developed to help explain cases of hysteria, so it is no surprise that these theorists continue to have a strong interest in histrionic personality disorder today. Most psychodynamic theorists believe that children, people with this disorder experienced unhealthy relationships in which cold and controlling parents left them feeling unloved and afraid of abandonment. To defend against deep-seated fears of loss, the individuals learned to behave dramatically, inventing crises that would require other people to act protectively. Some psychodynamic theories focus exclusively on female patients. They suggest that an early lack of maternal nurturance causes some daughters to develop an intense need for their father’s attention to seek it through displays of affection and dependence that go far beyond the usual behavior of young girls toward their fathers. These highly flirtations and dramatic displays of emotion established a histrionic pattern that extends to later relationships in their lives. Such individuals enter adulthood as “unhappy little girls,” looking at men as idealized fathers and always trying to manipulate them. Cognitive explanations look instead at the lack of substance and extreme suggestibility found in people with historic personality disorder. These theories see the individuals as becoming less and less interested in knowing about the World at large because they are so self-focused and emotional. With no detailed memories of what they never learned, they must rely on hunches or on other people to provide them with direction in life. Some cognitive theorist also propose that people with this disorder hold a general assumption that they are helpless to care for themselves, and so they constantly seek out others who will meet their needs. #RandolphHarris 17 of 18
Additionally, sociocultural theorists believe that histrionic personality disorder is produced in part by society’s norms and expectations. Until recently, our society encouraged girls to hold on to childhood and dependency as they grew up. The vain, dramatic, and selfish behavior of the histrionic person may actually be an exaggeration of femininity as our culture once defined it. Unlike people with most other personality disorders, those with histrionic personality disorder often seek out treatment on their own. Working with them can be very difficult, however, because of the demands, tantrums, and seductiveness they are likely to deploy. Another problem is that these individuals may pretend to have important insight or to experience change during treatment, merely to please the therapist. To head off such problems, therapists must remain objective and maintain strict professional boundaries. Cognitive therapists have tried to help people with this disorder to change their belief that they are helpless and also to develop better, more deliberate ways of thinking and solving problems. Psychodynamic therapy and group therapy have also been applied. In all these approaches, therapist ultimately aim to help the clients recognize their excessive dependency, find inner satisfaction, and become more self-reliant. Clinical case reports suggest that each of the approaches can be useful. Drug therapy is less successful, however, except as a means of relieving the depressive symptoms experienced by some patients. Now, the seed now begins its time of gestation in the rich dark Earth. It is the great cold of night: not the negative images of darkness, but the dark richness of that unknow, fertile, deep part in each of us where our intuitive creative forces abide. The Christ energy enters the Earth at this season. The yule log is lighted. The nights grow shorter, the light returns, and we experience rebirth. Again, again we come and go, changed, changing. Hands join, union in love and fear, grief and joy. The circles turn, each giving into each, into all. Prayer takes the mind out of the narrowness of self-interest, and enables us to see the World in the mirror of the holy. We do not step out of the World when we pray; we merely see the World in a different setting. Prayer is a way to master what is inferior in us, to discern between the signal and the trivial, between the vital and the futile, by taking counsel with what we know about the will of God, by seeing out fate in proportion to God. #RandolphHarris 18 of 18
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There is also an open kitchen with prep island and plenty of counter space, and the beautiful dining room that you see below, which can be repurposed, as there is also a breakfast nook in the kitchen.
Since we moved in a Cresleigh Home, we’ve taken a dip in that sparkling pool every time we get the chance.
From the conveniences your heart desires and the finest features and finishes, a Cresleigh Home is what you are looking for. https://cresleigh.com/havenwood/
There is Something Attractive in the Forbidden
To be better at life is to be better at work. The great secret to success is to go through life as a person who never gets used up. Because the New World has been so economically dominant for so long, it is often overlooked that five centuries ago China, not Europe, had the most advanced technology, and it was Asia that led the World, turning out fully 65 percent of the globe’s measurable economic output. It is largely forgotten, at least in America, that in 1405 a fleet of 317 ships manned by some 27,000 sailors and warriors set out on the first of seven extraordinary voyages of exploration. The fleet was commanded by Admiral Zheng He, a Chinese Muslim eunuch and one of the most remarkable men ever to put to sea. It explored the coasts of African and the Gulf of Aden in the Middle East, reaching as far west as Jiddah and Dhofar, and laying the navel basis for Chinese trade all across the Indian Ocean. It was not until another two and a half centuries passed that the Enlightenment and the early industrial revolution launched the great Second Wave transition that gradually shifted the locus of economic, political and military power to Europe. It did not, however, stay there. By the end of the nineteenth century the center of the World wealth creation had begun to move on—pushing farther westward to the United States of American. Two World wars put an end to what was left of Europe’s economic dominance. By 1941, just before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor drew the United States of American into World War II, one knew inherently that the twentieth century was already “the American Century.” The United States of America, was supposed to be the Good Samaritan of the entire World, feed all the people of the World, who, as a result of this Worldwide collapse of civilization are hungry and destitute. Indeed, since this time, and especially since the mid-1950s, when the Third Wave and the transition to a knowledge-based economy began, the American economy has been dominant. #RandolphHarris 1 of 18
Technology is arguably at the center of the changing relationship between China and the World. Tthe wealth shift toward Asia, starting with a trickle toward Japan and later the so-called newly industrialized countries (NICs) such as South Korea, gathered strength throughout the subsequent decades. The floodgates really began to open when, in the 1980s, Chia explicitly legitimized and encouraged the not-very-communist pursuit of wealth. They swung fully open in the 1990s, and foreign direct investment (FDI) poured in. China was the second largest recipient of FDI inflows Worldwide in 2020 and has been an attractive destination for foreign investment since it opened-up four decades ago. Annual FDI inflows increased rapidly from around 40 billion U.S. dollars in 2000 to 124 billion in 2011. In 2021, the value of foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows to China reached approximately 179 billion U.S. dollars. This was an increase of around 20 percent compared to the previous year. The Xinhua news service called the torrent of FDI “nothing less than miraculous.” The United States of America took the leadership position as the largest recipient of FDI in 2019 and, consolidated that position in 2020, mainly driven by higher direct investments from Japan, Germany, and the Netherlands. Together, these three economies accounted for most of the increase in foreign direct investment in the United States of America over the last three years. However, there is a very important reason to keep taxes low. Low-tax jurisdictions such as the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Hong Kong SAR, Singapore, and Ireland remained among the top direct investors and investee economics. They continued to be attractive destinations for different types of investments, including those channeled through special purpose entities (subsidiaries created by parent companies in the countries convenience). Nonetheless, China’s remarkable rise is a tribute to the hard work, brains, and innovation of its people, once freed from the severe constraints of communism. However, and here the story of Henry Luce resumes, it could not have happened without the assistance of the United States of America. #RandolphHarris 2 of 18
Mr. luce was the son of a Missionary in China and was himself a committed Christian and anti-communist who never lost his interest in China. And if he were alive to look back at the last few decades, he might take astonished satisfaction in the powerful support given by the United States of America to China’s rapid economic rise, though the suspicion flickers that altruism had little to do with it. By 2003, Americans had poured $44 billion in investments into China. The United States of America also provided a gigantic market for Chinese goods, importing more than $150 billion in 2003. By then China’s World exports had hit $436.1 billion, and its GDP reached $6.5 trillion. That year marked an Asian watershed. China, along with Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan, had an aggregate GDP nearly equal to the combined total of Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Italy and Spain—the five biggest economics in Europe. And that calculation did not even include Japan. Or India. If Japan and India are added, the six Asian nations have a combined GDP $3 trillion greater than the entire twenty-five-member European Union—or the United States of America. What we have been witnessing, therefore, has been a monumental transfer of wealth and wealth creation across the World map. It can be seen as nothing less than the continuation of the movement begun when economic power first shifted from China to Wester Europe and then to the United States of America—the completion of a great historical circle, retuning economic dominance to Asia it left centuries ago. Ponder the World of 2050, an Asia with more than half the World’s population; perhaps 40 percent of the global economy; more than half the World’s information technology industry; and World class high-tech military capabilities. It seems that important goods, FDI in other countries, and high taxes has been a Trojan Horse of the United States of America. No wonder why so many people want “Made in America” produce, beef, fruits and vegetables. So is this really the great circle closing? Will today’s changes continue in linear—or should we say circular—fashion? #RandolphHarris 3 of 18
The United States of America should prepare for a triumphant or ascending People’s Republic of China (PRC)—scenarios that not only align with current PRC national development trends but also represent the most challenging future scenarios for the U.S military being a country who is proud of having an unprotected boarder. In contrast, Beijing’s intense preoccupation with internal security and deep suspicions regarding the United States of America toward China may frustrate attempts by Washington to improve bilateral relations and encourage more liberal domestic policies. Researchers studied trends in the management of politics and society and analyzed the specific national-level strategies and plans that China’s Communist Partyer rulers have put in place to further their vision of a China that is well governed, socially stable, economically prosperous, technologically advanced, and military powerful by 2049, the centenary of the founding PRC. China, as other nations, could already be sneaking spies and military across the southern border. It seems a country would have learned from the past and want to secure it border for national security reasons. If China proves ascendent, the United States of America’s military should anticipate increased risk to already threatened forward-based forces in Japan, South Korea, and the Philippines, as well as a loss of the ability to operate routinely in the air and sea space above and in the Western Pacific. The United States of American should optimize its abilities to deter hostilities, get troops and equipment to hotspots quickly, operate from forward bases, and work with allied forces. The United States of American could field more robust cyber and network attack capabilities and other means to counter China’s unmanned aircraft systems. The capacity to respond quickly and effectively to China’s burgeoning reconnaissance-strike system will play an important role in determining the extent to which China’s leadership remains risk averse when considering military options to resolve regional disputes. #RandolphHarris 4 of 18
China’s $14 trillion economy is second only to the United States of America. On the basis of purchasing power, China will take the number one slot as early as 2023. Even in nominal terms—depending on how you analyze the data—the Chinese economy is expected to surpass the United States of America at some point in the 2030s. China is also the World’s largest trading nation in goods, and Chinese and Taiwanese companies account for more than a fifth of this year’s Global Fortune 500. Not only does China rank in the World’s top two countries for receiving and giving foreign direct investment, it is also the second biggest spender on research and development at some $3 billion last year. China is also represented in international institutions. Its citizens sit at the top of global bodies like the International Telecommunications Union and –until Meng Hongwei was detained for reportedly confessing in a Chinese court to taking bribes—Interpol. China now rivals the United States of America in technology, speaking a new arms race in areas such as artificial intelligence and fifth-generation telecoms networks. While China needs access to foreign markets to support teach development, it also wants to increase the market share for local technology players. And while the United States of America believes in it breaking strides for having weak borders and amnesty, and historical and first this and that, and what seems to other nations as a country that is confused about gender identity and sexuality or what bathroom certain genders should use, other countries are paying close attention to whether China break from global trade to focus on its domestic market. China’s rise and modus operandi have created waves across the globe, threating foreign relations and imperiling trade, technology, and capital flows. We will return to the future of China and Asia later. For now, we need to look at some of the other surprising spatial changes that come with revolutionary wealth. Now, imagine a nowhere in which we all live and in which we all live and in which all the riches of the World are made. Exactly such a fantasy took wing during the Internet explosion of the late 1990s. #RandolphHarris 5 of 18
The growth of the Internet was so dramatic that it began to call into question the very meaning of space and spatial relations. Many digerati and Internet enthusiasts spoke glowingly of “placelessness.” Think, what is location become irrelevant? Imagine a World where you could close your eyes and appear in Bombay or Paris as if you had been assisted by a Star Trek transporter. Picture the ability to have parties with someone while he or she is in another part of town or in another city. Think of being in two or three spots at once…Such is a World without place. The Placeless Society…does not exist. Not yet. However, convergent technologies are moving us in precisely this direction. Others described cyberspace as a territory that has no place in the physical World and even as the first instance of a parallel World. For them, the virtual World occupies what might better be called “unspace.” Despite the poetry and hyperbole, however, even electronic bits are stored somewhere, in some actual location, and they move through space, not unspace, as they are transmitted. Digitization, in short, does not dematerialize space. It does not substitute “virtual space” for reality. However, it does speed up and facilitate the shift of wealth and wealth creation everywhere, not just on the scale of a “great circle” but right down to the local level. Back here on the ground, the wealth maps of the World are being redrawn as waves of changes roll across the Earth, fast-forwarding some cities and regions into future and sending others into economic oblivion. Around the World tomorrow’s higher-value-added places are even now taking form. Cleveland, Ohio, was once an important center of hard-core industry, with its steel mills, foundries and auto plants. Today Cleveland claims one of the nation’s top science and engineering universities, Case Western Reserve, and has a huge medical sector led by the Cleveland Clinic. However, its housefronts and stores are still blackened by decades of smog and smoke, and Cleveland is listed as the poorest big city in America, a victim of its past industrial success and its failure to move on even as the Third Wave carried other parts of America toward the future. #RandolphHarris 6 of 18
Cleveland, moreover, is only the most obvious example. Much the same fate has met the other great smokestack cities around the World—yesterday’s engines of industrial wealth. It is not just cities, however. Whole regions are declining in economic significance as new ones rise to take their place. Take Guangdong in southeaster China. A couple of decades ago it was noted for being a place where water buffalo pulled plows across paddy fields. However, Guangdong is now known as China’s economic powerhouse. Not only does it have the largest and fastest-growing economy in terms of GDP among the 31 provinces and municipalities in Chinese mainland, and is also home to the Pearl River Delta (PDR) Economic Zone and the Shantou, Shenzhen and Zhuhai Special Economic Zones, but it also has rows of factories and high rises producing computer chips, radios, mobile phones, toy, clothed and green technology. Big-name investors with production bases there include Procter & Gamble, Nestle, Coca-Cola, and Mitsubishi. Millions of people have flowed into the area. Millions of jobs have been created, and Guangdong’s per capita GDP has quadrupled in the last decade. Today Guangdong and the Pearl River Delta of which it is a part, along with Hong Kong and Macao, form one of the most powerful manufacturing centers in the World. They have made the transition from agrarian economies to industrial centers, taking over much of the manufacturing earlier done in the West’s smokestack cities. However, that is not all they have accomplished. For instead of setting its sights on a Second Wave future, Guangdong has one eye fixed on what happens after the inexpensive-labor factory jobs run out. It is grabbing all the low-tech work it can get, but it is already going after Third Wave, knowledge-intensive, higher-value added production. Thus the China Development Institute notes that Guangdong’s growing high-tech sector now includes companies in fields like information technology, new materials, new energy, biotechnology and laser-machine-electronic integrated systems manufacturing. Apart from research at Case Western Reverse, relatively few of these are found in Cleveland—or in its rust-belt sister cities. All of which need new strategies for survival. And new wealth maps. #RandolphHarris 7 of 18
With so much going on the World, the people are going to need to learn to be more social. Research suggests that 4 percent of the people in the United States of America are affected with anti-social disorder. Explanations of antisocial personality disorder come from the psychodynamic, behavioral, cognitive, and biological models. As with many other personality disorders, psychodynamic theorists propose that this one, too, begins with an absence of parental love during infancy, leading to a lack of basic trust. In this view, some children—the ones who develop antisocial personality disorder—respond to the early inadequacies by becoming emotionally distant, and they bond with others through the use of power and destructiveness. In support of the psychodynamic explanation, researchers have found that people with this disorder are more likely than others to have had significant stress in their childhoods, particularly in such forms as family poverty, family violence, and parental conflict or divorce. Many behavioral theorists have suggested that antisocial symptoms may be learned through modeling, or imitation. As evidence, they point to the higher rate of antisocial personality disorder found among the parents of people with this disorder. Other behaviorists have suggested that some parents unintentionally teach antisocial behavior by regularly reinforcing a child’s aggressive behavior. When the child misbehaves or becomes violent in reaction to the parents’ requests or orders for example, the parents may give in to restore peace. Without meaning to, they may be teaching the child to be stubborn and perhaps even violent. The cognitive view says that people with antisocial personality disorder hold attitudes that trivialize the importance of other people’s needs. Such a philosophy of life, some theorists suggest, may be far more common in our society than people recognize. Cognitive theorists further propose that people with this disorder have genuine difficulty recognizing a point of view other than their own. #RandolphHarris 8 of 18
Finally, a number of studies suggest that biological factors may play an important role in antisocial personality disorder. Research reveals that people with this disorder often experience less anxiety than other people, and so may lack a key ingredient for learning. This may help explain why they have so much trouble learning from negative life experiences or tuning in to the emotional cues of others. Several studies have found that subjects with antisocial personality disorder are less able than control subjects to learn laboratory tasks, such as finding their way out of a maze, when the key reinforcements are punishments such as shock or loss of money. When experimenters make the punishments very apparent of force subjects to pay attention to them, learning improves; left to their own devices, however, subjects with this disorder are not influenced much by punishments. Perhaps they simply do not react as anxiously as other people to negative events. Why should people with antisocial personality disorder experience less anxiety than other people? The answer may lie in the biological realm. Subjects with the disorder often respond to warnings or expectations of stress with low brain and bodily arousal, such as slow autonomic arousal and slow EEG waves. Perhaps because of the low arousal, the individuals easily tune out threatening or emotional situations, and so are unaffected by them. It could also be argued that because of their physical underarousal, people with antisocial personality disorder will be more likely than other people to take risks and seek thrills. That is, they may be drawn to antisocial activity precisely because it meets an underlying biological need for more excitement and arousal. In support of this idea, as we observed earlier, antisocial personality disorder often goes hand in hand with sensation-seeking behaviour. Approximately 25 percent of all people with antisocial personality disorder receive treatment for it, yet treatment is typically ineffective. A major obstacle is the individuals’ lack of conscience or desire to change. #RandolphHarris 9 of 18
Most of those in therapy have been forced to participate by an employer, their school, or the law, or else they come to the attention of therapists when they also develop another psychological disorder. Not surprisingly, one study found that 70 percent of these patients left treatment prematurely. Some cognitive therapists try to guide clients with antisocial personality disorder to think about moral issues and about the needs of other person. In a similar vein, a number of hospitals and prisons have tried to create a therapeutic community for people with this disorder, a structured environment that teaches responsibility toward others. Still another popular approach uses physically challenging wilderness programs to build self-confidence, self-esteem, and commitment to others in a group. Some patients seem to profit from such programs. Generally, however, most of today’s treatment approaches have little or no impact on people with antisocial personality disorder. Now, special mention must be given to male homosexuality, which preoccupies adolescents and young men of every class from bottom to top. The preoccupation appears either as gnawing doubts that oneself might be a “latent homosexual,” or as reactive contempt and ridicule, or hostility even paranoia. Among young people every kind of nonconformism in a contemporary tends to be thought of as homosexual, whether it be a passion for music or a passion for social justice. Inevitably in the stimulating and hectic biological atmosphere, including overtly expressed homosexuality, repressed homosexual thoughts also begin to break through. Remnants of unfinished normal homosexual situations reappear, and one is sharply aware of new temptations in the culture. The shared narcissism of dandy-contact of buddies is obsessionally inhibited or immediately commented on and “interpreted”; and one sees homosexuals everywhere. The question must be asked why the breakthrough into awareness seems to balk and circle at just this point on just this issue? why, in the present, just the homosexual temptations and threats loom so large? #RandolphHarris 10 of 18
Well, the fellows are interrupted in growing up as men; their homosexuality threatens them as immaturity. They are afraid of going backward to boyhood status, admiring the model male organs and powers of their seniors and adults. Or they regress further to a safe narcissism and would want their own male organs and bodies to be loved as their personal worth, but this reversion to infantilism is fiercely resisted. In the difficulty of growing up, the young man psychologically regresses to an earlier stage because it is easier, he cannot take on the responsibilities of heterosexual love and masculine conflict. However, then, doubling his potency and to avoid ridicule and danger, he becomes obsessionally heterosexual and competitive; or alternatively, he may become apathetic and sexually not there. Other “animal” expressions, besides the sexual, are also problematic. Let us sum them up by some more philosophical considerations. As our organized systems perfects itself, there is less “open” environment. It is hard for a social animal to grow when there is not an open margin to grow in: some open space, some open economy, some open mores, some activity free from regulation and cartes d’identite. I am referring not to a war between the “individual” and society, or to a wild animal that has to be acculturated—for there is no such individual or animal—but to a deepening sociological flaw in the modern system itself. A society cannot have decided all possibilities beforehand and have structured them. If society becomes too tightly integrated and pre-empts all the available space, materials and methods, then it is failing to provide for just the margin of formlessness, real risk, novelty, spontaneity, that makes growth possible. This is almost formal cause importantly drives young people out of the organized system altogether and makes creative adults loath to co-operate with it. When time, clothes, opinions, and goals become so regulated that people feel they cannot be “themselves” or create something new, they bolt and look for fringes and margins, loopholes, holes in the wall, or they just run. #RandolphHarris 11 of 18
Our society pre-empts literally too much of the space. For instance, it is impossible in the Eastern United States of America to pitch a tent and camp for the night without registering with the National Parks and its list of regulations. You cannot go off somewhere for a bout of pleasures of the flesh without paying rent. Almost any stone that a kid picks up and any target that he throws it at, is property. People hygienically adopt a permissive attitude toward the boisterousness and hyperkinesis of children, and meantime we design efficient minimum housing. Under modern urban conditions, it is impossible for woman who is a senior citizen to be a harmless lunatic, as was commonplace in country places; she would hurt herself, get lost among strangers, disrupt traffic, stop the subway. She must be institutionalized. If you roam the street late at night doing nothing, and looking for something to do, the police who is protecting you and everybody else does not want you to be going nowhere and to have nothing to do; and you ask him, Does he have any suggestions? We have all heard, and probably joked, about chastity belts. We know, vaguely, that they were used in the olden days. If pressed, we might even cobble together a description. Were not they gruesome contraptions, bolted around helpless woman’s loins like enormous, saw-toothed, mini prisons? Did not jealous husbands use them before setting out on long voyages Were not some of these husbands holy Crusaders, leaving civilized Europe to Christianize the heathen? Or was it the opposite, that Crusaders returning from foreign conquests carried with them as booty these exotic monstrosities? If fact, chastity belts were exceedingly rare. They were not unicorns—they did really exist—but they are far more common in literature and in the popular imagination than as actual hardware, and in Europe, only the cruelest most obsessive men forced their women into one. Those unlucky women, however, numbered at least in the hundreds. The discomfort, inconvenience, humiliation, and often agonizing chafing they suffered was the terrible price exacted from them to guarantee exclusive access to their body. #RandolphHarris 12 of 18
Most authenticated chastity belts, which were primarily to protect maidenly virginity, are from the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Several court cases resulted from the injuries they caused their wearers. One involved a jealous Danish husband who bolted his wife into a chastity belt. For months she endured the pain it caused her, until her friends intervened and insisted she have it removed. Her predicament became public and an outcry ensued. Her husband was summoned to court, which banished him for his cruel treatment of his wife. However, as late as 1892, a Frenchman named Hufferte seduced a young girl, then became so ragingly jealous that he put her into a chastity belt. What happened afterward is uncertain, but newspapers of the period reportedly sometime carried advertisements for these items. The British Museum, for instance, has a copy of a Heinrich Aldegreyer engraving portraying a love-struck young couple, in their birthday suits except for her chastity belt. In one had she grips a key, evidently to the other garment she wears, and stares uncertainly into he pleading eyes. Dare she or daren’t she? That is the unanswered question. First of all, surviving belts are all slightly different, but their essential design is the same. They have hip bands formed of anywhere from four to ten iron-jointed strips. The portion that passes between the legs is also jointed so it bends back up again, behind that woman’s posterior. Some attention was given to decoration and the wearer’s comfort. Designs are etched into the surface, and the insides are padded with velvet or silk. There is a slit in the front for bathroom business, and often a large heart-shaped area in the rear for bathroom business. These openings are surrounded by saw-edged teeth that would quickly lacerate or mince any male organ inserted into them. An obvious problem was that the metal dug or bit into the flesh and, at the very least chafed it. Unless the woman could take care of bathroom business with unusual precision, the interior of the belt must soon have been fetid, soiled and caked with errant bathroom business. #RandolphHarris 13 of 18
Sleeping with a chastity belt must have been nightmarishly difficult, as the belt pressed down on the flesh. Washing the enclosed areas was impossible, for the sharp metal teeth at each womanly aperture would be as lethal to fingers holding a cloth as anything else trying to enter where it does not belong. They chastity belt tortured real women, but as a metaphor in literature and popular culture, it has titillated millions. Britney Spears often preforms with one made of silk. She has a matching outfit, one red, one black. Paris Hilton is also often photographed in a red, silk chastity belt outfit. I guess it is called chastity belt lingerie? As private area shield, it kept the individual woman chaste. As a symbol, it has been a powerful reminder to millions of how important chastity is and to what stupendous lengths men have gone to ensure their women observe it. The belts, of course, have nothing to do with the optimistic aspects of chastity and everything to do with the double standard and the outmoded concepts of male dominance over woman’s bodies that are associated with it. In some North American societies, such as with the Cheyenne people, they also invented a chastity belt. If a young man had so much as touched a woman’s private areas, the Cheyenne view of premarital chastity was so grim that a young woman had no hope of a respectable marriage. Cheyenne virginity was a deadly serious business. It is always good to get some background information on one’s culture and how people were raised to understand the people. History often tends to slander cultures and so them what has become of them after their culture has been ravaged and destroyed. Some people like Dr. Freud believe that the oppression of pleasures of the flesh leads to violence, but there is already so much violence dealing with non-consensual pleasures of the flesh one hundred years after his revolution started. It seems now people think they have a right anyone’s body they want. And it probably would be a good idea for Americans to be more concerned about chastity to desexualize society and make it safer for people to walk the streets or be at home alone or go out to a nightclub. American values of what is a right and what is important need to change. #RandolphHarris 14 of 18
So anyway, the Cheyenne regarded the belt as perfect protection. If he attempted to undo it, each mand knew that his victim’s male relatives would probably end his life and the female relatives would destroy his family’s property. Males respected the chastity belt and the penalties for tampering with it were draconian enough to enforce the respect. As a result, Cheyenne women were famed for their chastity, and those few who willingly surrendered it were disgraced for life. However, sometimes chaste wives and virgins who were forced to married were “put on the prairie” and it was known that it was okay to have your way with them. Sometimes as many as thirty men would be waiting to. Nonetheless, Cheyenne society was considered unusual in that male chastity was also highly regarded. Obviously a society with virtually no available women must develop an ethos of chastity for all its members, in contrast to the double standard, which can operate only with women of the evening as an integral element. Seen in this light, the Cheyenne chastity belt was as much symbol as it was physical obstacle to pleasures of the flesh. What made it so successful was the community’s commitment to chastity as the only acceptable way of life. There is something attractive in the forbidden. On the usual psychological theory, to do the forbidden is to attack the forbidding authority, ultimately the oedipal father. This explains the obvious fear of punishment, and also the stronger, often quite irrational, fear of transgressing the due order of things. (Exempli gratia, “Are we allowed to climb up the ladder?” “Naw! of course not!” “Then we’d better not”—even though there is nobody to catch them at it. But they then climb up anyway.) On this theory, what would the attraction be? The forbidden by the oedipal authority; and secondly, more subtly, a teasing of the authority, to win his personal attention, for he is so impersonal. I think there is a good deal to this second point, for it has somewhat the feel of the attraction of the forbidden. (Exempli gratia, “Will the watchman wake up?”—hoping that he will thrillingly wake up, even if he bites.) #RandolphHarris 15 of 18
However, there is still a third fundamental attraction in doing the forbidden: the animal need to transgress the limit in order to finish the situation. Consider. People are continually stimulated and set in motion, but they come up against limits and cannot fully go or let go. Typically, because of inhibitions and circumstances, the full expression is not total and not altogether without “self-consciousness.” The spontaneous acceleration toward an unlimited goal seems evident in the way one forbidden achievement emboldens the next, until the process comes to a natural end, rather than an impose limit. The freedom that beckons in the forbidden attraction is not, negatively, merely a freedom from constraint, but a relief of internal pressure as one arrives and finishes the experience. If there is not much satisfaction in the forbidden object achieved (exempli gratia, there is nothing up on the roof and the kids soon climb down and go home), there is a quiet satisfaction. However, there is no disappointment, because the action has reached its natural end: you have climbed to the top of the mountain and that is the furthest you want to go. This spontaneous acceleration to the goal is not the same as “raising the ante” characteristic in purely delinquent behavior. Raising the ante has a fragmented and desperate tone that comes from finding that each daring act has not paid off, and therefore the next time one must stab more wildly. The end of raising the ante is clearly self-destruction, to be “extreme”; it is not to finish a process. Doing the forbidden is a normal function of growth; raising the ante is a sign that a person is not in contact with his real needs. The same twelve-year-olds I have been describing returned to the same building the next week—a pleasant spot overlooking the Hudson where they came to smoke forbidden cigarettes. They directly climbed onto the roof for it was now the established routine, and they came down. However, there was a new boy with them whose behavior was different. He promptly dared the others to jump off the roof—a ten-foot drop to a concrete pavement, guaranteed to break his ankles. He himself climbed over the ledge and hung by his hands and said he was going to drop. He would have let go, too, except that we men intervened, shouting. #RandolphHarris 16 of 18
The other kids were indignant and disgusted at his senselessness; they did not seem challenged. One of the men said to him. “That wasn’t smart.” He, grinning: “Aw, I thought youse’d think it was smart.”!! Had he been playing, after all, for our attention? He got it. Millions of people seem to carry on their lives quite comfortably and form their opinions quite easily without the necessity of troubling themselves about the place in one for the spiritual laws and in the other for spiritual truths It is as if such things simply did not exist. Some people are very shallow and it is because they are pressured to be sometimes that is because of behaviors other force on them. Things like chastity, which is very important, or you may not every hear them say it and that thought may shock them when they listen to their thoughts, but they may think like Marcia Brady, that the World is about having nice shinny hair, and “being skinny and pretty is the most important thing” because that is engrained in their head and they have nothing else in their life to life for. You know, they have not done anything important to be satisfied in life that their physical appears is what is most important because they are hallow inside. The realm of spiritual truths has become like a foreign country to them, the spiritual life like a queer eccentricity. It is not that they are incapable of understanding truths, for many of them have fair intelligence, or that they are too distant from the life, for many of them are good in heart and conduct. However, when so many people are so unaware of, or so indifferent to, the higher purpose of life it requires no special foresight to forecast what gloomy changes will take place in their future course. Those who interest in life begins and ends in their little egos, who cannot believe in and immediately reject the need of putting a higher purpose into all their activities, naturally fall into unavoidable error and experience avoidable sufferings. Both the protagonists in our contemporary international scene have really fallen into the same soul-sickness; the chief difference is only in the way and the extent to which they fell into it. Both have sold their spiritual birthrights for a mess of materialistic pottage, the one through temptation and freedom and other through blindness and compulsion. #RandolphHarris 17 of 18
The goals of both civilizations are similar, only their methods and atmosphere differ, and widely. Both seek the mechanistic and materialistic life, but only partially, the other wholly. Hence the real struggle is between two varieties of materialism. The only correct conclusion is that this is not so much a conflict of clashing ideologies as of two different variants of the same ideology—a good variant and an evil one. This leads to a confused rather than a clear issues. The clean-cut difference in ethical values, aims, and ideals which made the war against the precious incarnation of the aggressive spirit a defensive struggle against obvious evil is still present today, but the metaphysical issues are somewhat chaotically distributed on both sides. However, how far is it enough from the point of view of higher culture? Will they learn to appreciate the values of truth, goodness, and beauty or despise and trample on them? For the juncture of social justice with mechanical development could provide them for the firs time with more freedom every day. What use will they make of this enlarged or even new freedom? We may not let such questions hinder us from creating the opportunity to think about higher matters. What use or abuse will be made of its history’s concern. With the summer solstice we feel the maximum power of the sun as it gives it fullest offering to our part of the Earth. The time of rigorous outward manifestation is here. Everywhere are the energies of doing. The garden image of summer applies to whatever we undertake; if we continue to give them our energies—sun, water, care, love—our dreams will grow and prosper. If we do not continue to nourish our dreams, they may wilt and perish. Faith does not detach humans from thinking, it does not suspend reason. It is opposed not to knowledge but to indifferent aloofness to the essence of living. Faith means to hold small things great, to take light matters seriously, to distinguish the common and the passing from the aspect of the lasting. Faith is an awareness of divine mutuality and companionship, a form of communion between God and man. To regard all that happens as workings of Providence is to deny humans responsibility. We must not idolize history. #RandolphHarris 18 of 18
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The Spirits Connected to Her Haunted Mansion
One of the many signs of someone being possessed is when one starts speaking in different voices, languages, and explaining things like you just met them that are out of context for the situation. However, scientific research has been unable to find an explanation for some well-documented speech occurrences. The so-called charismatic movement in our own country with its emphasis upon speaking in tongues has focused a great deal of attention upon this subject. Many people in Christian churches believe they are reproducing the gift of tongues reported in the book of Acts and discussed by the apostle Paul in the first letter to the believers in Corinth. The Biblical soundness of their belief lies outside the scope of this study, but we can report that scientifically conducted investigations have shown all instances of tongues-speaking to have the same characteristics wherever they are encountered. The variation between the tongues spoken in a state of hysterical frenzy among primitives is only superficially different from that practiced in a quiet, composed Christian setting. He considers that all tongues experiences are a means by which uneasy and unsatisfied people identify with the supernatural, securing psychological compensation for the spiritual vacuum in which they live. Some Christian scholars believe that added to the psychological element is the possibility that demons are involved in tongues-speaking, but results of investigations in this field are not yet conclusive. Tongues-speaking can be a language of ecstasy; that is, articulated sounds which do not constitute an actual language. Reports keep coming of an even more astonishing phenomenon—speaking a real dialect that was never learned. Hundreds of missionaries, especially those working among people in Asia, report that they often have encountered the mysterious ability of natives to speak in real languages that they never knew. These accounts come from Christian workers who represent widely divergent opinions regarding the charismatic movement. #RandolphHarris 1 of 13
One of Mrs. Winchester’s staff members that worked in the greenhouses on her property, who was born and reared on the Tibetan border used to report hearing the Tibetan monks in their ritual dances speak in English with quotations from Shakespeare, with profanity like drunken soldiers, or in German and French, or in languages unknown. A maid also reported the same experiences in the mansion. Reports of this nature are so numerous and come from such reputable people that one cannot set them aside lightly. Perhaps this is the reason Mrs. Winchester installed the mysterious windows in the Grand Ballroom? Christians must not jump to hasty conclusions on such delicate and complicated subjects, but they certainly must recognize the possibility of demonic activity and exercise extreme caution in an attitude of prayerful dependence upon God. We will be able to analyze these reports far more adequately after they have been thoroughly researched by competent investigators. Research teams have found that many of the physical and psychical phenomena declared impossible by the rationalistic scientists of the early 1900’s actually do take place. Most researchers do not even pretend to have a full explanation of how or why these occurrences transpire, but Christians are aware that some of them may be the result of evil spirits who work under the control of Satan. Regarding the occultic, the believer should walk the pathway of extreme caution. One should avoid any so-called magic that claims to bestow unusual knowledge or power through a psychic gift or ritualistic performances. It goes without saying that one must keep a safe distance from any form of black magic, and that one must examine carefully the doctrinal teaching of anyone who purports to provide healing or other temporal benefits in the name of the Lord. Biblical faith is built upon trust in God and expresses itself in submission to His will. Every follower of Christ should be wary of magical cures and all outward demonstrations of allegedly supernatural power. #RandolphHarris 2 of 13
