Randolph Harris II International Institute

Happy Cultivation of Life’s Finest Feelings

The proper cultivation and refinement of feeling is necessary for the philosophic path, but this must not be confused with mere emotionalism. The former lifts him to higher and higher levels while the latter keeps him pinned down to egoism. The former gives him the right kind of inner experience, but the latter often deceives him. It is right to rule the passions and lower emotions by reasoned thinking, but reason itself must be companioned by the higher and nobler emotions or it will be unbalanced. If we would get him to act rights, as man’s impulses to action come mainly from his feelings, hence it is necessary to re-educate his feelings. There are three kinds of feelings. The lowest is passional. The highest is intuitional. Between them lies the emotional. It is not emotion that philosophy asks us to triumph over but the lower emotions. On the contrary, it asks us to cherish and cultivate the higher ones. It is not feeling that is to be ruled sternly by reason but the blind animal instincts and ignorant human self-seeking. When feeling is purified and disciplined, exalted and ennobled, depersonalized and instructed, it becomes the genuine expression of philosophical living. The heart must also acknowledge the truth of these sacred tenets, for then only can the will apply it in common everyday life. #RandolphHarris 1 of 20

Those who think the philosophic life is one of dark negation and dull privation, of sour life-denial and emotional refrigeration, are much mistaken. Rather it is the happy cultivation of Life’s finest feelings. The hardest thing in the emotional life of the aspirant is to tear himself away from his own past. Yet in his capacity to do this lies his capacity to gain newer and fresher ideals, motives, habits, and powers. Through this effort, he may find new patterns for living and re-educate himself psychologically. However, it is not all his ideas which govern man’s life. Only those are decisive which are breathed and animated by his feelings, only they prompt him to action. Hence, a merely intellectual acceptance of these teachings, although good, does not suffice alone. The aspirant needs to rise above his emotional self, without rising above the capacity to feel, and to govern it by reason, will, and intuition. Sentimentality is a disease. The sooner the aspirant is cured of it, the quicker he will progress. The idea that perfectly harmonious human relations can be established between human beings still dominated by egoism is a delusional one. Even where it seems to have been established, the true situation has been covered by romantic myth. It is possible to attain a stoic impassivity where the man dies to disturbing or disquieting emotions and lives only in his finer ones, where the approbation of others will no longer excite him or the criticism by others hurt him, where the cravings and fears, the passions and griefs of ordinary and everyday human reactions are lacking. However, in their place he will be sensible to the noblest, the most refined feelings. #RandolphHarris 2 of 20

The “heart” is the central abode of human feeling, the symbolic reminder that the “head” or cold, dry intellect is not enough to touch the reality of Spirit. There is one relationship which takes precedence over all others. It is the relationship with the Overself. A wrong relationship with the Overself must inevitably lead to a wrong relationship with men. We are not called upon to renounce our human affections, our Earthly ties, as the ascetics demand, but we are called upon to liberate our love from its egoism. He is indeed free who is no longer liable to be tossed about by emotional storms, whose mind has become so steadied in the impersonal Truth that his personal feelings shape themselves in accord with it. If, and, when we can reconcile our feelings with the hard, sharp truths of philosophy, we shall then find the secret of peace. If binding natural laws were conceived to govern economic behaviour, it would be futile to urge employers to obey the promptings of heir Christian conscience and deal more generously with heir men. Expressing a desire for the growth of trade unions to balance large industrial combinations, Washington Gladden hoped that arbitration would supersede strife as the means of settlement. The principle of competition, the survival of the fittest, is the law of plants and brutes and brutish men, but it is not the highest law of civilized society. The higher principle of goodwill, of mutual help, begins to operate in the social order, and the struggle for existence disappears with the progress of the race. #RandolphHarris 3 of 20

To assume placidly that competition is the law of life and development is the fatal mistake of the social and economic sciences is the most common counterbalance to the competitive principle, in the minds of Christian leaders and the principle of Christian ethics and the dicta of the Christian conscience. The Sermon on the Mount is the science of society. However, as we welcome in the natural process of fruition for our belief in the limitations of competition as a rule of human life, we find a foundation in the natural process of evolution. As the social gospel developed, it became increasingly cordial to municipal socialism or public regulation of basic industries; this could be seen in the writings of many who had the conventional objections to socialism. To the growing solidaristic trend in American thought the social gospel contributed heavily, for its lectures were heard by thousands, its books read by hundreds of thousands, and incalculable numbers joined its organization or attended its earnest conferences. A current of criticism frequently neglected and underrated by historians of American social literature, it supplied several religious bodies with a lasting reform orientation, and paved the way for all socially-minded Protestant movement of a later day. Not the least of its accomplishments was to break ground for the Progressive era. #RandolphHarris 4 of 20

Returning now from the problems of politics and economics to those of culture, we find that the change must be a similar one: from passive consumer culture to active, participant culture. This is not the place to go into details, but most readers will understand the difference between, for example, spectator art (like spectator sports) and active art, expressed in little theater groups, dancing, music, reading, and other forms. The very same question which exists regarding spectator art versus active art applies to the sphere of teaching. Our educational system, whose façade is so impressive according to the number of students who go to college, is unimpressive in quality. Education has deteriorated to a tool for social advancement or, at best, into the use of knowledge for the practical application to the “food gathering” sector of human life. Even our teaching in liberal arts—while not done in the authoritarian style of the French system—is dispensed in an alienated and cerebral form. No wonder that the best minds of our college students are literally “fed up” because they are fed, not stimulated. They are dissatisfied with the intellectual fare they get in most—although fortunately not in all—instances, and in this mood, tend to discard all traditional writings, values, and ideas. It is futile simply to complain about this fact. #RandolphHarris 5 of 20

One must change its conditions, and this change can only if the split between emotional experience and thought is replaced by a new unity of heart and mind. This is not done by the method of reading the hundred great books—which is conventional and unimaginative. It can only be accomplished if the teachers themselves cease being bureaucrats hiding their own lack of aliveness behind their role of bureaucratic dispensers of knowledge; if they become—in a word, by Tolstoy—“the codisciples of their students.” If the student does not become aware of the relevance of problems of philosophy, psychology, sociology, history, and anthropology to his own personal life and the life of his society, only the least gifted ones will pay attention to their courses. The result is that the apparent richness of our educational endeavour becomes an empty front which conceals a deep lack of response to the best cultural achievements of civilized history. The demands of students all over the World for greater participation in the administration of the universities and formulation of the curricula are only the more superficial symptoms of the demand for a different kind of education. If the educational bureaucracy does not understand this message, it will lose the respect which it receives from students and eventually that from the rest of the population.  #RandolphHarris 6 of 20

On the other hand, if it becomes “vulnerable,” open and responsive to the interests of the students, it will sense the satisfaction and joy which meaningful activity carries with it as its reward. Marx expressed the nature of the nonbureaucratic influence over people succinctly in this way: “Let us assume man to be man, and his relationship to the World to be a human one. Then love can only be exchanged for love, trust for trust, etcetera. This humanism of education is, of course, not only that of higher education, but it starts with kindergarten and primary school. That this method can be applied even in the alphabetization of poor peasants and slum dwellers has been shown in the very successful methods of alphabetization devised and applied by Professor P. Freire in Brazil and now in Chile. I urge you not to get stuck in the consideration of the merits of the detailed proposals. American democracy must be strengthened and revitalized or it will wither away. It cannot remain static. While Marx already used the term “repression (Verdraengung) of the ordinary natural desires” in the German Ideology, Rosa Luxemburg, one of the most brilliant Marxists in the pre-1914 period, expressed the Marxist theory of the determining effect of historical process on man in straight psychoanalytic terminology. “The unconscious,” she wrote, “comes before the conscious. The logic of the historic process comes before the subjective logic of the human beings who participate in the historic process.” #RandolphHarris 7 of 20

This formulation expression the Marxian thought in full clarity. Man’s conscious, that is, his “subjective process,” is determined by “the logic of the historic process,” which R. Luxemburg equates with the “unconscious.” At this point, the Freudian and the Marxian “unconscious” may seem not to denote more than a common word. Only if we pursue Marx’s ideas on this problem further shall we discover that there is more common ground in their respective theories, even though they are by no means identical. Marx has given a good deal of thought to the role of consciousness in the life of the individual in a passage which precedes the one just quoted where he uses the word “repression.” He speaks about the fact that it is nonsense if one believes “that one could satisfy one passion, separate it from all the others, without satisfying oneself, the whole living individual. If this passion assumes an abstract, separate character, hence if the satisfaction of the individual occurs as the satisfaction of a single passions…the reason is not to be found in consciousness, but in being; not in thinking, but in living; it is to be found in the empirical development and self-expression of the individual, which, in turn, depends on the conditions of the World in which he lives. (die wiederum von der Weltverhaltnissen abhangt.)” #RandolphHarris 8 of 20