As children of God, we must remember that we “walk by faith, not by sight,” reports 2 Corinthians 5.7, and that the faith through the senses. When we received Christ, we were brought into a vital union with Him, and the apostle Peter was writing to us when he said, “Who, having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and fill of glory,” reports 1 Peter 1.8. When a believer discovers the emptiness of this World’s enchantments, Satan tries to lure one into accepting his help through some form of occultism. Through these devices, the devil and his organization of evil spirits may attempt to bring defeat and misery into the lives of God’s children. Satan is unable to harm a believer, however, if that person accepts the instruction of the Bible, maintains a life of prayer, and submits oneself to God, and resists the devil. If one is hypocritical and dishonest, one will successfully resist and overcome the evil influence of Satan and his armies. The child of God must not merely say that one desires victory over sin, but must truly long for it. One’s spiritual vows and public statements must always be sincerely spoken, for the devil has no difficulty in defeating the hypocritical and half-hearted. The devil cannot effectively tempt a Christian who is actively living a joyful Christian life. Some believe that the door-to-nowhere in The Winchester Mystery House is just a wing of the mansion that was never finished, but perhaps it was a biblical metaphor. “I am the door; by me if any one enter in, one shall be saved,” reports John 10.9. It is elevated to a high level on the estate with no entrance reminds use to raise or consciousness, but by going the wrong way through the door, it may be a plunge into the pit of hades. There was once a woman who worked at Mrs. Winchester’s estate whose hand was terribly mangled by a gun explosion. Little did Mrs. Winchester know, that some men on the estate, amiable farmers, when not performing their specific functions, they were wizards, necromancers, exorcists, but above all priests, representatives of the people in offering sacrifices and making contact with the spirits. #RandolphHarris 3 of 13
Over one hundred years ago, human sacrifices had been made in some places, members of the community offered up by the noblest lords, but now animal sacrifices are made. They exhort their listeners about Heaven and hell in which they firmly believe, the one a place of joy and the other of torment…They keep the register of all males born and are intimate contact with sorcerer-priests, who can read ancient manuscripts and incantations for use on all religious occasions. While working on the estate, a man of Asian decent went to the farmers and asked for medical assistance for his wife. It was a moment of weakness—but he needed help. After the wizards, sorcerer-priests, necromancers, and exorcists evaluated the grounds keeper’s wife several times, they found she was suffering a higher fever also. While making preparations to treat her, they noticed the husband cutting three little bamboo sticks about eight inches long and a quarter of an inch in diameter. Oblivious to all that was taking place around him, he silently moved across the room with these three sticks and a rice bowl. After placing a little water in the bottom of the bowl and ordering his wife to dip the fingers of her right hand in it, he waved the bowl over her prostrate body. His next act was to place the bowl on the floor and try to balance the three sticks in the center of it. While this balancing process was going on, he kept calling out the names of demons. The men of supernatural powers soon awakened to the fact that this man was preparing to call a demon out of his wife. The men of supernatural powers suggested that the man’s wife’s fever was probably due to an attack of malaria, but the man insisted that she was demon-possessed. The naming of demons continued until the name of “Lin,” and then the sticks stood on end. Upon learning this was the demon’s name, the man placed some rice in the blow and mixed it with the three sticks—a little salt was added to give it flavor. He then waved the bowl in circles over his wife and politely called out, “Please, Mr. Lin Demon, come out—come out—look at this, tasty bowl of rice—it’s for you if you’ll only come out—please, oh, please come out, Mr. Lin Demon.” #RandolphHarris 4 of 13
Then he moved slowly toward the door and outside, sprinkling a little of the rice along the way and begging the demon to follow him. When he reached the end of the estate, he flung the remaining portion of rice as far out as he could and then returned to the house. This was too much for some of the men of supernatural magic. They were determined to find out the shenanigans behind this thing, even if it meant calling down the wrath of the gods and demons combined. They asked the fellow if her would let them try to stand those sticks on end. He smilingly gave them the go-ahead signal; but he tried and those things just would not stand. Still not satisfied, they asked the man with the injured wife if he would show them how to do it. The whole process was reverently repeated, even to the standing of the sticks when the name “Lin” was called out. However, the men of supernatural magic finally despaired of ever making those sticks stand. They asked the man where did he learn this art. He answered through a séance with Mrs. Winchester. Six scrolls of some ancient script containing incantations appeared in the Blue Séance Room, along with other radical writings. The men of supernatural magic then realized this was the employment of evil angels they were dealing with. They were dealing with the rulers of darkness of this World, and spiritual wickedness in high places. In another case at the Winchester Mansion, these men who doubled as farmers met a fifteen-year-old girl who had a disease of the eyes. She spent quite a time in an eye clinic, but in spite of the treatment she was not cured. Since medical help had failed, she turned to the men of supernatural magic. These men, using white magic, case some spells over her. Within 24 hours of the charming, the girl’s eye trouble disappeared, but thereafter she felt a terrible inner unrest. She prayed but found no peace. Later, when she visited her former eye specialist, he could only shake his head in astonishment and ask her how she had been healed. #RandolphHarris 5 of 13
Although white magic has been able to heal people, some still believe it is inspired by the powers of darkness. Through white magic some may even obtain what they actually desired, and so it is often only in the effects that its true nature is revealed. The boundary between prayer and magic can be very fluid. If one is able to differentiate between the genuine and the imitation articles, it is essential to have the gift of discerning of spirits. However, whether it sails under a black, white or neutral flag, many people believe they have evidence to prove that the effect of magic in any form is the work of the devil. Yet, that is not what I believe. I have met some very nice people who claim to be witches and warlocks, and they are some of the most kindest people you will every meet. They define those that Christians, who pontificate about the bible, harass and attract and really listen and get to all sides of the story, some it makes some wonder, who is really evil? I am not saying that all Christians are bad, but the witch hunts were started by Christians, as well as lynching in the Southern states. I am not telling anyone what to believe, I am just presenting information that is fascinating. Part of being educated is to remain unbiased and be able to have a discussion, until you draw your own reasonable conclusion based on the evidence presented. If one does not have a case, or does not want to be contradicted by evidence that would prove their argument false, of course they turn to slander, harassment, and terrorism. That is what ignorant people do. They gang up and try to lie so loud to make sure no one can hear the truth they are suppressing. But as the Bible says, all things will come to the light. Everyone has things they need to deal with inside of themselves and sometimes it is more comfortable to try to find fault with others and blame others instead of taking responsibility. For instance, the dynamic of idolatry is demonism since idolatry is in reality the worship of other gods who are demons (1 Corinthians 10.20), headed by Satan the “god of this World,” (2 Corinthians 4.4). #RandolphHarris 6 of 13
Occultism involves dealing with demonic forces through fortune-telling, magic, spiritism, or religious cults, which are supposedly closely allied to idolatry. Persons who deal in the occult often discover that they have spiritistic sensitivity, extrasensory perception, or abnormal intellectual powers enabling them to engage in clairvoyance, precognition, divination, psychometry, magic, and spiritism. Dealing in the occult often results in the subjection to the powers of darkness to such a degree that the mind becomes blinded to truth, immersed in deception and error. This frequently results in acute depression with thoughts of self-destruction. However, not all emotional problems or suicidal tendencies should be attributed to occultism. However, demons can also oppress that human mind. Enslavement to demons sometimes reaches a point in which the demonic spirits harass and torment their victims. In the preceding stage of subjection, the evil spirits sporadically dominate their victims, but they do not necessarily harass them, at least not as they do in this deeper and more tragic state of oppression. Oppression in some form will be the final outcome of all who become psychically enslaved, even though some are not psychically gifted with spiritistic or magical powers. One well-attested and widely occurring form of demonic oppression is poltergeist phenomena. “Poltergeist” is German for “noisy ghost.” In such a case, the oppressed person is hounded by strange noises and sounds, such as shouts and obscene threats, rattling of chains, moaning, weeping, or piercing laughter. Dishes clatter, furniture is moved by invisible hands, and myriads of other strange happenings occur, invisibly produced by spirits connected with a haunted house where spirit activity has been practiced. Some who are oppressed continue to be tormented even though they may move to another residence. Also, common in the victims of demonism are the appearances of ghosts, specters, and monstrous phantasms. These phenomena are often explained away as hallucinations, but are well attested in occultism as spirits appearing as dwarfs, animals, dismembered parts of a human body, etcetera. At times these hideous spirits will strangle, bite, strike, or attack their victims in some way. #RandolphHarris 7 of 13
Perhaps the most terrible and revolting form of demonic oppression is what is known in the history of religion as incubi and sccubae experiences. This is the assault by an unclean spirit upon its enslaved victim for the purpose of lust involving pleasures of the flesh. Both men and women have been attacked and molested by “seducing male and female demons.” Such fully established phenomena show that angelic-human union, a major cause of the flood (Genesis 6.1-4; 2 Peter 2.4; Jude 1.6-7), has its parallel in occultism today. The account of the following portent is given us in Aubrey’s Miscellanies. “When King James II first entered Dublin after his Arrival from France, 1689, one of the Gentlemen that bore the Mace before him, stumbled without any rub in his way, or other visible occasion. The Mace fell out of is hands, and the little Cross upon the Crown thereof stuck fast between to Stones in the Street. This is well known all over Ireland, and did much trouble King James himself with many of his chief Attendants”; but not doubt greatly raised the hopes of his enemies. A few years later a witch-story comes from the north of Ireland. “At Antrim in Ireland a little girl of nineteen (nine?) years of age, inferior to none in the place for beauty, education, and birth, innocently put a leaf of sorrel which she had got from a witch into her mouth, after she had given the begging witch bread and beer at the door; it was scarce swallowed by her but she began to be tortured in the bowels, to tremble all over, and even was convulsive, and in fine to swoon away as dead. The doctor used remedies on the 9th of May 1698, at which time it happened, but to no purpose, the child continued in a most terrible paroxysm; whereupon they sent for the minister, who scarce had laid his hand upon her when she was turned by the demon in the most dreadful shapes. #RandolphHarris 8 of 13
She began first to rowl herself about, then to vomit needles, pins, hairs, feathers, bottoms of thread, pieces of glass, window-nails, nails drawn out of a cart or coach-wheel, an iron knife about a span long, eggs, and fish-shells; and when the witch came near the place, or looked to the house, though at the distance of two hundred paces from where the child was, she was in worse torment, insomuch that no life was expected from the child till the witch was removed to some greater distance. The witch was apprehended, condemned, strangled, and burnt, and was desired to unto the incantation immediately before strangling; but said she could not, by reasons others had done against her likewise. But the wretch confessed the same, with many more. The child was about the middle of September thereafter carried to a gentleman’s house, where there were many other things scarce credible, but that several ministers and the gentleman have attested the same. The relation is to be seen in a pamphlet printed 1699, and entitled The Bewitching of a Child in Ireland.” People in ancient times used to rely more on the spiritual, witchcraft, magic, séances, curses, potions, and meditation. Perhaps that is why there were so many more instances of supernatural things happening today. Some of these claims sound so outrageous and many of them report the same types of instances. Then today, we have all these technologies and medications and machines that we rely on and people who tell us what is actually possible and how many of these stories from the past happen to be something else explained by medication or a camera that so many people start to disbelieve in the supernatural. However, just because it can be explained by science, does not mean it is not supernatural. The Christian Bible even speaks about miracles, which are things that are supernatural. Supernatural phenomenon is real. #RandolphHarris 9 of 13
However, supernatural phenomena may be less common today because land is so densely packed, so many people turn into TV and Music and digital entertainment, so they spend less time praying and tuning into nature. In the 1800s, one could life in a house and not see another person for years because there was so much space to spread out on. People had time to read books and gaze at the moon and the sky and think up inventions. By now, everyone has probably heard of the legendary Sarah L. Winchester. She is the one who built the most mysterious mansion in the World. One thing that surprises me is that no one has, as of yet, tried to duplicate or create something just as wonderful. Nonetheless, it has been said that Mrs. Winchester slept in a different bedroom every night, supposedly in order to confuse evil spirits. And it totally makes sense. Because even now, people say when bad things are happening to you, you need to figure out what you are doing to cause it and draw closer to God. Back in Mrs. Winchester’s day, the 1800s, people were into spiritualism and also believed that spirits were the source causing bad things to happen to people. So they would try to appease them to protect themselves from curses and demons and so forth. Every generation has their methods and religions and that is just how it is. Some say Mrs. Winchester also held special dinner parties for her spirit friends. Legend has it that she would serve her phantom friends on solid gold plates, offering them delicious cuisine like caviar, truffles, and pheasant stuffed with pate. The mansion’s staff was also well-fed. On a stormy night, the front of the house was dark and silent, for it was long past bedtime. It was thirteen past one, and raining like blazes. It was thirteen years ago this day that Louis Le Prince had been seen alive, for Black Knight, one of Mrs. Winchester’s mares kicked the life out of him in the house stable one morning. One could feel the present and all its dangers towering around. Staff who walked by the horse stable this day reported feeling lost, a ghost dislodged from time. Indeed, it struck many people as unusual that the lad was left for the to care for the horses by himself. It might have been a fancy stable, but there was a queer feel about the place. #RandolphHarris 10 of 13
The sun was just beginning to set as they headed back to the estate. By the time they got inside, the night was as black as your hat: not a vestige of a moon, not a single star to break the uniform of darkness of the sky. With sunset a noisy blustering wind had sprung up, rattling about one of the chimneys, clashing the wet branches, and deadening the sound of cautious footfalls creeping across the paddock in the direction of the stables. The wind dropped suddenly, making the silence all the more intense by contrast with the previous roar; and through the stillness, Mrs. Winchester heard the clink of a bucket, and the sound of someone moving about in the stables. She sprang to her feet and snatched up her lantern. She thought that someone was trying to get at one of her horses, and her hand was on her father-in-law’s ivory-gripped Winchester pistol when she opened the door. So strong was the impression that she was absolutely surprised to find no sign of an intruder. The horses were perfectly quiet. Mrs. Winchester looked all around. There was certainly nothing to see, but it struck her that the air felt very cold, and she shut the door. The instant it closed behind her, a dark shadow fell across the square of light issuing from the entrance to the saddle-room. She figured it must have been the wind she heard and locked the door and went back inside. However, the butler Henry Boynton Clitz, was also suspicious. He turned the key in the lock and looked into the horse stable; then he gave a slight start, and drew quickly back. There was light inside, but where is came from would have been difficult to say. Beyond the shadow lay black and impenetrable, a wall of darkness. As he crossed the threshold Henry felt a blast of cold air sweep towards him, striking a strange chill into his very bones. Straight opposite stood a horse, and before him was an old man who appeared to be asleep. However, even in that intense stillness the tout could catch no sound of his breathing. His own heart was thumping against his ribs with the force of a sledge-hammer. #RandolphHarris 11 of 13
Henry felt his flesh creeping with a sensation of fear that was almost sickening. Fear? Yes, that was the word; he was horribly afraid. And of what? Of a weak old man, for whom he would have been more than a match single-handed, and they were two to one. What a fool he was, to be sure! With desperate effort he pulled himself together and went forward, his eye warily fixed on the silent figure. Neither man nor horses moved. As Henry moved forward, he heard a low chuckling laugh. The man was looking at him. The gleaming eyes fixed on him with a sort of mesmeric power. His face fastened on the figure, taking in every item of the quaint dress, the high gill collar and ample bird’s eye stock, the drab coat and antiquated breeches and gaiters. His mouth was open, but for the life of him he could not speak. He was waiting in the helpless fascination of horror to see the face of a man who had been dead and buried for thirteen years. Slowly, like an automaton, that strange watcher turned his head. The square, resolute mouth was open as if to speak; the shrunken skin was a greenish yellow color, like the skin of a corpse; along the temple ran a dull black mark in the shape of a horse’s hoof; but the eyes burned like two living coals, as they fixed themselves on the face of the terrified publican. Next, Henry heard the crash of a lantern on stones and the sound of Louis’s flying feet, and an awful terror came upon him, a great fear, which made his teeth chatter in his head and curdled the blood in his veins. The place seemed full of an unnatural light—black flames. The air was foul with the horrible odors of decay. Above all, Henry felt the fearful presence of that which was neither living nor dead—the semblance of a man whose human body had for thirteen long years been rotting in the grave. It was not living, but it moved. Its cold, shining eyes were looking into his, were coming near. There was no mistaking the look of that helpless body, the limp flaccidity of those outstretched arms. “He’s dead,” said Henry, as he turned up the white face. Its coat was wet with—something. #RandolphHarris 12 of 13
It was blood. But it was strange there should be no marks of violence about him, and yet he looks as if he had died hard. And truly, the dead man’s face was terrible in its fixed expression of mortal fear. The eyes were staring and wide open, the teeth clenched, a little forth hung about the blue lips. It was a horrid sight. Henry locked the door on the corpse until the police could arrive, and spent the remainder of the night in the butler’s pantry. However, when the Henry awoke, he could throw very little light on the matter. There was no one in the horse stables. No body, no foul odor, no broken lanterns. Just the horses and an old noose in one of the empty stalls. Whatever happened remain a mystery. The old living soul who knew the truth held her tongue. Mrs. Winchester simply told him, “Leave it to other staff members and never set foot in that cursed place. The poor boy is dead, and there is no reason for me to get myself mixed up in the business.” Demons can cause physical ailments such as dumbness (Matthew 9.32-33), blindness (Matthew 12.22), and various other defects and deformities (Luke 13.11-17). In all such cases medical and psychiatric treatment are of no avail, because the cause is demonic. Only be dealing with the spiritual causes of the malady can it be cured. Besides actual sickness, demons can cause speech and behavior abnormalities. In demon possession, which is an extreme form of enslavement and oppression, the speech and behavior abnormalities appear in greatly accentuated form with such violent physical manifestations as retching, screaming, blaspheming, cursing, foaming at the mouth, convulsions and display of tremendous physical strength. So completely does the demonic spirit gain mastery that one takes over the body of the victim and speaks through it with one’s own voice and language, which may be completely foreign to the language of the demonized. Sometimes evil spirits endanger humans’ temporal safety by exercising a certain control over natural forces. “I’ve covered my brother completely (That bump on the right is his knee) I will dig him out when I am ready to find how he liked it, you see.” #RandolphHarris 13 of 13
Winchester Mystery House
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I’ll bet you wonder whether poor Whitney’s race is run. I hate to keep you guessing, but I must have my fun. 🎟 link in bio. https://www.winchestermysteryhouse.com/
REGARDLESS OF VACCINATION STATUS, ALL PERSONS IN SANTA CLARA COUNTY MUST WEAR FACE COVERINGS AT ALL TIMES WHEN INDOORS. WHILE THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA LIFTED THE UNIVERSAL MASK MANDATE AS OF FEBRUARY 16, 2022, SANTA CLARA COUNTY MASK MANDATES ARE STILL IN EFFECT UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE.
Nature’s Stillness or Environmental Quietness Chooses Dusk, Dawn or Midnight
Far and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing. The last of the human freedoms is to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances. Study a small lake or pond and you are likely to find many intertwined lifeforms, including host and parasite species, some reproducing quickly, other slowly, all changing at different speeds as they interact with one another in a kind of ecological ballet. Inside of every business, too—and every hospital, school, government agency or city hall—there is what might be called an “ecology of time,” with different subunits and processes all interacting and running at different speeds. Though truly perfect synchronization is never attainable, under ordinary conditions the lack of synchrony may be maintained at a tolerable degree. However, conditions today are far from ordinary. The gurus’ advice was unrealistic, but the acceleration they sought to address was—and is—very real. Never have the pressures been greater for companies—and other organizations as well—to speed up their operations. Cascading technology innovations and consumer or client demands for instant gratification, added to the competition, all conspire to drive up the pace of change. If one department or division falls behind, multiplier effects ricochet throughout the entire organization. One often-overlooked cost reflects the diversion of energy and attention from other needed tasks as time becomes increasingly politicized. Often, organization leaders find themselves clashing bitterly over conflicting schedules and time horizons, and I.T. departments become battle zones. The time needed for software development or for a major system overhaul is notoriously difficult to estimate. It can even be hard to estimate how long it will take to make the estimate. However, that is what I.T. executives are often compelled to do. #RandolphHarris 1 of 18
Software managers who insist they need a long time to complete a project catch flak from bosses and from department chieftains whose work might be slowed or disrupted. On the other hand, I.T. managers who promise quick results are frequently fired when subsequent glitches impede progress. As various business units are de-synchronized and schedules need revision, budgets, power and egos come into play and a lot of emotional artillery is called up. Time itself, in the form of deliberate delays or imposed deadlines, may be used as an internecine weapon. Battles over timing are even more common in connection with research and development. Pressed by investors demanding faster returns, CEOs often feel compelled to slash spending on R&D. Or they shift funding away from research to development and reallocate whatever is left from basic to applied research. The result slows major innovation when it is most needed. Time battles inside a fast-changing firm take many other forms as well. They can kill important deals and, ironically, can actually waste so much management attention and energy that they slow down the firm’s overall capacity to adapt to change. Things become even more complicated when they involve two or more companies, each with its own internal ecology of time. Fights over synchronization greatly complicate partnerships, joint ventures and other alliances and are particularly stressful before and after mergers. If your company is undergoing a merger or acquisition, you are likely to feel anxious. Roughly 30 percent of employees are deemed redundant when firms in the industry merge. For individual managers and employees, this corporate strategy may be disruptive and traumatic. Postmerger integration is typically a period of tension, uncertainty, and chaos. Workloads ramp up, as to pressure and stress. Even when the main hurdles are overcome, trying to sync up the internal rhythms of two firms after their marriage takes time, costs money, sucks attention from other matters and upsets already upset people. #RandolphHarris 2 of 18
Though little is written about it, many partnerships and mergers founder precisely because synchronization turns out to be so painful. In such situations, most people tend to fixate on what they cannot control: decisions about who is let go, promoted, reassigned, or relocated. However, researchers indicate that individuals faced with organizational upheaval have much more power over what happens to them than they realize. If your company is involved in in one of the tens of thousands of mergers and acquisitions (M&A) deals struck annually around the World, you can respond in a few ways. The first option is to remain humble, focus on the tasks at hand, and hope that every thing turns out well. A second takes is to polish your resume, reconnect to your outside peer network, and start looking for alternative employment. One can also embrace the dynamic, intense integration process and use it as an opportunity for introspect and growth. It is estimated that nearly 50,000 mergers took place in 2019, ranging from huge multinational arrangements to smaller regional deals. Some of these companies were Verizon and Vodafone, Heinz and Kraft, Pfizer and Warner-Lamber, AT&T and Time Warner, and many others. AT&T spent $85 billion on Time Warner, and it wants the money back because AT&T is primarily focused on its phone services, and Timer Warner is primarily in to making films and TV shows, but competing with Netflix is really difficult because they are the biggest player in digital streaming. Netflix is going to spend $17 billion this year on programing, and Disney is not far behind. The technological issues are not necessarily the most difficult. Within any firm, de-synchronization can occur among divisions, functions, hierarchical levels, regional offices and in other dimensions as well. Often it is culture that is the breaking point. #RandolphHarris 3 of 18
When a new CEO took over Siemens Nixdorf some years back, he seemed, according to the Financial Times, “more worried about units of time” than dollars. Siemens, the German electronics giant, had acquired Nixdorf, a PC firm, to supplement its mainframe-computer business. The CEO knew that part of the firm needed to “have a major technical feature change every six months.” The parent firm, however, was older, more hierarchical and slower to react. Changing a product is one thing. However, as he complained at a press conference, “changing a corporation’s mentality usually takes three to five years, and we don’t have it.” The CEO is no longer at Siemens—and neither is Nixdorf. Scaling up from companies, we find even bigger examples of costly desynchronization at the level of whole industries. Some, indeed, are infamous for being out of sync. Ask any American who has ever hired a contractor to build or remodel a house. Chances are the estimated completion date is a fairy tale. Delays may run to months. Needed parts—everything from flush toilets and bidets and drawer pulls and windows—rarely seem to arrive on schedule. They only experience even more frustrating is dealing with the municipal zoning and building bureaucrats who must issue various permits or variances along the way. We asked a prominent California developer to look closely at the issues of construction delays in his project to build hundreds of homes in a high-tech center. “I was shocked,” the not-easily-shockable contractor told us on the promise of anonymity. Including land, our houses cost between $358,000 to $600,000 to build. They should take 120 days to complete. However, we have had houses take as much as 180 days. That means 60 days of extra interest on a $150,000 to $300,000 loan. So that is going to be an extra $1,190 to $2,381 per house—more, of course, if interest rates go up. And that is just in actual construction—it does not begin to include costs of delays in permitting, environmental approvals, failure of the utilities to install the electrical, gas and water lines on schedule. #RandolphHarris 4 of 18
Subcontractors do not show up on time. Sinks arrive that are defective—they have to go back and we wait for replacements. If the subs are delayed, they want more money on the next contract to build in protection against lost time. Add up all the other expenses. How about property taxes? How about management fees? I pay a management firm to oversee the project. Their bill runs up. What if buyers cancel because of the delays? I had my accountant quantify the known cost of construction time glitches. I run an extremely tight ship. And yet, at least on this project, they add up to almost 4 percent of the cost of a house. Bigger firms might be able to cut that somewhat. But if I were just a private person, building one house, for myself, delays are even more expensive percentagewise. All that lost time adds up to a penalty—a kind of time tax on every project. From 2019 to 2022, despite the impact of COVID-19, new residential construction in the United States of America is expected to have increased by 33 percent, which is equivalent to 182 billion U.S. dollars. This increase mostly stems from single-family housing, as well as home improvements—additions, alternations and major replacements. Single-family houses being built also increased, but not as much. The value of new residential construction in the United States of American is expected to increase to $729.89 billion in 2023, $757.83 billion in 2024, and $798.14 billion in 2025, a 3 to 5 percent “time tax”—the overall cost of wasteful, never-on-time, de-synchronized operations—would run into the $23-$38 billion range annually. At say, $216,000 a unit, that is roughly what it might cost to provide more than 1.4 million homes or apartments for low-income Americans every decade. That could make a dent in the problem of homelessness. However, a more cost-effective system would be a federal voucher program which allows them to rent and buy in the private market, would reduce the amount of money spent to maintain and staff these properties. #RandolphHarris 5 of 18
However, that is only the amount for the residential end of the housing industry. Its erratic, costly performance in turn reflects (or causes) desynchronization among its supplier industries and labour pool as well. Shortages of drywall, insulation, skilled carpenters and the like are common. Track this all the way down the chain, and the cost must swell significantly. If housing is a skinhole of unsynchronized operations, what needs to be said about a very different example—America’s giant defense industry? Here are major firms making everything from the highest of high-tech communications gear, satellites and weapons systems to relatively simple products like shirts and boots. It is an industry perennially attacked by Congress for cost overruns, waste and inefficiency. Its seven-hundred-dollar hammer or toilet seat—whether apocryphal or not—has become a national symbol of scandalous waste. However, it is worth noticing that de-synchronization in an industry may sometimes be partially imposed on it from outside. And that is the case here. Thus, to prevent corruption and maximize efficiency, the U.S. Defense Department’s procurement processes, many of them mandated by Congress, are so byzantine, so complex, and aggravating, that many sensible firms refuse even to bid for a Pentagon contract. Worse yet, those firms that do undertake defense work often find themselves caught in a steel cage largely constructed by Congress itself. An editor of Armed Forces Journal International once summed it up in a single, hard-to-forget sentence: “Faced with a twenty-year threat,” he wrote, “government responds with a fifteen-year program in a five-year defense plan, managed by three-year personnel funded with single-year appropriations.” We have seen the de-synchronization effect within individual firms, groups of firms and whole industries. However, de-synchronization occurs on an even larger scale when two related industries develop at different speeds. #RandolphHarris 6 of 18
The rise of the personal computer (PC) from the 1970s on was marked by a kind of technological pas de deux as Microsoft launched bigger and more powerful versions of its Windows software for PC, and Intel successively developed the faster and more powerful chips needed to support them. For years, the two symbiotic companies were referred to in the media as though they were a single firm called “Wintel.” The synchronization, imperfect as it was at times, powered the phenomenal spread of the PC Worldwide. In sharp contrast, however, the closely linked computer and communications industries have more then once found themselves without a dance partner. No ballet here. In the United States of America, the rise of the computer industry throughout the last half century has been wild, wooly, and unregulated. Computer makers were frequently frustrated by far slower rates of change in the tightly and confusingly overregulated telecom industry. As the basic technologies of these two industries converged, their rates of change diverged. According to many analysts, advances in chips, computers, and related fields could have come even faster but for this discrepancy. Similarly—and more interestingly—in recent years the development of networks trailed far behind increases in the speed of computer chips. By 2005, however, this de-synchronization went into reverse. We simply do not know the aggregate costs of the de-synchronization effect at the level of firms and industries, but we can only imagine how much greater the effects are when we look at de-synchronization in whole sectors of an economy in the age of revolutionary wealth. Now, when Minoru Naito, a small-business owner, decided to celebrate his daughter’s birthday at a posh sushi restaurant in Tokyo, it was on a Saturday. He went to a nearby Automated Teller Machines (ATM and also still called the “Versatell” by some) to withdraw some cash. However, it was 6.00 p.m. and the machine had shutdown at 5.00. Hence, no sushi that evening. #RandolphHarris 7 of 18
The fact that banks used to close their ATMs so early was, in the words of Nihon Keizai Shimbu, Japan’s Wall Street Journal, “particularly striking because more retail stores in Japan are operating around the clock.” In short, the banking sector was out of sync with developments in the retail sector of Japan’s economy. Faced with competition from foreign banks and securities firms that did offer twenty-four-hour services, the relatively small Tokyo Sowa Bank eventually opened the first “twenty-four-hour” ATMs at a Japanese bank (never mind that they initially closed down at 10.00 p.m.). It was not until 2003 that one of Japan’s major banks, UFJ, followed suit. Closing the gap between shopping hours and banking hours requires new I.T. systems. That normally means ditching or upgrading older, so-called legacy I.T., piece by piece, program by program. And that cannot be done without altering the timing of data flows, accounting procedures, work schedules, reports and other matters, spending some work units up but necessarily leaving others to lag temporarily. Every new computer, software operating system, application or change in a network inescapably changes the tempo, rhythms and synchronization levels in the organization. In Japan, too, one man’s synchronization is another’s de-synchronization. Moreover, it can legitimately be argued that disparities in rates of change open countless opportunities for entrepreneurial synchronizers who, by synchronizing some functions or organizations, create new disparities elsewhere. The problems of synchrony are becoming more, not less, difficult because, as during the industrial revolution, we are once more transforming the way humans work, play and think in the time dimension. We are profoundly altering the way we deal with the deep fundamental of time. Until we understand time’s relationships to wealth creation, we will never free ourselves of today’s crushing time pressures—or huge unneeded costs. #RandolphHarris 8 of 18
Let us next talk about marriage and so-called “animal” functions of the social animal. Everyone agrees that an important condition for the troubles of growing up is the troubles between the parents at home, brutal quarrels and drunkenness, coldness, one or the other or both parents getting away as often as possible and being withdrawn while present, and marriages breaking up. The most common popular, and mayoral, prescription for delinquency is “more parental supervision.” In the usual circumstances this would likely increase the tension and the trouble, but be that as it may: the question remains, how? how to have reasonable supervision when the marriages do not have the problem children. (The frequent recommendation to fine or jail the parents is a lulu.) I do not think the public spokesmen are serious. For powerful and well-known modern reasons, some of them inevitable, the institution of marriage itself, as we have known it for several hundred years, cannot work simply any longer, and is very often the direct cause of intense suffering. Urbanism, the economic independence of women, contraception, relaxing the inhibitions against unmarried and extramarital sexuality, these are inevitable. A dispassionate observer of modern marriage might sensibly propose. Forget it; think up some other form of mating and child care. The pastor of a large church in an ordinary Midwestern town told me that, in his observation, not one marriage in twenty was worthwhile; many were positively damaging to the children. If very many marriages could simply let themselves dissolve after a few years, the partners would suddenly become brighter, rosier, and younger. However, of course, in this field there are no dispassionate observers. We are all in the toils of jealousy of our own complexes, and few f us can tolerate loneliness and the feeling of being abandoned. Nor do we have any other formula for a secure intimacy, companionship, and brining up children. This is not a newsy story. It is kept in mind by the Mayor of New York whose canned voice says every night on the radio that parents who are not affectionately supervising the children are failing in responsibility? #RandolphHarris 9 of 18
Has the Mayor not seen an harassed mother hysterically and unmercifully whacking a three-year-old in the sand pile? Does he think it is some different parent he is now appealing to? (I heard one mother scream, “I ask you only one simple thing, to obey me!”) “Most of the children we see [in King’s County Domestic Relations Court] have been so seriously damaged by their environment that they need 24-hour-a-day corrective treatment. I will say unequivocally that most of the children we see should be separated from their parents for their own health and welfare.” (Dr. J.M. Fries.) Outraged women demand chaste men to lessen the double standard. Legions of Victorian men accepted and honored the code of premarital celibacy, but many spoiled and randy young blades saw no need to repress their intimate longings. When women of their own class refused to succumb, they found a vulnerable and cooperative woman elsewhere. She was, perhaps, a domestic servant that a higher-ranked young man could force himself on, or the shop girl he paid or flattered for a few minutes of extracurricular pleasure. At one time or another in his life, she was likely the “public stew,” the lady of the evening whom that compromised servant or shop girl might eventually be forced to become. To desperate, reckless, or ruined women, the calling of the streets was irresistible. It supplemented that pittance they earned elsewhere at their day jobs. Henry Mayhew, an investigative journalist and author whose expose of London’s seething, suffering labouring class in the mid-nineteenth century continues to shock, discovered, for instance, that a seamstress who stitched together moleskin trouser could earn five shillings and sixpence a week, scarcely enough to survive, if she worked sixteen hours daily. When work was slack, she could either starve or “go a bad way” and sell her most valuable possession. Because so many women were struggling to survive by needlework, lacemaking, and other trades, with occasional forays into become women of the evening, the competition was ferocious. #RandolphHarris 10 of 18
As a result, incomes remained law, arrests and imprisonment common, and their unhealthy bodies were susceptible to illnesses. Some managed to support themselves through pleasures of the flesh alone, and a few lucky and clever ones did better—they parlayed their amorous skills into marriage. “Why shouldn’t we?” inquired one confident woman of the evening. “We are pretty, dress well, we can talk and insinuate ourselves into the hearts of men by appealing to their passions and their senses.” However, in the last half of the nineteenth century, illnesses double standard became the concern of reformers of every ilk. In earlier centuries, and despite alarm, only inconsequential numbers of deaths were attributed to the so-called French pox, as syphilis was called in England. In London, according to the Bills of Mortality, it struck down eleven victims in 1813, eighty-six in 1817, and only nineteen and fourteen in 1818 and 1819. Women of the evening and their clients, and those secondarily infected, endured nasty and debilitating symptoms, but doctors could provide effective treatment and restore most patients to health. For centuries, illnesses related to pleasures of the flesh were seen as a disturbing problem rather than a critical one. In 1864, a drastic change occurred, after horrified medical officers reported that some of these illnesses affected up to 30 percent of the troops in British garrison towns, including many ports. The military capacity of the nation was called into question. In panicky attempts to stamp out or at least control these illnesses among soldiers and sailors, Parliament passes a serious of Contagious Diseases Acts between 1864 and 1869. These Acts authorized police in towns with substantial military installations to seize any suspected women of the evening and force them to submit to a gynecological exam every two weeks. Infected women (but not men) could be confined to a hospital for up to nine months. #RandolphHarris 11 of 18