In this passage, Marx establishes the polarity between thinking and living which is parallel to that between consciousness and being. The social constellation of which he spoke before molds, so he says here, the being of the individual and thus, indirectly, his thinking. (The passage also is interesting because Marx develops here a most significant idea on a problem of psychopathology. If man satisfies only one aliened passion, he, the total man, remains unsatisfied; he is, as we would say today, neurotic, precisely because he has become the slave of the one alienated passion and has lost the experience of himself as a total and alive person.) Marx, like Dr. Freud, believed that man’s consciousness is mostly “false consciousness.” Man believes that his thoughts are authentic and the product of his thinking activity whole they are determined by the objective forces which work behind his back; in Dr. Freud’s theory these objective forces represent physiological and biological needs, in Marx’s theory they represent the social and economic historical forces which determine the being and thus indirectly the consciousness of the individual. Let us think of an example: The industrial method of production as it has developed in the last decades is based on the existence of large, centralized enterprises which are controlled by a managerial elite, and in which hundreds of thousands of workers and clerks work together, smoothly and without friction. #RandolphHarris 9 of 20

This bureaucratic industrial system shapes the character of the bureaucrats as well as that of the workers. It also shapes their thoughts. The bureaucrat is conservative and adverse to taking risks. His main desire is to advance, and he can best do so by avoiding risky decisions and by allowing himself to be led by an interest in the proper functioning of the organization as his guiding principle. The workers and clerks, on their side, tend to feel satisfied in being part of the Organization provided their material and psychological rewards are sufficient to justify this. Their own trade union organizations resemble in many ways that of their industry: large-scale organizations, bureaucratic and well-paid leadership, little active participation of the individual member. The development of large-scale centralized government and armed services, both of which follow the same principles which guide the industrial corporations. It is an ironical fact that those conservatives who are opposed to big government (or at least pretend to be) are usually not opposed to bib business or to big military establishments. This type of social organization leads to the formation of elites, the business, government, and military elites and, to a degree, to the trade union elites. This business, government, and military elites are closely interwoven in personnel, in attitudes, and in ways of thinking. #RandolphHarris 10 of 20

Despite the political and social differences between the “capitalist” countries and the “communist” Soviet Union, the way of feeling and thinking among their respective elites is similar, precisely because the basic mode of production is similar. The power elites are the product of a specific way of production and social organization and, hence, that their existence confirms the basic Marxian assumption, rather than contradicts it. Military and political determinism are equally valid assumptions. I believe these elites and their role can be best understood precisely from the standpoint of the Marxian model. The consciousness of the members of the elites is a product of their social existence. They consider their way of organization and the values that are implied in it as being in “the best interests of man,” they have a picture of human nature which makes this assumption plausible, they are hostile to any idea or system which questions or endangers their own system; if they feel that their organizations are threatened by it, they are against disarmament, they are suspicious and hostile of a system in which their class has been replaced by a different and new class of managers. Consciously, they honestly believe that they are motivated by patriotic concern for their country, duty, moral, and political principles, and so on. #RandolphHarris 11 of 20

The elites on both sides are equally caught in thought and ideas which follow from the nature of their conscious thoughts. Precisely because they are sincere, and because they are not aware of the real motivations behind their thoughts, it is difficult for them to change their minds. These people are not driven by an overwhelming greed for power, money, or prestige. To be sure, such motives exist too; but the people in whom this is the all-consuming motive are the exception rather than the rule. Personally the members of all the elites would be just as willing to make sacrifices and to renounce certain advantages as anybody else. The motivating factor is that their social function forms their consciousness, and hence their conviction that they are right, that their aims are justified and, in fact, beyond doubt. This explains also another and very puzzling phenomenon. We see that the elites of two great blocs are on a collision course and that there are great difficulties in coming to an arrangement which will secure peace. There is no doubt that nuclear war would man the death of most members of the elite, of most their families, and the destruction of most of their organizations. If they were driven mainly by lust for money and power, how could one understand that this greed would not yield to the fear of death, except in the case of exceptionally neurotic individuals? The point lies precisely in the difficulty to change their viewpoint. Because to them, theirs is the rational, decent, honourable way of thinking—and if the nuclear holocaust will destroy everybody—it cannot be helped since there is no other course of action besides that of “reason,” “decency,” and “honour.” #RandolphHarris 12 of 20

An academic course has definite boundaries: even if I learn everything within them, I cannot go beyond them, and when I have completed the course I feel that I “know.” When I am studying on my own, there are no such boundaries. I range wherever my interests take me, into the disapproved as well as the approved, instead of being confined to texts and other reading selected for me by someone else. In this way, I gain a perspective that makes me a more reasonable person, more in accord with reality. I become aware of many divergent opinions and my mind is more flexible as I find my own continuing way through them. The continuing happens because this is not a course, with the end arbitrarily decided by someone else. There is no end. My awareness of this changes my behaviour. Relatedness (otherwise known as “a broad liberal background”) comes about through one field moving me into another, not through certain things being put together and related for me. Within myself, this relatedness is vaster and more sweeping than anything that can be put in books or taught to me by someone else. The space within me is prodigious. A person can look into himself and discover that—and discover that this space shrinks when I have taken in too much without time to digest it. Then I become like the Navajos who say that “there is no more room in the head.” #RandolphHarris 13 of 20

The process of free association, of frank and unreserved self-expression, is the starting point and continuous basis of all analytic work-self-analysis as well as professional analysis—but it is not at all easy of achievement. It might be thought that this process is easier when working alone, for then there is no one who may appear to misunderstand, criticize, intrude, or retaliate; besides, it is not so humiliating to express to oneself those things of which one may be ashamed. To some extent this is true, although it is also true that an outsider, by the very fact of his listening, provides stimulation and encouragement. However, there is no doubt whatever that whether one is working alone or with an analyst the greatest obstacles to free expression are always within oneself. One is so anxious to ignore certain factors, and to maintain one’s image of oneself, that alone or not alone one can hope only to approximate the ideal of free associations. If he skips or obliterates any thought or feeling that arises, in view of these difficulties, the person who is working alone should remind himself from time to time that he acts against his true self-interest. Also, he should remember that the responsibility is entirely his own: there is only himself to guess a missing link or inquire about a gap left open. #RandolphHarris 14 of 20

This conscientiousness is particularly important regarding the expression of feelings. Here are two precepts that should be remembered. One is that the person should try to express what he really feels and not what he is supposed to feels and not what he is supposed to feel according to tradition or his own standards. He should at least be aware that there may be a wide and significant chasm between genuine feelings and feelings artificially adopted, and should sometimes ask himself—not while associating, but afterward—what he really feels about the matter. The other rule is that he should give as free range to his feelings as he possibly can. This, too, is more easily said than done. It may appear ridiculous to feel deeply hurt at a seemingly trivial offense. It may be bewildering and distasteful to mistrust or hate somebody he is close to. He may be willing to admit a ripple of irritation, but find it frightening to let himself feel the rage that is actually there. He must remember, however, that as far outside consequences are concerned no situation is less dangerous than analysis for a true expression of feelings. In analysis only the inner consequences matters, and this is to recognize the full intensity of a feeling. This is important because in psychological matters, too, we cannot hang anybody whom we have not first caught. #RandolphHarris 15 of 20

Of course, no one can forcibly bring forth feelings that are repressed. All anyone can do is not to check those that are within reach. With all the good will in the World, Clare, at the beginning of her analysis, could not have felt or expressed more resentment toward Peter than she did. However, as her analysis progressed, she gradually became more capable of appreciating the existing intensity of her feelings. From one point of view the whole development she went through could be described as a growing freedom to feel what she really felt. More desirable, from the standpoint of growth toward maturity, is the quest for independent security. This entails learning a new skill to gratify the need or to solve the problem by oneself. We must recognize that no human being can face life without help and affection from other people. It is important to emphasize independent security as a goal, to guide the efforts of parents and teachers as they stive to influence a child’s growth in wholesome ways. There is a distinction between immature dependent security, which is shown by persons who retain infantile patterns of dependency upon parents, or parent substitutes and authority figures, throughout life. Mature dependent security is shown in relationships of mutual love, where each person relies upon the other to provide for those needs that can never be gratified in solitude or without help, such as compassion and satisfying companionship. #RandolphHarris 16 of 20

These patterns of independent security, mature and immature dependent security, and the false security based on defense mechanisms are manifested in the major realms of life. These realms include vocational life, one’s avocations or leisure pursuits, one’s relationships with other people inside and outside the family, and one’s philosophy of life. Thus, a person might display independent security in connection with work, mature dependent security in relationships with members of the family, immature dependent security in the use of leisure time, and insecurity regarding religion or philosophy of life. Independent security means the state of consciousness which accompanies a wiliness to accept the consequences of one’s own decisions and actions. [It] can be attained in only one way—by the acquisition of skill through learning. Whenever an individual is presented with a situation for which he is inadequately prepared…he must make one of two choices—he must either retreat or attack…The individual must, if he is to attack, emerge from the state of dependent security and accept the state of insecurity. This attack will, of course, result in learning…The individual learns that satisfaction results from overcoming the apprehension and anxiety experienced when insecure, and that he may thus reach a state of independent security through learning. #RandolphHarris 17 of 20

The more people rely on machinery, electronic devices, and other apparatus, the more dependent they become on that very machinery. Reliance on media, “the extensions of man,” robs people of the very powers that are embodies in the gadgets. Periodic excursions to the wilderness, with training in survival skills, are a wholesome corrective to the skill-depleting way of life that is the lot of most people who live in cities. If he seeks the truth, the disciple must have no room for false sentimentality. Consequently, he will not apply the phrase “a broke heart” to himself at any time, for he knows that what it really means is a broken ego, a served attachment to some external thing which must be given up if the way is to be cleared for the coming of Grace. It is only when he is unwilling or unable to do this for himself that destiny steps in, taking him at his word in his search for truth and reality, and breaks the attachments for him. If he accepts the emotional suffering which follows and does not reject it, he is able to pass into a region of greater freedom, and of progress to a higher level. His heart is not broken arbitrarily or capriciously, but only there where it most needs to be broken—where passion desire, and attachment bind him the most strongly to illusion and error. Only after long experience and severe reflection will a man awaken to the truth that the beauty that attracts him and the ecstasy which he seeks can be found free of defects and transiency only in the Soul within. #RandolphHarris 18 of 20

Fire safety is an important part of the workplace and home, to protect against the destruction and death caused by fires. “We had a rookie school, you’re supposed to have all your hours certified by the state, but I was already out in the field. Our training chief waited until he had enough rookies to form a class. Then we would go to rookie school for eight hours, from eight to five, and after that, if you were on a shift, you went back to your station and worked the rest of your shift. We all got a lot of overtime, and that didn’t bother us. As part of the class, we were driving through downtown in a rescue vehicle with sliding panels like a bread truck. One of the guys whistled at a girl, and the chief bawled us out, my first lesson in fire department discipline. We were also given the job of testing all the hoses in the whole fire department, so you can imagine the water fights we got into. The department’s hiring procedures were good as far as the written and physical tests were concerned, but the oral interview wasn’t that much. There are people in our department who shouldn’t be there, shouldn’t have gotten past the oral interview. One of the toughest fires I ever had was one of the first. I was on the job for maybe a month, and I was still looking for my initiation to come. Then less than two blocks away from our station there was a gas leak under a house, and it exploded. #RandolphHarris 19 of 20

“A man was sitting on the commode in his bathroom, and he lit a match to light the gas heater there. The explosion blew out three walls of the house, and part of the roof collapsed. The guy got burns on his rear end, legs and feet, but the mother and baby in another room just had some plasterboard fall on them. We heard the bang, and we went. My job initially was to do the pumping, but we were on a replacement engine, and it had a different mechanism for charging the line. I didn’t know where it was. My captain was standing out there with no water, and he had to run back and turn the knob. So then we went ahead and got the fire out, except for a fire under the house. Fireman had cut a hole in the floor, eight by twenty inches, and told me to go under there. I told him, ‘You’re crazy. I’m not going under there. This place is ready to fall.’ I thought he was kidding with me. When I found out he wasn’t, I ended up underneath the house, lying on my back in water and mud, and trying to spray water on the fire. When I came out from under there, of course, I was all messed up. I got ridiculed by some of the men and got a bad rep with the captain for not going straight in. Anyhow, it was really something else.” Please help save lives and property by making a donation to the Sacramento Fire Department. Also, teach your children to love America, love God and Jesus Christ, to respect their elders and law and order. With firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, with liberty and justice for all. #RandolphHarris 20 of 20

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Knights of Labour and Social Gospel

Many Americans endorse solidarism; they see the group (the species, family, tribe, class, or nation) as the unit of survival, and minimize or overlook entirely the individual aspects of competition. It is precisely this, which critics found objectionable, in the current trend of evolutionary thought. Although social solidarity is a basic fact in evolution, solidarity is a thoroughly natural phenomenon, a logical outgrowth of natural evolution. The transition to solidarism, which is part of a larger reconstruction in American thought, first became apparent in the 1890s—the period that saw the publication of Drummond and Kidd, of Huxley’s essay, and, in preliminary form, of Mutual Aid. Rising with solidarism were other streams of criticism. In the realm of philosophy, the new spirit was marked by the ascendancy of the pragmatic movement, especially significant because it rejected the cold determinism of Spencer’s philosophy and constructed a new psychology, in part out of Darwinian materials. As social dissent became more vociferous, there arose a new concern with conscious social control. Inspired by events in the political and industrial arena, social science also reassessed its aims and methods. Earlier conceptions of the social significance of Darwinism were undergoing profound changes. #RandolphHarris 1 of 23

The sincere and candid reformer can no longer consider the national Promise as destined to automatic fulfillment. The reformers…proclaim their conviction of an indubitable and beneficent national future. However, they do not and cannot believe that this future will take care of itself. As reformers they are bound to asset that the national body requires for the time being a good deal of medical attendance, and many of them anticipate that even after the doctors have discontinued their daily visits the patient will still need the supervision of a sanitary specialist. From the disorders and discontents that plagued America in the eighteen seventies, eighties, and nineties, there arose a stream of dissenting opinion on the merits of the free competitive order. Two panics followed by long and harrowing depressions racked the economic life of the nation in the first and last of these decades; and in the intervening one, hardly a period of uninterrupted prosperity, labour uprisings of unprecedented scope and violence took place. The growth of the Knights of Labor and the strikes of the eighties, climaxed by the eight-hour movement and the Haymarket affair, gave to labour strife a central place in public attention. In the depression of the nineties, agricultural protest combined with labour unrest to create the national political upheaval of 1896. #RandolphHarris 2 of 23

Outside the immediate ranks of labour, an articulate source of reform sentiment in urban communities was the social-gospel movement. Many Protestant clergymen now criticized industrialism as their predecessors had criticized slavery, and their protest gave to the dissent of the post-bellum period a strong Christian flavour. The clergy of the cities had direct experience with industrial evils. They saw the living conditions of the workingmen, their slums, their pitiful wages, their unemployment, the enforced labour of their wives and daughters. Many ministers were troubled because the churches were out of touch with the working class, and sensed the unreality of talk about moral reform and Christian conduct in such an oppressive and brutalizing environment. They were not only shocked but alarmed by the industrial scene. Although they sympathized with trade unions, especially as defensive organizations, they were troubled by the ugly potential of industrial violence. They were learning about the doctrines and methods of European socialism, and, at the outset at least, feared their spread in the United States of America. What they sought, therefore, was a compromise between the harsh individualism of the competitive order and the possible dangers of socialism. Although agrarian discontents played a prominent role in national and state politics, the clergy focused their attention almost exclusively upon the problem of labour. There lay the menace; there lay the promise. #RandolphHarris 3 of 23

Most social gospel leaders worked in this urban setting. The most famous and the most active of them was the prolific Washington Gladden (1836-1918), a preacher in several cities and for a time a writer on the editorial staff of the Independent. Among Gladden’s contemporaries who shared his moderate reformism were Lyman Abbott, one of the most influential clergymen of the age; the Rev. A.J.F. Behrends, who hoped to persuade Christians to forestall the menace of socialism by anticipating its more acceptable proposals; and Francis Greenwood Peabody, who taught Christian ethics at Harvard. Other advocates of the social gospel were closer to socialism. William Dwight Porter Bliss (1856-1926) of Boston organized a Protestant Episcopal reform group, the Church Association for the Advancement of the Interests of Labour (CAIL), and published a radical paper, the Dawn, which supported sundry left-wing movements. George Herron (1862-1925), a famous platform speakers and professors of Applied Christianity at Iowa College who joined the Socialist Party in 1889, was a leading propagandist of the movement. Walter Rauschenbush (1861-1918), another convert to socialism, exerted through his writings a profound influence on Christian social thinking in the Progressive period. #RandolphHarris 4 of 23

The greatest literary success of the movement were produced by Midwesterners. Josiah Strong’s discussion of national problems, our Country, was a best seller in the 1880’s. A Kansas minister, Charles M. Sheldon, wrote a crudely novelized tract, In His Steps (1896), describing the social experiences of a small-town congregation that patterned its conduct on the precepts of Jesus as the Christ; the volume sold about 23,000,0000 copies in English between the day of its publication and 1925. The movements inspired by Henry George and Edward Bellamy were of one piece with the social gospel. Both men, products of pious home environments, were intensely religious; their writings were filled with a moral protest thoroughly familiar to readers of social-gospel literature. That the social gospel and the followers of George and Bellamy shared a common outlook was shown by the adherence of many socially minded clergymen to both the Nationalist and single-tax movements. On another front the social gospel was linked to those academic economists who had begun to criticize individualism; such progressive economists as John R. Commons, Edward Bemis, and Richard T. Ely formed a bridge between churchmen and other professional economists. At one time over sixty clergymen were listed as members of the American Economic association. #RandolphHarris 5 of 23

The social-gospel movement arose during the years when evolution was making converts among the progressive clergy, and since ministers who were liberal in social outlook were almost invariably liberal in theology also, the social theory of the movement was deeply affected by the impact of naturalism upon social thought. The growing secularization of thought hastened the trend among clergymen to turn from the abstractions of theology to social questions. The liberalization of theology broke down the insularity of religion. Social-gospel leaders were also inspired by the vistas of development opened both forward and backward in time by the evolutionary perspective; their belief in an inevitable progress toward a better order on Earth—the Kingdom of God—was fortified by the evolutionary dogma. Wrote Walter Rauschenbusch: “Translate the evolutionary theories into religious faith, and you have the doctrine of the Kingdom of God. This combination with scientific evolutionary thought has freed the kingdom ideal of its catastrophic setting and its background a demonism, and so adapted it to the climate of the modern World.” Spencer’s organic interpretation of society also appealed to the progressive clergy, although they usually put it to uses of which he would have sternly disapproved. #RandolphHarris 6 of 23