The object was to diminish infections related to pleasures of the flesh by controlling women of the evening, but the real effect was a witch hunt, to persecute thousands of women, active in pleasures of the flesh or not. Any woman out alone in public without a reasonable excuse was a target. Girls without homes were routinely hauled off and painfully examined, and one widow afterward committed suicide. Women plucky enough to resist were charged in police court, where it was their word against that of a plainclothes government spy. Furthermore, women of the evening not their clients were charged in criminal court. “What think you of sending a wench to Bridewell [prison], and doing nothing to the fellow that debauched her, tho’ sometimes the first is single, and the other married?” demanded one opponent of the double standard. Until the passage of the Contagious Diseases Act, being a woman of the evening and its underlying moral duplicity had had mainly muted challengers. The Acts, embodying the worst features of the double standard, provoked sustained and widespread protest. One group of critics proposed a novel solution, that men stop being unchaste. Chastity in men? How preposterous, given their naturally lecherous natures and irrepressible intimate impulses! (This would have a surprised the ancient Aztecs, Chinese, Greeks, and a few million other people who “knew” that women were the culprits when it came to intimate desires.) And yet, if men couple only get a grip on themselves (but absolutely not with int masturbator handshake tht so distressed the Male Purity contingent) and just tell themselves, “No!” This at least was the thinking of the Church of England Purity Society, as well as thousands of feminist activities in late-Victorian England. The Purity Society was formed at the instigation of Jane Ellice Hopkins, a lifelong celibate dedicated to ending the degradation of women through being a woman of the evening by the novel expedient of reforming men’s bad behaviour. #RandolphHarris 12 of 18
Hopkins also worked with young women at risk for becoming women of the evening, providing counseling, clothes, lodging, and a job registry with real jobs rather than fake come-on ads that duped gullible, desperate, and unemployed girls into servitude as harlots. Men’s chastity leagues, Hopkins declared, should be developed to deal with the “real cause” of rampant solicitation and moral decay—that pesky double standard. “What I crave,” she wrote, is to instill in wayward men “a good, strong passionate sense of the pitifulness of degrading women, inflicting a curse which they do not share with so much as their little finger.” These men indulge, then return to their “jolly” lives and friends, their “pleasant” homes and their careers, their “power of marrying” intact. Behind them, in the debris of the flings in intimate passions, are their female victims, destined to lives as social outcasts, barred forever from the safety and comforts of marriage and motherhood. The women might be infected with a “hideous” disease and could expect only “a degraded life and [then to] die a Godless, Christless, hopeless death.” After Hopkins exposed the Anglican Church’s complacency and tacit complicity in upholding the double standard, the Church was shamed into creating its Purity Society. Its pledge cards, signed by hundreds of men and strikingly reminiscent of today’s Promise Keepers, listed five obligations: to respect all women and defend them from wrong; to reject indecent language and jokes; to maintain purity and chastity equally for men and women; to proselytize these principles; and to maintain personal purity. Hopkins hated solicitation and blamed men for driving women, consumed by “disease, degradation, curses, drink, despair,” into it. “Ay, I know that it is often the woman who tempts; these poor creatures must tempt or starve. However that does not touch the broad issues, that it is men who endow the degradation of women; it is men, who make the demand, create the supply.” And thunderingly, “Is it fair for you men, who can compel a fair wage for your work, to sit in judgment on her, and say it is her fault?” #RandolphHarris 13 of 18
Hopkins’s dream for starving out (rather than institutionalizing) solicitation consisted of three kinds of coexisting municipal societies: male purity leagues to inspire men to learn self-control; vigilante committees to see that they did and to prosecute those who failed; and women’s associations to work directly with at-risk girls. Hopkins’s was as radical a proposal as others. Each individual man provoked into feeling his guilt could be induced to take responsibility for his actions and stop sinning. Another group to which Hopkins belonged, the Moral Reform Union, founded in 1881, rejected the double standard and accepted as a principle that men and would should abide by the same morality. They were convinced that both could be chaste and denounced as a blasphemous fiction the age-old endorsement premise that solicitation was essential for a few to ensure moral purity in the majority. What the Union members wanted was quite simply virtue and rectitude in men. The Contagious Diseases Acts were, the Union said, inequitable laws based on the double standard and its outrageous hypothesis that a group of bought women was necessary to the smooth functioning of a society. Decades of sustained outrage against this monstrous assumption and their Acts themselves produced their suspension in 1883 and their repeal three years later. Feminist purists rejoiced, but their rapture was modified by the reality that solicitation continued to thrive as a nightmarish degradation of womanhood. If she was with child, the seduced maid was still kicked out onto the street. The women of the evening caught solicitating was still locked up in jail. The battle against The Contagious Disease Acts had been won, but not the greater ward against solicitation and the double standard. The moral purists attacked the issue from several angles. One was to stamp out the notion that men’s intimate desires were too urgent to curb. #RandolphHarris 14 of 18
For centuries, ever since women crazed with intentions of pleasures of the flesh had been erased from the moral lexicon and replaced by men crazed with intentions of pleasures of the flesh, this unstoppable male urge had justified women of the evening and other intimate abuses. If it could be exposed for what it was—an unscientific fabrication—then self-control would take on new possibilities as men (and women) learned to regard male intimate passions as a normal physical trait, akin to any other hunger. A man who overpowered a vulnerable woman by subterfuge or muscles would be judged as reprobate as one who stuffed food into his mouth before the grace or snatched cutlets from other people’s plates. As one suffragette put it, “The man or woman who is incapable of self-control (in pleasures of the flesh) should be walking about on four legs, and not on two, because lack of self-control is incompatible with human nature.” The other myth to be combated was that celibacy weakened the male physiology, for ironically, while millions of men worried about the loss of even one drop of vital force, others anxiously observed their caste private area for signs of atrophy. The medical establishment was also coming around, and some physicians admitted publicly that modern scientific thought ran counter to a persistent superstition that chastity was physical harmful to men. (Even today the old heresy limps on, as some men and some women weight celibacy against the mantra, “If you do not use it, you will lose it.”) The moral purity movement holds for its members that chastity in vulnerable young women was a right that self-indulgent men imperiled. Chastity in men, on the other hand, was a proud, moral measures of self-control and constituted the best possible protection against male sexual abuse against women. Conscious of danger in its depth around the World, truth is accompanied by great power. It cannot be separated from its sayer. The truth is like electricity, which is so useful a servant of man but so dangerous when not rightly treated, which may save life or destroy it altogether. When humans become insensitive to the sacredness within oneself, one is lost. #RandolphHarris 15 of 18
It is a sin to deny the Power from which one’s body draws its life, one’s mind its consciousness and intelligence, one’s soul its very existence. It invites punishment, which comes through being left alone with the opposing force in Nature, with its physical, intellectual, psychical and subtle forces, unguided by the intuitive and unprotected by the divine. Humans then try to live by their own light alone. One fails, stumbles, falls, and suffers. This is one’s position today and that is why there is a World-crisis of stupendous proportions. This is one’s hour of real need. This is when one must turn, as in Christian Biblical history, to one’s true Deliverer. Every other way out except this one is closing for one. There is no doubt that effective community programs can help people with schizophrenia recover. However, fewer than half of all the people who need them receive appropriate community mental health services. What are the consequences of inadequate community treatment? What happens to person with schizophrenia whose communities do not provide the services they need and whose families cannot afford private treatment at all; many other spend short time in a state hospital or semihospital and then are discharged prematurely, often without adequate follow up treatment. Many of the people with schizophrenia return to their family and receive medication and perhaps emotion and financial support, but little else in this way of treatment. Around 8 percent enter an alternative institution such as a nursing home or rest home, where they receive only custodial care and medication. As many as 18 percent are placed in privately run residences where supervision is provided by untrained individuals—foster homes (small or large), boardinghouses, congregate care homes, and similar facilities. These residences vary greatly in quality. Some of them are legitimate “bed care” facilities, providing three meals a day, medication reminders, and at least a small degree of staff supervision. However, many fail to offer these minimal services. #RandolphHarris 16 of 18
Another 31 percent of people with schizophrenia live in totally unsupervised settings. Some of these individuals are equal to the challenge of living alone, support themselves effectively, and maintain nicely furnished apartments. However, many cannot really function independently and wind up in a rundown single-room occupancy hotel (SROs) or rooming houses, often located in inner-city neighbourhoods. They may live in conditions that are substandard and unsafe. The following newspaper account from the mid-1980s describes the kinds of conditions that continue in many locations today: Hundreds of mentally ill patients throughout Sacramento County are being packed into aging hotels and homes that are little better than slums, according to health officials, who say that appalling living conditions virtually ensure patients will skin deeper into insanity. Many of the buildings contain the stuff of nightmares. Piles of trash and cockroaches, feces, urine and vomit litter the floors. Half-naked men wander purposelessly through hallways, and doors swing open into hot and fetid rooms where other, gazing vacantly at the ceiling, lie neglected on dirt cots. Men and women gamble, drink, use drugs, play amplified music daily and make the community members feel sacred and threatened. In one instance, [the state Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services] released patients to a building run by a landlord who three years earlier lost his state license to operate public housing because of its life-threatening conditions. The landlord did not apply for a license for his latest building. He bought a home and used plywood sheets to divine the coral rock house into 12-foot by 14-foot boxes and then told HRS worker he would take in the mentally ill. Each of the boxes, strung along trash-strewn passagesways in the two-story house, contains a narrow bed, a fan and a chest of drawers. Hot meal containers and plastic forks fill waste bins. Most of the boxes also contained people whose bed sores attest to hours spend in bed, staring at a paint-chipped wall a foot from his pillow. #RandolphHarris 17 of 18
Most of the residents in poorly supervised or unsupervised settings survive on government disability payments, and many spend their days wandering through neighbourhood streets. Thus it is sometimes said that people with schizophrenia are now “dumped” in the community, just as they were once “warehoused” in institutions. Finally, a great number of people with schizophrenia have become homeless. There are nearly 600,000 homeless people in the United States of America, and approximately 33 percent have a severe mental disorder, commonly schizophrenia. Many such persons have been released from hospitals. Others are young adults who were never hospitalized in the first place. Another 235,000 or more people with severe mental disorders end up in prisons because their disorders have led them to break the law. Certainly deinstitutionalization and the community mental health movement have failed these individuals. And if they are able to return to hospital life, many report actually feeling relieved. Let us pray for everyone in our community and Worldwide that they will feel the love of God and be freed from all affliction and suffering and be welcomed into a loving home where they feel safe and loved and can experience a life of abundance and gain promotion on the job. To pray is to try to experience the reality of God, to feel the purity and exaltation that comes from being near Him, and to give to our souls that serenity and peace which neither Worldly success nor Worldly failure, which neither the love of life, nor the fear of death, can disturb. O Lord, I have set Thee always before me, indeed Thou art at my right hand; I shall not stumble. Thou art my Lord, I have no good but in Thee. Thou makest me to know the path of life; in Thy presence is fullness of joy. Whom have I in Heaven but Thee? And on Earth I desire none else. When my heart and my flesh fail, Thou art my strength and my portion forever. Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter—birth, growth, fading, death—the cycles of life turn, and we turn with them. Ideas are born, projects are consummated, plans prove impractical and pass away. We fall in love, we suffer loss; we give birth, we grow old. We are renewed, we are reborn, even as we decay and die. Our psychic energies are renewed in their deepest sources by this participation in the cycles of change within the natural World. #RandolphHarris 18 of 18
Our Meadows Residence 1 home has an outdoor space that’s equal to our indoor space! Entertaining is effortless, and our guests never fail to be impressed.
We’re so glad we chose the #PlumasRanch community!
No More Cold Eggs–Societies for the Reformation of Morals
How simple it is to see that all the worry in the World cannot control the future. Leaders set aside a portion of each day (even if it is only a matter of minutes) for quiet time devoted to prayer, meditation, imaging, or just daydreaming. Learn to value your time alone—when you value something you are keener to protect it. Humans who are wholly selfish, cunning, combative, ambitious, and unscrupulous represent the dark principle and become dangerous to society. Sentimentality is not spirituality. It is true we give our goodwill to all humankind, and so we give it to those who are the instruments of dark forces. However, that does not mean weakness or foolishness in our dealings with them. Life will teach them. Leave them alone. Brotherhood? No, be the thought far from me. They are Adam’s children—alas, yes, I well remember that, and never shall forget it; this rage and sorrow. However, they have gone over the dragons; they have quitted the Father’s house, and set up with the Old Serpent; till they return, how can they be brothers? They are enemies, deadly to themselves and to me and to you, till then; till then, while hope yet lasts I will treat them as brothers fallen insane. Those who have scientifically engaged in psychical research know that a psychological belt wherein a host of evil Earth-bound spirits are congregated surrounds this planet. Physical researchers are aware too that such obsessing entities become most active at night, as anyone may discover by watching the conduct of a possessed person. A human being can be infested astrally with psychic vermin as one can be with physical vermin. The wise human refuses to accept removable evils and avoidable sufferings. If one finds oneself brought by circumstances into the society of evil-minded people, the first step to self-protection should be to switch the mind instantly into remembrance of the witness-self and to keep it there throughout the period of contact. To turn inwards persistently when in the presence of such discordant persons is to nullify any harmful or disturbing effect they might otherwise have on our thoughts. #RandolphHarris 1 of 20
This instant and unhesitating turning inward is also an effective method of insulating oneself against the currents of fear, despair, and weakness which misfortune often generates. If the student feels evil forces have attacked one from time to time, let one pray earnestly every day for self-purification and make the sign of the cross whenever one becomes aware of their presence, at the same time invoking the help of whatever power or personage one feels inspires one most. In times of terrible danger, one should stick to one’s faith in the divine power as a protective talisman. Whenever one is in difficulty, one should drop all fear and trouble temporarily from one’s mind and imagine oneself handing them over to one’s higher Self, thereby surrendering oneself to its will, help, and protection. When there is evidence of being obsessed by a spirit-entity, the only radical cure is exorcism. Unless one has the guidance of an actualized Christian, the following is suggested: First, one should try sleeping with a green-coloured night light burning throughout the night. It should be placed not more than eighteen inches from the bed. If this fails, then an ordinary non-coloured bulb may be substituted, thus giving a stronger light. The inconvenience of trying to sleep with the bedroom illuminated will only exist for a few days or a few weeks and will vanish as the eyes become accustomed to the new habit. It may even be averted by covering the eyes with a black silk bandage. In addition to this, one must pray, and combine this with creative meditation, wherein one actually pictures the freed condition desired during the night. One should also pray and meditate prior to retiring. One must learn to control one’s thoughts—deliberately driving out the memory of undesirable psychic experiences or of any individual possessing “evil powers.” One should take the protective words, “Jesus Christ, I am with You always” and repeat them to oneself, trying to realize their truth and meaning. #RandolphHarris 2 of 20
The student who has got involved with sorcery or black magic must cut off every possible connection and communication with the source of evil. Then, one must destroy or get rid of any articles or writings in one’s possession coming from it. One must express repentance for one’s errors of judgment and pray for guidance in the future. One needs for such psychic encounters the faith, the courage, and the knowledge which may come with time and growth. One needs such an attitude as George Fox had when, thrust into a cell haunted by the ghost of men’s murderers, he exclaimed, “I told them if all the spirits and devils in hades were there, I was over them in the power of God, and feared no such thing.” One who is confronted with a choice of evils must call in the help of the higher power. Even trouble can be turned to self-educative uses, and some kind of benefit gained out of the experience. However, this can happen more easily and more quickly only if the willingness to learn is there, and only if a corresponding surrender of self is present. It is then that so-called evil is converted to so-called good. What Jesus Christ taught over two thousand years ago is still true—even more true, if that could be, for it has the proofs afforded by all history during that time: hatred cannot end by being returned, nothing will dissolve it save a generous and patient goodwill. A friend who has turned against you and become an enemy can be met in a better way. Instead of getting angry or resentful for one’s unkind words or actions, try to turn one over benevolently to the higher power. If you succeed in entering the Stillness for a period with your last thought being such a wish for one, this will be, in the end, more effective. It will make it possible for one’s attitude to be modified and for one’s own hurt feelings to calm down. The more you forget one in the Stillness, the better the result will be for both of you. Some religions associate grief with the evil principle, and therefore shun it. Summon the strength to refuse to receive other people’s negative opinions. Say plainly that they are certainly entitled to their views, but you would rather not discuss them and would prefer some other subject—providing it is optimistic. #RandolphHarris 3 of 20
Instead of hating your enemy, and meeting punches with punches, one’s sin with your sin, try another way, Christ’s way. This involves real risk, moral courage, and mental flexibility. It requires willingness to endure and suffer for what is right, a trust in spiritual principle rather than in brute power. One is competent to deal with life who equips oneself to deal with its darker sides as well as with its brighter ones, with its difficulties and sufferings no less than with its joys and successes. We cannot ignore the spirit of our times without inviting failure, and we cannot despise it without inviting danger. We must need to face its reality. Throw out negative feelings, expel resentments against other persons, and one will be better and happier person. Every negative thought about others cut it out at once by a smile to yourself, looking at your higher Self dealing with it. At the heart of every atom of every Universe there is Spirit, divine and deathless. It is for this reason that any human society based upon its denial has no future and cannot survive. As long as humans exists, one will need to satisfy inner hunger, to find spiritual comfort, to receive holy communion, and to hear words of eternal truth. The sight of evil humans rising to power over stupid or stupefied masses has brought good human to despair. However, the Universe has room for both. It is a school for all and the outcome of its instruction is yet to be seen. It may well be that those who have banished the religious faith of childhood from their hearts and replaced it by the scientific scepticism of adulthood, followed by the political cynicism of maturity, will end by banishing hope, too. The perversity of humankind, the hypocrisy of its leaders, and the presence of materialistic society may well seem to justify it. Through ignorance of destiny’s laws and through weaknesses in one’s psychological being, humans create the conditions which must finally express themselves in violent conflict with one’s fellows. Most people have failed to recognize that the forces of destiny are back of these events. #RandolphHarris 4 of 20
Even the powerful impact of such stirring events as history has recorded in our times has not been enough to bring about this recognition. Yet they sense their own helplessness, although they do not understand that it is the very inevitability of their retribution from misusing the Universal Law which has made them feel this helplessness. Some humans radiate animosity as others radiate goodwill. The unfortunate members of the first class are victims of their own negative thinking. Those of us who have been born and brought up in democratic countries like England and the United States of America rightly resent the idea of living under oppressive dictatorship. Yet we tend to overlook the fact that even in such countries the State is itself becoming more and more formidably dictatorial as it becomes more and more centralized. Those of us who value individuality and freedom are coming into inner conflict with it—some of us even into outer conflict. Humans who are scarcely sane, who are either pathological cases or in need of psychological treatment, become heroes and leaders among the young. Confronted in actual firsthand experience by the terrors and errors, the tragedies and sufferings of these decades, the serious mind could lose its balance enough to declare life an unmitigated evil. The disciples of Materialism say that the execution of 3000-odd persons in the French Revolution was a small price to pay for the beneficial reforms which it brought about. However, only the philosopher can trace the line of connection between its hatred and violence and the Napoleonic wars which soon followed it, taking a half million French lives and hundreds of thousands wounded, mutilated, or crippled French bodies; these too must be added to the cost of hatred, the price of violence. Cunning criminals and brutal plotters have found whole nations willing to follow them. These sinister figures seek, and often get, key positions in politics, organized groups, etcetera, and from there manipulate the mass and use them as blind unwitting tools. If we are to report faithfully at all, when we examine the forces which are active in the heart of sick humanity today, we must report little hope for the patient’s future. #RandolphHarris 5 of 20
Spiritual faith is stronger in a few individuals but weaker in the great masses. The future is bright for better machines yet dark for better morals. A moral awakening and religious renewal was hoped for. That, unfortunately, is not the situation which has actually developed. Humanity has suffered but has not been prepared enough by its sufferings to let the new spirit have entry into its heart. Nothing is gained by blinking at these facts. The end of the war did not bring that new spirit amongst humankind which is the prerequisite to a better era. The social, political, and economic structures now being erected will not succeed without it. It is a waste of time to enter any public activity which is foredoomed to defeat. This disadvantage of attempting to avoid sufficient consideration of these truths and of shutting one’s eyes to their consequences, is that the pleasanter time thereby gained is much more than offset by the immense worsening of the climax when it does come. Too many find their work boring, their careers futile, and their lives aimless. The result is spiritual torpor. In other times what they sought from drink or pleasures of the flesh, ambition or adventure, was happiness. However, in these times what they seek from them is—short of ending their lives (which is NOT recommended)—refuge from unbearable hopelessness and fatiguing uselessness. They must be uneasy whose hearts are spiritually empty but whose World is full of menace. The past has become a grave of buried hopes, the present a dulled waiting for better times, and the future a bitter blankness which will not bear contemplation. Just as the introduction of poisons into the human body harms it, so the introduction of unsuitable materials and forces into the Earth’s body will harm it too. Nature brings its own retribution to its dwellers for what they do to the planet. This applies just as much to the introduction of mental and psychical pollutions into the invisible atmosphere or aura. The magnetic relationship between the two Earth poles has been disturbed by the excessive amounts of radiation poured lately into space, with great weather disturbance as a result. #RandolphHarris 6 of 20
A despondent outlook can be an effective obstacle to hearing the Overself’s voice. History, both ancient and modern, shows that there is much evil in humankind, that its stupefying effects leads not only to an unwillingness to listen to truth and an unreadiness to understand it, but also to a hostile malignity against it expressed through vituperation and opposition. Resistance to the spiritual forces and rejection of their message must lead in the end to the destructive penalties of which war, pestilence, and flood are instances. We have tried broadly to paint some of the background conditions that discourage patriotism: the lack of bona fides about our liberties, the dishonourable politics in the Universities, the irresponsible press, the disillusioning handling of the adventure in space, the inferior and place-seeking high officers of the State, the shameful neglect of our landscape and the disregard of community; later we shall speak of our trivial leisure which has no community meaning. However, besides these not usually mentioned background conditions, there are of course the persistent immediate uglinesses that everybody talks about and every child sees: the cases of graft, social injustice, stupid law, and injustice to persons. Yet in an important sense, these scandals do not discourage patriotism, so long as there is the feeling of a persistent effort against them. My guess is that more pride of country is engendered by one good decision, or even a good powerful dissenting opinion, of the at least traditional Supreme Court, than by billions of repetitions of the pledge of allegiance. Racial segregation and prejudice destroy community by definition, and we need not discuss them. Here again the revolution commenced in Jefferson’s time and recommenced by the abolitionists, went unfinished; and we have inherited the consequences. However, it is perhaps useful to point out again that, when there is prejudice, the community of the dominant class is equally destroyed. Some people, for instance, talk a blatant patriotism and a specious regionalism grounded in nothing but keep some groups of people marginalized. The result is that flag and cross have become contemptible in their own eyes. #RandolphHarris 7 of 20
Real regionalism, that finds its culture and satisfaction in its own geography and economy and can withstand the temptations of the national cash-nexus, has long ago succumbed to Madison Avenue, Hollywood, and Wall Street. Now that law and religion side against them, the groups who like to discriminate are manic with wounded conceit and intimate fear; their behaviour or integration should be referred not to the Attorney General but to the Public Health Service. All this has come banging down on the children as the battleground. Yet, paradoxically, among all young people it is perhaps just the young people are the ones who find life worth living these days, because something real is happening in the first quarter of the twenty-first century. (In some cities and towns, also, the children are thrown into a central position in the community crisis of exclusion and prejudice, but sometimes as peacemakers. Here is an interesting architectural example. It has become common to use the new centralized school building as the community building for meetings and recreation. One reason is economy. However, another reason that is given is that the school is the one community function that brings together the otherwise discordant elements in the neighbourhood, so maybe the adults can get together in the school. It is a curious situation when the grownups have to rely on the children to make sense for them and when the school building is the chief community building. However, it is better than nothing.) Deep in the organized system itself there has been an important new effort toward community. The postwar boom in young marriages and the sensational rise in the urban birth rate that for the first time promises to surpass the rural birth rate, have been accompanied by the moving of affluent workmen to suburban projects and of the middle status to ranch houses. These new settlements devote time and energy to common interest. Do they do anything for local patriotism? They are communities for small children, one to five, and for women as the mothers of small children. #RandolphHarris 8 of 20
These are the groups in society unequivocally benefited by high production, full employment, and the high standard of living. They thrive on animal security. Labour-saving devices make the World of the infants much pleasanter. Morally and vocationally, there is no question that having and caring for the children is justified work for the mothers, necessary, honoured, and using good human capacities. Women have real jobs, and men are likely to be certified public accountants or politicians. Today, when so many work in the Rat Race, few would deny that this is correct. So now men too try earnestly to devote themselves to the small ones as a secondary but real career. This is called the New Fatherhood. The child World, in the suburbs and surrounding country, and somewhat less in the city, is the best that small children have had in modern times. The new psychology of belonging is feeble stud, but the new psychology of infant care has been radical: no toilet training, permissive thumb sucking and so forth, free crying and movement, exposure to the grownups’ bare skin, honest answers to questions. The new medicine gets them quickly over the usual diseases (though there is debate about the later consequences). The school system as a whole is poor, but the nursery schools are often first-rate, progressive, and have intelligent and dedicated young teachers. It is said that children’s toys and games are excellent, practical and imaginative, up to the age of six, when the commercial criteria of the eleven-billion-dollar market begin to operate. For the adults, the improvement of this child’s World results in genuine community participation, committee meetings and lectures on psychology, concern for traffic and zoning, and even extension courses in cultural subjects to create the proper atmosphere for growing up. It seems astonishing, given so much active participation, that these community activities have not much developed into other important political and social action. #RandolphHarris 9 of 20
However, courage gives out at the political issues relevant to age six. The sponsorship and control of the organized system are everywhere apparent. (For instance, in a recent agitation that has prevented some marginalized groups from moving into Deerfield, a suburb of Chicago—average income per person $93,026.91-$103, 363.24—an “attractive young married couple” explained that most of their friends had most of their money tied up in their houses: “We do not expect to live in them very long. Some of the junior execs expect to become seniors and move to the real North Shore, and a lot of us will be transferred all over the United States of America. When this happens, we want to be sure our houses have resale value.” The spiritedness of this speaks for itself.) Unfortunately, when the adults devote themselves thus to the child’s World, there is not much World for the child to grow up into in the next stage. For Father to guide his growing son, it is necessary for him to have a community of his own and be more of a man. In the circumstances this is difficult. However, if there is no big environment, there are no grounds for patriotism. The corporations, however, have now entered into this arena too, to organize the next stage of growing up. This is the meaning, surely of the publicity that has been trumped up for the Little League, the baseball teams of subteen-agers sponsored and underwritten by various business firms. What value the Little League has as play, I do not know, I have not watched games. The high-pressure advertising has been violently denounced by the older sports writers as giving kids an unsportsmanlike taste for publicity. As a school of rulemaking, responsibility, and impersonality, the Little League certainly cannot compare with the free games of the street, but we saw that these have been passing away. Economically, however, the function of the Little League is clear-cut: it is child labour, analogous to ten-year-olds picking hemp in the factory one hundred and sixty years ago: it keeps idle hands out of mischief; it is not profitable as production, but it provides valuable training in attitude and work habits. Viewed so, the suburban and exurban trends are the formation of a new proletariat, producers of offspring. #RandolphHarris 10 of 20
Naturally the Public Relations have been unable to restrain themselves from invading the public schools. The classes are flooded with pamphlets and documentary films on electronics and the introduction of cows into New Zealand (Oh, and in America, we are do thankful to the Europeans because so many of us love red meat and it is not native to America.), put out by Consolidated Edison, Ford, Shell, Westinghouse, the National Dairy Council, Union Carbide, Bell, etcetera, and even Merrill Lynch. These proclaim their sponsorship with more or less discreet plugs. In the ninth grade, however, at a New York City school I know well, they have spent class time with an item called The Educational ABC’s of Industry, a collection of advertisements interlarded with reading matter; and the class was actually required, by a teacher distracted by overwork, to copy out jingles in which C stands for Orange-Crush, “taste it and see,” and F for the Ford Motor Company, “where the first car grew.” I would gladly share this literature with the reader, but is publisher has not given me permission. Also, why not allow corporations to advertise in schools. Like for example when teaching the ABC. A could stand for Audi, B for BMW, C for Cadillac, instead of charging a Mello-Roos. We need to find ways for government institutions to make money besides through taxes and consumer spending. Allow, for instance, NASA to build private airplanes that car fly to space and manufacture cars. Imagine how good they would be with the technology they have. Now, when we consider some of uncontrolled debaucher in society, there are some consequences for this. There were countries that proposed to protect a great many virgins by legalizing a limited number of people who were allowed to solicitate intimate passions. The rationale for this moral triage—for every three virgins, there would be one person who was allowed compensation for indulging in pleasures of the flesh. However, solicitation became so widespread that Societies for the Reformation of Morals, moral vigilantes who hunted down and prosecuted sinners, had sprung up everywhere. #RandolphHarris 11 of 20
The gravest consequences of solicitation were illnesses, which, in two Centuries, made such incredible Havock all over the World. The Innocents had to suffer by it as well as the Guilty: Men gave it to their Wives, Women to the Husbands, or perhaps their Children…so that no Age, Gender, or Condition could be entirely safe from the Infection. Other terrible consequences were that children without a father to claim them were terminated after birth, lascivious young men refrained from marrying because they prefer to indulge in pleasures of the flesh with hired help, and marriages were destroyed by errant husbands. Seduced young maidens are were ruined when a “slip of this nature was discovered” because afterward, they have no chance of marrying and were often forced into becoming women of the evening. However, at the bottom of it all, the blame is with human nature. Because pleasures of the flesh are taught to be something everyone should enjoy. To counterbalance their innate sensuality, social pressures were employed. All young woman were to have strong notions of honour carefully inoculated into them from their infancy. Young girls were taught to hate solicitors, because they knew what the “word” is implying in these circumstances; and when they grow up, they find their Worldly interest entirely depending upon the reputation of their chastity; and it is upon this compound of natural and artificial chastity, that every woman’s real actual chastity depends. This shrewd analyses of seduction and courting rituals, painfully reminiscent though cleverer by far than the offerings in many modern women’s magazines, explained how women calculate their dream guy will continue to love them as they have struggled to maintain their chastity and surrendered it only after being “stormed” or seduced. Wrong, wrong, wrong, of course—but by then, chastity is a thing of the past, but many would like to revive it. Especially because many people dislike the double standards between genders. At the heart of the matter, they only way to preserve female chastity, is to prevent the men from laying siege to it. #RandolphHarris 12 of 20
Legislation against impropriety, of course, will not work well because cities and states cannot claim they own human bodies, as slavery was already outlawed. However, a campaign to advocate abstinence and celibacy is an excellent idea because it will advise people of the risks involved in being unchaste and make it clear that the male and the female are both responsible from preserving their own bodies and health. Yet many critics say that is the job of the church and the parents. Also, a system of carefully regulated “solicitation” is not a solution. The double standard would remain in full force, laundered and made tolerable by decriminalizing “solicitation.” All women suffer a hangover from our long understanding of the relationship between wives, nuns, and virgins. Virtually every woman who was not an aristocrat had to uphold an ideology of respectability and chastity that is distinguishes her from an unchaste person. Of course, there are some other things people were outraged about involving this double standard, which we will discuss tomorrow. Now, people recovering from schizophrenia need medication, psychotherapy, help in handling daily pressures and responsibilities, guidance in making decisions, training in social skills, residential supervision, and vocational counseling—a combination of services sometimes assertive community treatment. Those whose communities help them meet these needs make greater progress than people living in other communities. Some of the key features of effective community care programs are coordination of patient services, short-term hospitalization, partial hepatization, supervised residencies, and occupational training. When the Community Mental Health Act was first passed, it was expected that community care would be provided by a community mental health center, a treatment facility that would supply medication, psychotherapy, and inpatient emergency care to people with severe disturbances, as well as coordinate the services offered by other community agencies. Each center was expected to serve a geographic area with a population of 50,000 to 200,000 people. #RandolphHarris 13 of 20
When community mental health centers are available and do in fact provide these services, patients with schizophrenia often make significant progress. They are better integrated into the community and function more effectively than patients who receive only standard outpatient care. Coordination of services is particularly important for the so-called mentally ill chemical abusers (MICAs), patients with schizophrenia as well as a substance-related disorder. When people develop symptoms of schizophrenia, today’s clinicians first try to treat them on an outpatient basis, usually with a combination of antipsychotic mediation and psychotherapy. If this approach fails, short-term hospitalization—in a mental hospital or a general hospital’s psychiatric unit—that lasts a few weeks (rather than months or years) may be tried. Soon after the patients improve, they are released for aftercare, a general term for follow-up care and treatment in the community. Short-term hospitalization usually leads to greater improvement and a lower rehospitalization rate than extended institutionalization. Countries throughout the World now favour this policy. People’s need may fall between full hospitalization and outpatient therapy, and so some communities offer day centers or day hospitals, all-day programs in which patients return to their homes for the night. Such programs actually originated in Moscow in 1933, when a shortage of hospital beds necessitated the premature release of many patients. Today’s day center provides patients with daily supervised activities, therapy, and programs to improve social skills. People recovering from schizophrenia in day centers often do better than those who spend extended periods in a hospital or in traditional outpatient therapy. Another kind of institution that has become a popular setting for the treatment of people with schizophrenia is the semihospital, or residential crisis center. Semihospitals are houses or other structure in the community that provide 24-hour nursing care for people with mental disorders. Many individuals who would otherwise be cared for in state hospital are being transferred to these virtual hospitals. #RandolphHarris 14 of 20
Many people do not require hospitalization but, at the same time, are unable to live alone or with their families. Halfway houses, also known as crisis houses or group homes, often serve individuals well. Such residences may shelter between one and two dozen people. The live-in staff usually are paraprofessionals—lay people who receive training and ongoing supervision from outside mental health professionals. Those houses are usually run with a milieu therapy philosophy that emphasizes mutual support, resident responsibility, and self-government. Research indicates that halfway houses help many people recovering from schizophrenia adjust to community life and avoid rehospitalization. Here is how one woman described living in a halfway house after 10 hospitalizations in 12 years: “The halfway house changed my life. First of all, I discovered that some of the staff members had once been clients in the program! That one single fact offered me hope. For the first time, I saw proof that a program could help someone, that it was possible to regain control over one’s life and become independent. The house was democratically run; all residents had one vote and the staff members, outnumbered 5 to 22, could not make rules or even discharge a client from the program without majority sentiment. There was a house bill of right that was strictly observed by all. We helped one another and gave support. When residents were in a crisis, no staff member hustled them off or increased their medication to calm them down. Residents could cry, be comforted and hugged until a solution could be found, or until they accepted that it was okay to feel bad. Even anger was an acceptable feeling that did not have to be feared, but could be expressed and turned into constructive energy. If you disliked some aspects of the program or the bahviour of a staff member, you could change things rather than passively accept what was happening. Choices were real, and failure and successes were accepted equally. Bit by bit, my distrust faltered and the fears lessened. I slept better and made friends. Other residents and staff members who had hallucinated for years now were able to control their hallucinations shared with me some of the techniques that had worked for them. Things like diet…and interpersonal relationships became a few of my tools.” #RandolphHarris 15 of 20