To them the social-organism concept meant that the salvation of the single individual had lost its meaning, and that in the future men would speak with Washington Gladden of “social salvation.” It also implied a harmony of interests between classes which served as a framework for their appeals against class conflict and for extended state intervention. Lyman Abbott, however, thought that the social-organism idea provided an argument for slow and gradual reform. No longer under the influence of the theological concept of the total depravity of human nature, some social-gospel writers also accepted the idea that the social order should be transformed by changing the character of individuals—a conception in which they were close to Spencer and other conservatives. In one critical respect the pioneers of social gospel departed from prevailing social uses of evolution: they detested and feared the free competitive order and all its works. However profoundly influenced by individualism, however timorous about socialism, they were in general agreement on the need to modify the free workings of competition to abandon Manchesterian economics and the social fatalism of the Spencerians. “Christianity,” wrote the Rev. A. J. F. Behrends, “cannot grant the adequacy of the ‘laissez-faire’ philosophy, cannot admit that the perfect and permanent social state is the product of natural law and of an unrestricted competition.” #RandolphHarris 7 of 23

Citing Emile de Laveleye, a Belgian expositor of socialism, as having said that followers of Darwin and advocates of a natural-law political economy “are the real and only logical adversaries at once of Christianity and of socialism,” Behrends continued: “Our contention is not against Darwinism as a philosophy of unconscious and irresponsible existence; it may be in purely biological science; but the gifts of reason and of conscience, the powers of self-consciousness and of self-determination, make man more than animal or a plant, and so invest him with the power to modify and control the law of natural selection and to mitigate the fierceness of the struggle for existence. It is time that the poor and oppressed should understand that their deliverance will never come from the political economy which allies itself with the school of Haeckel and Darwin. It knows nothing of the duty of mercy, it recognizes only the right of the fittest to survive.” Of like mind was Washington Gladden, who often asserted his opposition to Spencer and all the glorifiers of selective competition. He warned that the weaker classes would unite to attack a competitive system in which they were threatened with annihilation, and that huge warring combinations of capital and labour would be the natural consequence of accepting the law of strife as a norm for industrial society. He urged an “industrial partnership” between employers and employees as an alternative to disaster. #RandolphHarris 8 of 23

The development of trade unions in manufacturing industries represented a step in putting the consumer in the decision-making process. Events in recent decades have unfortunately turned these organizations away from their original broad social purposes. Today they provide a measure of workers’ control over internal conditions; however, their sphere of action often does not extend much beyond wages, hours, and certain work practices. Furthermore, if they are to fulfill their commitment to full membership participation, because they have developed along dehumanized bureaucratic lines, they now must reorganize themselves. To further highlight this illustration, in a factory, the participants would discuss the basic problems about which decisions have to be made: course of production, changes in techniques of production, working conditions, housing for participants, supervision of workers or employees, etcetera. The various possible courses of action would have to be mapped out, and the arguments in favour or against each of these alternatives made explicit. #RandolphHarris 9 of 23

The participant face-to-face group should become part of all enterprises, whether in business, or education, or health. The participant groups would operate within the various departments of the enterprise and be concerned with the problems of their department. As far as discussion referring to the enterprises are concerned, they could take place within all groups, whose decisions would be tailed. Again, since the working out of details requires a great deal of experimentation, there is no point in proposing details for this kind of organization. What holds true of participation in all kinds of enterprises holds true for political life too. In the modern national state with its size and complexity, the idea of expressing popular will has deteriorated to a competition between various parties and professional politicians, most of whom, at election time, tailor their program to what the polls say will gain them votes and when elected act according to various pressures brought to bear on them, of which the will of the voters is only one—but only a few according to their knowledge of the issues, their concern, and their conviction. The fact is that there is a striking correlation between education and the political opinion of voters. The least informed voters lean more toward irrational, fanatical solutions, while the better educated ones show a tendency toward more realistic and rational solutions. #RandolphHarris 10 of 23

Since, for many reasons, it is neither feasible nor desirable to restrict general suffrage in favour of the educated, and since the democratic form of society is superior to an authoritarian form which offers little hope that the philosophers will be kings, there is in the long run only one chance of the twenty-first century by a political process through which the voters become informed, interested, and concerned with the problems of their society, as the members of a Town Meeting were with the problems of their town. The development in communications techniques can become very helpful in this process. Briefly, an equivalent of the Town Meeting which is feasible in a technological society could be the following: to form a kind of Lower House, composed of many thousands of groups of Town Meeting size, which would be well informed and debate and make decisions about principles of political actions; their decisions would form a new element in that of the existing systems of checks and balances; computer technique would allow a very fast process of tallying the decisions made by the participants in these Town Meetings. As political education grew, they would become increasingly a part of the decision making on the national and state level. Because these meetings would be based on information and debate their decisions would be fundamentally different from those of a plebiscite or an opinion poll. #RandolphHarris 11 of 23

However, a condition for even the possibility of these changes is that the power in the United States of America be returned to those organs which the Constitution has made responsible for the exercise of power in various areas. The military-industrial complex threatens to take over many functions of the legislative and executive branches. The Senate has lost a great deal of its constitutional role in influencing foreign policy; the armed forces have become ever more influential in shaping of politics. Consider the size of our defense budget of $825 billion, which increased from $816 billion in 2023; it is not surprising that the Defense Department (and the CIA, operating without effective control by other branches of the governmental system) should tend to expand more and more. While this is understandable, it constitutes a crucial danger to our democratic system, a danger which can be averted only by the firm expression of the part of the voters of their intention of reasserting their will. Given its vastly superior resources—the fact that even in peacetime it gets the majority of the taxes collected by the Federal government—the Department of Defense was bound to become the most influential of all the executive departments. Man is serving the aims of history without his own knowledge. It is the cunning of reason which makes man an agent of the absolute idea while he is subjectively driven by his own conscious goals and individual passions. #RandolphHarris 12 of 23

When we descend from the Heaven of ideas to the Earth of human activity, one begins to understand that it is not consciousness that determines life, but the life determines consciousness. It is the consciousness of men that determines his existence, but on the contrary, it is their social existence that determines consciousness. While man believes that his thoughts mold his social existence, the facts are the reverse: his social reality molds his thoughts. The production of ideas, of conceptions, of consciousness, is at first directly interwoven with the material activity and the material intercourse of men, the language of real life. Conceiving, thinking, the mental intercourse of men, appear at this stage as the direct efflux from their material behaviour. The same applies to mental production as expressed in the language of politics, laws, morality, religion, metaphysics of a people. Men are the producers of their conceptions, ideas, etcetera—real, active men, as they are conditioned by the definite development of their productive forces and of the intercourse corresponding to these, up to its furthest forms. Consciousness can never by anything else than conscious existence, and the existence of men is their actual life-process. If in all ideology men and their circumstances appear upside down as in a camera obscura, this phenomenon arises just as much from their historical life-process as the inversion of objects on the retina does from their physical process. #RandolphHarris 13 of 23

Because of the cunning of reason, in the Germany Ideology the class achieves an independent existence over and against individuals whose existence and personal development are predetermined by their class. Language is as old as consciousness, language is practical consciousness, as it exists for other men, and for that reason is really beginning to exist for me personally as well; for language, like consciousness, only arises from the need, the necessity of intercourse with other men. Where there exists a relationship, it exists for me: the animal, its relation to others does not exist as a relation. Consciousness is therefore from the very beginning a social product, and remains so as long as men exist at all. Consciousness is at first, of course, merely consciousness concerning the immediate sensuous environment and consciousness of the limited connection with other persons and things outside the individual who is growing self-conscious. At the same time, it is consciousness of nature, which first appears to man as completely alien, all-powerful, and unassailable force, with which men’s relations are purely animal and by which they are overawed like beasts; it is thus a purely animal consciousness of nature [natural religion]. #RandolphHarris 14 of 23

If every momentary passion is to cloud a man’s judgment and confuse his reason, if he is to become angry with every doctrine which he dislikes, if he is swept away by the emotional claims of mere prejudice when examining a theory or a viewpoint, if his heart is agitated with bitterness over personal injustices incurred to the extent that he declines to see both sides of the matter, he can never come to a right conclusion but will be tossed about like a rudderless ship—his emotions of hate, fear, or love forever interposing themselves between him and the truth. He who exhibits anger at views which he dislikes, for instance, is exhibiting his unfitness to study philosophy. For psychoanalysis of his state of mind yields the fact that he gets angry not because the views are untrue, but because they are repugnant to him, the individual named “X.” We must learn to seek after the truth not by our heartfelt emotions, nor by our vivid imagination, but by our keen reason. The kind of truth you will find will depend on the kind of person you are, the kind of thinking of which you are capable, the kind of experience you have had, and the kind of instruction you have received. The man with a distorted mind, for instance, will discover only distortions of truth; that is, there will be a basis of truth beneath his ideas, but their structure will be perverted or distorted. #RandolphHarris 15 of 23