Paid employment provides income, independence, self-respect, and the stimulation of working with others. It also brings companionship and order to one’s daily life. For these reason, occupational training and placement are important services for people with schizophrenia. Many people recovering from this disorder receive occupational training in sheltered workshop—a supervised workplace for employees who are not ready for competitive or complicated jobs. The workshop replicates a typical work environment: products such as toys or simple appliances are manufactured and sold, workers are paid according to performance, and all are expected to be at work regularly and on time. For some, the sheltered workshop becomes a permanent workplace. For others, it is an important step toward better-paying and more demanding employment or a return to a previous job. In the United States of America, occupational training is not consistently available to people with severe mental disorders. Some studies find that fewer than 15 percent of such people are completive employed. The way the World works, is not always perfect, but many people try hard. In a perfect timed World, friends would never show up late, breakfast eggs would never be cold and kids would always come home on schedule. Better yet, inventories would be reduced to zero, eliminating their various costs, including storage, maintenance, management and warehousing. Best of all, meeting would always begin and end on time. However, what kind of economy would result? In economics, the term balanced growth has been loosely used to mean many things. For some, it suggests that environmental factors are taken into account. For others, it signifies the inclusion of transportation or take your pick of other factors in the definition of “growth.” It can mean growth that occurs when capital and labour inputs (adjusted for productivity) increase at the same rate. Alternatively, it can imply an equal emphasis on agriculture and industry in development policy. In the 1960s, and ‘70s, a school of “balanced growth” economists argued that the best way for an economy to develop was for all sectors to grow at the same rate, with the relations of all inputs and outputs held steady. This was, in fact, a call for perfectly synchronized development—a belief that the path to ever-growing wealth was through ever-greater synchrony. However, things are not that simple. #RandolphHarris 16 of 20
These theorists brushed aside something important. Perfect synchronization, holding key variables in fixed relationships, makes any system inflexible, inert and slow to innovate. It creates an all-or-nothing game in which you have to change everything at once or change nothing at all. And changing everything at once, still less proportionally, is extremely difficult. By contrast, as economist Joseph Schumpeter showed, economic development also requires “gales of creative destruction”—winds of change that annihilate old, backward technologies and industries to make way for the new and disruptive ones. And the first thing creative destruction tears up is yesterday’s timetable. Every firm, every financial system, every national economy needs, therefore, both synchronization and some degree of de-synchronization. Unfortunately, at present we lack both the data and the metrics that would help us know when we are about to crash the limits of either. What might be called “chronomics”—the study of timing in the economy—is still primitive at best. What is clear, however, is that time adjustment is now so complex and important that a big, booming synchronization industry has grown up around it. This industry experienced three “great leaps forward” between the mid-1980s and the first quarter of the new century. Today it is a gain. Tomorrow it will be even bigger. In 1985, when the Institute of Industrial Engineers published a book called Innovations in Management: The Japanese Corporation, the term Kanban—what the West came to call the “just-in-time” principle or JIT—hardly rated mention. Manufacturing in the United States of America was still dominated by something called material requirements planning or MRP, a mainframe-based system for scheduling factory resource requirements. MPR’s purpose was to produce parts and products according to a present schedule. The JIT system, by contrast, first developed by Toyota, allowed the customers’ changing needs to set the schedule. It made flexible timing practical. #RandolphHarris 17 of 20
By 1990, when the National Center for Manufacturing Sciences in the United States of America published its Competing in World-Class Manufacturing report, JIT had already become a buzzword in America and was spreading throughout manufacturing. Soon management consultants jumped on board the JIT express and sped its implementation. IBM, Motorola, Harley-Davidson and scored of other leading firms adopted it. A study of 291 diverse manufacturing facilities in the United States of America and in 128 in thirty other countries found that, as the NCMA summarized it, “of the many potential means of improving productivity, only JIT-related ones were statistically shown to be consistently effective. What JIT did, however, was shave time tolerances even more closely. And that required far more sophisticated synchronization than ever before. Another burst of change in business began when consultants Jim Champy and Michael Hammer, in their best-selling book Reengineering the Corporation, told managers to “reengineer” their firms when “leading competitors achieve significantly shorter cycles,” when the organization responds a single supplier and required the restructuring of entire long supply chains in the 1990s and early 2000s. Not only did first-tier markers of components have to deliver them as needed, but second-tier suppliers did as well, in order to accelerate through-put and reduce inventories. The goal was tighter synchronization at every level. Huge companies such as Oracle, SAP, PeopleSoft and scores of others offering enterprise resource planning (ERP) and related software owe their very existence, in substantial measure, to the mounting demand for smarter and closer timing in business. Hundreds of consulting firms by now were heavily into the synchronization business. SAP or Oracle, say, would sell the software. Then I.T. consultants would be called in to implement it. Anderson Consulting (now Accenture), one of the largest consulting firms in the World, owed much of its remarkable growth to the new synchronization systems. #RandolphHarris 18 of 20
The greater the synchronization, the greater the value added to the entire supply chain’s performance. No wonder some UPS delivery trucks bear the slogan: “Synchronizing the World of Commerce.” The synchronization industry still has a long way to go—and grow. First, many small firms that have not yet restructured their supply and/or value chains will increasingly be compelled to do so. Second, synchronizing supply and distribution chains is only one step toward tomorrow’s deeper and more comprehensive temporal integration. Now the synchronizers want to do more than sell just the initial software. They also want to service their direct customers and tier after tier of downstream customers stretching all the way to the end user. Indeed, it may even extend beyond that someday because more and more products may be returned to the manufacturer for recycling, as is already the case with autos in European and printer ink cartridges in the United States of America. All these changes multiply layer after layer of suppliers, distributors, servicers and users needing synchronization. Last, the synchronization industry will expand because rising competition requires innovation after innovation, each of which, in turn, changes timing requirements and requires resynchronization. However, the hidden paradox of the law of de-synchronization is that the more you synchronize at one level in a system, the more you de-synchronize at another. If price decisions are taken neither continuously nor in perfect synchronization, the process of adjustment of all prices to a new nominal level will imply temporary movements in relative prices. It might then well be that, to avoid these movements in relative prices, each price setter will want to move one’s own price slowly compared to others. The result will be a slow movement of all prices to their new nominal level, and substantial inertia of the price level. Even small departures from perfect synchronization can generate substantial price level inertia. If price decisions are desynchronized, even anticipated movements in money will usually have an effect on economic activity. #RandolphHarris 19 of 20
It is however possible to find paths of money deceleration which reduce inflation at no cost in output. Price desynchronization has implicated for relative price movements as well as for the price level. Goods early in the chain of production have more price and profit variability than good further down the chain. Price inertia, if it is due to price desynchronization, may be difficult to remove. It may well be that, given the timing decisions of others, no agent has an incentive to change one’s own timing decision: the time structure of prince desynchronization may be stable. Until recently, a mindless cult of acceleration led by numerous business “gurus” in the United States of America urged companies to “Be first! Be agile! Shoot now, aim later!” This simplistic advice led to the launch of many low-quality, poorly tested products; angry customers; unhappy investors; a loss of strategic focus; and a high turnover of CEOs. It ignored the problems of synchronization and de-synchronization. It was a superficial way of dealing with the deep fundamental of time. Mismatched timing can damage—even kill—individual companies. However, this is not just a problem of particular enterprises. It can upset relations among multiple firms. Moreover, anecdotal evidence at least suggests that it can impact the whole industries, entire sectors of a country’s economy, and even the global economy. Now, time to close in prayer. Little by little roads eat away the hearts of mountains. Fires burn through, come back in huckleberries, trails close in August, too many bears. Too many bears, now following avalanche chutes, glacier lily, early spring. Caribou in old growth spruce, lichen, banks of snow and fog. Bear tracks in the mud. Treat each bear as the last bear. Each wolf as the last, each caribou. Each track the last, gone spoor. Gone scat. There are no more deertrials, no more flyways. Treat each animal as sacred, each minute our last. Ghost hooves. Ghost skulls. Death rattles and dry bones. Each bear walking alone in warm night air. To pray is to mediate on events of the past which testify to God’s guiding spirit in the affairs of humans, and which give us courage to fight for justice and freedom, and to look confidently and hopefully to the future. #RandolphHarris 20 of 20
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No one has yet fully realized the wealth of sympathy, kindness, and generosity hidden in the soul by God. The human mind is fascinating. A young officer working on a ship wrote that he would awaken during the night and discover himself under an undesirable physical and mental condition. He seemed to be clearly in a mesmerized condition, caused by someone or something giving the powerful posthypnotic suggestion to wake up and obey. The remedy is to use the same technique in reverse. That is, practise auto-hypnosis, give the self-suggestion that on waking up there will be full conscious and full rejection of the negative idea. If one must hate something, let one hate hatred itself. The storms of violent passion are to be resisted as the smoothness of inner peace is to be invited. To keep one’s temper in a single provocative situation may be easy, but to keep it consistently equable is a real feat. Life is a conflict. One must not let these negative feelings take up lodgement within in one longer than a single moment. All humankind must awake from its materialistic apathy and cast out something of its selfishness. It is called upon to renounce its violence and meannesses, its intolerance, unkindnesses, and injustices. It must either emerge from its animal brutality or else suffer itself to be extinguished by it. It must come out from the shadows of ignorance, selfishness, and materialism. Only then will it find the sunshine of a larger life that awaits it. It is not always one oneself who acts in a particular way at a particular time. Impulses from lower sources or outside contacts may be strong intuitions from higher levels or outside sources may influence one to wise choices which bless one’s future. We must not hate those who are born of the same divine essence as ourselves but we may hate the sins they perpetrate and the evil they radiate. The seeker has to contend not only with limiting environments but also with internal enemies. Apathy delays one, depression obstructs one, and loneliness frustrates one. #RandolphHarris 1 of 18
The more one becomes sensitive, intuitive, responsive to the spirit, the more one is unfolding exceptional passivity. However, this puts one in peril, for one feels the negative presence too. Hence the more one must restrict one’s contacts until one’s strength is above them. It is prudent to escape from a situation where there is much pressure to commit a foolish action or to make a foolish decision leading to calamitous results—and not continue to stay in it until the danger materializes. One whose presence is felt to be odious, whose personality is regarded as distasteful, is better left alone. One should never allow the actions or words of ignorant human to arouse in one reactions of anger, envy, or resentment. The years are too few and there is too much to be done—both on oneself and for oneself—to waste them in negative, resentful thought and decaying, neurotic emotion. When one comes to understand its importance, one will begin to exercise some vigilance over one’s thoughts. Resist beginnings—that is the most practical way to deal with negatives. The destructive thoughts of fear and self-doubt which whine at your door, whine at the door of every human. However, you can make them powerless to hurt you. For—there is n chance, no destiny, no fate can circumvent, can hinder or control the firm resolve of a determined soul! If the negative thought persists then one has to wrench oneself away from it with the assent and use of all one’s being—feeling, reason, intuition. One’s own attitude towards events holds the power to make them good or bad, whatever their nature of itself may be. Those who are unable to think correctly about this tragic World situation must be pardoned, but those who refuse to think correctly about it do not deserve pardon. The counsel of Jesus to “resist not evil” does not apply to other men’s acts but to our own thoughts. We are to turn aside from a negative thought-habit by the simple method of substituting the opposite and the beneficial one. We need not to spend our strength resisting the thought of misery, for example. We are to substitute hope for misery, whenever the latter appears. #RandolphHarris 2 of 18
Wrong-doing will be avoided not because it is punished by the law of recompose even when it is not punished by the law of society, but because of the strong inner conviction that right-doing is its own reward, its own satisfaction. The beautiful is allied to the good. If we cultivate beautiful feelings, evil ones begin to get dissolved. One will not risk rebuffs by expressing one’s views and describing one’s experienced to the uncomprehending of the unsympathetic. It I cowardice to refuse to face the fact that one has made a mistake and to continue following the same course because it is to stop it and return to the right road. The easier way is too often the worse way, leading to trouble for one’s self and others. There is a limit to the extent of concessions to prejudice; we must not beyond it. Beware of those whose mind is vindictive and whose speech is venomous. If they are born of emotional prejudice or passionate bias, it is of little use to meet irrational arguments with rational statements. The ancient saying that where goodwill exists agreement will not be hard to find, still remains true. The crowds which delighted in the gladiator shows of ancient Rome and, to a lesser extent, those which delighted in the bullfights of modern Spain, do not see to understand how bestial they allow themselves to become at such times. If one is to be distinguished from a member of the savage species, the true human being, the fully evolved human, must have the quality of pity in oneself. Do not attempt to fight evil with evil. Overcome it by calling on a higher power to bring out the good in you wherewith to meet it. In this way you obey Jesus’ counsel, “Resist not evil.” Synesis (fourth century): “This would be the most extreme of ills—not to be conscious of the presence of evil. For this is the condition of those who no longer try to rise…for this reason repentance is elevating means…[but] both deeds and words [must] lend a helping hand.” A philosopher may not ignore the negative side of one’s or another’s life: one has to deal with it because circumstances force one, like everyone else to do so. #RandolphHarris 3 of 18
However, one’s way will be different, because one will use all one’s faculties and capacities: intellectual, practical, and intuitive. One will keep calm and not let passion or negative emotion carry one away. However, all that done, one hands over the results to the higher power (which includes destiny). One’s mind must stay in That which transcends negativity, sin, evil, even if one must grapple with them. Philosophy will not disregard the bad in others, and the sin in ourselves, but having seen them clearly it does not react negatively in useless condemnation. Instead, it reacts constructively in trying to realize the meaning of evil, the consequence of sin, and then proceeds to cultivate the opposite quality, the good of that particular evil—as honesty where there is dishonesty and so on. If practical dealings are involved, we may regret the existence of these faults in others, but we may not refuse to recognize them. Amid all the pessimistic reflections which the state of the World so easily induces in the thinking human, one may yet be buoyed up by the hope which the eternal verities must again and again give one, that is, the hope that the end of it will be immeasurably better. The existentialist view—so popular with so many young people today—that we begin with oblivion and end with annihilation, that what comes between is either meaningless or mysterious, with no solutions to problems, no answers to questions, is a view which the tragedy and evil and catastrophe of our times tempt us to accept. However, religion and philosophy release us from this despair. In such critical times as these even some faith in the existence of a higher power, and some aspiration towards serving it, has protective value. Trust, not tension: trust in the higher power producing serenity rather than tension; because of the pressures of life this is a great need today. However dark or desperate World history may seem at times, we must always remember no one can disrupt the divine World-Idea, or spoil its manifestation, or prevent its glorious outcome. #RandolphHarris 4 of 18
Fear of the power and cunning of these evil opponents causes them to rely on obvious but ordinary human forces and weapons for protection. They forget the divine forces they could, and should in this crisis, call on—and neglect the superhuman and extraordinary. To express a half-amused contempt for the intelligence of our time is not at all the same thing as to make a jaundiced indictment of it. To witness the magnificent parade of a civilization of almost unredeemed triviality is less likely to arouse bitterness in the soul and more likely to give it a good half-hour’s amusement. On the one hand, carried away by the idealistic enthusiasm and millennial promises of merely emotionalist cults, some believe that a spiritual teaching has only to be propagated and it will spread triumphantly everywhere. On the other hand, confronted by the formidable spectacle of a whole World plunged in ignorance, conscious that the ordinary individual can do so little to uplift it, others drift into bewildered defeatism and actually do nothing at all. However, this second attitude, although much more sensible and much more justifiable than its opposite one, is not quite philosophical. According to the old classical fable, we had to look for truth in the bottom of a well; today we have to look for it in the bottom of a bitter disillusionment. In the dismal World conditions of today it is a paramount necessity to obtain some glimpse, however meagre, of the divine plan which is working out for all our lives. Only in this way can we co-operate with it understandingly and adequately. Instead of relying on flight into the unknow and uncertain, it is better to rely on God. In the first case one may be making a false escape and duping oneself, but in the second case one opens the way for true guidance in the matter. With peace in the mind and harmony in the feelings, both completed by knowledge of the universal presence of divinity—who could harbour evil thoughts, hatreds, or destructive plans? #RandolphHarris 5 of 18
Every evil person who crosses our path provides an opportunity, in the injury one attempts to do us, to keep ourselves from being provoked into retaliation, anger, or resentment. If we succeed in overcoming our own feelings, we mount upward a step. In a negative situation, where negative criticism and negative emotions are rampant, other persons may try to involve one in it, or at least get one to support their attitude and endorse their criticism. However, a feeling may come over one preventing one from doing so. If so, one should obey and remain silent. With time the rightness of this course will be confirmed. One the injunction to return good for evil, the question arises, with what then will you return go? Return good for good, but justice for evil. Is this not wiser counsel? Does not the other punish goodness to an extremist position, rendering it almost ridiculous by condoning bad conduct? Inner and outer difficulties are often related. What appears to be an ugly state of affairs may well be a definite attack of certain evil forces using interested human instruments. In such a situation, the individual should never practise nonresistence in any way, but, on the contrary, should fight them off as hard a one can. At the same time, one must remember that weakness in self-control can give these evil forces an opening which they might not have had otherwise. If one wishes to emerge victorious in the struggle, one must be on one’s guard. If one does not throw off this condition, one, oneself, unwittingly erects a barrier though which the divine help sent one finds it difficult to penetrate. Although the temptation to seek release as such a time through, for example, the easy way of drink is understandable, one must nevertheless remember the duty one owes to one’s spiritual life, to one’s personal interest on the relative plane, and to others. Although the student must forgive those who mistreat one, one need not think tht forgiveness implies one has to associate with such people thereafter. #RandolphHarris 6 of 18
Whenever the thought of them, or their abuse, comes into one’s mind one must exert one’s willpower to drive it out, and immediately direct one’s thoughts toward God, or toward any inspired individual in whom one had faith. Only the actualized Christian is entitled to dismiss evil and to deny its existence: all others must look it in the face, understand it, and overcome it by slow gradations. It is better to keep out of the way of evil humans, especially when they are in power, until or unless we are driven by the necessity of circumstance of the inward voice of duty to oppose ourselves to them. It is always a certainty that the practice of active goodwill directed toward those who regard one harshly will benefit one’s own development, while it is always a possibility that this practice may dissolve the harsh feeling against one. It is all gain and no loss. This is one part of the case for Jesus’ advice to return good for evil. It is a technique of this evil power to paralyse its intended victims by frightening them. If we give way to fear, we give assistance to its effort. It cannot be beaten without open defiance and ready valour. One must remember that one will meet with those individuals who are themselves the bearers of antagonistic forces, instruments of darkness—sometimes consciously, most unconsciously, people used by evil forces. So far as possible one must avoid such people. Certainly never enter into intimate associations with them, whether the relation be business or personal. If one does one will find that sooner or later some of their unfortunate behaviour will be returned by Universal Law and tumble on one and one with have to suffer with the afflicted individual. These people make talk as believers in spiritual things—indeed, they often belong to some cult or other. However, they do not understand truth or live it. They cannot help one and one is not strong enough to carry them. So leave them alone. And that is not always easy, because often they are people of a kind that force themselves into one’s life. #RandolphHarris 7 of 18
Sometimes one can know them by this hallmark, by this aggressive way which they try to entangle another individual. It may even be necessary at times to deal with such people with a firm hand, even mercilessly and relentlessly. If so, do not hesitate, but do it without any personal feeling of any kind. The American landscape has been badly corrupted. European writers no longer even notice the natural wonder of it, they are so put off by the ugliness and conformity of the towns. However, worse than the ugliness and conformity is the neglect that baffles pride of place. Our poets try to move themselves by nostalgically repeating the names of towns: “Biloxi and Natchez, Pascagoula and Opelousas”—but beware of paying a visit. The Americans disesteem public goods, and improving the landscape is a big expense. Historically, the neglect of appearance and plan of our scores of thousands of villages and small towns, especially in the Middle West and South—the diner, the Woolworth’s, and two filling stations—can be analogized to the neglect of the present-day less affluent. In the tide of expansion, appearance was disregarded as not essential; later, the matter would be mopped up. However, the neglect rigidifies, it is a hard core not easy to change. Instead, the present tendency is to impose on the countryside a new corporation style altogether, in the form of shopping centers (=national chain supermarkets) on the highway. This works out disastrously for the communities, for these “centers” are not centers of villages, and there cease to be villages at all, simply scattered family houses. This is the end of a long process of disruption, for in any case the industry is gone, then men work in plants thirty miles away. It is possible to travel many miles even in New England and not see a single activity a man could make a living at, except automobile agencies and filling stations; not even a food store. #RandolphHarris 8 of 18
The schools too are large and centralized. The families tend to move away frequently, but even while they are put, they are driving around. This does not make much community to grow up in. In more primitive societies, a chief community activity is working together, thatching a roof, net fishing. However, with us, precisely this co-operative labour, for instance the work in a factory, is removed from its community setting ad emptied, by the relations of production, of any community spirit. Places that have no shape have no face-to-face functioning, for the shape is the functioning community. The loveliness of so many hamlets in Europe is that they have shape and are built of local materials by local craft. Perhaps the people had to cluster to attend early masses. In Ireland, where they farm out the back door, the rows of thatched houses line both sides of a little street. In France, where men go off to their farms, there may be a square. In our own early New England villages, where congregational and political spirit was strong, there was a common green with public buildings, though the families lived scattered on the farms they worked. There was the shape of a community, with its economy, its crafts, and its ideas. The advantage of growing up in such a community in one’s early years is evident. It is not family supervision, on which the physicians of juvenile delinquency are now laying such stress; quite the contrary! it is that the family does not have to bear the burden of teaching the culture. In a community, everybody knows the child face to face. There is an easy grading of overlapping ages, right up to the adults who are going about their business in a going concern, and not paying too much attention to children. A good city neighbourhood works in the same way. From this point of view, the swarm of kids in a city housing project form a better community than present-day country boys or the kids on Park Avenue. Therefore they have more local patriotism. #RandolphHarris 9 of 18
The bother with this community chain, however, is that it terminates abruptly before it reaches the adults, who belong to a different World; so the kids are a gang and the local community spirit turns into loyalty to a Code; it does not eventuate in anything socially cohesive and culturally worthwhile. And such a gang in prone to be delinquent because, as we shall see, in such conditions it is the forbidden tht best cements loyalty. Politically, a delinquent gang is not lawless and not in the state of nature. Balked in its growth, the local loyalty turns on itself and simple reinvents the feud-code of Alfred the Great, marking out safe territories and making provision for special classes of revenge. On this view, if one teenage gang, pursuing its vendetta, falls on another and murders a kid, it would not be our business to interfere in the law of that differently constituted society. Also, like Danes or Vikings of Alfred’s time, they regard our larger society merely as a field of sports and plunder; they have not yet reinvented International Law. However, we, of course, cannot view it so, for we live in an advanced state of politics and law: they are members of our community. We are not children but more experienced and somewhat wiser, and therefore responsible, so we cannot simply annihilate them like pirates (they are small in size, few in numbers, and armed with primitive weapons); and we cannot let them hurt themselves. (I think it is wise sometimes to regard disaffected groups as if there were plausibly these two viewpoints, rival patriotisms. It is better humanity and it might make better law. The advantage is that it takes the disaffected seriously as disaffected, rather than merely pathological; it keeps in the foreground the question of allegiance. We must deserve allegiance.) However, they are children. Let us consider rather the peculiar patriotic problem of an older disaffected group, the Hipster young men, for then we can see that it is a patriotic problem. #RandolphHarris 10 of 18
Here too, I think, there has often been a strong community influence of growing up together. For instance, fellows who went to Black Mountain College, which was oriented to community and creative arts—a powerful, and powerfully disaffecting, combination—are pillars of Hipster society. Other fellows were buddies in the armed services. However, it was, as Hispters their community spirit is strong. They barge in to sleep, they share property, they share a culture. Now think of this community, disaffected from America, as engaged in a pathetic quest for some other big patriotism, an adult peer group. We saw how, appointing themselves outcast, they affirm the accidental symbol of other marginalized groups: African American, Puerto Rican, the less affluent, and others. However, this is pretty thin gruel for intellectual young men, many of whom have been to college. On the other hand, they are unable to make the jump to the great international humanists community because, simply, they do not know anything, neither literature nor politics. (I once taught at Black Mountain College, and to my astonishment I found that the students had never read the Christian Bible, Milton, Dryden, Gibbon, etcetera, etcetera, nor did they feel—as a lack—that such things existed. However, they knew odd facts about Mayan hieroglyphics which their teacher had been interested in.) What then? Since it is necessary for grown fellow to have some major allegiance or other, they have latched on to the late Japanese masters of Zen Buddhism. (This is a late effect of the early-century discovery of Japan by Fenollosa, Frank Lloyd Wright, the Misses Lowell and Ayscough, and Ezra Pound, suddenly reinforced by the postwar occupation under General MacArthur.) Now, as we shall see, Zen is not irrelevant to those young men’s needs, for it is a theology and style of immediate experience. #RandolphHarris 11 of 18
However, the pathos is that Zen was the flower of an intensely loyal feudal system that fed, protected, and honoured its masters, and to which the Zen masters in turn had fealty. For example, it is said that the haiku was invented by a poet as a public service when one was suicidally despondent because one’s Emperor had died. However, Zen without farmers and servants is an airy business; and the young men, as we have seen, are betrayed into dubious devices to keep body and soul together, nor do they have a flag to salute. Community approaches have worked to resolve many problems. In looking at mental health, the broadest approach for the treatment of schizophrenia is the community approach. In 1963, partly in response to the terrible conditions in public mental institutions, the U.S. government ordered that patients be released and treated in the community. Congress passed the Community Mental Health Act, which stipulated that patients with psychological disorders were to receive a range of mental health services—outpatient therapy, inpatient treatment, emergency care, preventative care, and aftercare—in their communities rather than being transported to institutions far from home. The act was aimed at a variety of psychological disorders, but patients with schizophrenia, especially those who had been institutionalized for years, were affected most. Other countries around the World put similar sociocultural treatment programs into action shortly thereafter. Thus began four decades of deinstitutionalization, an exodus of hundred of thousands of patients with schizophrenia and other long-term mental disorders from state institutions into the community. On a given day in 1955 close to 600,000 patients were living in state institutions; today only around 60,000 patients reside in those setting. The unfortunate result is that mental health lost most of its funding and a lot of people with mental illnesses have to where to go, but jail or to live on the street. #RandolphHarris 12 of 18
Clinicians have learned that patients recovering from schizophrenia can profit greatly from community programs. However, the actual quality of community care for many of these people has been inadequate through the United States of America. The result is a “revolving door” syndrome: the few patients, who are lucky enough to be treated, have been released to the community, readmitted to an institution within mothers, released a second time, admitted yet again, and so on, over and over. A lot of people who want mental health care are not able to access this precious resource. In fact, 10.3 percent (over 4.7 million) of adults with a mental illness remain uninsured. And, 56 percent of patients want access to a mental health care facility. As COVID-19 continues to rage, Americans are experiencing anxiety and depression. More than 42 percent of U.S. adults reported symptoms, up 11 percent in the previous years. Nearly 1 in 5 Americans has some type of mental health condition. Spending on mental health treatment and social services has reached over $250 billion, which is up approximately 60 percent since 2009. This cost includes spending on things like therapy and prescription medications as well as stays in psychiatric or substance abuse rehabilitation facilities. However, it does not take into account indirect costs, such as lower workforce participation rates and decreased productivity. In fact, depression alone is estimated to account for $44 billion in loses to workplace productivity. And access to care can be prohibitively expensive—even more so than physical health costs. An hour-long traditional therapy session can range from $65 to $250 for those without insurance. A patient with major depression can spend an average of $10,836 a year on health costs. Meanwhile, a person with diabetes taking insulin can spend $48,000 to manage their condition. On a national level, research shows that the United States of America is likely to continue to experience a shortage of mental health professional through 2025. If you are looking for excellent health and wellness coverage, consider becoming a Kaiser Permanente member. You do not need a referral for mental health and addiction care services. #RandolphHarris 13 of 18
Other ways to help keep health and wellness in check is celibacy. However, there is the double standard that is a Worldwide phenomenon that has many layers of meaning. The first is that one and one is not always two, because the woman or man of the evening is a criminal but their client is a “john,” an also because women are expected to be virginal at marriage and chaste afterward, and some men are expected to be chaste before a relationship and after, and during the marriage and relationship, but one’s husband is not bound by the same constraints. The double standard implies, in other words, that chastity is primarily and woman’s and small percent of men’s domain. Nonetheless, only women are typically judged more harshly than all men whose conduct is identical. Even today, the discrimination is thunderously obvious, preached from pulpits and parliaments and specifically mandated in the law. The double standard is nefarious not only because it embodies egregious gender inequality but because it condoned solicitation as an acceptable outlet for unchaste men. Though it condemns people of “the evening” as social scum and consigns them to lives of degradation and danger and disease, it sanctions their profession. The reason is obvious: without solicitation, lascivious people might seduce rather than marry the virgins of their own social class. It is particularly chilling that the members of many churches and other organizations in positions of authority support the double standard and, albeit reluctantly, swallows the equation that no men or women of the evening equals no chastity. Laws essentially force women to abide by a higher standard of regard in the matters of chastity than men. They also denounce solicitation but at the same time partially exonerate it as the safety valve that kept virgins pure. It is unsurprising, then, that the double standard matured as a code of conduct in pleasures of the flesh that demand female chastity and at the same time approve, or at least tolerate, the dominant group of mostly men, and their carnality expressed in the use of other humans as toys, though this meant sacrificing certain women and sometimes other to unchaste, unrestrained men and a small fraction of women. #RandolphHarris 14 of 18
Furthermore, not all men honour their obligations to marry their child’s mother. And when men who came from a higher social echelon seduced a working-class girl, they almost never honoured that class’s code. Domestics and shop girls in particular were the pray of privileged men, but being with child destitute these women rather than pushing them into marriage with the baby’s father. However, often times, after these men who have money start to become older and nearing retirement, they will then leave their wives for young women of other ethnic backgrounds and of lower social standings because these women tend to be considered more exotic and attractive. The women will marry for older man for security and to escape labour. However, in a few cases, it is real love. In society, another problem is many people seem to scarcely be able to comprehend what chastity means, or to regard it as a virtue. Among the middle and upper classes, chastity’s double standard wreaked havoc on social decency. Some of these moral puritanical, which even frown on premarital male activities involving pleasures of the flesh, young women are coached to trap husbands without surrendering beforehand even a taste of the delights to come. Men are, in some cases, are frustrated at this implacable wall of chastity and take it as a challenge. They play games. In large numbers, they form unholy crusades to seduce young virgins. This upper-class deviance was depicted on shows like the original on Gossip Girl. “Resist, resist!” the virgins’ elders urge them. “Just say a resounding ‘No’ to your pleading, inveigling, deceiving young suitors.” After all, as the old adage went, “Who would keep a cow of their own that can have a quart of milk for a penny?” However, at the same time, ladies, and a small percentage of men, forgive them for trying to ruin you. This double standard of conduct involving pleasures of the flesh is necessary, because unlike you, the dominant class of men and a small percentage of dominant women, by nature have an urgent, irrepressible need. Brothels used to be officially licensed. Unchaste people play a crucial role in upholding their societies’ notions about chastity. #RandolphHarris 15 of 18
Now, nowhere is a failure to achieve perfect synchronization more lamented than in the bedroom—unless it is when the U.S. Federal Reserve or the Bank of Japan rises or lowers interest rates and get the timing wrong. Timing, as any comedian can tell us, is everything. However, we are, for the most part unwittingly, changing our links to time, and that is no joke. As interested as investors and economists may be about exact timing in finance, they re remarkably uniformed about the role of synchronization—and, even more so de-synchronization—in the creation of wealth and poverty. Yet understanding these can give us a wholly new way of thinking about wealth creation. Some degree of synchronization has been needed ever since hunters and gatherers began working in groups. Historian William McNeill argues that mass rhythmic activities have been used throughout history to promote synchrony, which in turn improved economic productivity. Tribal dancing, he suggests, strengthened teamwork and made hunting more efficient. For thousands of years fishermen have chanted in unison as they hauled in their nets, the musical beats indicating when to pull and when to breathe. Agrarian economies also reflected seasonal change. According to anthropologist John Omohundro, writing about the Philippine island of Panay, “Through the dry season…and into the rainy season…businessmen are in their slowest season. All aspects of the distribution system slow down. By September or October the rice crop begins to arrive in town…Because the wealth of the province is regulated by agrarian cycles, city business activity rises and falls the these cycles.” Economic anthropologist Willem Wolters adds: “Purely local banks have never been viable in the semi-arid tropics because of the seasonality and synchronic timing.” Early industrial economics operated under completely different temporal conditions. Assembly-line work required a different rhythm. Thus, the factory whistle and the time clock were invented to coordinate work schedules. #RandolphHarris 16 of 18
By contrast, today, as we will see, business activities are speeding toward real time. In addition, the uses of time are becoming increasingly personalized and irregular, if not erratic. More different tasks need to be integrated, and the acceleration effect truncates the time available for each task. All this makes synchronization harder to achieve. And that is only the beginning. If we look deeper, we find that every economy throbs and vibrates with unnoticed rhythms. We may buy a newspaper daily, pick up soap or milk at the supermarket weekly, gas up the car every ten days or so, cash a paycheck every two weeks and pay credit card bills monthly. We might call a broker sporadically according to what is happening in the stock market, buy a movie ticket or a book on a whim a few times a year, pay taxes quarterly or annually, go to the dentist when a toothache strikes and purchase a gift for a relative who is getting married in June. These and countless other transactions create rhythms that flow through banks, markets and lives. With the very first slap on our infant behind, every one of us becomes part of this ongoing economic music. Even our biorhythms are affected (and in turn influence) the marvelously complex, orchestrated process that pulse around us as people work—making things, providing services, managing others, caring for one another, financing companies or processing data and information into knowledge. At every moment, some tempos speed up, others slow down. New melodies and harmonies are introduced, then fade out. There are choruses, counterpoints and crescendos. Beyond these, throughout the entire society and economy, there is a generalized pulse of life that is itself the average, as it were, of all its subordinate tempos. The “economic music” never stops. The result is not patternless chaos because, within every wealth system, various components or subsystems are continually adapting their speeds, phases and periodicities to one another. In biology this process is called “entertainment.” #RandolphHarris 17 of 18
Neurons, it turns out, do not work alone. They form temporary teams—much as businesses increasingly do today. In the words of Science magazine, “Neurons frequently fall into step with one another, forming ensembles that play the same tune, as it were, firing in relative synchrony for brief periods, before some neurons drop out of synch, perhaps to join another ensemble.” Firing in sync, moreover, apparently predisposes the neurons to “joint processing” at high levels of the system. Today’s breakup of monolithic corporations into congeries of short-lived project team, alliances, partnerships and joint ventures parallels these ephemeral “ensembles” in the neural system. One way the World could survive in joy is if the whole World worships God. We hear you, fellow-creatures. We know we are wrecking the World and we are afraid. What we have unleased has such momentum now, we do not know how to turn it around. Do not leave us alone, we need your help. You need us too for your own survival. Are there power there you can share with us? In the Service of the Heart, nothing is further from the truth than the widespread notion that to pray is synonymous with to beg, to request, or to supplicate. To be sure, to pray means to call upon God to help us. However, we need Him not only when we are physically in danger. We need Him also when we are spiritually in danger. To pray means to seek God’s help, “to keep our tongue from evil,” “to purify our hearts,” “to put into our hearts to understand, to learn and to fulfill in love, the words of the Christian Bible,” and thus to keep us unswervingly loyal to truth, goodness, and beauty. To pray is to feel and to give expression to a deep sense of gratitude. No intelligent, healthy, normal human being should take for granted, or accept without conscious, grateful acknowledgement the innumerable blessings which God in His infinite love bestows upon one daily—blessings of parents and loved one, of friends and country, of health and understanding. To pray is to express renewed allegiance to the moral and ethical principles which we accept as the guides of our personal lives, and which we recognize as the indispensable foundation stones for a decent human society. #RandolphHarris 18 of 18
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Speaking of Human Experience, Let Us Consider the Idea of Equality
In the beginning there were the laws and the particles. The laws caused the particles to aggregate to form atoms of a limited number of types and properties and the atoms to fit together in specific molecular configurations. In the atmosphere of the primordial Earth the basic sources of energy—radioactivity, ultraviolet radiation, electric discharge, and heat—broke up some of the gaseous molecules into fragments that, on recombining, formed a number of heavy and relatively complex compounds which drifted down into the sea. The new ingredients included energy-rich molecules which drifted down into the sea. The new ingredients included energy-rich molecules which, by temporarily hooking on to other molecular fragments, facilitated their participation in the formation of even more complex compounds. There were also amino acids, which sometimes linked together to form simple proteinlike substances; there were sugars, phosphates, and bases, which under suitable conditions of temperature and juxtaposition, were occasionally able to form primitive precursors of the nucleic acids. In isolated pools cut off from the major seas by seismic events, evaporation of most of the water greatly increased the rate of chemical activity. Within these pools the statistics of random combination of molecular fragments occasionally resulted in the creation of complex molecular assemblies, which constituted effective catalysts for specific chains of reactions among the available ingredients. Once in a long while the phenomenon of autocatalysis occurred, resulting in closed cycles of self-amplifying chemical activity. Through the operation of the laws of physics that determine the properties of high-molecular-weight material dissolved in water, the new compounds had a tendency to collect in droplets, or coacervates. These bags of chemicals ultimately came to display lifelike properties, including the ability to “grow” and, under suitable circumstances, to “reproduce” their own kind. #RandolphHarris 1 of 21
Meanwhile, another important line of chemical evolution was developing. The simple nucleic acid molecules which continually and automatically formed in the “hot dilute soup” of the primordial seas began to exhibit interesting reproductive processes of their own. The first occurred in sophisticated types of coacervates which possessed certain kinds of catalytic ingredients as well as temporally varying cycles of chemical activity. Ultimately the random but thorough process of evolutionary trial and error succeeded in combining a fortunate set of properties in the same coacervate. These properties included the conditions required for the precise self-reproduction of the “genetic” nucleic acid molecules” of nucleic acid to stretch out on solid inclusions and form attachments with shorter “transfer molecules” of the same substance. The natural attraction of the unattached ends of the transfer molecules for other molecular species the yielded a spectacularly important by-product of these reactions—the manufacture of other complex organic compounds in addition to nucleic acid. With the passage of time evolutionary refinement specialized the messenger and transfer molecules until the nucleic acid mechanisms became unusually effective in the assembly of protein enzymes. These powerful catalysts, in turn, ultimately took over control of the pattern of interrelated reactions that, finally, contributed to the “bags of chemicals” enough stability and metabolic sophistication to entitle them to be called “living organisms.” Along with the increased architectural effectiveness of the nucleic acid/enzyme mechanisms came other evolutionary improvements in the structure and metabolism of single-celled organisms. Membrane properties improved. Ribosomes and “organelles,” such as mitochondria, appeared to contribute to the viability of the cell. The development of the nucleus facilitated complex chemical reactions by providing a degree of isolation between major metabolic subsystems. #RandolphHarris 2 of 21
Additional ruggedness was provided by dividing the functions of nucleic acid between two different kinds of molecules and protecting, by means of the chromosomal mechanisms, those carrying the basic “book of instructions” for control of the structure and metabolism of the cell. These unusual packaging provisions resulted in such a precise means of nucleic acid distribution, during cell division, as to ensue the high degree of genetic stability appropriate to the relatively advanced evolutionary stage of modern life. The economics of evolution even permitted capitalization on what might have seemed an important weakness in the cellular mechanisms: the sensitivity of some of the nuclear and cytoplasmic reactions to the influence of chemical agents in the environment. For the resulting nuclear gene switching and cytoplasmic modulation of enzymatic effectiveness made possible multicellular organisms by permitting different groups of cells to develop in different ways despite a common genetic endowment. And, because of the contribution of local environmental effects to the differentiation of the parts of the organism, the information content of the book of instructions in the genes could be enormously less then that required to code the detailed structure and metabolism of every cell into the nucleic acid molecules. Thus, complex organisms became practicable. Higher plants and animals, including man, were able to develop. It can certainly not be claimed that the sequence of events just summarized has been documented in these reports with anything like completeness. The time scale is so vast and the absence of corroborating paleontological evidence for some of the important steps is so complete as to render it unlikely that the speculative aspects can ever be entirely removed from this kind of narrative. It still appears necessary to invoke an element of faith if any story of the creation is to carry conviction. To those who are inclined to believe in a lawful and orderly World, however, the present state of knowledge and theory offers considerable encouragement. Any self-consistent explanation of the origin of life in terms of purely physical, nonvitalistic principles, despite inaccuracy of detail, is a significant accomplishment. #RandolphHarris 3 of 21
And such a spectacular biochemical success as the stimulation of cell-free extracts from bacteria into the manufacture of protein, by means of human-made nucleic acid molecules, comes close to the long-awaited demonstration that “life” can be synthesized in the test tube. Such developments must greatly enhance confidence in the thesis that proclaims the unity of biological and physical science. Thus our narrative has carried us a long way toward the philosophic objective of establishing that physical principles alone are capable of accounting for all human observation and experience. Yet the story told here is obviously not complete; for the adequacy of physical science to account for the structure and chemistry of living organisms does not necessarily imply equal adequacy for the explanation of such seemingly nonphysical attributes as behaviour, intelligence, and consciousness. The evidence that has been considered seemed convincing to the conclusion that all aspects of behaviour, including those which we call “intelligent,” will ultimately be found reducible to the operation of a combination of physical principles not fundamentally different from that which underlies the design of advanced versions of human-made computing and logic machines. If that is true, there remain only the phenomena of conscious awareness to be accounted for in order to establish that all experience can be explained by the operation of a single set of natural laws. However, there is a growing body of evidence attesting to an orderly and predictable interrelationship connecting the qualities of conscious experience with the physical condition of parts of the brain. We know, for example, that a signal sent from the brainstem to the cortex turns on or off the state of consciousness that sensations of pleasure, pain, rage, horror, or ecstasy appear automatically in response to the injection of electric current into specific parts of the brain. These discoveries can be interpreted as indications that conscious phenomena are suitable for inclusion in the subject matter dealt with by the laws and methods of the physical sciences. #RandolphHarris 4 of 21
To be sure, a mere formal transfer of the phenomena of consciousness out of metaphysical and into the realm described by the physical laws of nature would not “explain” the mystery of subjective awareness. However, as observed in the introduction, physical science does not really explain any of its mysteries. Gravitational attraction and electric charge are essentially as inexplicable as consciousness; they seem better understood only because we have long since established that their effects are regular and predictable, not because we know what they “really” are. The available evidence is consistent with the expectation that the properties of conscious experience may ultimately be found to be as regular and predictable as are those of gravity and electricity. If so, it is inevitable that we shall eventually add the relationships between physical states of neuronal matter and qualities of subjective awareness to the laws which, along with the basic particles, make up the content of modern physics. And, for all its philosophic importance, this will then be but an incident in the continuing development of our understanding of the body of natural law that determines the course of observable events. The same body of natural law will then suffice to “explain” the formation of a distant nebula, the operation of a television receiver, the growth of a child, and the genius of an Einstein. Like other sweeping philosophic generalizations, this belief in the unity and adequacy of science cannot be proved to be correct—it is essentially an article of faith. However, it has a great advantage over the philosophies: this philosophy, uniquely, derives further strength from every new scientific discovery. This is because, in science as it is actually practiced, all theory is nonvitalistic: the postulate of a single set of natural laws is the starting point for all modern scientific explanation. And spectacular advances in our understanding of the Universe are continually being made by application of this simplifying assumption. Thus, in the first quarter of the twenty-first century, the case for the unity and adequacy of science has become a strong one. Future discoveries may soon render inescapable the conclusion toward which science had for so long been trending—that the regular and predictable operation of a single body of physical law is sufficient, without supplementation by any form of extra-scientific or “vitalistic” principle, to account for all aspects of human experience. #RandolphHarris 5 of 21
Speaking of human experience, let us consider the idea of equality, one of the foundations of rationalistic-progressive ethics. In the light of the principle of love, and in the perspective of the idea of Kairos, the following can be said: love implies equality in some respect. One who loved and one who is loved are equal to each other insofar as they are worthy of love, the love, the one for the other. However, nothing but precisely this principle in different situation, with love and the distortion of love at the same time. Looking at a Greek city-state, we discover that there is a political equality among individuals in a special group, and to a certain extent among all those who are free; but there is an absolute inequality between the free and the slave. Love is not manifest as the principle; but since it is potentially the principle, it is effective even in the religion and culture of Apollo and Dionysus. It is effect in the kind of equality that the city-state gives to those who belong to it, excluding slaves and barbarians. Love is effective even in this restricted equality, but it is a restricted, distorted love—love within the boundaries of national pride and racial discrimination. The central Kairos in which love becomes manifest as what it really is has not yet appeared. Nor did it appear in the period of the universal Roman empire, when Stoicism extended equality to all human beings—men and women, children and slaves. Here the principle of love broke through the limitations of national and social arrogance, but it did so as a universal, rational law, and not as love. Stoic equality is universal, but cool and abstract, which out the warmth and communal element of the limited equality in the city-state. At its best, it is participation in Roman citizenship and implies the possibility of a human’s becoming wise. In the Christian message, love becomes manifest in its universality, and, at the same time, in its concreteness: the “neighbour” is the immediate object of love, and everyone can become “neighbour.” All inequalities between humans are overcome insofar as humans are potential children of God. However, this did not lead Christianity to the Stoic idea of equality. Not even the inequality between the lord and slave was attacked, except in the realm of the Christian community. #RandolphHarris 6 of 21
Later, not the totalitarian but the hierarchical principle was supported by the Christian church in accord with the late ancient and medieval society. The social and psychological inequalities of the feudal order did not seem to contradict the element of equality implied in the principle of love. On the contrary, the mutual independence of all the degrees of the hierarchy, the solidarity of all the members of a medieval city, and the patriarchalistic care of the feudal lords for the “people,” were considered the highest form of equality demanded by the principle of love. In bourgeois liberalism, equality was again interpreted in terms of the general natural law, the law of reason and humanity. Equality became equality before the law and the demand for equal economic opportunities. This was in accord with the principle of love over against the tyranny and injustice into which the older system had developed. However, it the measure by which the equal opportunity of everybody became a mere ideology to cover the exclusive opportunity of a few, the liberal idea of equality became a contradiction of love. A new idea of equality arose, conceiving the equal security of everyone, even at the sacrifice of much political equality. One must not condemn the collectivistic and authoritarian forms of equality just because they negate equality’s liberal and democratic forms. Love may demand a transformation in this Kairos. A new creative realization of the element of equality as implied in the principle of love may be brought about in our period. It will be good insofar as it is in better accord with the demands of love in our special situation than were the demands of love in our special situation than were the feudal and liberal forms. It will be bad insofar as it will become a distortion and contradiction of love. For love is eternal, although it creates something new in each Kairos. One could refer to many other ethical problems in order to demonstrate their double dependence on the principle of love, on the one hand, and on the changing Kairos, on the other. For example, one could point to the evaluation of wok and activism in the different periods of history and their relation to leisure and meditation. #RandolphHarris 7 of 21
It is obvious that a coming collective will reduce the emphasis on work and activism considerably by restraining the principle of competition. As the struggle against some forms of feudal and ecclesiastical leisure and meditative life was a demand for love in the period of the decaying Middle Ages, and occurred at the time when humankind began to control nature, so it is now a demand of love and Kairos that leisure meditation returns in terms of a new more collectivistic structure of society over against a self-destructive adoration of work and activism. Other examples are the problems of asceticism and worldliness, of self-control and self-expression, of disciplines and creativity, their relation to each other. Both sides these contrasts follow from the principle of love. The negation of the first aspect would prevent the self-surrender implied in love; the negation of the second would destroy any subject worthy of love. It depends on the Kairos as to which of these aspects, in which form and in which balance with the other, is emphasized. For our present stage, neither the supranatural asceticism of the Catholic system nor the rational self-control of bourgeois society, nor the naturalistic war-and-state discipline of fascism can provide the solution. And the same is true of feudal eroticism, of bourgeois aestheticism, and of the fascist idolatry of vitality. Another solution is demanded by love and by Kairos. Psychoanalysis provides some elements of the solution, although mere psychotherapeutic psychology is not able to create by itself a new system of ethics. Other elements of the solution are suggested by the rediscovery of the classical meaning of eros, one the one hand, and self-control, on other, are shaped by love. A final question must be answered. If love is the principle of ethics, and if Kairos is the manner of its embodiment in concrete contents, how can a permanent uncertainty, a continuous criticism which destroys the seriousness of the ethical demand, be avoided? Is not law and are not institutions necessary in order to maintain the actual ethical process? Indeed, law and institution are required. They are required by love itself. #RandolphHarris 8 of 21
For every individual, even the most creative, needs given structures that embody the experience and wisdom of the past, that liberate one from the necessity of having to make innumerable decisions on one’s own, and that show one a meaningful way to act in most situations. On this point Catholicism was superior in love both to Protestantism and to liberalism. And this is the reason why the younger generation in many countries eagerly demands laws and institutions to relieve them of their unbearable burden of having to make continuous ultimate decision. In system of ethics can ever become an actual power without laws and institutions. Luther, in his great emphasis on the creativity of love, forgot this necessity. This is one of the reasons why the moral education of the masses in Germany is less thorough than in Calvinistic countries. On the other hand, there is a greater readiness for a Kairos in Germany than there is in the more thoroughly educated and normalized Western nations. Love demands laws and institutions, but love is always able to break through them in a new Kairos, and to create new laws and new systems of ethics. I have not mentioned the word “justice” in this report. It would be misleading in the present discussion because it is generally understood in the sense of the abstract natural law of Stoicism and rationalism. As such, it is either empty or is the concrete law of special period, and is thus without universal validity. If justice is taken concretely, it means the laws and institutions in which love is embodied in a special situation. The Platonic ideal of justice was the concrete harmony of the city-state. In America, justice was the pious obedience to the commands of God. In medieval feudalism, it was the form of mutual responsibility of all levels of the hierarchy to each other. The liberal idea of justice was the abolition of formal privileges and the introduction of legal equality. #RandolphHarris 9 of 21
In the more collectivistic society of the future, justice will be the system of laws and forms by which a sufficient security of the whole, and of all members, will be developed and maintained. It follows, then, that justice is the secondary and derived principle, while love, actualized from Kairos to Kairos, is the creative and basic principle. I have given no definition of love. This is impossible because there is no higher principle by which it can be defined. It is life in its actual unity. The forms and structures in which love embodies itself are the forms and structures in which life is possible, in which life overcomes its self-destructive forces. And this is the meaning of ethics: the expression of the ways in which love embodies itself, and life is maintained and saved. Humans who are otherwise capable of correct judgment and sane conduct, as in their business activity, will reveal a paranoid imagination or pernicious delusion when racial, class, religion, or aesthetic prejudice gets into their head or eyes. The use of blood in animal sacrifices is a legacy from Atlantean sorcery. It is evil, and found only among peoples who have not attained the refinement of consciousness and development of conscience which accompany a higher conception of God. The terrible fact is that millions of so-called sane humans are so unbalanced, so hysterical, and so obsessed, that they are really half insane. They are dangerous to themselves and to society. The average person who thinks one belongs to the human species, has still a long way to travel before one becomes a full member. Only half of one has become human. The rest is still terrestrial, in whom the killing instinct is still active enough to punctuate one’s history with frighting wars. One’s terrestrial ancestry has provided humans with the killing instinct. One’s human cleverness has provided one with the most effective weapons to express that instinct. Ones spiritual aspiration has not evolved to the level where is should be—above the other two and restraining them. There are other manifestations of this killing instinct, this lust to slay another living creature. We see it in the child who tears wings off a fly. Brutality and cruelty are especially linked with the minds and actions of those persons swayed by evil forces, whether physical or psychical. #RandolphHarris 10 of 21
There is enough unpleasantness or evil in the World in which we have to live. We should avoid getting involved in it so far as we can. This applies to activity and also to receptivity through reading, through entertainment, and other uses of leisure. When adult people begin to accept, and their young children to demand, entertainment by the daily portrayal of sadistic violence or obscenity, when those who feel outraged by this situation have become a small minority, we have to assume that decadence, bad manners, and low moral standards are triumphant. The school of journalism and periodical-filling these days is preoccupied with the ego, with personality: the universal and impersonal does not attract or interest. Moreover, it is only the bestial, the negative, the pretty, and the surface characteristics of the ego which hold their scribblers’ attention. Prying, meddlesome, trivial gossip and pulling other to pieces is a favourite sport. There must be censorship in the era of annually increasing crime. How many films and stage plays, books and magazine are let loose on an undisciplined World packed with detailed suggestions for immorality and criminality. This is not entertainment: it is evil. So many composed pieces are almost textbooks for the susceptible imitative young on how to start self-destructive, antisocial, selfish careers, how to yield to fleshly promptings without exercising the slightest restraint. We would not allow full freedom of movement to plague-carrying rats in our kitchens and homes. Yet we allow these human carriers of mental plague the freedom to print and publish, declaim, and propagate their poisonous suggestions and negative ideas, their pleasures of the flesh and violence, their hates and moral subversion, their evil. The young worshippers of new art forms in the pop and rock World are the same ones who contributed to the ranks of drug takers and, later, hatha yoga. They need violent thrills to sustain their interests. That is, they are primarily pleasure-seekers, not spiritual seekers. They are governed by moods and impulses. The romantic rubbish which fills the ears and attracts the eyes of the modern young through the communications media leads them into false pictures of the life which awaits them and so into false values. #RandolphHarris 11 of 21
When a civilization finds its pleasures in witnessing plays which explore all aspects of pleasures of the flesh, seeing films exploring all aspects of brutality and crime, permitting sports as cruel as fox-hunting, it has become low in morals, vulgar in taste, and self-destructive in its universal law. It will fall, as Rome fell. In the time of Washington, the public men—Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Marshall, Henry, Franklin, Hamilton, Jay—were a fair sampling of the good spirits in the country, humane, literate, brave, not self-seeking. (There is a remarkable letter of Jefferson’s to David Rittenhouse, urging him to waste no more time in mere politics, for the World needed him more in his capacity as a scientist.) By and large, it could not be said of our presidents and governors at present, the symbols of the country, that they are a fair sampling of the best of us. It would not be difficult to make a list of a hundred, or two hundred, who are superior to them in every relevant way, in whom a boy could feel pride and trust. Of course this is not a new trouble among us. Just as the European writers of the eighteenth century idolized our statesmen as if they were demigods, so in the nineteenth they spoke of their inferiority. This is the consequence of another missed revolution, the democratic revolution. A man of sense obviously cannot waste his life learning to sure to an ignorant electorate and coming up through political ranks in which disinterestedness and pure convictions are not the most handy virtues. Yet the fault is not with democracy, but that we have failed to have enough of it. For instance, if our emphasis had been on perfecting the town meeting and the neighbourhood commune, there would not be ignorant electors and they would choose great officers. If people had the opportunity to initiate community actions, they would be political; they would know that finally the way to accomplish something great is to get together with the like-minded and directly do it. However, the men in power do not think politically either. For instance, this year we have had the usual spectacle of politicians going about the country looking for nominators for the Presidency, presumably (why else?) because they have important new programs to offer. #RandolphHarris 12 of 21
However, as soon as it becomes clear that the country leaders of the party do not want them, they retire from the race and rally to elect whomever. What becomes of the programs? Since this is what political responsibility means to a politician, why should the electorate respect politics, and how could an honest boy be inspired to enter on such a career? Characteristically, we have an immense amount of formal training in flourishing institutes for public administration at Harvard, Princeton, Syracuse, Tufts, etcetera, as if we could get the thing by learning the role. Commager sensibly concludes that training does not begin early enough and it lacks the content of actual experience. The environment does not encourage public service, it does not esteem public goods. Few fathers give much thought to the distant generations of posterity, and children do not take fire in reading about the great men of history and thinking “Why not I?” as a plausible purpose. And finally, says Commager, the narrow chauvinism and energetic hostility to subversive ideas that are now the test of our political are precisely disastrous to patriotism, for that must be spacious, disinterested, and broad-based, otherwise it is intolerable foolishness. The men who won our independence and laid the foundations of the America nation were devoted patriots but they were, too, me of the World. They were children of the enlightenment. Reason taught them that all men were brothers, that purely national distinctions were artificial, that there existed a great community of arts and letters and philosophy and science cutting across and transcending mere national boundaries. The nationalism of the eighteenth century did not rest on a narrow base but on a broad one. It did not find nourishment in fear and suspicion but in faith and confidence. Perhaps one reason for the decline in statesmanship is that we have hemmed our potential statesmen in, we have denied them tolerant and spacious ideas. As it is, what must be the effect on a boy when he comes to realize that the public spokesman up there is not even speaking his own words, but repeating, like performer, something written for him by a staff from Madison Avenue? The boy must learn to shout, “Shame! Make your own speech at least!” #RandolphHarris 13 of 21
Our present President (Mr. Biden) is an unusually uncultivated man. It is said that he has invited no real writer, no artist, no philosopher to the White House. Presumably he has no intellectual friends; that is his privilege. However, recently he invited the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to a banquet and musical. And the formal music of the musical they listened to was Tina Turner, “What’s Love Got to Do with It” and such other numbers. (Well, at least he has great taste in music.) So anyway, in dealing with mental health, family therapy is often a good idea. Around 25 percent of persons who are recovering from schizophrenia live with family: parents, siblings, spouses, or children. Such situations create special pressures, so that even if family stress was not a factor in the onset of the disorder, a patient’s recovery may be greatly influenced by the behaviour and reactions of the relatives at home. Generally speaking, persons with schizophrenia who feel positively toward their relatives do better in treatment. Recovered patients living with relatives who display high levels of expressed emotion—that is, relatives who are very critically, emotionally overinvolved, and hostile—often have a higher relapse rate than those living with more positive and supportive relatives. For their part, family members may be greatly affected by the social withdrawal and unusual behaviours of a relative with schizophrenia. One individual complained, “In the evening you go into the sitting room and it’s darkness. You turn on the light and there he is just sitting there, staring in front of him.” To address such issues, clinicians now commonly include family therapy in their treatment of schizophrenia, providing family members with guidance, training, practical advice, psychoeducation about the disorder, and emotional support and empathy. In the family therapy, relatives develop more realistic expectation and become more tolerant, less guilt-ridden, and more willing to try to new patterns of communication. Family therapy also helps the person with schizophrenia cope with the pressures of family life, make better use of family members, and avoid troublesome interactions. Research has found that family therapy—particular when it is combined with drug therapy—helps reduce tension within the family and so helps relapse rates go down. #RandolphHarris 14 of 21
The principles of this approach are evident in the following description: Mark was a 32-year-old single man living with his parents. He had a long and stormy history of schizophrenia with many episodes of psychosis, interspersed with occasional brief periods of good functioning. Mark’s father was a bright but neurotically tormented man gripped by obsession and inhibitions in spite of many years of psychoanalysis. Mark’s mother appeared weary, detached, and embittered. Both parents felt hopeless about Mark’s chances of recovery and resentful that needing to care for him would always plague their lives. They acted as if they were being intentionally punished. It gradually emerged that the father, in fact, was riddle with guilt and self-doubt; he suspected that his wife had been cold and rejecting toward Mark as an infant he had failed to intervene, due to his unwillingness to confront his wife and the demands of graduate school that distracted him from home life. He entertained the fantasy that Mark’s illness was a punishment for this. Every time Marl did begin to show improvement—both in reduced symptoms and in increasing function—his parents responded as if it were just a cruel torment designed to raise their hopes and then to plunge them into deeper despair when Mark’s condition deteriorated. This patten was especially apparent when Mark got a job. As a result, at such times, the parents actually became more critical and hostile toward Mark. He would become increasingly defensive and insecure, finally developing paranoid delusions, and usually would be hospitalized in a panicky and agitated state. All of this became apparent during the psychoeducational session. When the pattern was pointed out to the family, they were able to recognize their self-fulfilling prophecy and were motivated to deal with it. As a result, the therapist decided to see the family together. Concrete instances of the pattern and its consequences were explored, and alternative responses by the parents were developed. #RandolphHarris 15 of 21
The therapist encouraged both the parents and Mark to discuss their anxieties and doubts about Mark’s progress, rather than to stir up one another’s expectations of failure. The therapist had regular individual sessions with Mark as well as the family session. As a result, Mark has successfully held a job for an unprecedented 12 months. The families of persons with schizophrenia may also turn to family support groups and family psychoeducational programs for assistance, encouragement, and advice. In such programs, family members meet with others in the same situation to share their thoughts and emotions, provide mutual support, and learn about schizophrenia. Although research has yet to determine the usefulness of these groups, the approach has become popular. Now, celibacy could also be another way to prevent mental illness and mood disorders because people are not potentially exposing themselves to the dark side of what could be a toxic relationship. In the Aztec empire, female virginity was so exalted, that a certified virgin was spoken of metaphorically as a precious jewel. A young woman was motivated to preserve hers by pride, reinforced by her terror of retribution. The disgusted gods would not rot her flesh and if he suspected her virginity was not intact, her husband would not reject her.Rejection would happen during the marriage festivities, on the sixth day. An unhappy husband would announce his wife’s misconduct by serving wedding guest their food in pierced dishes. She would not be stoned to death, as both men and women were for adultery, but she could expect either divorce or an eternally suspicious husband. In reality, this seldom happened, for Aztec maidens were thoroughly indoctrinated from childhood. A lyrical folk tale repeated a loving father’s counsel to his little daughter. “My precious necklace, my precious quetzal plume, my human creation, my offspring,” he croons. “You are my blood, my colour, in you is my image.” Then he warns her: “Do not give up your body in vain, my little daughter, my child, my little dove, my little girl…If…you cease being a virgin…you will be lost…you will never be under the protection of someone who truly loves you.” The ecstasy of pleasures of the flesh will become your bitterest memory and will haunt you forever, he concludes, because even your husband will always suspect your chastity. #RandolphHarris 16 of 21
The Aztec preoccupation with premarital celibacy stemmed from their religious convictions and Worldview and forged a golden mean between excess and abstinence. By eliminating rivalries involving pleasures of the flesh, it greatly reduced tension between the military and the collective labourers. Another important feature of virginity was that it emphasized the difference between youth and adult. The Aztecs feared that emotional attachment resulting from an early experience with pleasures of the flesh might foster individuality or rebellious independence. This would seriously affect a young person’s relations with one’s family and one’s future life as a citizen in this highly regulated and hierarchical society. For quite different reasons, the tiny Enga societies of the New Guinea Highland also stressed bachelor virginity. After a half century of foreign contact, often with Australian and American anthropologist, the Enga number about 180,000 and live on the western side of the Hagen Mountain range. The Enga are subsistence farmers who specialize in cultivating sweet potatoes and raising pigs as symbols of wealth and prestige. They share a religious belief system that leads the unmarried men to accept celibacy. Indeed, this precept is so thoroughly instilled that few of them have the slightest desire to disobey it. The Engas’ supreme creator is Aitawe, who inhabits the upper World along with the sky beings, the yalyakali. The underworld is populated by ghost, or timango, mighty spirits who interfere constantly in human affairs and sometimes kill humans by biting them, though each timango is restricted to a single death-by-biting. Timango are malign, and the Enga devote much time to placating them. In particular, they must observe tradition, for the timango strike the entire clan to punish a single clam member’s transgression. The Enga must also maneuver between the negative and positive forces of their World. Some negative forces are women, mothers, grandmothers, women’s private areas, and ghosts. #RandolphHarris 17 of 21
Their positive opposites are men, fathers, grandfathers, the male organ, and sky deities. Marriage, then, is a union of polarities, often contracted between members of warring clans: “We marry the people we fight!” one Enga clan trumpets. This is not as anomalous a system of material selection as it might first appear, because the Enga notion of war is more stylized than real—one anthropologist describes them as “balletic episodes.” To foreign eyes, Enga battles resemble fencing matches or duels between fight leaders or bands of warriors armed with bows and arrows. Bloodshed is limited and death infrequent. After a day of fighting, the combatants engage in ritual rhetoric. Later, Enga Big Men on both sides present each other with impessive gifts of pork to mark the return of peace. Men marry for the first time at twenty to thirty years old, women between fifteen and eighteen years. Both should be chaste, the bride so her clanspeople may arrange a suitable marriage, the groom because only upon marriage can he acquire magical protection against the dangerous consequences of pleasures of the flesh with women or contact with his wife when she dealing with “female” concerns. The bachelor “knows,” for example, that touch a woman who is dealing with “female” concerns will, in the absence of magic sicken a man and cause persistent vomiting, turn his blood black, corrupt his vital juices so that his skin darkens and wrinkles as his flesh wastes, permanently dull his wits, and eventually lead to a slow decline and death. This “knowledge” is just the beginning. At about fifteen years, Enga boys join bachelor associations and remain members for about a decade, when they marry. Ritual baths protect them from the female influence, and ceremonies preserve the flora that is their subclan’s heritage. Ritual retreats enhance the bachelor’s physical appearance, including growing the hair, a symbol of masculinity and physical stamina, which must never be cut or even coiffed against the proud possessors’ wishes. Pleasures of the flesh by any of these bachelors would endanger them all and kill their precious plant life. #RandolphHarris 18 of 21
The bachelors would beat any offender and fine him the price of a pig in compensation for the harm he has done them. They avoid looking at each other’s private areas and prudishly refrain from mentioning pleasures of the flesh or bodily functions in their conversations. At four-day retreats, essentially bachelors’ purification rituals, the agenda is instruction in Enga lore and magic and preparation of appropriate costumes and wigs. In most Enga societies, everyone but disabled adults will marry, so the preparatory activities for future husbands are compulsory, and participants take them seriously. Enga premarital chastity is integrally linked to ghost, the wrathful timango who serve all human activity and even penetrate thoughts and that is why men need magical protection. Premarital chastity may also serve another, unacknowledged purpose: to limit population growth, desirable in this cramped society with such limited resources, where was perpetually flare between clans trying to subsist on barely adequate land. This extends to the mores dealing with pleasures of the flesh of married couples, who enjoy intimate passions infrequently and, apart from their initial coupling, never near their gardens, whose fertility they fear contaminating. These negative emotions are just like physical ills: they too require treatment, and are not to be left in neglect. These negative thoughts have a habit of pushing themselves into one’s consciousness. One must just as often resolutely push them out again. In every human difficulty there are two ways open to us. The common way is familiar enough: it consists in reacting egoistically and emotionally with self-centered complaint, irritability, fear, anger, despair, and so one. The uncommon way is taken by a spiritually minded few: it consists in making something good out of something bad, and in reacting selflessly, calmly, constructive, and hopefully. This is the way of practical philosophy, this attempt to transform what outwardly seems so harmful into what inwardly at least must be markedly beneficent. It is a magical work. However, it can only be done by deep thought, self-denial, and love. If the difficulty is regarded as both a chance to show what we can do to develop latent resources as well as a test of what we have already developed, it can be made to help us. #RandolphHarris 19 of 21
Even if we do not succeed in changing an unfavourable environment for the better, such an approach would to some extent change ourselves for the better. We must accept, with all its tremendous implication for our past, present, and future, that we are ultimately responsible for the conditions which stamp our life. Such acceptance may help to shatter our egoism and that, even though it is painful, will be all to the good. Out of its challenge can come the most blessed change in ourselves. Truth twisted into service of the lower purposes or even the evil forces must be carefully inspected, analysed, and lastly corrected or rejected. Now, as we look at institutions of today and how they interact, it becomes clear that what America confronts today is not simply a runaway acceleration of change but a significant mismatch between the demands of the fast-growing new economy and the inertial institutional structure of the old society. Can a hyperspeed, twenty-first-century info-biological economy continue to advance? Or will society’s slow-paced, malfunctioning, obsolete institutions grind its progress to a halt? Bureaucracy, closed courts, legislative myopia, regulatory gridlock and pathological incrementalism cannot but take their toll. Something, it would appear, will have to give. Few problems will prove more challenging than the growing systemic dysfunctionality of so many related but desynchronized institutions. If Americans want the enormous benefits of a World-leading economy, the United States of America will have to root out, replace or radically restructure its legacy institutions that stand in the way. As change accelerates still further, institutional crises will not be limited to the United States of America. Every country in the twenty-first-century World economy—including China, India, Japan, and the European Union nations—will need to invent new style institutions and adjust the balance between synchronization and de-synchronization. Some countries may find that more difficult than the United States of America, whose culture, at least, smiles on change-makers. In any case, while our partially tongue-in-cheek speed rankings are certainly debatable, one central reality is not: All across the board—at the level of families, firms, industries, national economies and the global system itself—we are now making the most sweeping transformation ever in the links between creation and the deep fundamental of time itself. #RandolphHarris 20 of 21
Whenever a strong impulse becomes uppermost and inclines one toward some deed or speech of a negative kind, one had better scrutinize its source or nature as quickly as one can. Enjoy your youth, be polite and clean so people will want you are a neighbour, employee, and friend. We harmed no animals in Eden, but afterwards, when things got hard, we forgot the peaceful kindship of that ancient kingdom. So people began to see humans as soulless, of no good reason, and no rational speech. We then made a chain of things to protect us—fire, medicine, our locking houses, many kinds of clothes. We pray that we will see the face of everything thing in Heaven. We thank God for the tasks we shared together, and for the hours we communed here with Thee; for the joys we found in the fellowship of worship, for the blessings of courage, comfort and peace; for the will to strive and the wisdom to accomplish, for hope when despondent and faith when in doubt; for comrades who laboured, devotedly loyal, with spirit undaunted, with vision undimmed; for all these we thank Thee and praise Thee, our Father; Thy House is our refuge, our buttress, our strength, our bond with the past, our hope for the future, our fathers’ bequest and our children’s sacred trust. We reverently pause to recall those departed, who loyally served with heart and with hand; they live in this Sanctuary they helped to establish, they live in our thoughts, in our prayers, in our deeds. O may we maintain and preserve what they builded, and bring to fruition the seeds they have sown. We come with our children to pray at Thine altar, that their hearts, like ours, maybe lifted to Thee, to find here the truths that their forefathers cherished, and make this their Holy Place, even as we. Our old and our young who worship together, renew here the pledge that their forefathers made. Accept then, O Lord, our hearts’ earnest devotion, and keep us united in service to Thee. #RandolphHarris 21 of 21
Residence Three is the largest of the single story homes offered in Cresleigh Havenwood. A porch welcomes you upon entry to the home. Inside you will find an expansive 2,827 square feet; you’ll be hard pressed to a contemporary floorplan that offers this much space.
This floor plan is a perfect choice for couples, growing families, and singles who like to entertain.
There are four bedrooms, two and one half bathrooms, and a three car garage. Utilize the den as your own private study or convert into an optional fifth bedroom if needed.
The Dining Room and Kitchen are well situated to make entertaining a breeze.
The location of the Owner’s Suite makes it feel like a separate wing from the rest of the home allowing for maximum privacy and retreat.