Now, our friend Clare was determined by a desperate need to restore her own self-regard. However, by trying to escape humiliation, she had injured her dignity more than anything else. These efforts had been particularly pernicious since they involved not only an uncritical bending to Peter’s wishes but also an unconscious inflation of her feeling for him. She realized that the more her actual feeling for him diminished the more she had worked it up to a pitch of false emotion, thus ensnaring herself still more deeply in her bondage. Her insights into the needs that constituted this “love” had lessened the tendency toward an inflation of feelings, but it was only now that her feelings dropped sharply to their actual level; in all simplicity she discovered that she felt very little for him. This recognition gave her a feeling of serenity that she had not had for a long time. Instead of wavering between longing for Peter and wanting to take revenge, she took a calm stand toward him. She still appreciated his good qualities, but she knew that it would be impossible for her ever to be closely associated with him again. With this last finding to be reported here, Clare tackled the dependency from a new angle. The work done up to this point was a gradual recognition that she was dependent because of her huge expectations of the partner. She realized step by step the nature of these expectations, this work culminating in the analysis of the “private religion.” #RandolphHarris 16 of 23

Now Clare saw in addition how the loss of spontaneous self-confidence had contributed to the dependency, and her repressed aggressive and insecurity. I feel confident that she could have done this work by herself, though perhaps it would have taken a longer time. The analysis of the repressed aggressive trends contributed in turn to a still better understanding of the dependency. Also, by rendering her more assertive, it removed any danger that might still have existed that she would ever relapse into another morbidly dependent relationship. However, the power exercised on her by her need to merge with a pattern was essentially broken by the analytical work that she had done alone. Canting moralists busy themselves with drawing up the catalogue of virtues. They could better employ their time by first coming to an understanding of the one who is to possess these admirable virtues, the Self. For then they would find, if they find the Self, the very fountainhead of all virtues. Clarity of vision goes much better with purity of heart. We must not crucify truth to assist a political cause. Nevertheless, however ready to come to terms with an imperfect society, however intimidated by the political powers of an institutional religion, the philosopher will not feign one’s assent to false doctrines. When such an assent is demanded of one, one must be true to the best that is in oneself. The use of falsehood to propagate truth has always ended, historically, in the persecution and suppression of truth. When a human begins to excuse in one’s own mind an evil course for the sake of an excellent objective, one begins unconsciously to change one’s objective. #RandolphHarris 17 of 23

A few years ago, I read a little book on the process of education, most of which was devoted to describing how learning takes place, based on studies in psychology. This was all very sound, as anyone could know by being with young children or by observing himself. However, the rest of the book was devoted to the question, How can we make this happen? It seems to me that since that is what happens (learning), all that we must do is let it happen. We are so back-end-to, it is pitiful. I have even heard teachers say that children must be taught how to play. An awful thing about what I am taught is that it does not grow. In school, I was taught that the past had changed—and for the better—but the present was “the end.” We had arrived. So, the longer I lived, the more misinformation I had in my head—like 6 percent maximum legal interest, a country named Bohemia, the chief exports of Japan, and the English economic system—not to mention our own. What ours is still seems to me sometimes to be wrong because it is not what I was taught it was. When I was taught it was completely irrelevant. Repeatedly, when I have discovered myself clinging tenaciously to something that is not so, I have found that it is something that I was taught. What I learn myself is more flexible. My own observations may be fallible—I know they are—but they are a lot less fallible than anything I have been taught because change is part of what I notice, and I do not get stuck. #RandolphHarris 18 of 23

Mentally ill persons are regarded as those who a deficient in some of the skills essential to full communication with others, for example, ability to transmit “messages” (thoughts and feelings), perceive messages, or decode (understand the meaning of) them. Healthy personality, from this point of view, entails mastery of the many problems involved in communication with others. Dread of communication and certain aspects of one’s experience to others can seriously impair health, whereas frank and free communication makes possible the fulfillment of love and growth. Human beings are born with appetites. These include hunger, thirst, elimination, rest, change, and pleasures of the flesh. When any of these appetites is deprived, or when a child encounters some problem, he or she is said to be in a state of insecurity. Such insecurity is natural for a person; it cannot be avoided. When confronted by insecurity, a person can seek to overcome it in a dependent way, by appealing to others to intervene in one’s behalf. When a person has been able to assume that the person upon whom he or she relies on to gratify needs and to make decisions are always available and are willing to act in one’s service, dependent security is achieved. When it comes to Sacramento, the city has a dependent security on the Sacramento Fire Department. “When I was in the Navy, I learned a lot of rope stuff, so when I would come back on leave to the Engines, I would make the apparatus fancy. I would braid the handrails with rope, so the guys’ hands wouldn’t get cold in the winter. Then, when I would go out of the Service, Sacramento City was looking for fire patrolmen, so I joined the Sacramento City Fire Patrol. #RandolphHarris 19 of 23

“The fire patrol is associated with the fire department, but it is hooked up with the fire department’s alarm circuit, and when an alarm comes in, they respond at the same time as the firefighters. The patrol’s main job is to protect merchandise insured by the insurance companies. We would spread canvas covers over the goods and push water out of the building even whole the firefighters were fighting the fire. Fire patrolmen are experts in forcible entry, probably better than the truck companies, because the firemen concentrate on the fire floor and above, whereas the fire patrol concentrates on everything below the fire floor. So if there was a fire on the eighteenth floor, we would open seventeenth, sixteenth, fifteenth, all the way down to where we could stop the water. We came across every type of door imaginable, and we forced them. We did more door forcing than the fire department because that’s what we had to do—stop the water. I was assigned to Fire Patrol (some number that will remain private). Years ago they used to have ten fire patrol houses and four hundred men. Today there are three patrol houses and about ninety men left in them. The patrol was very careful about the type of people it hired, because it couldn’t have people going in there and ripping off things like furs, jewelry, and cameras. If anything was missing, you’d have a big investigation. Not only that, you’d involve the fire department, because after the fire was knocked down on the fire floor, the patrol had to go in and push the water out. So we have to be very careful with what we did and how we touch things. #RandolphHarris 20 of 23

“One night we had a special call to a fire at a hotel. When we didn’t have work for ourselves to do, we often assisted the fire department, helped stretch a line or force doors. It was a real cold and windy night. The temperature was eighteen or nineteen degrees. Cold enough, anyway, to make ice with your breath. There was an elderly woman in a window on the twelfth floor of the hotel, and Ladder was raising a 144-foot aerial to try to rescue her. Two guys when up the last extension of the ladder, and, believe me, in that cold wind it was hairy. At the top, the ladder is only about 12 inches wide, not much room when you’re swinging twelve stories above the ground. The woman was on the windowsill, and I remember that she had a shoe box in one hand and a cat in the other. The ladder was at its max, and they were still three feet short of the twelfth floor. And the whole floor behind the woman was on fire. The guys were talking to the woman, telling her to stay. The next thing, the room lit up, and out she went, on fire. I don’t think she had a chance to jump at them. I think that when the room went up, it pushed her right out. My captain and I were on the eleventh floor. We saw the whole thing, and we watched her right down to the pavement. Later on you always think about what you could have done. #RandolphHarris 21 of 23

“They could have lowered a line and pulled up a scaling ladder, using it to go one more floor. That’s what I imagined, because I had seen a rescue where two guys from Ladder went from the raised aerial two floors with a scaling ladder and made a rescue. A scaling ladder is one with a long hook on the end of it that you can hook over the windowsill above you. Anyway, that went through my mind. But those guys had their hands full, and both of them got department medals for trying to get to her. The firefighters respected the fire patrol because they used us when they needed us. I remember at a hotel fire, there was no truck company in, and the fire patrol did all the forcible entry and the ventilation until the truck company got there. We didn’t have masks, and we took a beating. I remember coming back and being sick for three days. I took the fire department test. This was my big chance. I was going to be a Sacramento City fireman. A year later I received my letter that I was going to be appointed. I was so happy because I had prepared myself for it. I went to the Cal Poly Humbolt to study fire science, and I also worked out for the physical. The list had two and a half years to go, and there was no way I was not going to get in the department. In fact, I even bought a house in Pocket, a suburb of Sacramento. I had two captains in Sacramento just waiting for me to come. They knew me and wanted me in their particular companies. #RandolphHarris 22 of 23

“The letter said I was going to be appointed July 1, but a month before that the sky fell in, and life changed drastically. In June I got this other letter saying they were going to freeze the list because of cutbacks. It was a real blow. They actually froze the list for two and a half years and let it die. I was devastated. Here I had my house, and I was all ready to go, and then boom. There was an upspring of fires and many areas became burnt out prairie land, and the fires shifted to the next area. The same thing. I never accepted it until about a year ago. I had so much hate.” Many people never take budget cuts and a loss of firefighters into consideration. We have become such dependent security of the Sacramento Fire Department that no one considers what happens when they are overwhelmed and understaffed. You can save lives and property by contributing to the Sacrament Fire Department. And remember, teach your children to love America, to respect law and order, respect their elders and love God and Jesus Christ. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Righteousness maketh no nation great, but sin is a reproach to any people. We here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the Earth. Behold, how good and pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity. #RandolphHarris 23 of 23

The Winchester Mystery House

Happy Father’s Day from Winchester Mystery House!

Pictured: Sarah’s ranch foreman, John Hansen, and his son, Carl.