You Don’t Use Demonic Forces, Do You?
Some authorities in the field of parapsychology speak of “natural” or “neutral” magic. They use this term to describe phenomena which cannot be fully explained scientifically, but which take place without reference to either God or the devil. In the realm of the physical are the inexplicable feats usually associated with spirits. Objects of furniture and people sometimes mysteriously leave the ground and appear to float through the air. These occurrences are called “levitations.” In close relationship to levitations is “telekinesis,” a phenomenon which takes place when a psychically gifted person apparently moves objects by concentrating on them. A few years ago, most scientifically minded people were convinced that such demonstrations were accomplished by the use of clever mechanical devices, but in many instances intensive scientific tests and checks have not uncovered any evidence of trickery. As a result, students in this field simply affirm that no one knows how these things take place. Another phenomenon closely allied to levitations and telekinesis is called “apport.” Solid objects which disappear from a room are found an instant later in a location hundreds of miles away. Parapsychologists conjecture that the physical matter dissolves into pure energy and thus is able to pass through closed walls. No serious student who has investigated these occurrences denies that they actually take place, but a great deal of research and careful study must be done to gain a full understanding of levitations, telekinesis, and apports. Ever since Einstein, no true scientist can say that such phenomena are an impossibility. While it could be that natural forces will be found to account for some of these amazing occurrences, it is also like that evil spirits play a part in many instances. Another enigma in the realm of the physical is the fact that in Europe some people diagnose and treat severe physical diseases through the magical use of a rod and pendulum. The pendulum is set in motion over the patient’s body to find the cause of the illness, and then magic is used to bring about healing. #RandolphHarris 1 of 17
No doubt the people who use this method often fail to help the patient, and undoubtedly a large percentage of the healings are only psychosomatic. Investigators generally agree, however, that in some instances the rod and the pendulum method appears to bring amazing results. An explanation for how this method works has not yet been found. Some parapsychologists have concluded that the area of the body that is ill undergoes a disturbance in “body electricity,” and that the pendulum in some mysterious way detects this variation from the norm. Not all researcher agree with this theory, however, and most of them at present simply acknowledge that they do not understand how the pendulum works. Christians who have investigated this phenomenon are convinced that to some degree that it belongs to the realm of the occultic, and that it should be avoided. An exhaustive listing and discussion of all the physical phenomena that may be classified as magic are impossible in a work of this nature. However, let us take time to look at one more example. The Chinses practice of acupuncture, which comes from ancient times, is receiving much publicity of late. Some of America’s top medical men and biologists have watched Chinese doctors perform major surgery using this needle treatment as the anesthesia. In addition, doctors of dozens of countries have reported that with acupuncture they are successfully treating people with ulcers, colitis, rheumatism, arthritis, asthma, eczema, hypertension, diabetes, urinary tract infections, anxiety, and even some cases of blindness and deafness. The scientific World is at an utter loss to explain how acupuncture works. The Chinese say that our bodies contain two “life forces” know as Yin and Yang, and that the insertion and manipulation of the needles in any one of several hundred specific points interrupts the flow of one element or increases the flow of the other to correct any malfunction and restore well-being. Exponents of acupuncture generally agree that it is completely ineffective in healing fractures, curing cancer, overcoming infectious diseases, or repairing organs that have been severely damaged. #RandolphHarris 2 of 17
These limitations suggest that even though acupuncture is “magical” in that it cannot be explained in terms of scientific knowledge, it should not be classified as occultic. Remember, we have no right to assert dogmatically that phenomena of this nature are necessarily the result of miraculous activity on the part of either God or the devil. Christians should be careful to avoid making assertions that cannot be substantiated. Strange manifestations often take place in the realm of the psychical. We already have referred to visions, trance-speaking, automatic writing, materializations, and apparitions in our discussion of spiritism. This latter phenomenon can be distinguished from hallucinations because large groups of people have reported seeing apparitions of ghost. Some even have been photographed. When looking at claims from both Christian and unbelievers, one realizes that all the reports of mysterious physically forced intimate assaults and frightful specters cannot be lightly set aside as the product of overwrought imaginations or of tricksters. Christians who have studied in this field are convinced that at least in some of the cases the work of evil spirits can be detected, but again we must acknowledge that we do not at the present times know exactly how to account for all such phenomena. The same admission must be made regarding extra-sensory perception in general. Research in this field by outstanding scholars like Professors J. B. Rhine, originally of Duke University, indicates that some people are able to perceive facts through a so-called “sixth sense,” and that others have the ability to transfer their thoughts without using the usual methods of communication. The mere possession of this “sixth sense,” however, does not account for all the incidents involving Extra Sensory Perception (ESP) encountered by researchers. Parapsychologists are forced to acknowledge that an element of mystery exists bordering on the supernatural, for they have produced strong documentary evidence for astounding events that baffle the mind. Hundreds of people who were interviewed told of having vivid dreams in which they “saw” in the most minute details and with absolute accuracy what was happening to a friend or loved one at the very moment the incident was taking place, sometimes thousands of miles away. #RandolphHarris 3 of 17
The skeptical scientists at The Winchester Mystery House, realizing that a real World of invisible spiritual beings does exist, knows it is at least possible that they are involved in hidden communications, and in the communication of telepathy. In general, our doctors understand nothing of magically based hypnosis because it is an occult practice. While normal hypnosis as practised by the medical World may be harmless, hypnosis used in conjunction with magic is can be dangerous, and may be a burden to the patient concerned. A second elementary form of magic may be found in the area of mental suggestion. We mean by this a transmission of mental or emotional forces over a distance. To further illustrate this, we must consider the case of a young psychologist, who wanted to qualify as a university lecturer. He specialized in hypnosis, though it was not the normal type of hypnosis but rather mental suggestion. He looked for a sensitive subject for his experiments and found one in the secretary of his boss. She was of nervous debility and easily influenced. Without asking, he attempted to put her to sleep. He would sit down about three or four yards away, either in the same room or a neighbouring one, and then concentrate on her. She would find that her arms would suddenly become limp. A tremendous tiredness would come over her. She would have to fight with all her strength to avoid falling asleep. These experiments were continued over a period of time with the girl always resisting them. During this time the girl gradually developed psychic disturbances. She consulted a psychiatrist. When he heard of the suggestive experiments, he told her that they would not do her any good, as he already known about the experiments of the young psychologist. The girl, having been the subject of these experiments for a considerable period of time, has since experienced strange paralytic symptoms and is now only capable of doing part-time work. In another instance, a Catholic woman regularly went to confession. As time went on, she gradually became psychically and suggestively dependent on the priest. Every time he said the mass she would fall to the ground and injure herself, and it was always her face. This happened even when she was 20 miles away and she could be quite oblivious to the fact he was taking a service. #RandolphHarris 4 of 17
The strange dependence became an unbearable burden to the woman. In her distress she began to pray earnestly, and she went to a Protestant minister for counselling. Through faith, she found a Christian as a personal Saviour. The attacks immediately vanished. The woman then left the Catholic church. Another is example is, when for several years, a craftsman indulged in black magic. He was chiefly concerned with the influencing of other people through his magic, and he also belonged to a magic circle which itself conducted unusual experiments. His first victim was a sensitive young lady. He brought her under his control to such an extent that she sacrificed both her money and her body to him. After this initial success, he looked for other victims. He continued to be successful with his experiments, and he finally found a young lady who regularly handed over her monthly pay-cheque to him. For this reason, he lived with her until finally her parents reported the matter to the police. A third elementary form of magic is magically based magnetism or mesmerism. Magnetism, together with hypnosis and suggestion, can be magically intensified. This next illustration refers to this fact. For our first example of this, we will turn to Dr. Trampler, a lawyer who was originally a student of Groening, but who later ceased to hold the same ideas. Dr. Trampler has outlined his methods of healing in a book Gesundung durch den Geist (Healing through the Spirit). His most fanatical followers are women. I have seen in counselling people that his healing powers are not beneficial, but are instead a burden to those treated. Two instances have been cited to indicate this. Firstly, a woman visited Dr. Trampler in Munich. He was successful in treating her backaches. In the course of the treatment he had made her hold her fingers up in the air as if they were antennae for cosmic powers, so he said. On returning home she found that organically she had been healed, but since then her spiritual life was held in check. She, like do many others, now found it impossible to pray and she felt as though there was an impenetrable wall between herself and God. #RandolphHarris 5 of 17
In another instance, a Christian woman who came to me for counselling had visited Dr. Trampler in ignorance. While sitting in his office, she had prayed. Finally when the other patients had been treated and it was her turn, Dr. Trampler came over to her. She had felt a strange fear come upon her and had prayed all the more. The doctor had then said to her, “I can’t do anything for you.” Since these healers often camouflage and garnish their activities with religious phrases, the terrible nature of their powers is often unrecognized. In Baden, I gained the acquaintance of a man who had been an unqualified medical doctor. In answer to my question regarding his healing ability, he answered, “Natural healing magnetism can enable you to heal about to patients daily. The power is by then used up and no one has to be recharged or refilled. People who treat more than two patients a day are either fakes, or they are plugged into the devil.” By this he meant that such people would actually be using magic in their practice. Here is another example of this both frequent yet confusing camouflage. A friend of mine, a Christian teacher, was being treated by a mesmerizer who was himself supposed to be a Christian. At least he attended a church. To make sure, the teacher asked the mesmerizer, “You don’t use demonic forces, do you?” The man replied, “Why not? Demonic powers are good. Demons are here to help us.” The teacher decided not to continue with the treatment! He was afraid of self-proclaimed demi-god practitioners. Having outlined these elementary aspects of magic, we will now go on to the more basic and principle forms. One can learn to differentiate between three main forms of magic: black magic which uses demonic forces, white magic which is allegedly promoted by the power of God, and neutral magic which is supposed to rely solely on ordinary forces of nature. It is a good idea to divide magic into three forms, but the same cannot be said of the definitions. Christian pastoral work reveals a completely different picture to one to these forms concerning neutral and white magic. Firs, however, some examples of black magic. #RandolphHarris 6 of 17
A minister informed me that the whole of his congregation had been infected by occultism. As an example, he told me of the healing of a 20-year-old girl through magic. Because of an attack of polio, the girl had had a leg shortened. She had been in the hospital for a long time and then been released as incurable. The girl and her mother were very depressed. In this state they had finally sought to the help of a man who practised black magic. This man sold them a mandrake root—for about $65! The root, which in some ways resembled a human figure, according to his directions had to be nursed by the girls as if it were a child. She had to wash it, feed it and put it to bed as if it were really alive. The magician then told the girl to pray and repeat vindictive psalms or songs, and to write them out and sleep with them under her pillow. Next he went on to tell her to stick two knives into the wall above her bed and to put two more knives under the pillow. In spite of this strange treatment the girl discovered that her leg began to grow longer. Finally she was healed, but afterwards she developed serious psychic disturbances. She then went to her minister, but he could give her no advice. The girl could no longer pray. When she tried to clasp her hands together, they were torn apart. On attempting to read the Bible she was assaulted with blasphemous thoughts. Fearing the loss of her own sanity, the girl gave both the mandrake root and an amulet which she had also received to the minister. Now she lived in the fear that the magician would revenge himself, and her leg, though it had been healed, returned again to its former state. In another example, during a mission in Toggenburg a farmer came and told me of some unhappy results of black magic charming. His boy had contracted polio. The doctor was called in too late and the boy remained paralysed. Since the farmer had wanted his son to be healthy no matter what the cost, he tried everything. Finally he went to the notorious magician Hugentobler in Peterzell. This man healed the boy with the help of black magic and his paralysis disappeared completely. #RandolphHarris 7 of 17
For several years everything went well, but when the son was 16 years old the father found him in the stable dying from a cut carotid artery. This happened quite out the blue. They boy had previously shown no signs of unhappiness. On his son, however, the father found an amulet from Hugentobler. Opening the leather pouch, he took out a small piece of paper with the inscription, “This soul belongs to the devil.” This was proof enough that Hugentobler had used black magic on the boy. The devil wants you to profess your faith in Christ with your mount, but for your action to contradict Christianity. The devil has power, but will usually leave you worse off. White magic is even more wide-spread then black magic. Many Christian groups practise this form of magic oblivious to its demonic character. White magic is a fulfillment of the words of Paul in 2 Corinthians 11.14, that even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. White magic is black magic under a religious disguise. Here are a few examples. A missionary to the Jewish people in North Africa by the name of Samuels, reported one of their magic customs. When one of their children is ill they take a towel, tie a knot in it and say, “In the name of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, be released from your sickness.” They then unite the knot and the child gets well. This piece of magic charming is a counterpart to black magic. A woman form Bukowina told us that her relatives could heal any type of disease in both animals and human beings merely through using white magic charms. By adding the words “In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost” to the spell the sickness would disappear. In spite of a family tradition of church-going, the various spells and charms had been handed down in the family for several generations. Both the woman and her daughter suffer from nervous disturbances. It was for this reason that she had sought the counsel of a minister. Her condition improved after the minister had prayed with her and later she became a convinced Christian. In another illustration, the owner of a certain farm hanged himself in his house. According to the popular belief of the villagers the man continued to hunt the place of his death. #RandolphHarris 8 of 17
The relatives were advised to sweep out the whole house repeating the words, “In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost.” After this the man’s ghost would no longer trouble them. The relatives followed this unusual advice, but afterwards the farmer’s wife was troubled by a strange feeling of unrest. Satan’s main occupation is opposition to God’s will. The name “Satan,” given Lucifer after his fall, means “adversary”—God’s adversary (Job 1.6; Matthew 13.39), and man’s especially when loves and serves God (Zechariah 3.1; 1 Peter 5.8). It was the intrusion of Satan’s will against the divine will that introduced sin into a sinless Universe and transformed “Lucifer” (Lightbearer) into “Satan” (Opposer). Satan’s rebellion fixed the pattern of satanic and demonic attitude as opposition to God and exaltation of self. This demonic strategy was evident in Cain’s murder of Abel (Genesis 4.8) and in Herod’s slaughter of the innocents (Matthew 2.16). The evil one was seeking to slay the promised seed of the woman (Genesis 3.15) to prevent the incarnation of the Saviour of the World, who would eventually seal the doom of Satan and the demons in Gehenna (Revelation 20.10-15). When the Lord Jesus began his public ministry, Satan appeared in person to tempt him (Matthew 4.1-11). Christ’s ministry on Earth provoked an outburst of demonic activity. Demonic power incited Judas to betray Jesus, Peter to deny him (Luke 22.3, 31), and the leaders of the Jewish nation to reject and crucify him. The powers of darkness appear in early Church history as recorded in Acts (Acts 4.25-26, 5.3; 8.9; 13.6-13; 16.16-18; 19.11-20, etcetera). The opposition of Satan and his demons can be discerned in every era of church history. The unseen forces of evil will increase their activity in the latter times (1 Timothy 4.1; Revelations 9.1-21), culminating in the demon-inspired debacle at Armageddon (Revelation 16.13-14), will the kingdom of righteousness and peace supplant the present satanic World system (1 John 2.17). #RandolphHarris 9 of 17
Many mental and emotional illnesses are, of course, due to natural causes, such as overwork, tension, fatigue, malnutrition, organic diseases, etcetera. Such disorders can be treated effectively by a physician, neurologist, psychologist, or psychiatrist. Demonic spirits may have little or nothing to do with such disorders of the mind. The causes are purely natural and may be corrected by purely natural means. This is not surprising since the Creator has placed the creation and his creatures under the normal operation of the laws of cause and effect. Since the supernatural exists and does interact with the natural World, the truly scientific investigator must take this into consideration. Prayer and faith can heal the mind and body supernaturally, just as medicine and rest can do it naturally. By the same token, unbelief and sin can harm body and mind as a result of demonic bondage. Demons can influence the mind. Bondage to demonic forces can be of varying degrees, as can yieldedness to God and control by the Holy Spirit. The Bible clearly teaches that man exposed himself to evil powers through the all (Genesis 3.15; 2 Corinthians 4.4; Colossians 1.13; Ephesians 6.10-20). Some unsaved people who live a balanced moral life are only mildly influenced by demonic spirits, while others, who flout God’s moral laws, are several influenced to the point of subjection. Other are so dominated that they are oppressed and tormented, and some are completely possessed by evil spirits. When mental and emotional disturbances are due almost entirely to natural causes, medical and psychological care can be very successful. However, when demonic influence, however slight, is at work, complete healing can only be achieved with the help of God through Christ. Successful therapy could be used is all psychologist, psychiatrists, counselors, and physicians were Christian with a knowledge of the gospel of deliverance from sin and Satan. When demonic influence is mild, it is almost impossible to distinguish between natural and supernatural causes. Only treatment that deals with the full gamut of causes will solve all the problems and insure a full cure. Parapsychology, which deals with extraordinary phenomena, will never fully understand these cases, much less effect deliverance, until the demonic factor is recognized and dealt with accordingly. #RandolphHarris 10 of 17
It is often said that Irishmen succeed best out of Ireland; those qualities they possess, which fail to ripen and come to maturity in the lethargic atmosphere of the Green Isle, where nothing matters very much provided public opinion is not run counter to, become factors of history under the sunshine and storm of countries where more ample scope is given for the full development of pugnacity, industry, or state-craft. At any rate, from the days of Duns Scotus and St. Columbanus down to the present, Irishmen have filled, and still fill, position of the highest importance in every part of the globe as friends of kings, leaders of armies, or preachers of the Truth—of such every Irishman, be his creed or politics what they may, is justly proud. To the lengthy and varied list of honours and offices may be added (in one instance at least) the item of witchcraft. He the unhappy creature, whose tale is related below, remained in her native land, she would most probably have ended her day in happy oblivion as a poor old woman, in no way distinguishable from hundreds of others in like position; as it was, she attained unenviable notoriety as a powerful witch, and was almost certainly the means of starting the outbreak at Salem. Incidentally the story is of interest as showing that at this time there were some Irish-speaking people in Boston, Massachusetts USA. Shortly after the date of its colonisation the State of Massachusetts became remarkable for its cases of witchcraft; several persons were tried, and some were hanged, for this crime. However, at the time about which we are writing there was in Boston a distinguished family of puritanical ministers named Mather. The father, Increase Mather, is to be identified with the person of that name who was Commonwealth “minister of the Gospel” at Magherafelt in Ireland in 1656; his more famous son, Cotton, was a most firm believer in all the possibilities of witchcraft. #RandolphHarris 11 of 17
Mrs. Glover, whose miserable husband before he died had sometimes complained of her, that she was undoubtedly a witch, and that wherever his head was laid, she would quickly arrive unto the punishments due to such a one. Mrs. Glover was accused of coming down her neighbour’s chimney to remind her of her death sentence. She also had the ability to make people have fits, make them deaf, sometimes dumb, and sometimes blind, and often all of this at one. Their tongues would be drawn down their throats, and then pulled out upon their chins, to a prodigious length. Their mounts were forced open to such a wideness, that their jaws were out of joint; and anon clap together again, with a force like a spring-lock; ant the like would happen to their shoulder blades, their Elbows and hand wrists, and several of their joints. She would cause their necks to be broken, so that their neckbone would seem dissolved unto them that felt after it, and yet on the sudden it would become again so stiff, that there as on stirring of their heads; yea, their heads would be twisted almost round. And if the main force of their friend at any time obstructed a dangerous motion which they seemed upon, they would roar exceedingly. Eventually Mrs. Glover was hanged. Mrs. Glover may be considered the first cause for the witch trials, for if the case of the Goodwin children she afflicted had not occurred at Boston, it is more than probably the village of Salem would never have been plagued as it was. Demonism is expressed in many forms. We have tended to think of it as far away in time or miles from our generation in the United States of America, but there is increasing evidence that this is not the case. I must tell you of one of our experienced in The Winchester Mystery House. Sarah Winchester had some women over to her mansion for a séance. The maid Agnus had returned from her day off on the following morning; she became possessed of an evil spirit. The minute Agnus saw Mrs. Winchester and her friends, she ran away. People had to hold her down to calm her. The sang “Onward Christian Soldiers,” then four of them prayed, claiming her deliverance on the basis of Christ’s victory over Satan on Calvary. #RandolphHarris 12 of 17
The séance women laid hands on her and commanded the evil spirit to leave, saying he had not right to stay in the body of one who believed in Jesus. Agnus had believed over a year ago, but her husband had taken a concubine and she was brokenhearted. In her deep sorrow, self-pity, and worry she reopened old areas to the devil. Once she cried out loudly: “I have been here thirteen years—do you think I am going to leave now?” Later her voice shrilled: “I hate Jesus; I will not leave.” Her facial expressions were terrible, hard, and angry. She tried many times to bang her head on the floor, and once she darted to a corner of the room and grabbed Mrs. Winchester’s parasol and struck her head with it. Hours passed and there seemed to be no change in her. Mrs. Winchester felt she could not remain much longer, as she had promised to go out visiting. As she was debating about what to do, Mrs. Winchester moved closer to Angus and began talking to her about Jesus Christ, telling her how He could alone comfort her and satisfy her heart. She listened and Mrs. Winchester saw tears in her eyes. Angus told Mrs. Winchester, “Jesus Christ loves me, and I love Him, too, and He longs to help me.” She continued to talk along this line and she sat up. Mrs. Winchester finally told her why she thought the evil spirit had gotten in, that her worry and self-pity were sins. She thoroughly aggressed and admitted her hated of her husband and his concubine, which Mrs. Winchester told her was sin, too. She talked freely, admitting her faith was weak. Mrs. Winchester and her friends prayed for Agnus for several days. Just when the evil spirit left, they did not know, but you could imagine the great joy that filed their hearts to see her set free from that awful, wicked, noisy spirit. Mrs. Winchester was so happy. Mrs. Winchester was known for her beautiful mansion. It was certainly a place to see in the late 1880s. Mrs. Winchester, heiress to the Winchester rifle fortune, spent the last half of her life and $5,500,000.00 (2022 inflation adjusted $151,599,411.76) building a gorgeous house that was at its height 9 stories, 500 rooms, and 65,000 square feet, Today it is an astonishing, what I call, Grand Queen Anne Victorian of 4 stories, 160 rooms, and an estimated 25,000 square feet. #RandolphHarris 13 of 17
Partly because of the mansion seclusion, partly by reason of its extreme beauty, partly, it may be, because the owner was more than charming and gracious in her pressing hospitality, The Winchester Mansion, which is now called The Winchester Mystery House, had an element of the poetic, almost magical. The warm light of the spring sunset swept across the estate, lying golden and mellow on the luxuriant growth of prune, fig, orange, lemon, and peach trees, and fantastic palm trees, emerald green lawns, exotic flowers, giant topiary, statues, fountains, gazabos, and other Victorian cottages lead up to the path of the 760-acre mansion. Against the gold sunset, it was hardly to be wondered at that one should slip into a mood of visionary enjoyment, looking for a time on the whole thing as the misty phantasm of a summer dream. Carpenters worked around the clock building and rebuilding room after room, as the spirits—or her fancy—directed. The house was furnished with the finest materials and was a showcase of Victorian elegance and taste. This paradise of art and colour, was a bewilderment of architects. The Winchester Mansion was truly a dream of delight. It was a paradise, an epitome of all that was beautiful. The mansion was like a vision out of a fairy tale. And in the evening, the sunset seen from the observation tower was like watching the blue sapphire sea turn a lovely amethyst, rose, violet in shadow. Seen in the hot summer months, Mrs. Winchester’s exquisite home was like looking at the most gorgeous emerald glittering from a distance. From the balcony of the fourth flood, one can smell the roses and jasmine all around. Llanada Villa, as Mrs. Winchester called it was a light of the Beatific Vision. It was so unreal, so phantasmal, that one was not surprised it held secrets. It was said that the mansion was haunted. Yes, that is just it. The Winchester Mansion is really haunted. However, what is there to be afraid of. People rarely see ghosts and no one sees them more than once. Yet, this mansion is said to be haunted by legions of spirits. After Mrs. Winchester went to Heaven, her favourite niece, Marian “Daisy” Marriot stayed in the mansion for a few months. #RandolphHarris 14 of 17
There was a story about the ghost of Mrs. Winchester in this royal house. She was supposedly imprisoned in this palace. Notice the beautiful iron-wrought grilles at the windows. The haunted region of the mansion, was striving to communicate with Daisy. Legend has it that Mrs. Winchester was imprisoned in one of the witch’s caps. How, was never known. It was when Daisy was in possession of this house that the ghost started to appear to her. She did not fancy real ghosts, however. One night, when the stars were not visible in the sky; low, thunderous clouds, massed at the head of the valley, were sweeping over so close that they seemed to brush the palm trees on the estate. To the south and the east the storm-clouds had shut down almost to sea, leaving a space of black sky where the moon in its last quarter was rising just to the left of the mansion—raining a black silhouette against it. They blue lightning flashed almost incessantly, and through the fitful darkness cam the sound of the bell tower, which could be heard across the valley, the rushing torrent below, and the full roar of the approaching rain, with a deep organ point of solemn thunder through it all. Daisy believed that Mrs. Winchester’s unquiet soul, sent out this story of eternity. Vivid lightning, the crowding of Mrs. Winchester and the shivering anticipation of Daisey’s possible visitation made sleep quite out of the question. Then, an hour and thirteen minutes after midnight, came a sudden vivid flash of lightening, and, as Daisy’s razzled and dazzled eyes began to regain the power of sight, she saw as plainly as in life—a tall figure, in a silky white dress, with long flowing hair. In another flash, the beautiful apparition looked at her long and earnestly. She was beautiful —more beautiful than one had supposed possible, her deep, passionate eyes very tender and pitiful in their pleading, beseeching glance. Daisy was hardly frightened, or even startled, but lay looking steadily at her as she stood in the beating lightning. Then she breathed, rather than articulated, with a voice that almost brought Daisy to tears, so infinitely sad and sorrowful was it, “I cannot sleep!” and the liquid eyes grew more pitiful and questioning as bright tears fell from them down the pale glowing face. #RandolphHarris 15 of 17
The apparition began to move slowly towards the door, its eyes fixed on Daisy’s with a look that was weary and almost agonized. Daisy learned from the bed and stood waiting. A look of utter gratitude swept over the face, and turning, the figure passed through the doorway. Out into the shadow of the corridor in moved, like a drift of pallid storm cloud, and Daisy followed, all natural and instinctive fear or nervousness quite blotted out by the part she felt she was to play in giving rest to a tortured soul. The corridors were velvet black; but the pale figure floated before her always, an unerring guide, now but a thin mist on the utter night, now white and clear in the bluish lightening through some window or doorway. Down the stairway into the lower hall of the second floor, where the stained-glass windows in the flared into sudden clearness under the fitful lightening, out into the silent cloister. It was very dark. Daisy stumbled along the solid mahogany floor. She guided herself by a hand on the gelled linseed Lincrusta-Walton wallpaper. Then a sudden blaze of fierce lightning, and vivid light allowed her to see the face with a look of overwhelming desire, of beseeching pathos, that had choked Daisy’s throat with an involuntary sob when she first saw Mrs. Winchester. And she heard the sorrowful words again, “I cannot sleep,” come from the impenetrable darkness. And when the lightning came again, the beautiful white figure was gone. She wondered around the mansion, searching in vain for Mrs. Winchester. She tired the door-to-nowhere when Mrs. Winchester vanished: it was locked. It was found at last. The smooth surface of the plaster on the white wall. There was a rough space, approximately the shape of the other windows in the tower, not plastered like the rest of the wall, but showing the place where a stained-glass window was covered up through its thick coatings of whitewash. Daisy began scraping away at the solid wall. Under the coatings of plaster appeared an entrance to a secret room and it led her over a vertical joint between firm, masonry work. She began digging out the mortar around the stone. With much work it detached. #RandolphHarris 16 of 17
Darkness within, yet beyond question there was a cavity there, not a solid wall; and with infinite care she removed all the stones. Still the hole was too small to admit enough light from the dimly illuminated cell. With a chisel, she pried at the sides of a large block of masonry, perhaps thirteen stone in size. It moved, and with seemingly superhuman strength, Daisy softly slid it from its bed. Suddenly a cry, a cry like that of a frighted woman—terrible. Framed by the jagged opening of the stone, hardly seem in the dim light, was a face, an ivory image, more beautiful than any antique bust, but drawn and distorted by unspeakable agony; the lovely mouth was smiling; the eyes were cast upward; and below, slim calcified hands crossed on the chest. Torture and agony visible in every tense muscle. Daisy stood there, breathless, staring at the sight, fascinated, bewitched, sad. So this was the mystery. With fiendish ingenuity, the rigid ecclesiastics had blocked up the window, then forced the beautiful creature to stand in the alcove, while with remorseless hands and iron hearts they had shut her into a living tomb to gain access to her land. With all that, it was necessary to find Mrs. Winchester so her soul could rest. Prayers were said that night for her soul. The next day the alcove was again walled up. Demons can subject the mind and the body. Demon subjection is one step beyond demon influence. When the moral law of God is persistently and flagrantly disregarded, demon influence may merge into demon subjection. The cursed then becomes the slave of the demon. Many have also become slaves because of illicit lust, perhaps goaded on by vile spirit that master their victims and drive them on to moral ruin. Those who nurse hate and revenge may find that a superhuman power takes over, impelling them to murder. Those who covet become slaves of greed. Those who persistently lie may become enslaved by evil spirit of falsehood until they are incapable of telling the truth. Persistent sin against the second table of the moral law regulating humans conduct towards humans (Exodus 20.13-17) opens the door to demon power than can derange a living soul’s mind, weaken one’s will, alienate one’s affections, and disturb one’s emotions. “Beware of sibling rivalry! At least said my grandmother. Which must explain, I do suppose, what happened to my little brother.” #RandolphHarris 17 of 17
Winchester Mystery House
Fabulous photo op outside The Winchester Mystery House circa 1940s 💁🏻♀️
🎟 link in bio. https://www.winchestermysteryhouse.com/
Battle Between Scientists and the Press to Control How the World Found Out
Our discussion to this point has led us to essentially the following picture of how cell differentiation occurs in plants and animals. As the fertilized egg cell undertakes mitosis—dividing first into 2 cells, then into 4, then 8, and so on—slight differences in the chemical conditions in the several cells cause corresponding slight affect the chemical composition of the fluid emanating from the cells and therefore supplement the already existing sources of diversity to cause still later cells to be even more varied in their properties. As the organism grows by further cell division, the compounding of effects ultimately results in the appearance of cells of widely differing structure and metabolism. Some of the mechanisms that respond to environmental differences to yield different types of cells were discussed in the preceding report. Let us now consider more carefully how the local environment is able to interact with the cellular regulative mechanism to produce the remarkable variety displayed by the cells of a higher plant or animal. Perhaps a good way to start our consideration would be to clear up what might appear to be an inconsistency between our present thesis and experimental evidence we have considered earlier. Specifically, as need to reconcile Driesch’s discovery that any of the earlier cells of a sea urchin embryo can develop into an entire animal with our present notion that differences must appear in the structure and metabolism of the first few cells of a newborn organism. A Swedish embryologist, Sven Hoerstadius, resolved the apparent discrepancy. In a series of beautifully planned and executed transplantation and isolation experiments he was able to show that the cytoplasm of the sea urchin egg is not uniform throughout in its composition, but contains varying proportions of two different chemical agents that have important influences on cellular metabolism. One of these agents was found to be concentrated at one “pole” of the fertilized egg, the other at the opposite pole. #RandolphHarris 1 of 24
Hoerstadius established that it was only because the early cell division involved cleavages parallel to the polar axis that the first few cells all possessed the same proportions of two agents and were therefore able to develop into entire animals. If, however, by artificial means the initial cleavage was forced to occur along such a plane that most of one stimulating agent went into one cell and most of the other into the second cell, an entirely different result was obtained: when these two cells were separated, each developed into only part of an animal, and the particular organs which developed in one “half-embryo” were different from those which developed in the other. Evidently one of the two chemical agents discovered by Hoerstadius acted as a switch to turn on the genes responsible for the construction of part of the animal, the other as a switch to turn on those responsible for the construction of the rest. And these two stimulating ingredients were already localized in different regions of the cytoplasm in the original fertilized egg. A similar polarity of the original egg cell has been demonstrated for many other species. In some cases, at least, gravity appears to be the principle factor that causes the separation of the different ingredients of the cytoplasm in the egg cell as it develops in the mother’s body. Tis is true of frogs’ eggs, for example. Their polar axes are easily visible because of the colour differences. The bulky and nutritive yolk settles to the bottom of the egg; most of the cytoplasm rise to the top. The cells that grow from the top half of the egg ultimately develop into the head parts of the frog; those that grow from the bottom half develop into the tail parts. Thus the top-to-bottom polar axis of the egg controls a most important structural feature: it determines the body axis of the developing embryo. While the environmental factor determining the important body axis orientation is gravity, quite a different factor determines the plane of symmetry. This plane is ordinarily determined, for frogs, by the point of entry of the male sperm cell into the egg during the act of fertilization. The “circle of longitude” of the sperm entry point becomes the head-to-tail belly line of the animal, while the meridian on the opposite side from the point of the entry becomes the lone of the backbone. #RandolphHarris 2 of 24
As the embryo develops, other gross physical effects play important roles in determining the configuration of the body parts. The pressure of water that collects in the developing tissue is believed to be instrumental in producing and shaping some of the cavities required for the proper conformation of the organs. The rolling up of certain groups of cells to form tubes—the neural tube which gives rise to the nervous system, for example—probably occurs because the electrical attractive forces among the molecules of substances produced by the growing cells cause them to try to make as close surface contact as possible with one another. Many physical factors must operate in conjunction with the specific chemical properties of the cells to cause different parts of the growing embryo to form different kinds of structures. And with each such characteristic structural development the chemical nature of the cells involved also changes, to become even more different than before from that of other groups of cells in the same organism, thereby facilitating even greater future differences in development. There is considerable evidence to support the hypothesis that chemical individuality of the cells usually develops gradually rather than abruptly. If, in a very young embryo, cells are surgically transplanted to the head region from a part of the organism that would ordinarily develop into a tail, the transplanted cells take on the characteristics of the material that surrounds them and grow into component head parts. However, if such transplantation is deferred for a time, a sort of fixation of properties occurs so that, after the operation, the transplanted cells grow into taillike parts, despite the fact that they must then protrude from the head of the full-grown embryo. The steady continuity in the development of the chemical fixation of the cells is shown by other observations: at intermediate stages of growth a small group of cells transplanted from any part of the tail region of the embryo will develop into an entire tail; later cells transplanted from a particular part of this region will develop into only a specific part of the tail. With the passage of time the cells seem to become more and more specialized and therefore more limited in the range of structure they are able to develop into. #RandolphHarris 3 of 24
An exception to the gradual nature of cell differentiation sometimes occurs when two previously separated parts of a growing embryo come together. The classical example of this phenomenon is the formation of the crystalline lens in the eye of a vertebrate. By following the gradual development of the embryo (of a chicken, for example), it was learned that the main body of hollowing-out process. This results in an “eye cup,” whose open end gradually grows toward the layer of skin that surrounds the brain parts. When growth finally brings the rim of the eye cup in contact with the surrounding skin, some sort of reactions occurs that cases the circular sector of skin contacted by the cup to embark upon a new process of cellular development. Before long, this piece of skin thickens, detaches from the surrounding tissue, shapes itself into a lenticular structure, and becomes incorporated into the eye cup to form the crystalline lens upon which clear vision ultimately depends. Research has confirmed the validity of the obvious inference: the tissue forming the eye cup in the brain structures contains a chemical which, upon contact with the surrounding skin, triggers metabolic processes that result in the formation of lens structures in other kinds of skin than that of the head region. The eye cup, for example, can be transplanted to the flank; upon contact with this kind of skin, a lens is formed. Or skin from another part of the body can be substituted for the head skin in the vicinity of the eye cup—upon contact of the two kinds of tissue, a lens develops. Evidently the stimulating ingredient in the eye cup is able to trigger the genes in the cells of any of the organism’s skinlike tissue to reorganize their metabolic processes in the way necessary to develop a crystalline lens. The stimulating ingredient is even more versatile: for example, the eye cup of a frog can induce a lens in head or flank epidermis of a salamander embryo. (In embryos the immunological reactions that cause transplanted foreign tissue to be rejected do not occur. Hence transplantations are possible not only between different species but between different genera, families, orders, and classes. For instance, mouse tissue can grow in the chick embryo.) However, the lens induced has the specific characteristics of a salamander eye, rather than a frog eye. #RandolphHarris 4 of 24
Evidently the inducing substance from the eye cup is a chemical that is able to switch on the genes in the cell nuclei of various species to initiate the chemical process resulting in a lens. However, the architectural details of construction are coded in the genes, and they are different for different species. Again, when flank skin of a frog embryo is transplanted to the head of a young salamander embryo, the new chemical environment induces the transplanted skin to form head structures. However, in doing so it follows its own genetic repertory and manufactures the horny jaws and teeth characteristic of the frog instead of the dentine teeth characteristic of the salamander. The explanation is, once more, entirely consistent with the picture we have developed of the genetic mechanisms. All cells in the frog contain genes capable of directing the formation of any of the many body structures, and the cytoplasmic chemicals of the flank skin cells still permit considerable flexibility in their ultimate development. When stimulated by the kind of chemical that switches on the genes appropriate for the generation of headlike structures, these flank skin cells proceed to form such structures. However, whether in the original frog body or transplanted to another species, the particular structures formed must be controlled in their detailed architecture by the genes of the frog. Hence the transplanted tissue must give rise only to froglike, not to salamanderlike, structures. An embryological problem of unusual importance and difficulty is posed by the nervous system. How can we account for the enormous mass of specialized nerve cells (neuronsa)—10 billion of them in a single human animal—that seem able to extend their tiny fibers many inches of even a few feet to make highly specific connection with other nerve cells of sense organs? To be sure, the general notions we have developed as to how cells in the embryo become more and more specialized can cause us to feel that the natural physical and chemical effects we have been dealing with might be adequate to produce even as strange a structure as that of the nerve cell. However, how are we to explain the fantastically complex “wiring diagram” that appears to govern the interconnections of so many separate neuronal units? #RandolphHarris 5 of 24
Even before we have discovered the physical mechanism underlying the construction of the nervous system, we can form some appreciation for the sheer bulk of information that would have to be handled in just specifying a definite pattern of neuronal interconnections. For most of the 10 billion neurons of the human nervous system connect, not just to one other nerve cell, but to many: the average is approximately 1,000 connections per neuron! And by no means all of these connections go to nearby cells; hookups to cells in entirely different parts of the nervous system are common. Thus, to describe in straightforward chart form the wiring diagram of the human nervous system, we would have to number the particular neurons from 1 to 10 billion and then write down for each a list of the approximately 1,000 other neurons to which it connects. We would end with a table of 10,000 billion numbers, with each number, on the average, containing 9 or 10 decimal digits. However, we have learned that the genes constitute the blueprint for the details of construction of the organism. Could they carry, in their four-letter nucleotide code, the equivalent of such a table that could in some way direct each neuron to make the right connections with its neighbours? The answer is no; they could not. We do not need to have a model of any particular physical process for enforcing neuronal wiring to be sure of that conclusion, for it rests solely and surely on the information-handling capacity of the genes. To be sure, the human genes do carry a great detail of information. There are several thousand genes in each of the 46 chromosomes, and each gene is a molecule of DNA containing a string of some thousand nucleotides. The result is a “message-carrying capacity” equivalent to that of at least several dozen large printed volumes. While this is no small library for the nucleus of each of our billions of cells to be carrying around, it still falls far short of what would be required to “write down” the wiring diagram of the neurons in the way we have specified. And even if we could somehow squeeze this information into the genes, we would then have no room left over for all the other, nonneural, specifications that cause us to turn out to be humans rather than mosquitoes! #RandolphHarris 6 of 24
Obviously, the notion of the detailed genetic control of the interconnections of the neurons is untenable. What about the opposite assumption—that the neurons in the embryo just “grow like Topsy” in the uncontrolled fashion, making random connections as they come in contact with one another? This assumption depends for its credibility on the theory that learning processes are subsequently able to strengthen and weaken the various neuronal connections so as ultimately to provide the coordination of the physical and mental activity that constitutes the unique accomplishment of the nervous system. In higher animals, at least, any general theory of neuronal connectivity must be able to account for the phenomena associated with vision. In the human, more than half of the several million never fibers that leave the brain for other parts of the body go to the eyes. If a random-connection/subsequent-learning theory is the complete answer to our information-handling problem, we would expect that meaningful visual patterns would not occur in newborn animals, but would arise only after a period of trial-and-error learning. One of the most interesting experiments testing this hypothesis was performed by R. W. Sperry, Professor of Biology at the California Institute of Technology. In his work he took advantage of the fact that the nervous system of many lower animals possess a regenerative capacity: if nerves are cut, they grow back and ultimately function once again. Neuroregeneration in humans is new technology. The complex, delicate structures that make up the nervous system—the brain, spinal cord, and peripheral nerves—are susceptible to various types of injury ranging from trauma to neurodegenerative disease that cause progressive deterioration: Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, also known as Lou Ghrig’s disease), multiple sclerosis and multiple system atrophy. Unfortunately, in humans, because of the complexity of the brain and spinal cord, little spontaneous regeneration, repair or healing occurs. Therefore, brain damage, paralysis from spinal cord injury and peripheral nerve damage are often permanent and incapacitating. #RandolphHarris 7 of 24
Patients with serious nervous system injuries or strokes often require lifelong assistance, which puts a tremendous burden on patients, their families and society. Innovative, paradigm-shifting strategies are required to advance treatment of neurological injury. However, neuroregeneration research is at the forefront of healing the nervous system. Regrowth of nerve fibers (axons) is essential to repair the functional recovery of the spinal cord. Tissue destruction with cysts and gliosis at the site of injury forms a barrier to regeneration. Ongoing research is using tissue engineering with biodegradable polymer scaffolds (PLGA, PCLF, OPF) loaded with different growth-promoting cells (Schwann cells, neural progenitor cells, mesenchymal stem cells) and different growth factors (GDNF, NT3, BDNF) to bridge the gap, and to promote axonal regeneration and functional restoration in the spina cords of rates and mice, eventually for future use in human patients. Further, researchers are investigating the effects of exercise training and local delivery of steroids on axon regeneration and functional recovery. Peripheral nerve regeneration and repair is another strategy to expand the time window of opportunity and improve the functional recovery following peripheral nerve injury and repair. One strategy is to apply polymer microsphere to deliver vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) to the nerve repair suite in a controlled sustainable release manner. VEGF promotes angiogenesis and neurogenesis, and thus leads to a better functional outcome and larger window of opportunity for the nerve to be permissive to prolonged regeneration. The other strategy is to counteract the lack of healthy Schwann cells at the nerve repair site by supplementing functioning Schwann cells derived from nerves prepared in an invitro system of Schwann cells induced from stem cells of the adipose tissue. Novel animal models are being developed to delineate the nature and time course of denervation muscle changes; identify the key indicators of muscle receptivity, including electromyographic changes, muscle fiber type changes and changes of myogenic genes; and evaluate the impact of these changes on nerve regeneration and the potential success of a nerve repair. #RandolphHarris 8 of 24
Nerve cell regrowth: Axogenesis is another possibility. Researchers are using zebrafish as an animal model system to investigate how special cues in the brain and spinal cord can entice or block nerve cell growth—experiments that help scientists understand why conditions at the site of nerve injury retard regeneration. This work is providing new understanding into how nerve cells grow during development of the nervous system and how nerve regeneration might be improved after injury. There are many other forms of neuroregeneration understudy. Hearing about Sperry’s research with animals made me a little excited. Now, back to Sperry. Sperry was able to establish, in an adult toad, the equivalent of a “newborn” visual systems. He performed an operation wherein the optic nerves were cut and reconnected inversely—that is, the right eye was connected to the nerve from the brain that previously had gone to the left eye, and vice versa. Of course, in such an operation, “reconnection” consisted only of butting the cut ends of the nerves together and waiting for natural processes to reestablish connections from the many tens of thousands of cut fibers to the brain. Even in an uncut optic nerve, these fibers cross and twist in what appears to be a highly random fashion. In view of such twisting and turnings (which are also characteristic of the human optic nerve), it has always seemed hard to believe that there was any precise built-in pattern of interconnection between retinal receptors and neurons in the brain; such anatomical observations had lent strength to the hypothesis that visual capability was acquired through learning, and not wired in. Yet, after a few weeks, the toad was able to see again, apparently as well as ever! Certainly, the presence of a moving fly within its normal range of vision caused it to react in toadlike manner by darting out its tongue for food. This and other tests led to the conclusion that, somehow, the fibers of the neurons of the visual cortex of the brain had managed to seek out and reconnect themselves, one by one, with the receptor cells of the eye in such a way as to reestablish in the brain a clear image, with normal topological properties of up/down and right/left continuity. #RandolphHarris 9 of 24
That is has nothing to do with learning was proved by an interesting anomaly in the toad’s new behaviour: If a fly appeared opposite the toad’s right eye, it darted its tongue out to the left to attempt to capture it; if the food appeared to the left, the toad would always go to the right. To the animal, since the optic nerve of the right eye was connected to the part of the brain designed to be used with the left eye and vice versa, the image formed in the right eye always appeared to be coming from the left and the image formed in the left eye always appeared to be coming from the right. No amount of experience ever caused the toad to learn to correct its mistake. It was obvious that the left-ness and rightness of the vision were “wired-in” and not learned concepts. Sperry’s experiment was only one of many which have established that, despite the obvious ability of parts of the brain and nervous system to adapt and presumably modify themselves through learning, there is also a great deal of permanent wiring involved. Many of the neuronal interconnections are formed during the embryological development period, and they are formed precisely, in the sense that the right neurons are tied to one another or to just the right sensory receptors or motor effectors. Thus the hope that learning processes alone would provide a solution for our interconnectivity problem has proved to be a false one. The problem is still with us. It is safe to say that no one yet knows for sure what physical or chemical factors are involved in the phenomenon of embryological neuronal wiring. However, there is a general hypothesis that seems able to account for most of the observed facts. This hypothesis is suggested by studies of the movements of cells in tissue cultures. Individual cells can be broken loose from the tissue of which they are a part and mixed with other cells in a liquid suspension. If in this way different types of cells—kidney and cartilage, say—are mixed together, a curious sorting out occurs. Under the microscope the cells, on encountering one another, are seen to slide over each other’s surface in seemingly aimless fashion but with the ultimate result that cells of the one type seek out one another and aggregate in one lump or layer, while cells of the other types form their own similar but separate association. Experiments have been performed with solutions containing several different types of cell, with the same results. Evidently, chemical substances in the cells result in an attractive or cohesive forces, specific to cell type, that tend to cause like cells to stick together, unlike cells to remain unconnected. #RandolphHarris 10 of 24
The extension of this principle to the formation of the connections between retinal receptors and cortical neurons in the visual system, for example, involves the following line of speculation. The receptor neurons in the retina of the eye are assumed to contain two separate chemical ingredients that vary in concentration in accordance with the position of the neuron on the retina. One of these chemical ingredients might appear in very small concentration in the rods and cones located at the extreme left-hand side of the retinal field, with the concentration of this ingredient increasing steadily across the retina to reach a maximum at the extreme right-hand side of the field. Similarly, the other chemical from the bottom to the top of the retina. With such an arrangement, the relative proportions of these two chemical ingredients in a given receptor neuron would provide an accurate indication of the position of the neuron on the retina, both left and right and up and down. Similar concentration gradients are presumed to exist in the interneurons and the neurons in the brain with which the retinal receptors need to be ultimately connected. The embryonic growth process is assumed to be dynamic enough to cause each outgrowing nerve cell fibers to wander close to a wide range of candidate terminating cells. By the operation of attraction or cohesive forces similar to, but much more specific than, those required to explain the sorting out of dissimilar cells in liquid suspension, the searching nerve fiber is assumed ablet to seek out and make connection with receiving neurons of similar composition of the two key chemical ingredients. In this way there results a continuous one-to-one correspondence between points on the retina and those on the visual cortex of the brain, and the picture we finally see is coherent and unscrambled. Future work may or may not confirm the controlling role of “connectivity” ingredients in determining the built-in wiring of the nervous system. If not, however, it seems inevitable that some other effect will be discovered that produces the same result-an ability of growing nerve fibers, through physical or chemical interaction with the local environment, to search out and connect to other specific neurons or terminal organs. #RandolphHarris 11 of 24
The embryological prewiring in the nervous system will almost certainly turn out to employ mechanisms that different only in degree, but not in quality, from those which control the development of structure in the rest of the organism. Whether our concern is the development of neurons or of heart, liver, or skin, it now seems clear that the genes exercise architectural control over a growing multicellular organism by a combination of direct and indirect methods. Their delineation of the structure of the enzymes, which in turn specific the chemical reactions permitted in the growing cells, is an important direct method of influencing the final outcome. However, we have seen that the physical and chemical conditions of the extranuclear environment are also vitally important—that local physical forces distort and shape the growing tissue and that chemical agents in the surrounding fluids enter the cells to modulate the enzymatic reactions in the cytoplasm and to trigger on and off individual genes in the nucleus. To be sure, these local physical and chemical environmental factors are themselves results of the previous detailed development of the various parts of the organism which, in turn, depended on the genetic mechanisms and the local environment, and so back to the initial fertilized egg. Thus it is still correct to say that the genetic mechanisms exercise primary architectural control over all the design features of the organism. However, they do not do so by means of a direct reading out of the nucleus of completely detailed specifications for each cell, followed by a single-minded manufacturing operation that follows such detailed instructions to generate the specified product, without regard for what may be happening in other nearby cells. Instead, the genetic mechanisms seem to have learned how to minimize their own detailed architectural chores by supplying to each cell a sort of do-it-yourself kit of structural and chemical features that automatically cause the cells to develop properly through the normal operation of physical principles as it interacts with the local environment that it and its neighbours continually create and modify. #RandolphHarris 12 of 24
The result is the scene of activity constantly viewed by the embryologist—a delicately balanced and fantastically complex interplay between the genetic mechanisms of the cells and their varied and changing surroundings. This is the secret of the diversity of structure and metabolism that makes multicellular plants and animals possible. Only by such methods is nature able to mold its raw material into such an impressive end product as a living higher organism—a sea urchin, or a human. A final comment about the evolutionary origin of the mechanisms on which multicellular life is based may be in order. For despite the compelling nature of the evidence, normal human experience does not seem compatible with the conclusion that such remarkably complex and intricately interrelated mechanisms could have arisen solely through the blindly probabilistic workings of evolution. The antidote to such a feeling of skepticism is a reconsideration of the frequency of past occurrence of the typical sequence of small accidental change of structure or metabolism, competition for survival, and ultimate proliferation of the best-adapted species. The fantastically large number of such small refinements that must have taken place among trillions of individual organisms during billions of years is also far beyond normal human experience. The essence of the theory of evolution is the balancing of the near inconceivability of its accomplishments against the correspondingly near inconceivability of its painstaking attention to detail. Since we are talking about biology, it is a good idea to consider some brain functions and treatments. When clozapine (brand name Clozaril) was approved in 1990 for use as the first atypical antipsychotic drug in the United States of America, it opened the door to more effective and safer treatments for schizophrenia. However, the early use of this drug in the United States of America brought only frustration and heartache to hundreds of thousands of prospective users. The problem with clozapine began with the discovery that a small percentage of people who take this drug develop agranulocytosis, a life-threatening drop in white blood cell count. #RandolphHarris 13 of 24
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) thus approved clozapine with the requirement that patients who take it must have their blood tested every week for signs of agranulocytosis. Unfortunately, the drug’s manufacturer decided to require all clozapine users in the United States of America to purchase an entire treatment package consisting of the medication and weekly testing by the drug company’s own subsidiaries. Most patients in the United State could not afford the company’s fee for this combination—a whopping $9,000 a year. What is more, their insurance companies refused to pay for it. Clearly patients were caught in the middle between big business and the health industry. A flurry of lawsuits followed. So did federal investigations and hearings. After several years the drug’s manufacture finally agreed to sell clozapine separately, allowing patients to get blood tests elsewhere at a lower cost, Moreover, the FDA reduced its requirement for such every two weeks, rather than every week, after patients have received clozapine treatment for six months. Sadly, however, many patents had already lost valuable time. Unable to fully appreciate or bring such injustices to the public’s attention, persons with schizophrenia had been victimized by society once again—a tradition whose roots date back to past “treatments” such as asylums, the lobotomy, and deinstitutionalization. Many wonder, if it is possible to rehabilitate 66 percent of patients, why are we not? A variety of insight therapies, from cognitive to psychodynamic may be used in cases of schizophrenia. Such approaches may be offered in individual or group formats. Studies suggest that the particular orientations of insight therapists are often less important than their levels of experience with schizophrenia. In addition, the therapists who are most successful tend to be those who take an active role, setting limits, expressing opinions, challenging patients’ statements, providing guidance, displaying empathy, and gaining trust. #RandolphHarris 14 of 24
Certainly the most thrilling and romantic happening of these years is the adventures in space, surpassing in promise the voyages of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. This adventure makes life worth the trouble again. When the Russians beat us out, we are miffed but we can be proud that these exploits have been performed by men and man is great; Copernicus was a Pole, Galileo an Italian, Kepler a German, Newton an Englishman—and the rockets were Chinese; and we hope that we shall win the next round, for it belongs to America to achieve first in this kind of enterprise. The experiments are expensive, but it seems mean-spirited to question the appropriations and few have done so. So far, grand. However, now we have opened the exploration of space and allowed even corporations to build spaceships. Boeing is building a spacecraft called CST-100 Starliner with an LEO range. Sierra Nevada Corporation is building the Dream Chaser Space System with an LEO range. SpaceX is building Dragon 2 with an LEO range, and Starship with a range to reach Mars. LEO spacecrafts can be used for a Mission to the Moon. Have you every heard of Project Argus? Well in 1958, the United States of America’s military withheld the wave length of a satellite for strategic reasons. Next, they carried out a secret nuclear experiment in the ionosphere, and this was kept secret not from the Russians from military reasons, but from the American people, because of possible objections to the fall-out. The Times kept the secret till the Russians were about to publish it, explaining (March 19, 1959), that “it has learned of the plans for Project Argus last summer, some weeks before it took place. Nevertheless, scientists associated with the government said they feared that prior announcements of the experiment might lead to protests that would force its cancellation.” A. J Muste and editor of Liberation magazine, sked the for an apology for this unexampled betrayal of journalistic responsibility, and got the astounding replay: It seems to me that you are suggesting that the Times enter the propaganda field and, in effect, set its judgment above that of the military men and scientists as to what can be published…After all, the Times is a responsible newspaper. [!!] [Robert Garst, Assistant Managing Editor. In Liberation, May, 1959.] #RandolphHarris 15 of 24
However, what is the effect on our people when we are told that our chief newspaper does not print the news? Constitutionally, for instance, how in a democracy do they then deserve their mailing privileges, to circulate their official press releases and advertisements for department stores? [The purpose of second-class mail I to circulate information.] When Muste wrote a letter for publication about the Times’ handling of the story, the Times found no space for that letter. However, to my mind, even more important is the effect of cutting people off from the adventure of science, no matter what the risks. What an illiberal and dishonourable policy to purse! Our government cannot see that noble things must not be made base, romance must not be turned into disillusion, or what will become of the young people? Take another example. This glorious enterprise of space! And now we have chosen seven astronauts for special training. However, the nemesis of the organized system haunts us. All prove to be European American Protestant, in their early or middle thirties, married, with small children, and coming from small towns—in brief, models of salesmen or junior executives for International Business Machines. And these seven have now made a solemn pact, reported in the press, that whichever one goes aloft will split evenly with the others his take from syndicated stories and TV appearances. Concerning them, Dr. George Ruff, the Air Force psychiatrist who tested them, has explained, “Knowing the qualities that made them this way, and working hard at applying those qualities in your daily life, can help you [too] to come closer to achieving what they have become: comfortable, mature, and well-integrated individuals. It is a worthwhile goal.” Of course, by this writing (June 1960), it is commonly accepted that our new NROL-82 satellite has the function of espionage. However, it has remained for a proper scientist to hit the bottom: the professor who has advised us not to reply to any signals we might receive from outer space because the astral beings are likely to be technically more advanced than we and they will come down and eat us up. This projection of the Cold War into the starry vault was favourably reported by the science editor of the Herald Tribune. #RandolphHarris 16 of 24
Is there a possible solution beyond the alternative of an absolutism that breaks down in every radical change of history and a relativism that makes change itself the ultimate principle? I believe that there is, and I think it is implied in the basis of Christian ethics, namely, in the principle of love in the sense of the Greek word agape. This is not said in terms of an apology for Christianity, but under the impetus of the actual problem in our present World-situation. Love, agape, offers a principle of ethics that maintains an eternal, unchangeable element, but makes its realization dependent on continuous acts of a creative intuition. Love is above the law, and also above the natural law in Stoicism and the supranatural law in Catholicism. We can express it as a law; we can say as Jesus and the apostles did, “Thou shalt love.” However, in doing so, we know that this is a paradoxical way of speaking, indicating that the ultimate principle of ethics, which, on the one hand, the power breaking through all commands. And just this ambiguous character of love enables it to be the solution of the question of ethics in a changing World. If we look at the principles of natural law as embodied in the Bill of Rights, we will discover that, taken as the concrete embodiments of the principle of love in a special situation, they are great and true and powerful; they represent love by establishing freedom and equal rights against willfulness and suppression and the destruction of the dignity of human beings. However, taken as eternal laws and applied legalistically to different situations—for example, the early Middle Ages, or the decay and transformation of economic capitalism—these principles become bad ideologies used for the maintenance of decaying institutions and powers. This is why Paul and Luther struggled so profoundly against the “Law,” and why they insisted on the deadening consequences of the law and the vivifying power of love. Love alone can transform itself according to the concrete demands of every individual and social situation without losing its eternity and dignity and unconditional validity. Love can adapt itself to every phase of a changing World. #RandolphHarris 17 of 24
I should like to introduce at this point another Greek word, Kairos, “the right time.” This word, used in everyday Greek, received an emphatic meaning in the language of the New Testament, designating the fulfillment of time in the appearance of the Christ. It has been reinterpreted by German religious socialism in the sense of a special gift and a special task, breaking from eternity into history at a special time. Kairos in this sense is the historical moment when some new, eternally important, manifests itself in temporal forms, in the potentialities and tasks of a special period. It is the power of the prophetic spirit in all period of history to pronounce the coming of such a Kairos, to discover its meaning, and to express the criticism of what is given and the hope for what is to come. All great changes in history are accompanied by a strong consciousness of a Kairos at hand. Therefore, ethics in a changing World must be understood as ethics of the Kairos. The answer to the demand for ethics in a changing World is ethics determined by the Kairos. However, only love is able to appear in every Kairos. Law is not able, because law is the attempt to impose what belonged to a special time on all times. An ideal that appeared at the right time and was valid for this time is now considered to be the ideal for history as a whole, as the form of life in which history shall find its end. The outcome of this attitude is inevitably disillusionment and the rise of ethical libertarianism and relativism. This point at which the dynamic-naturalistic solution, despite its destructive consequences, was in the right, and still battles rightly against Catholic and bourgeois ethics. Or, expressed in terms of church history, this is the point at which Luther was right in his opposition to Aquinas and Calvin. Love, realizing itself from Kairos to Kairos, creates an ethics that is beyond the alternatives of absolute and relative ethics. Though premarital female virginity is one of humankind’s great common denominators, most societies impose standards of conduct on young males as well. These range from strict celibacy to licentious experimentation, often with women of the evening or less affluent women. #RandolphHarris 18 of 24
Curiously, most cultures either frown on “self-love” or flat out condemn it, as a dangerous squandering of the precious vital force or at the very least, a serious breach of decent behaviour. Tellingly, most societies that urge virginity on their young males do little or nothing to punish those who disobey. At various times in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, for instance, British and North American morals included caveats against male premarital pleasures of the flesh. However, these changed more precepts never permeated mainstream cultures, and in any case, a penalty for randy male pleasures of the flesh was nonexistent. The only attempts made to enforce male chastity—of which the Male Purity Movement was the most widespread, cohesive, and forceful—were based on moral suasion and/or fear, usually of diseases, sterility, permanent damage to the tender organ, or the loss of vital powers through the lost of vital force. The Aztec revered celibacy for both men and women, though like some Greeks, they also believed it had harmful side effects. The virgin daughter of leading Aztec once came upon an unclothed man and was consumed by desire for him; afterward, she sickened and swelled up. This was a cautionary tale, but it was one to which the Aztecs had no easy solutions. Aztec society reflected this dichotomy. Celibacy was requisite for youth from high-ranking families; indeed, it distinguished them from plebeians, whose intimate indulges were regarded as a mark of inferiority. Among the privileged, celibacy was rigidly enforced for both males and females. Harsh physical punishment awaited transgressors, but the belief that the bodies of the unchaste would remain immature and their brains degenerate was just as compelling a reason to remain chaste. There was also the fear of exposure during penitential exercises. To honour the gods, young men pierced their organ, and anyone who fainted was automatically considered wanton. Celibacy was also mandatory for students at the calmecac or temple. All these privileged youth from high-ranking families has to swear an oath of chastity, and violators—boy or girl—were executed: either strangled, roasted, alive, or pierced by arrows. #RandolphHarris 19 of 24
Every great truth has to fight its way anew. Enemies are obstinate and entrenched, while the memory of a human is weak. The mind’s power is being unscrupulously misused when it seeks to influence others against their own interest and for its selfish purpose. Where there is fierce hatred or monstrous cruelty, be sure that evil forces are present too. One may dispense to others only what one has oneself. If one’s mind is steeped in nihilism, it will be despair which one offers them at worst, or selfish cynicism at best. When we take into consideration of rapid de-massification of interest and lifeways in a largely Third Wave America, we have been using the analogy of nine cars on the highway and a police officer on a motor cycle. Now, picking up where we lift off yesterday. At twenty-five miles per hour: Sputtering along in the slow lane, government bureaucracies and regulatory agencies. Skilled at deflecting criticism and delaying change for decades at a time, pyramidal bureaucracies run the day-to-day affairs of governments all over the World. Politicians know that it is far easier to start a new bureaucracy than to close down an old one, no matter how obsolete or purposeless. Not only do they themselves change slowly; they slow the pace at which business can respond to fast-moving market conditions. A case in point is the excruciatingly long time it takes the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to test and approve new drugs while desperate victims of disease wait—and sometimes die. Government decision-making is so sluggish that it typically takes a decade or more to gain approval for building a new airport runway and often seven or more years to okay a highway project. Ten miles per hour: However, even bureaucrats, as they look out their rearview mirror, can glimpse a car far behind them. This one shoulders along with a flat tire and steam coming our of its radiator, slowing down all the traffic behind it. It is possible it costs $400 billion to maintain this broken heap? The answer is yes, every year. It is the American school system. Designed for mass production, operated like factories, managed bureaucratically, protected by powerful trade unions and politicians dependent on teachers’ votes, America’s schools are perfect reflection of the early twentieth-century economy. The best that can be said of them is that they are no worse than schools in most other advanced countries. #RandolphHarris 20 of 24
While businesses are drive to change by high-speed competition, public school systems are protected monopolies. Parents, innovative teachers and the media clamour for change. Yet, despite a growing number of educational experiments, the core of the U.S. public education remains the factory-style school designed for the industrial age. Can a ten-mile-per-hour education system prepare students for jobs in companies moving at a hundred miles per hour? Five miles per hour: Not all dysfunctional institutions that affect the World economy are national. The economy of every country in the World is substantially influenced, whether directly or not, by global governance—a collection of international Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organization scored of less visible entities that set rules for cross-boundary activities. Some, like the Universal Postal Union, are over a century old. Others sprang up roughly seventy-five years ago during the League of Nations era. Most of the remainder—the WWTO and the World Intellectual Property Organization are exceptions—were created after World War II, half a century ago. Today national sovereignty is being challenged by new forces. New players and new problems are arriving on the international stage. However, the bureaucratic structures and practices of the IGOs remain largely in place. When the 184 nations that form the IMF chose a new head recently, the United States and Germany disagreed sharply over the choice. In the end the German candidate was selected because President Clinton and his secretary Treasury, Larry Summers, concluded that “they could not violate the 50-year-old rule that allows Europe to fill the IMF post.” Three miles per hour: Even slower changing, however, are political structures in the rich countries. U.S. political institutions, from Congress and the White House to the political parties themselves, are being bombarded by demands from more and more different groups, all of which expect faster reaction times from systems built for leisurely debate and bureaucratic indolence. #RandolphHarris 21 of 24
As a then-leading member of the U.S. State Senate, Connie Mack, one complained to us: We never have more than two and a half uninterrupted minutes for anything on Capitol Hill. There’s no time to stop and think or to have anything approaching an intellectual conversation…We have to spend two thirds of our time doing public relations, campaigning or raising campaign funds. I’m on this committee, that task force, the other working group, and who know what else. Do you think I can possibly know enough to make intelligent decisions about all the different things I’m supposed to know about? It’s impossible. There’s no time. So my staff makes more and more decisions. We thanked him for his honesty. And then asked: “and who exactly elected your staff?” The current political system was never designed to deal with the high complexity and frenetic pace of a knowledge-based economy. Parties and elections may come and go. New methods for fund-raising and campaigning are emerging, but the United States of America, where the knowledge economy is most advanced and the Internet allows new political constituencies to form almost instantly, significant change in political structure comes so slowly as to be almost imperceptible. One hardly needs to defend the economic and social importance of political stability. However, immobility is another matter. The U.S. political system, two centuries old, changed fundamentally after the Civil War of 1861-1865 and again in the 1930s after the Great Depression, when it adapted itself more fully to the industrial era. Since then the government has certainly grown. However, as far as basic institutional reform is involved, the U.S. political structure will continue crawling along at three miles per hour, with frequent rest stops at the side of the road, until a constitutional crisis strikes. That could happen sooner than the World thinks. The election of 2000—when the president of the United States was essentially elected by one vote in the Supreme Court—came dangerously close. One mile per hour: Which brings us, finally, to the slowest of all our slow-changing institutions: the law. The law has two parts. One is organizational—courts, bar associations, law schools and law firms. The other is the actual body of law these organizations interpret and defend. #RandolphHarris 22 of 24
While American law firms are changing rapidly—merging, advertising, developing new specialties such as intellectual-property law, teleconferencing, globalizing and struggling to adapt to new competitive realities—American courts and law schools remain basically unaltered. And the pace at which the system operates has remained glacial, with important cases dragging listlessly through the court for years. During the landmark antitrust case against Microsoft, widespread speculation arose that the U.S. government might attempt to break up the company. That, however, would take years to accomplish, by which time technological advances would have rendered the entire case irrelevant. It was, wrote Silicon Valley chronicler Robert X. Cringley, a collision between “hyper-accelerated Internet time” and “judicial time.” The body of law is said to be “living”—but only barely so. It changes every day as Congress writes new laws and courts add new interpretations to existing law. However, the additions represent a minute, if not infinitesimal, percentage of the total. They inflate the volume and sheer mass of law without significantly recodifying or in any way restructuring the system as a whole. Of course, law should change slowly. It provides a needed degree of predictability to society and the economy, applying brakes in times of overly rapid economic and social change However, how slow is slow? Until 2000, a law reduced the benefits paid to U.S. Social Security recipients aged sixty-five to sixty-nine by one dollar for every three the earned over a set amount. Written at a time of massive unemployment, its original purpose was to discourage seniors from working so that more jobs would be available for young people. The law stayed on the books for almost seventy years, prompting Forbes, tongue in cheek, to hail the change under the headlines, “Flash! The Great Depression Is Over.” The U.S. Congress, after decades of debate, also rewrote two of the fundamental laws governing the knowledge economy. Until 1996, one of the fastest-changing industries in the World—telecommunications—was regulated by a sixty-two-year-old laws passed in 1934. #RandolphHarris 23 of 24
In finance, the Glass Steagall Act, which supervised banking in the United States of America, also went unchanged for sixty years. Basic rules for the issuance of stocks and other securities in the United States of America today were written into law in 1933. Today there are more than 8,300 mutual funds representing nearly 250 million accounts and assets of nearly $7 trillion. Yet these massive investments are still basically subject to a law written in 1940, when there were fewer than 300,000 accounts, managed in only 68 funds, with assets amounting to 1/146,000 of today’s total. In yet another field, when a blackout swept across America’s Northeast in 2003, technicians struggling to restore electricity were crippled because they were forced to use “rules developed decades earlier when most power was generated reasonably close to consumers.” Critical laws directly affecting the advanced economy in field such as copyright, patents and privacy remain hopelessly out of date. The knowledge economy has emerged not because of these laws but in spite of them. This is neither stability nor immobility. It is legal rigor mortis. Lawyers may be changing how they work. However, itself is barely in motion. God thought He kept the Universe alone; for all the voice in answer he could wake was but the mocking echo of his own for some tree-hidden cliff across the lake. Some morning from the boulder-broken beach, He would cry out on life, that what it wants is not its own love back in copy speech, but counter-love, original response. And nothing ever came of what He cried unless it was the embodiment that crashed in the cliff’s talus on the other side, and then in the far distant water splashed, but after a time allowed for it to swim, instead of proving human when it neared and someone else additional to Him, as a great buck it powerfully appeared, pushing the crumpled water up ahead, and landed pouring like a waterfall, and stumbled through the rocks with wild tread, and forced the underbrush—and that was all. Our God and God of our fathers, do Thou bless us as we gather here with grateful hearts to consecrate ourselves to Thee. Because Thou wast with us in all our endeavours, our efforts were fruitful, our work not in vain. Be with us, we pray Thee, in years still before us, to show us the way and to guide us, O Lord. May this, Thy House, be our fortress of strength, to give us courage for the challenges in life. #RandolphHarris 24 of 24
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Was the Fairy-Tale Transformation of Cinderella’s Footmen so Far-Fetched?