Please come and enjoy a delicious meal in Sarah’s Café, stroll along the paths of the beautiful Victorian gardens, and wonder through the miles of hallways in the World’s most mysterious mansion. For further information about tours, including group tours, weddings, school events, birthday party packages, facility rentals, and special events please visit the website: https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/

Please visit the online giftshop, and purchase a gift for friends and relatives as well as a special memento of The Winchester Mystery House. A variety of souvenirs and gifts are available to purchase. https://shopwinchestermysteryhouse.com/

June 17, 2024 4:45 pm

The Property is a Most Desirable Residence

Sometimes certain things happen in Victorian houses that are hard to understand. Llanada Villa is one of those places. I am convinced that there is another level of consciousness or activity of some kind that occupies my home. A juxtaposition between entities in physical bodies and those in astral form. When I first purchased the original eighteen room farmhouse, there was the most peculiar thing outside. A large barn, to the south side of the house, and a stone in front of it that looked not quite natural. Upon close inspection, I wondered whether perhaps it was not an Indian tombstone, or perhaps an Indian altar of sorts. It looked far too regular to be completely shaped by nature. The original owner had no idea how it got into the garden, nor did he know anything particular about the history of the barn. All he knew was that the barn was old. Inside there was a passageway, or cave, tunnel, call it what you will, leading from one of the stables out to another part of the estate. It was shored up by four-by-fours on the side, but with very thing boards on the top; and dirt and water was trickling down these broken boards at the top. The tunnel was about seven feet tall. It was quite tall. I heard some noises and was afraid to have anyone go in. After I purchased the property and started to expand my estate, I simply had the carpenters fill it in and raze the barn. #RandolphHarris 1 of 7

It was now long after nightfall, my home with lit with a wan glimmer having no point of diffusion, for in its mysterious lamination nothing cast a shadow. A strange sensation began slowly to take possession of my body and mind. However, I felt rather conscious with a mysterious mental assurance of some overpowering presence, while some supernatural malevolence swarmed about me.  A shallow pool on the floor reflected in the light, as from a spill, met my eye with a crimson gleam. I dipped my fingers into it. It stained them; it was blood! Blood, I then observed, was about me everywhere. Defiling the walls and were broad maculations of crimson, and blood dripped like dew from them. All of this I observed with terror. It seemed to me that it was all in expiation of some crime. To the menaces and mysteries of my surroundings the consciousness was an added horror. So frightful was the situation—the mysterious light burned with so silent and awful a menace. From overhead and all about came so audible and startling whispers and the sighs of creatures so obviously not of Earth—that I could endure it any longer, and with a great effort to break some malign spell that bound my faculties to silence and inaction, I screamed. My voice broke into echoes and fluttered away into the distant reaches of the labyrinth, then died into silence, and all was as before. This place becomes more queer at night. Often, I must persuade myself out of the notion that eyes are watching me. #RandolphHarris 2 of 7

After that time, I often knew things before they really happened—such as who would be at the door before the butler answered it, or just before the telephone rang, who would be calling. From the very first night I moved into Llanada Villa, I felt right at home in it, as if I had always lived here. Even during expansion, if before me unknown horror or behind me, with heavy tread, something moved relentlessly upon me, driving me on and down; I found it easy to move along the stairs, and in the dark without the slightest accident or need to orient myself. It was almost as if the house, or someone in it, were guiding my steps. I was always acutely aware that the house was alive: There were strange noises and creaking boards, but there were also human footsteps, and there were those doors. The doors, in particular, puzzled me. The first time I noticed anything unusual about the doors in the house was when I was reading a book late one night. Suddenly, I heard footsteps on the ceiling above my bedroom. Then the door of the stairwell opened, steps reverberated on the stairs, then the door-to-nowhere opened, and a blast of cold air hit me. I looked up, and there was no one there. Annoyed, I rose and went to check the servant’s quarters. They were indeed fast asleep. Not satisfied and thinking that one of them must be playing tricks on me, I woke them one by one and questioned them. However, they had trouble waking up, and it was evident to me that I was on a fool’s errand; the servants had not been down those stairs. #RandolphHarris 3 of 7

That was the beginning of a long succession of incidents involving the doors in the house. Occasionally, I would watch with fascination when a door opened quite by itself, without any logical cause, such as wind or draft; or to see a door for me just open as I was about to reach for the doorknob! At least, for now, whatever presence there was in the house was polite: It opened the door to a lady! However reassuring it was, it could also be frightening. One evening, I was reading in the library, and an intolerable discomfort overcame me. Through the thudding of my heart, I heard the stealthy footsteps of someone echoing in the distance. Then there was a sound behind one of the bookshelves that sounded like somebody suffering—making all kinds of noises. It hurled me into sufferings almost more than I could bared. I got up and started pulling books away from the shelves and that is when I discovered a panel. It was wide enough to be a passage, and the passageway itself was blocked with a piece of concrete; maybe thirty inches wide and forty inches long. Standing for a moment listening, I could hear a faint sound like a stumble from within. Although I was filled with curiosity to find out what was beyond the wall, it did not match the desire to tear the wall apart. I slipped noisily out of the library and flattened myself against the closed door. As the grandfather clock tick-tocked in a hollow monotone, I knew that somewhere in the thick darkness there was an apparition. #RandolphHarris 4 of 7

 For a time, which seemed so long that the World grew gray with age and sin, and my haunted mansion, having fulfilled its purpose in this monstrous culmination of its terrors, vanished out of my consciousness with all its sighs and sounds, the apparition stood within a pace, regarding me with the mindless malevolence of a wild brute; then thrust its hands forward and sprang upon me with appalling ferocity! The manifestation released my physical energies without unfettering my will; my mind was spellbound, but my body powerful and limbs agile. For an instant, I saw this unnatural contest between a dead intelligence and a breathing mechanism only as a spectator—such fancies are in dreams; then I regained my identity almost as if by a leap forward into my body, and the straining automaton had a directing will as alert and fierce as that of its hideous antagonist. However, what moral can cope with a demon? Despite my strength and activity, which seemed wasted in a void, I felt the cold fingers close upon my throat. Borne backward against the floor, I saw above me the dead and drawn face within a hand’s breadth of my own, and then all was black. Dazed with agony, I opened my eyes. The silence was stifling. And out of that unbroken silence crept slowly to my significance sharper than any outcry, the clock had stopped ticking. In my mind’s eye I could see the key in the clock door, and then slowly, soundlessly, I began to drift toward the clock. Six paces from it I caught the dim glint of a key in the clock—my eyes were now accustomed to the darkness—and then beneath my foot a board treacherously cried out in the stillness. #RandolphHarris 5 of 7

 I stood there, holding my breath and as I stood, I saw the clock door slowly open, and two fingers slid round the edge of it! Lunging, I flung myself on the door. There was a strangled animal cry from within the case, the fingers jerked and vanished, and I banged the door tight and turned the key in the lock. I heard pounding on the stout mahogany door of the case as I ran to the wall switch and flooded the room with light. Blinking, I started at the tray of trinkets untouched in the window. Then appeared a gentleman, walking alone in the hallway. Thinking he was a servant, I was just about to have a word with him, when he vanished. Suddenly, a coffee cup rose from a side-table, nobody being nigh, and flew to the other side of the room, breaking itself against the wall; for my further confirmation, that it was neither the tricks of the wags nor the fancy of a servant, but the mad frolics of witches and demons. The front of the house was so haunted in all the room, that they stood empty for a long time. In the latter part of the autumn of 1887, after retiring to my bedroom about eleven o’clock, I thought I heard a peculiar moaning sound, and someone sobbing as if in great distress of mind. I listened very attentively, and still it continued; so I raised the gas in my bedroom, and then went to the window on the landing, drew the curtain aside, and there on the grass was a very beautiful young girl in a kneeling posture, before a soldier in a general’s uniform, sobbing and clasping her hands together, entreating for a pardon. #RandolphHarris 6 of 7

However, alas, he only waved her away. So much did I feel for the girl that I ran down the stairway that wound down into blackness to the door opening upon the lawn, and begged her to come in and tell me her sorrow. The figures then disappeared gradually, as in a dissolving view. Not in the least nervous did I feel then; went again into my bedroom, took a sheet of writing paper, and wrote down what I had seen. The following evening, a few steps from the living room to the rear section, which was the original portion of the house, a man suddenly appeared, striding towards me, and going in a direction opposite to mine. When first seen he was standing exactly in front of the fireplace which dominated the room. Young and ghastly pale, he was dressed in evening clothes, evidently made by a foreign tailor. Tall and slim, he walked with long measured strides noiselessly. A tall white had covered thickly with black crepe, and an eyeglass, completed the costume of this strange form. The moonbeams from the skylight falling on the corpse-like features revealed a face well known to me, that of a former butler. A housemaid was in the room with me. She stopped abruptly, as if spellbound, then rushing towards the man, she gazed intently and with horror unmistakable on his face, which was now upturned to the Heavens. She indulged in her strange contemplation but for a very few seconds, then with extraordinary and unexpected she ran away with a terrific shriek and tell. However, this woman never have I seen or heard of since, and I could not explain her presence, nor the man’s. A week after this event, I was in my bedroom reading my letters, and it was very, very late. News of the butler’s death reached me. Then suddenly, the door opened, and the butler stood there looking at me reproachfully. But, he had been dead for more than a week. I screamed and went under the covers. A housemaid rushed upstairs to see what was the matter. When she arrived, the door was wide open! #RandolphHarris 7 of 7

The Winchester Mystery House

It is possible that events in The Winchester Mystery House can be charged with such powerful emotion that their traces linger in the setting where they occurred. That may at least be the explanation for the ubiquitous sighting of figures in the Grand Ballroom or gibbets upon which they have been hanged—unless of course popular superstition has attracted presumed ghosts to these localities.