Cells provide structure and function for all living things, from microorganisms to humans. Scientists consider them the smallest form of life. Cells house the biological machinery that makes proteins, chemicals, and signals responsible for everything that happens inside our bodies. Knowing that all living things are made up of cells allows us to understand how organisms are created, grow, and die. By understanding how cells work in healthy and diseased states, cell biologists working in animal, plant, and medical science will be able to develop new vaccines, more effective medicines, plants with improved qualities. We must now attempt to bridge the gap between single-celled and multicellular organisms. Indeed, we must extend our considerations all the way up the scale of complexity to humans themselves. This may seem like a disproportionately small assignment of attention to the higher plants and animals. However, it has frequently been pointed out that practically all metabolic processes important to humans are found in single-celled organisms and that, it terms of a really balanced appraisal of evolutionary accomplishments, humans are much closer to amoeba than is amoeba to the nonliving materials from which it originated. Thus, we have been seeking to trace the development of life from nonlife, the space assigned here to the amoeba-to-man period many in fact be disproportionately large. However, the close evolutionary kinship between the lower and the higher forms of life must not blind us to some important problems that arise in attempting to apply to plants and animals the lessons learned from a study of single-celled organisms. How, for example, do we reconcile what we have learned about the genetic mechanisms with the variety of cell types in a single plant or animals? Are the DNA molecules and the chromosomes different for heart cells, liver cells, and never cells? Or do all cells in the body carry the same genetic instructions? However, if so, how can we account for the widely different chemical processes that must occur in the different kinds of body cells to give them such diversity in structure and metabolism? #RandolphHarris 1 of 21
For many years, evidence has been available to suggest that each cell in a complex organism must contain all the genetic information needed to specify the entire organism. As early as 1891 Hans Driesch obtained experimental results that seemed to require such a conclusion. He employed the common sea urchin in his experiment. Like all other animals, the sea urchin begins its development with a series of cell divisions. First the original fertilized egg divides into 2 cells; then each of the 2 cells divides, to make a total of 4 cells; then 8; then 16; and so on. Dr. Driesch discovered that is, in the 4-cell stage, the individual cells are sepaseparated cells will go on to develop into a complete sea urchin. Later experiments demonstrated the same principle with other animals, including vertebrates. In fact, the occurrence of identical human twins is ascribed to some form of intrauterine event that separates into two embryos the two cells that develop from the original fertilized egg. Recent work by J.B. Gurdon, zoologist at Oxford University, has provided unusually convincing evidence for the thesis that the nucleus of every cell carries a complete book of instructions for the entire organism. Working with a species of African aquatic frog, he has shown that the original egg cell will develop into a complete and normal animal, even after its nucleus has been replaced by one removed from a specialized intestinal cell of a relatively mature embryo of the same animal. Other experimental evidence is consistent with the implications of the work on embryos. Thus, the amount of DNA is found to be the same in liver cells, heart cells, skin cells, never cells, and so one. (Insect cells containing giant chromosomes obviously constitute an exception to the general rule that all cells contain the same amount of DNA.) Furthermore, the chromosomes, which can be seen with the optical microscope, have the same number and shape in all these cells. (The chromosomes are of different lengths, and they are not perfectly straight; their characteristic shapes make the matching of chromosomes from different types of cells more convincing than the mere obtaining of similar chromosomal counts would be.) #RandolphHarris 2 of 21
In higher animals, the single exception to chromosomal uniformity among different cell types is provided by the sex cells—the spermatozoa and ova of make and female. They have only half the number of chromosomes of all the other cells of the body—human sex cells possess only 23 chromosomes instead of 46, for example. However, this fact has a compelling logic of its own. For the chromosomes in all the other cells of the body are arranged in pairs, and it has been established that one member of each pair owes its origin to the male parent, the other to the female parent. With the initial fertilization of the female ovum by the male sperm cell such a pairing of the chromosomes of the two parents is made, with the result that all further cells possess a genetic endowment contributed equally by father and mother. This provides a certain degree of redundancy for the DNA content of the nucleus: two genes instead of one are available to provide architectural control for the assembly of each enzyme required by the body, one in the chromosome supplied by the male parent and the other in that supplied by the female parent. These two DNA molecules may be identical, or they may be slightly different and therefore call for the construction of protein products of slightly different properties. If the two are different and one is markedly more effective than the other in enzyme production, we say that the gene from the corresponding parent is “dominant” and that the other is “recessive.” Thus an individual with a gene from one parent calling for brown eyes and a gene from the other calling for blue eyes, there is an equal chance of the baby having brown eyes or blue eyes. However, if one of the grandparents has blue eyes, the odds of having a baby with blue eyes increases. And by the later separation of the paired chromosomes and allocation of single members of each pair to newly formed sex cells the adult individual passes on to its progeny the genetic endowment of its own forbears. It is, of course, the statistics associated with the successive pairing of the chromosomes from different individuals from generation to generation that gives rise to the long-known and once mysterious facts of Mendelian genetics. #RandolphHarris 3 of 21
All this has a short of simplicity and internal consistency that is convincing with respect to our confidence in the correctness of our understanding. There seems today little doubt that every cell except the sex cells in the body of a plant or animal contains exactly the same aggregation of DNA molecules, combined in exactly the same chromosomal packages, as every other cell. (There is, of course, the previously mentioned exception of the giant chromosomes. However, even in such chromosomes the sequence of specific DNA molecules in each strand of nucleic acid appears to be the same as in all other cells of the body; there are just more parallel strands of identical giant giant molecules.) Thus, if we ever succeed in really translating all aspects of the genetic code, we should be able to deduce all the genetically determined characteristics of an individual—colour of the eyes, shape of the nose, contours of the face, pattern of the hairline—from analysis of the nucleic acid from a heart cell, a nerve cell, a skin cell, or a liver cell! However, retuning now to our objective reconciling the properties of single cells with the characteristic of higher organisms, we seem to have solved one problem only at the expense of rendering another one insoluble. For if, from the original fertilized egg on, every cell division results in the transmission to the new cell of exactly the same genetic specifications as those possessed by the generating cell, how can we account for the remarkable differences in the properties of the different types of ell that appear in a single plant or animal? After all, we have attributed to the genetic mechanisms overriding control of the chemical processes that make of any cell what it is. Therefore, if a heart cell and a liver cell have the same set of nuclear DNA molecules, how can they themselves by different? What we are about to do is modify somewhat the picture we have drawn of the rigid control of cell chemistry by the DNA of the nucleus. We shall do this, not by denying anything we have learned as to the key architectural responsibilities of the nucleic acid/enzyme mechanism, but by adding to our picture the structural modulating effects of other chemical agents. #RandolphHarris 4 of 21
We shall learn that in living organisms as in human-made buildings, it is sometimes the workmen on the job who really determine the details of the construction; the architect may be the designated designer, but the carpenters, plumbers, and electricians are also to be reckoned with. For example, while the particular set of enzymes generated in the cytoplasm of the cell is determined by the genes in the genes in the nucleus, the effectiveness of the enzymes in performing their catalytic functions can be markedly influenced by a chemical ingredients in the cytoplasmic fluid. Certain molecules can apparently wrap themselves around enzymes and inactive them. (The inverse also occurs. Sometimes attached molecules are able to increase the activity of enzymes.) This phenomenon, in fact, frequently plays an important role in regulating cell chemistry, for evolution has worked in such a way that the end product of a chain of enzymatically catalyzed chemical reactions is often an inhibitor of one or more of the enzymes in the chain. This provides a kind of “negative feedback” around the reaction system, which slows or stops the generation of more end product if for any reason it begins to pile up in the cell. Useful though the sensitivity of enzyme effectiveness to other chemical agents may be in the normal metabolism of the cell, however, it also has the general result of making the cellular chemistry dependent to a degree on the cellular environment. If cells in different regions of a multicellular organism are washed by fluids of differing chemical content, the result can be different relative rates among the various enzymatically catalyzed reactions and, therefore, differences in the structure and chemistry of the cells. And even more striking kinds of influence of the environment on the cellular chemistry have been demonstrated. In one of the pioneering experiments, the lowly intestinal bacteria—Escherichia coli bacilli—again came to the aid of biological science. The scientists in this case were French, F. Jacob and J. Monod, of the Pasteur Institute in Paris. In 1959 they arrived at the explanation of a curious form of adaptability of the E. coli bacilli. These organisms thrive in a culture based on the sugar glucose. If then transferred to a solution of the sugar lactose, the bacteria colonies become dormant. #RandolphHarris 5 of 21
After a while, however, they resume their growth, and they thenceforth appear as able to employ lactose as food as they were previously able to employ glucose. The obvious question is: “What happened to the transplanted bacteria to overcome their initial inability to digest lactose?” A part of the answer was obtained through the discovery that the new ability to employ lactose resulted from the eventual appearance in the cytoplasm of the bacilli of two new enzymes that do not appear when a glucose culture medium is used. One of these enzymes, it was found, modified the permeability of the outer cell membrane so as to permit molecules of lactose to enter the bacteria and thereby be exposed to the cytoplasmic chemistry. The other enzyme then acted on the lactose to break it down into the simpler molecular fragments that the E. coli metabolic mechanisms were equipped to use as food. This, of course, answered one question, but it posed another. Why did the presence of lactose in the surrounding fluid happen to result in the appearance of just the kinds of enzymes required by the bacilli in order to profit by the new environmental conditions? By a series of very careful experiments, Jacob and Monod one step further into the fundamentals of the cellular mechanisms. For they showed that the lactose of the environmental fluid, on seeping through the cellular membrane (some penetration occurs even before the new permeability-increasing enzyme is formed), acted as a sort of inhibitor to deactivate the product of one of the chromosomal genes. This gene, dubbed a “regulator” gene, through the usual nucleic acid/enzyme mechanisms, normally causes the production of a substance that suppresses the activity of two other genes in the nucleus—those capable of directing the manufacture of the two enzymes referred to. When the lactose “turned off” the inhibition normally caused by the regulator gene, the effect was to “turn on” the structural genes that permitted the cell to deal effectively with the new nutrient. The work of Jacob and Monod has led to the discovery of many examples of the switching on or off of genes by chemicals supplied to the cells. The experiments have been extended to tissues of rodents and humans, and the generality of the phenomenon of “gene switching” has been confirmed. #RandolphHarris 6 of 21
Indeed, it is now believed that hormones achieve their powerful effects primarily by such means. Insulin activates certain genes in the body cells to the manufacture the messenger RNA that goes to the cytoplasm and assembles the kinds of enzymes that take care of fatty substance; thyroxine acts as a switch to turn on previously inactivated genes to make enzymes to control growth and metabolism; and so on. Interesting visual evidence of the correctness of these theories has been obtained by means of microscopic observations. In the giant chromosomes of various species of files a swelling or puffing has been observed at spots corresponding to the loci of particular genes, presumably when these genes are stimulated to activity by the chemical conditions in the cell. This puffing phenomenon seems to be related to the developmental stage of the tissue; for cells in different types of tissue, different gene loci show such signs of activity and at different developmental phases. Especially intense puffing of gene loci occurs at the time when the larvae start to pupate; this, of course, seems consistent with the very large changes in body chemistry that accompany metamorphosis. One of the most intensive fields of biochemical research today consistent of attempts to determine the detailed mechanisms involved in the phenomenon of gene switching. Clues have come from the laboratory of James Bonner at the California Institute of Technology. He and his coworkers have directed their attention to the protein material that, as we learned recently, is always associated with the DNA of the chromosomes. An important ingredient of this material is a protein called histone, or, when it appears as in this instance, nucleohistone. Working on the nuclei of cells from pea embryos, Bonner and his associated were able to show that 80 percent or more of the nuclear DNA is ordinarily bound to histone and that, furthermore, this histone-bound nucleic acid is inactive in the sense that it does not manufacture RNA. However, it was found possible to devise means for freeing the DNA molecules from histone, and they then became efficient RNA generators. Evidently, in natural cells, only one-fifth or fewer of the DNA molecules engage in constructive architectural activities at any time. #RandolphHarris 7 of 21
When a chemical ingredient invades a cell nucleus and switches on a previously inactive gene, apparently it does so by stripping away the histone that, by binding itself to the gene in question, has been keeping it inactive. This, of course, implies that there are many different varieties of histone molecules, each one specific to a particular DNA molecule, and that the hormones or other gene-switching chemicals are likewise specific in their histone-stripping properties. Whether these inferences are correct and, if so, just how these tailored chemical operations are brought about constitute important and unresolved problems of current biochemical research. Whatever the detailed gene-switching mechanism may be, it has been established that they are sometimes able to produce spectacular effects. For example, one investigator cultured cells from the nervous system of an amphibian until they developed properties identifying them as early pigment cells with a characteristic content of pigment granules and a star-shaped contour. He then removed the cells from the culture medium, washed them, and placed them in a different medium. As a result some of the cells, without undergoing division, appeared to change their properties entirely, even going so far as to develop muscle fibrils with a recognizable cross striation, as though the cells had changed their type from never to muscle cells. There is also the curious adaptability of certain unicellular organisms such as various Naegleria species. They move around in an amoeboid from when they are on a relatively dry substratum in the presence of bacteria; but when they are surrounded by more or less pure water, they changed their structure entirely and developed flagellae at one, with the whole body elongated into a characteristic flagellate type. And a much more complex organism—the Mexican axolotl—which normally lives all its life and reproduced itself as a gilled newt in the water, can be turned into a land salamander at will by a single dose of thyroid. Despite the fact that the axolotl has lived out its life aquatically for thousands of generations, a fraction of a milligram of thyroxin, even from a sheep or fish, will bring out the latent salamander in a couple of weeks. #RandolphHarris 8 of 21
Indeed, the induction of major changes in an entire plant or animal by the influx into the cells of gene-switching chemicals is so common that it has been observed by all of us—in the metamorphosis of a tadpole into a frog or the pupation of an insect, for example. These changes can be induced at any time by dosing the young tadpole or larva with suitable hormones. Familiarity may blind us to the truly spectacular nature of such metamorphoses. The frog differs so much from the tadpole, and the butterfly from the larva, as to require that the nuclear DNA of each cell carry specifications for essentially two different species of organism, with switching arrangements to turn off one set of controlling genes and turn on the other upon receipt of the proper hormonal signal. In the face of such natural phenomena, one wonders whether the fairy-tale transformation of Cinderella’s white mice into footmen was so far-fetched after all! The modulating effects of externally supplied chemicals on the catalytic effectiveness of the enzymes and the even more powerful gene-switching capabilities of hormonal and other ingredients can cause different groups of cells in the same organism, despite a common genetic heritage, to develop widely different structural and metabolic properties. In principle, therefore, all that is necessary to account for cell diversity in complex organisms is a convincing explanation of how natural causes result in the imposition of different chemical environments of the different types of cells. The embryologist have been struggling with the problem for nearly two hundred years. In our next discussion, we shall complete our case for the purely physical basis of the structure and metabolism of higher plants, and animals by invoking some of the evidence from embryology for the physical basis of the structure and metabolism of higher plants and animals by invoking some of the evidence from embryology for the physical origins of differences in the environments to which different groups of cells are exposed. #RandolphHarris 9 of 21
Before the discovery of antipsychotic drugs, psychotherapy was not really an option for people with schizophrenia. Most were simply too far removed from reality to profit from it. Only a handful of therapists, apparently blessed with extraordinary patience and skill, specialized in the psychotherapeutic treatment of this disorder and reported a measure of success. These therapists believed that the first task of such therapy was to win the trust of patients with schizophrenia and build a close relationship with them. The well-known clinical theorist and therapist Frieda Fromm-Reichmann, for example, would initially tell her patients that they could continue to exclude her from their private World and hold onto their disorder as long as they wished. She reported that eventually, after much testing and acting out, the patients would accept, trust, and grow attached to her, and begin to talk to her about their problems. Case studies seemed to attest to the effectiveness of such approached and to the importance of trust and emotional bonding in treatment. Here a recovered woman tells her therapist how she had felt during their early interactions: “At the start, I didn’t listen to what you said most of the time but I watched like a hawk for your expression and the sound of your voice. After the interview, I would add all this up to see if it seemed to show love. The words were nothing compared to the feelings you showed. I sense that you felt confident I could be helped and that there was hope for the future. The problem with schizophrenics is that they can’t trust anyone. They can’t put their eggs in one basket. The doctor will usually have to fight to get in no matter how much the patient objects. Loving is impossible at first because it turns you into a helpless little baby. The patient can’t feel safe to do this until one is absolutely sure the doctor understands what is needed and will provide it.” Today psychotherapy is successful in many more cases of schizophrenia. By helping to relieve thought and perceptual disturbances, antipsychotic drugs allow people with schizophrenia to learn about their disorder, participate actively in therapy, think more clearly about themselves and their relationships, and make changes in their behaviour. #RandolphHarris 10 of 21
The most helpful forms of psychotherapy include insight therapy and two broader sociocultural therapies—family therapy and social therapy. Often these approaches are combined and tailored to a patient’s particular needs. Now, consider the behaviour of our professors and universities during the Dies, McCarthy and Feinberg Law investigations. It is hard to say which set the worse example to the students during those hearings: the Communist professors fearful for their jobs, or the colleges that—with magnificent exceptions, like Harvard—supinely received the investigators. A monumental blunder was being made—which did us desperate damage among thoughtful Europeans—and our professors shivered in their boots and our “radicals” hid like roaches. The important thing is not which group betrays the ideal in any particular case, but that young people become cynical about political action and resigned about the possibility of making a change. Following a party line, Communist teachers, at New York’s City College, denied their membership. This was a disastrous betrayal of the students. Not that it is wrong to avoid insolent force with fraud, but that the young students can grow only by politically affirming themselves. With the young, honour is more important than tactics or even than prudence. Leaders of youth must be knightly—grisly identity, but there it is. We have now passed through several decades in which the students in our colleges showed a political apathy probably unexampled in student history. Several causes have conspired to it. First, simple shell shock: the war and the atom bomb aroused such deep anxiety that the only defense against it was conventionality. (I remember lecturing on Kafka in 1948 to a hall of collegians consisting largely of veterans on the G.I. bill, and they frantically protested that Kafka was psychotic and should be paid no attention, he had no relation to reality—they who had lived through some of the Trial and were even then roaming under the Castle!) #RandolphHarris 11 of 21
Secondly, the students have been seduced by business firms, which tempt and reward them for conformity; but as W. H. Whyte, Jr. points out, they are eager to conform even before they are paid. Correspondingly, in its appeal to less affluent body, the Army has found it wise to accept the stirring slogan, “Retire at 37.” If you question a boy draftee who has re-enlisted, he will explain that it is a “good deal.” That is, the Army has become the IMB of the less affluent boy who loves his country.” However, finally, is there any doubt that an important cause of the present political apathy of the young is the dishonorable radical leadership that they had in the Thirties and Forties? They now believe that all political thinking is a sell—just as those bright Catholic lads who stop believing the superstitions of scholasticism now believe that all philosophy is an intricate fraud, including the truths of scholasticism. This hipster skepticism is pervasive. It is partly, of course, resignation that a revolution has failed and the way is too thorny; but students are usually more resilient. I think that a more important factor is disgust that the radicals were not bona fide; the students were had. However, also, I fear, it is cynical superiority, an identification with either the fraudulent or the powerful. I referred above to the similarity between some of the Communists and young Organization Men today, in their lust for control apart from any objective good and, more deeply, in their use of an organized power-system in order to make the ingenuous and worthy not exist. In the Thirties and in 2020, it came about that Communists had/have high status in Hollywood and somewhat in publishing, and in the TV news media, so the three kinds of organized systems worked/work in the same offices—nor do I doubt that many of the refinements of present-day organization life were learned during this cohabitation. However, it has remained for our own decade to enjoy the brutal comedy of McCarthy and the FBI investigating the Communist in Hollywood, TV news media and publishing, so we have one stage three of the most “sinister” tribes in the country, who may seem “sarcastic” to the Communist party, when in fact, they are very serious. This leaves many wishing for a more simple ignobility. #RandolphHarris 12 of 21
The symptoms of neuroticism have been well analyzed by psychiatrists. They all sum up to a single thing: intensity of egoistic emotion. This is disturbing to the mental balance of the neurotic person and trying to those who have contact with one. The negative thoughts and feelings include: excessive or constant criticism, pride, and conceit. Pride may present the self-confessions of a shortcoming or a blunder. Thus it does the ego’s dark work. The inhuman and destructive attitudes, unsympathetic and unpitying, are a sign of the evil presence a work in our midst. While humans seem permanently estranged from their spiritual selves, we need not wonder at the despair and hopelessness, the cynicism and selfishness, which enter into the moods of so many people today. Ignorance breeds violence and violence in its turn breeds further violence. If our desires choke the inner peace which might be ours during times of prosperity, our fears choke it during times of adversity. There are humans who are in a cycle of going down deeper into selfishness, illusion, spiritual ignorance, and extroversion. They have yet to touch the bottom of this descent, a contact which many older egos have also made before, but long ago left for the upward climb. Although the redemptive return of these unseeing entities is assured, for they cannot eternally and ultimately deny their own inmost nature, nevertheless, they will respond to the most morbid evil during the present phase of their descent. They are called “the Asuras” in the Bhagavad Gita, “the men of hatred, reed, and lust.” Lost religious faith is one link in a chain of which degraded morals is the next. The hopelessness which humankind’s situation naturally leads to is not less divinely-intended than any other effect of destiny’s turn. Many people in Europe must feel they have no future to live for and only an apathetic present in which just to exist, not live. Since God permits this, evidently God perceives its value in the evolutionary scheme. Yes, there is odious evil in the World—much of it petty but some of it quite monstrous. It takes its genesis in the thoughts of humans Mentalism says that most of one’s misery is inflicted on oneself by accepting and holding negative thoughts. They cover and hide the still center of one’s being, which is infinite happiness. Whereas all the great prophets like Jesus Christ and Krishna make a religion out of love, the demonists make a religion out of hatred. Those who constantly indulge in savage criticism of persons or principles, who are saturated with negative thoughts and feelings, have never seen the Light nor felt its peace. #RandolphHarris 13 of 21
Throughout the ages and the World, virginity is essential in as-yet-unmarried women. Culture, religion, and societal values demand it; the law enforces it. However, how, precisely, does one go about proving virginity? They are verified by an Obstetrician-Gynecologists. Nonetheless, this elusive and irritatingly variable membrane that they investigate has been and still is the object of intense scrutiny, though it is likely that only highly trained physicians can correctly interpret what they see or feel. For every test there is an anti-test, and as many people specialize in concealing or repair these membranes as in recognizing them. In the contest between the two groups of “experts,” the great moral issues of virginity is reduced to true absurdity. Some mothers have their own way of investigating and often do until the daughter is married. It is her responsibility to keep pure. The Apocryphal Gospels describe how a skeptical Salome, who had witnessed Jesus’ birth, tested Mary just as other mothers do. However, Mary’s mother felt a searing burn and had to terminate her examination. The divine significance of the incident was not lost on Salome. Postpartum Mary had passed her test. Zulus and other South African peoples are currently reviving a similar testing ritual that has all but died out decades ago. Recently, this value of virginity has appreciated. Virginity testers are often traditional healers who, for a small fee, examine each young client, then issue certificates of virginity to all the girls who are pure. In the past, virginity testing determined the bride price—a virgin was worth an additional cow, for example. Today, virginity has profound health implications, though some South Africans worry that instead of setting new standards of morality, the certified virgins may be at risk of assault because people think they can sure deadly illnesses. That is why medical records are kept private, for the safety of the patient and possibly others. On wedding nights throughout the World, proof of virginity is almost universally required. However, some of these tests are easy to cheat on. Tin Greece, there are also some brutal ways people use to test to see if others are virgins. Much like in the witch hunts, if one of the participates in a dangerous sport dies of their wounds, they are called “false virgins.” #RandolphHarris 14 of 21
In Algeria, the older women say they can spot unchastity in how a woman carries herself and uses the restroom. Certain Algerian midwives boast they can tell from inspecting the colour of the membrane. Medical doctors, too, are consulted, so worried parents can produce a qamija, a medical certificate. The doctor’s examination, however, is easy to circumvent. A real virgin is presented to him or he and the certificate obtained in the false virgin’s name. Physicians sometimes collude in hiding the evidence. In Sudan, for example, wealthy nonvirgins have gynecologists surgically reconstruct the missing membrane. In ancient Greece, perfumed pessaries were used to rejuvenate some of these private areas. Repaired, disguised, and substituted membranes, rejuvenated private areas, false virginity—the forces of deception are powerful. They have to be. The stakes are immense, the consequences of failure unthinkable. Preventive measures, therefore, have been correspondingly harsh: seclusion, genital mutilation, foot-binding, child marriage, terrorization. The paradox is that all this heavy-handedness and torture are orchestrated to ensure nubile, hormonally driven young women resist every carnal instinct and remain celibate until a suitable man becomes available. If this does not happen—for instance, because a society has a skewed gender riot or a young women must wait until a homely older sister finds a mate—the forced virginity is lifelong. The virgins, alas, are often coerced rather than converted. They understand the gravity of violating the celibacy commandment, if only by witnessing what happens to other women whose unchastity is revealed, but the message is a mechanical one: getting caught brings terrible retribution. The issue is couched in rhetoric about family honour and shame, mianzi in almost every language known to humans. It is seldom if ever approached from the perspective of the young woman who must bear the burden of abiding by it. Again, that familiar irony: the least-valued member of society is the one whose virtue is crucial to the honour and prosperity of her entire family. Even to herself, she is considered inferior, weaker in all ways than males, less deserving of food, education, leisure, personal choice. Temptations about. Her heart is treacherous and she desires intimacy. Importuning, testosterone-ridden males make many promises. However, if she is caught surrendering her virginity, she becomes society’s pariah, scorned, cast out, sold away, stoned by her brother’s hand, fed to hungry horses. #RandolphHarris 15 of 21
This scenario is timeless and international. It both reflects and results from the moral and cultural conundrum on which most societies are constructed. Western nations have only recently slackened their rules and evaluation of unmarried women who are no longer virginal. Elsewhere, the old ways often still reign supreme. Nonetheless, pragmatism and vitalistic philosophy also belong to the same typical ethical dynamism. When pragmatism speaks of experience, it surrenders the criteria of truth and the good no less than does vitalistic philosophy. There are for it no norms above the dynamic processes of experience, that is, of experienced life. The question of what kind of life creates ethical experience and what the standards of a true ethical experience are is not answered and cannot be answered within the context of pragmatic thought. Therefore, the pragmatists and the positivists take their refuge in an ethical instinct, that is supposed to lead to an ethical common sense. This refuge is secure so long as there is a society with a strong common belief and conventional morals maintained by the leading groups of society. Such a situation in the acme of the bourgeois development, for instance, in the Victorian era. However, it was no longer effective when the harmony of a satisfied society slowly dissolved, and dissatisfied groups, masses, and nation asked for a new order of life. The ethical instincts of the ascendant Victorian bourgeoisie, and the refuge in ethical instinct and common sense became ineffective. Pragmatism and positivism were unable to face this threat, because, in their basic ideas, they agree with the philosophy of life. The intellectual defense of Anglo-Saxon civilization against fascist ideologies is extremely weak. Common-sense philosophy and pragmatism are not able to provide criteria against the dynamic irrationalism of the new movements; and they are not able to awaken the moral power of resistance necessary for the maintenance of the humanistic values embodied in Western and Anglo-Saxon civilization. It is not positivism and pragmatism, but the remnants of the rationalistic-progressive solution of the ethical problem on which the future of that civilization is based. This solution is the most natural one for undisturbed bourgeois thought and is still deeply rooted in the subconscious of contemporary philosophers as well as of laymen. #RandolphHarris 16 of 21
There are, according to this point of view, some eternal principles, the natural law of morals, but without the supranatural sanction claimed for it in the Catholic system. These principles, as embodied in the Bill of Rights, are like starts that always remain remote from every human realization but that, like stars, how the direction in which humankind must go. Once discovered, they cannot disappear again, although their theoretical and practical realization is always in process toward a higher perfection. In this way they are adaptable to every human situations. Is this the solution of the problem of ethics in a changing World? In some ways it is, in some ways not. It indicates the direction in which the solution must be sought. There must be something immovable in the ethical principle, the criterion and standard of all ethical change. There must be a power of change within the ethical principle itself. And both must be united. However, the rationalistic-progressive solution is far from reaching this unity. It establishes some principles, such as freedom and equality, in the name of the absolute natural law to be found in nature and human reason at any time and in any place. Humankind is supposed to realize these principles, theoretically and practically, in a process of approximation. It is the same natural law, the same principles that always have been more of less known, more or less received in reality. “More or less” points t a quantitative difference, not to a qualitative change, not to new creations in the ethical realm. Ethics in a changing World changes only quantitatively, that is, as far as progress or regression with respect to their realization is more concerned. More or less freedom and more or less equality are admitted, but not a new freedom or a new equality. However, the principles on which the progressive-rationalistic solution is based represents a special pattern, a special type of freedom and equality, that of the later ancient and that of the modern bourgeois period. They do not represent principles comprehensive enough to embrace all periods and creative enough to bring new embodiments of themselves. They are not eternal enough to be ultimate principles and not temporal enough to fit a changing World. Therefore, as the Catholic system was not able to adapt itself seriously to the modern period of bourgeois growth, so the bourgeois-progressive rationalism was not able to face the breakdown of the bourgeois World. Supranatural and rational absolutism in ethics both proved to be unable to adapt themselves to a fundamental change in the historical situation. #RandolphHarris 17 of 21
Now back to rates of change. Remember we discussed starting with the mind’s eye image of a freeway. And at its side a police officer sat on a motorcycle, pointing radar gun at the road. And on this highway were nine cars, each representing a major institution in America. Each car traveling at a speed that matched the institution’s actual rate of change. Well, now we will start with the fastest car on the road. One hundred miles per hour: Zooming along at a hundred miles per hour on our figurative freeway is a car representing the fastest-changing major institution in America today—the company, or business. It is in fact, the driver of many transformations in the rest of society. Companies are not only moving rapidly, they force suppliers and distributors to change in parallel, all driven by intense competition. As a result, we find firms speeding to alter their mission, functions, assets, products, size, technology, workforce, customer relations, internal culture and just about everything else. Each of these spheres changes at different rate. In the business World, technology blasts ahead—at a pace very often faster than managers and employees can handle. Finance, too, is transforming itself at eye-popping speeds in response not just to technology but to new scandals, new regulations, diversifying markets and financial volatility. Meanwhile, accounting and other systems scramble to keep up. Ninety miles per hour: There is a car speeding right behind business, and its occupants may surprise you, as they did us. Institutions number two, we have concluded, is civil society considered collectively, and packed like circus clowns into that second speeding car. The civil society is a burgeoning hothouse sector made up of thousands of churning and changing nongovernmental grassroots organizations (NGOs)—pro-business and anti-business coalitions, professional groups, sports federations, Catholic orders and Buddhist nunneries, plastics-manufacturing associations, anti-plastic activists, cults, tax haters, whale lovers and everyone in between. Most such groups are in the business of demanding change—in the environment, government regulations, defense spending, local zoning, disease-research funding, food standards, human rights and thousands of other causes. However, other are dead set against certain changes and do everything they can to prevent or at least slow such change. #RandolphHarris 18 of 21
Using lawsuits, pickets, and other means, environmentalists have slowed the building of nuclear plants in the United States of America by delaying their construction and driving legal costs up to the point at which they are potentially unprofitable. Whether one agrees with the anti-nuke movement’s position or not, it illustrates the use of time and timing as an economic weapon. Because NGO-led movements tend to be made up of small, fast, flexible units, organized in networks, they can run rings around huge corporate and government institutions. Overall, a case can be made that none of the other key institutions in American society comes close to the rates of change we see in these two sectors: business and the civil society. Sixty miles per hour: The third car, too, has surprising occupants. In it, we find the American family. For thousands of years, the typical household in most parts of the World was large and multigenerational. Significant change began only when countries industrialized and urbanized, at which point family size shrank. The nuclear-family model, more suitable to industrial and urban conditions, became dominant. As late as the mid-1960s, experts insisted that the nuclear family—officially defined as a working father, a stay-at-home-mom, and two children under the age of eighteen—would never lose any dominance. Today fewer than 25 percent of American homes fit this designation. Single parents, unmarried couples, once-, twice- (or more) remarried couples with children from previous alliances geriatric marriages, and recently, legalized marriages of alternative couples, have all sprung up or gone public. In a few short decades, therefore, the family system—once among the slowest of all social institution to change—has been transformed. And another rapid change is on the way. During the long agrarian millennia, the family unit has many important functions. It worked as a production team in the fields or cottage. It educated its children, tended the sick and took care of the elderly. As one country after another industrialized, however, work shifted from home to factory. Education was outsourced to the schools. Health care moved to the doctor or the hospital. Care of the elderly became a state of obligation. #RandolphHarris 19 of 21
Today, while corporations are outsourcing functions, the American family is insourcing them. For tens of millions of American families, work has already moved back into the home part- or full time, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic. The same digital revolution that facilitates work-at=home also moves shopping, investigating, trading stocks and many other functions into the house. Education remains locked in the schoolroom but, the pandemic has forced many kids, teens and adults to take accredited course online. Paralleling work, is likely to migrate at least partially back into the home and to other locations permanently as Internet access, WiFi and mobile phone communications spread through society. More and more elder care, too, will likely return to the home, spurred by government and private insurance plans that seek to reduce the high costs of nursing homes and hospitalization. Family formats, frequency of divorce, pleasure of the flesh, intergenerational relations, dating patterns, child rearing and other dimensions of family life are all changing rapidly. Thirty miles per hour: If companies, NGOs and family arrangements are changing at high speed, what about labour unions. For half a century, as we have seen, the United States of America has been shifting from muscle work to mind work, from interchangeable to non-interchangeable skills, and from blindly repetitive to innovational tasks. Work is increasingly mobile, taking place on airplanes, in cars, at hotels, and restaurants. Instead of staying in one organization with the same co-worker for years, individuals are moving from project team to task force and work, continuingly losing and gaining teammates. Manu are “free agents” on contract, rather than employees as such. Yet while corporations are changing at a hundred miles per hour. American unions remain frozen in amber, saddled with legacy organizations, methods, and models left over from the 1930s, and the mass production era. In 1955 U.S. labour unions represented 33 percent of the today workforce, today that number is 13 percent. The proliferation of NGOs reflects the rapid de-massification on interests and lifeways in a largely Third Wave America. The parallel decline of unions reflects the decay of Second Wave mass society. Unions have a residual role to play, but to survive they will need a new road map and a faster vehicle. We will continue this discussion tomorrow. #RandolphHarris 20 of 21
Here they are. The soft eyes open. If they have lived in a wood, it is a wood. If they have lived on plains, it is grass rolling under their feet forever. Having no souls, they have come, anyway, beyond their knowing. Their instincts wholly bloom and they rise. The softs eyes open. To match them, the landscape flowers, outdoing, desperately, outdoing what is required: the riches wood, the deepest field. For some of these, it could not be the place it is, without blood. These hunt, as they have done, but with claws and teeth grown perfect. More deadly than they can believe. They stalk more silently, and crouch on the limbs of trees, and their descent upon the bright backs of their prey. May take years in a sovereign floating of joy. And those that are hunted know this as their life, their reward: to walk. Under such trees in full knowledge of what is in glory above them, and to feel no fear, but acceptance, compliance. Fulfilling themselves without pain. At the cycle’s center, they tremble, they walk under the tree. They fall, they are torn, they rise, they walk again. Wherewith shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before God on high? Shall I come before Him with burnt offerings, with calves of a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I give my first-born for my transgressions, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? You have been told, O man, what is god, and what the Lord requires of you; only to do justly, and to love mercy, and to talk humbly with your God. The sacrifice of a wicked man is an abomination to the Lord, but the prayer of the upright is His delight. Thus saith the Lord: Will you still, murder and commit adultery, swear falsely, and walk after other gods, and then come and stand before Me in My house, whereupon My name is called, and think tht merely by uttering words you will be saved, saved to continue all these abominations? When you offer such prayers, I will not hear. I cannot endure iniquity along with solemn worship. Hear the word of the Lord, all who enter these gates to worship. If you thoroughly mend your ways and your doings; if you see that justice is done between man and man, if you oppose not the stranger, the orphan and the widow, and shed not innocent blood, neither walk after the gods, then shall your light break forth as the morning, and your healing shall spring forth speedily; your righteousness shall go before you; the glory of the Lord shall be your protection. #RandolphHarris 21 of 21
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Randolph Harris II International Institute 