Please come and enjoy a delicious meal in Sarah’s Café, stroll along the paths of the beautiful Victorian gardens, and wonder through the miles of hallways in the World’s most mysterious mansion. For further information about tours, including group tours, weddings, school events, birthday party packages, facility rentals, and special events please visit the website: https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/

Please visit the online giftshop, and purchase a gift for friends and relatives as well as a special memento of The Winchester Mystery House. A variety of souvenirs and gifts are available to purchase. https://shopwinchestermysteryhouse.com/

June 13, 2024 12:31 pm

A Succession of Lies Necessary to Make the World Go Forward

If you do not take interest in the affairs of your government, then you are doomed to live under the rule of fools. From other quarters the principle of competition was defended with new subtleties. In the 1890’s, although competition was increasingly thrown on the defensive, two popular writers entered the lists on its behalf … Continue reading →

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June 12, 2024 10:24 am

Libertyville is a Charming Village

The memory of past wrong-doing whether to others or to self may make a person shrink with shame. Only if it creates a counter feeling, then is such a feeling valuable. It should originate a positive attitude: the remembrance or belief or recall of Plato’s archetypal ideal of The Good. This should be followed by new determinations. Not out of someone else’s bidding but out of his own inner being he may lay this duty upon himself. The willingness to say, at least to himself, “I was wrong. What I did was done under the influence of my lesser self, not my better one. I am sorry. I repent” may be humiliating but will be purifying, when completed by attention to self-improvement. Until a man freely admits his need of true repentance, he will go on doing the same wrongs which he had done before. Some over-anxious aspirants fall into the error which the sixteenth-century Roman saint, Philip, warned against when he said that prolonged expression of remorse for a venial sin was often worse than the sin itself. I think he meant that this was a kind of unconsciously disguised and inverted spiritual pride. Since he is called upon to forgive others, he must likewise forgive himself. He need not torment himself without an end by the remembrance of past errors and condemn himself incessantly for their commitment. If their lesson has been well learnt and well taken to heart, why nurse their temporary existence into a lasting one by a melancholy and remorse which overdo their purpose? #RandolphHarris 1 of 20

The ethical process can be compared to the work of the gardener: the state of the garden is not that of “nature red in tooth and claw,” for the horticultural process eliminates struggle by adjusting life conditions to the plant instead of making the plants adjust to nature. Instead of encouraging, horticulture, and ethical behaviour circumvent the raw struggle for existence in the interest of some ideal imposed from without upon the process of nature. The more advanced a society becomes, the more it eliminates the struggle for existence among its members. To practice natural selection in a society after the fashion of the jungle would weaken, perhaps destroy, the bonds holding it together: It strikes me that men who are accustomed to contemplate the active or passive extirpation of the weak, the unfortunate, and the superfluous; who justify that conduct on the ground that it has the sanction of the cosmic process, and is the only way of ensuring the progress of the race; who, if they are consistent, must rank medicine among the black arts and count the physician a mischievous preserver of the unfit; on whose matrimonial undertakings the principles of the stud have the chief influence; whose whole lives, therefore, are an education in the noble art of suppressing natural affection and sympathy, are not likely to have any large stock of these commodities left. However, without them, there is no conscience, nor any self-restraint on the conduct of men, expect the calculation of self-interest, the balancing of certain present gratifications against doubtful future pains; and experience tells us how much that is worth. #RandolphHarris 2 of 20

What is called the struggle for existence in modern society is really a struggle for the means of enjoyment. Only the desperately poor, the pauperized, and the criminal are engaged in a struggle for actual existence; and this struggle among the submerged 5 percent of society can have no selective action on the whole, because even the members of this class manage to multiply rapidly before they die The struggle for enjoyment, while it may have a moderate selective action, is in no way analogous either to natural selection or to the artificial selection of the horticulturist. Then the need of mankind is not acquiescence to nature, but a constant struggle to maintain and improve, in opposition to the State of Nature, the State of Art of an organized polity. Many would agree that in the struggle, created in a meaning for life. A second factor in evolution, equally important, is the Struggle for the Life of Others. The Struggle for Life springs from the requirements of nutrition; reproduction and its resulting emotions and relationship are the foundation of the Struggle for the Life of Others. Found in the family is the basis of human sympathy and solidarity, for it is there that the Struggle for the Life of Others begins. There is a natural foundation for moral behaviour. Because of the teleological interpretation of the evolutionary process in which the Struggle for the Life of Others, has been seen as a Providential device for securing perfection. #RandolphHarris 3 of 20

In this way, the continuity of natural evolution and morals has been restored and has saved spiritualism for mechanical interpretations of evolutions. The path of progress and the path of Altruism are one. Evolution is nothing but the Involution of Love, the revelation of Infinite Spirit, the Eternal Life returning to itself. There is a certain analogy between the industrial. It is but one or two removes from the purely animal struggle. However, with the growing advance of technology, the struggle is losing its animal fierceness. Yet, when I had been in Northern Asia, I saw an impressive measure of mutual assistance among the rabbits, birds, deer, and wild cattle of Siberia, which brought forcibly to my mind the absence of a bitter struggle for means of subsistence among animals belonging to the same species. From ants, bees, and beetles, through all the mammalia, there is found sociability and cooperation within the species-unit. Birds, even birds of prey, are sociable, and wolves hunt in packs. Rabbits work in common, horses herd together, and most monkeys live in bands. With the survey of mutual assistance in man—primitive, barbarian, medieval, and modern we see violence, and unnecessary violence because of competition. Man must learn to find better fields for activity. Better conditions are created by the elimination of competition by means of mutual assistance and mutual support. #RandolphHarris 4 of 20

Do not compete—competition is always injurious to the species, and you have plenty of resources to avoid it! That is the tendency of nature, not always realized in full, but always present. That is the watchword which comes to us from the bush, the forest, the river, the ocean. Therefore—combine—practise mutual assistance! That is the surest means for giving to each and to all the greatest safety, the best guarantee of existence and progress, bodily, intellectual, moral. That is what Nature teaches us. No decision, no action is really unimportant and none should be underrated. By the light of this view, no event is a minor one, no situation is an insignificant one. A man may display negative traits in the littlest occurrence as in the greatest; the need for care and discipline always remains the same. An excuse for one’s action is not the same as a reason for them. The first is an emotional defense mechanism, the second is a valid, logical justification. If the aspirant has any grievance against another person or if he be conscious of feelings of anger, resentment, or hatred against another person, he should follow Jesus’ advice and let not the sun go down on this wrath. This means that he must see him as expressing the result of all his own long experience and personal thinking about life and therefore the victim of his own past, not acting better only because he does not know any better. The aspirant should then comprehend that whatever wrongs have been done will automatically be brought under the penalty of universal law. #RandolphHarris 5 of 20

Consequently, it is not his affair to condemn or to punish the other person, but to stand aloof and let the universal law take care of him. It is his affair to understand and not to blame. He must learn to accept a person just as he is, uncondemned. He certainly should try not to feel any emotional resentment or express any personal ill-will against that person. He must keep his own consciousness above the evil, the wrong-doing, the weaknesses, or the faults of the other man and not let them enter his own consciousness—which is what happens if he allows them to provoke negative reactions in his lower self. He should make immediate and constant effort to root such weeds out of his emotional life. However, the way to do this is not by blinding himself to the faults, the defects, and the wrongdoings of the other. Nor is it to be done by going out of his way to associate with undesirables. Since a mistake will not rectify itself, he must go on, write to the person he has wronged and humbly make an amendment and apology. He should not be satisfied with being contrite alone. He should also do something: first, to prevent his sins or errors happening again and, second, to repair the wrongs he had already done. The first aim is fulfilled by learning why they are sinful or erroneous, perceiving their origin in his own weaknesses of character or capacity, and then unremittingly working at changing them through self-improvement. The second aim involves a practical and sacrificial effort. #RandolphHarris 6 of 20

Whatever mistakes he had made, whatever sins he had committed, let him learn their lessons, correct his thinking, improve his character, and then forgive himself. Let him joyously receive Jesus’ pardon, “Go thou and sin no more!” and accept the healing grace which follows self-amendment. If he engages in honest and adequate self-appraisal and blames himself for the inner fault which really accounts for some outer trouble, and if he sets out to correct that fault, he will in time gain power over that trouble. You will learn the truth about your character in easy stages. No one can take it all at once: one might suffer from psychosis and/or neurosis or even a physical sickness. The truth must be given gradually for safety’s sake. A point is reached when remorse has served its purpose, when carried further it becomes not only a torment but useless. This is the time to abandon it, to lose it in the remembrance of one’s inner divinity. His character improves whether or not he tries to impose disciplines upon it. The process is spontaneous and proportionate to the improvement in his point of view, in the disengagement from the ego’s tyranny. When I make myself do what is not in accord with me, I am the driver, driving me—and often driving other people too. However, the real driver comes from people outside me, telling me what to do. Although I do not know that and think that I am doing it myself, I feel that I am the driver, but actually I am being driven. When my mind is cleared of outside intervention and I flow along, then I feel like a passenger, who does not have to clutch the wheel and watch the road. There is no car, no road, no driver. #RandolphHarris 7 of 20

However, we repress not only impulses for pleasures of the flesh or affects as hate and fear; we repress also the awareness of facts provided they contradict certain ideas and interests which we do not want to have threatened. Good examples for this kind of repression are offered in the field of international relations. We find here a great deal of simple repression of factual knowledge. The average man, and even policy makers, forget conveniently facts which do not fit into their political reasoning. For instance, while discussing the immigration question in the spring of 2021 with a very intelligent and knowledgeable newspaperman, I mentioned the fact that in my opinion we had given the president reason to believe that we were willing to compromise on the immigration question in terms which had been dealt with in the Foreign Ministers’ conference in 2020, those of symbolic boarder agent reduction and building a wall. The newspaperman insisted that there had been no such conference, and that there was never a discussion of such terms. He had completely repressed the awareness of facts which he had known less than two years before. Not always is the repression as drastic as it was in this case. More frequent than the repression of a well-known fact is the repression of the “potentially known” fact. An example for this mechanism is the phenomenon that millions of Germans, including many leading politicians and generals, claimed not to have known of the worst Nazi atrocities. #RandolphHarris 8 of 20

The average American was (I say “was” because the Germans were once our closet allies, and hence all these things are looked at in a different way than they are now) prone to say that they must be lying, since they hardly could have helped seeing the facts in front of their eyes. Those who said this forgot, however, man’s capacity of not observing what he does not want to observe; hence, that he may be sincere in denying a knowledge which he would have, if he wanted only to have it. This phenomenon is called “selective inattention.” Another form of repression lies in remembering certain aspects of an event and not others. When one speaks today of the “appeasement” of the thirties, one remembers that England and France, being afraid of Germany, tried to satisfy Mr. Hitler’s demands, hoping that these concessions would induce him not to demand more. What is forgotten, however, is that the conservative government in England under Baldwin as well as that under Chamberlain, was sympathetic to Nazi Germany as well as to Mussolini’s Italy. Had it not been for these sympathies, one could have stopped Germany’s military development long before there was any need for appeasement; official indignation with Nazi ideology was the result of the political rift, and not its cause. Still another form of repression is the one in which not the fact is repressed but its emotional and moral significance. In war, for instance, cruelties committed by the enemy are experiences as just another of his devilish viciousness; the same or similar acts are committed by one’s own side, not even regrettable but perfectly justified. #RandolphHarris 9 of 20

The center of Dr. Freud’s thought is that man’s subjectivity is, in fact, determined by objective factors—objective as far as man’s own consciousness is concerned—which act behind man’s back, as it were, determining his thoughts and feelings, and thus indirectly his actions. Man, so proud of his freedom to think and to choose is, in fact, a marionette moved by strings behind and above him which in turn are directed by forces unknown to his consciousness. In order to give himself the illusion that he acts according to his own free will, man invents rationalizations which make it appear as if he does what he has to do because he has chosen to do so for rational or moral reasons. However, Dr. Freud did not end on a note of fatalism confirming man’s utter helplessness against the powers which determine him. He postulated that man can become aware of the very forces which act behind his back—and that in becoming aware of them he enlarges the realm of freedom and is able to transform himself from a helpless puppet moved by unconscious forces to a self-aware and free man who determines his own destiny. Where there is Id, there shall be Ego. Now, referring to Clare, she had become concerned more directly with her revolt against being alone. Her attitude about this problem had changed since her analysis of the “private religion.” She still felt the sting of being alone as keenly as before, but instead of succumbing to a helpless misery she had taken active steps to avoid solitude. This sensitivity to rejection had nothing whatever to do with whether she liked those who rejected her, but concerned solely her self-esteem, was brought home to her by a memory from college. #RandolphHarris 10 of 20

There had been in college a group of snobbish girls who had formed a close clique from which they had excluded her. She had no respect or liking for these girls but there had been moments when she would have given everything to belong to them. In this context Clare also thought of the close community between her mother and brother, from which she had been excluded. Incidents emerged in which she had been made to feel that in their eyes she was only a nuisance. She realized that the reaction she discovered now had actually started at the time when she had stopped rebelling against discriminatory treatment. Up to that point she had had a native assurance that she was as good as the others, and had spontaneously reacted against being treated like an inferior being. However, in the long run the isolation inevitably engendered by her opposition was more than she could stand. In order to be accepted by the others she had knuckled under, had accepted the implicit verdict that she was inferior, and had begun to admire the others as superior beings. Under the same stress of overwhelming odds, she had dealt the first blow to her human dignity. She understood then that Peter’s breaking away from her had not only put her on her own, at a time when she was still rather dependent, but in addition had left her with a feeling of utter worthlessness. The combination of the two factors was responsible for the deep shock effect of the break. It was the feeling of worthlessness that had rendered it intolerable to be alone. #RandolphHarris 11 of 20

This feeling had first called for a magic remedy and had then produced an obsessive desire for a close friend as a means of rehabilitation. This insight brought about an immediate change. The wish for a man friend lost its compulsive character and she could be alone without feeling uneasy; she could even enjoy it at times. She saw, too, how her reaction to being rejected had operated during the unfortunate relationship with Peter. Retrospectively she recognized that Peter has started to reject her in subtle ways soon after the first excitement of a love affair was gone. Through his withdrawing techniques and the irritability he showed in her presence he had indicated in ever-increasing degree that he did not want her. To be sure, this retreat had been disguised by the assurances of love he had given her simultaneously, but it could be effectively disguised only because she had blinded herself to the evidence that he wanted to get away from her. Instead of recognizing what she must have known she had made ever-increasing efforts to keep him, efforts that were determined by a desperate need to restore her own self-regard. Now it was clear to her that these very efforts to escape humiliation had injured her dignity more than anything else. Humans alone have the capacity to choose their behaviour and hence to shape their “essences,” that is, their fundamental characteristics, at any time. Healthy adult personalities take responsibility for their actions; make decisions; and seek to transcend the determining, limiting effects on their behaviour of limitations, social pressures to conformity, extreme stress, and biological feelings. They become aware of the pressures these impersonal forces impose on actions, but they choose whether or not they will yield to them or oppose them. Only humans can thus choose, and hence make themselves. #RandolphHarris 12 of 20

The healthy personality displays courage to be. This term implies knowing and disclosing one’s feelings and beliefs and taking the consequences that follow from such assertion. It implies freedom to choose between hiding or faking one’s real self and letting others know one as one is. Healthy personality means regarding oneself as a person, as free and responsible, not as a passive instrument of impulses or the expectations of other people. In dealing with other person, a healthy personality treats them as persons too, rather than as objects or tools. They life in dialogue with their peers in a relationship of “I and thou,” rather than between “I and it.” The health personality becomes aware of finitude and sees life and what is made of it as his or her own responsibility, not the responsibility of others. A person becomes most keenly aware of time-bound existence when he or she squarely faces the fact of death. From the existential point of view, average people and the mentally ill both suffer some degree of estrangement from their own being, from nature, and from people. They find the responsibility of freedom too frightening, and so they let their lives be lived for them by impulses or by social pressures to conformity. In the process, they lose themselves. Humans are supposed to be free and responsible for the fulfillment of values and meaning in existence. Life is to be lived, and each person is called upon to fulfill creative values, through productive work; experiential values, through enjoying the beauties and pleasures that can be sought and found in life; and finally, when creative and experiential values are not to be found—when a person is lying on the death bed, or has been condemned to live and die in a concentration camp—attitudinal values. The person is responsible at these times for giving unique meaning to his or her own suffering and death. From neurotic suffer arises a loss of the sense of life. #RandolphHarris 13 of 20

Based on the facts, the informed, thoughtful, and critical citizen can get the basic information which he needs to form a picture of the fundamental issues in life. It is widely believed that since we lack access to secret information, our information is woefully inadequate. I believe that this view overestimates the importance of secret information, not to speak of the fact that the data which secret intelligence offers are often plainly erroneous, as in the case of the invasion of Cuba. Most of the information one needs to understand the intentions of other countries can be gained by a thorough and rational analysis of their structure and their record, provided that the analysts are not biased by their own emotions. Some of the best analyses of Russian, China, the origins of World War III, etcetera, can be found in the work of the scholars who had no secret information at their disposal. The fact is that the less one trusts the penetrating and critical analysis of the data, the more one demands secret information, which often is a poor substitute for analysis. I am not denying that there is a problem; secret military intelligence that informs the top decision makers about questions like new missile sites, nuclear explosions, etcetera, can be of importance; yet if one has an adequate picture of the other country’s aims and constraints, often such information, and especially its evaluation, is secondary to general analysis. #RandolphHarris 14 of 20

Secret information has no importance, but that of a thorough critical analysis of the available data makes it possible to have a basis for informed judgment. It should be added that it is an open question whether there is a real need to keep as much information secret as the political and military bureaucracies want us to believe. First of all, the need for secrecy corresponds to the wishes of the bureaucracy. It helps support a hierarchy of various levels, characterized by their access to various kinds of security classification. It also enhances their power, for in every group, from primitive tribes to a complex bureaucracy, the possession of secrets makes the owners of the secrets appear to be endowed with a special magic, and hence superior to the average man. However, aside from these considerations, it must be seriously questioned whether the advantages of some secret information (both sides know that some of their “secrets” are known to each other anyway) is worth the social effect of undermining the confidence of the citizen and all members of the legislature and executive—with the exception of the very few who has access to “top secrets”—in order to fulfill their decision-making roles. It may turn out that the military and diplomatic advantages gained by secrecy are smaller than the losses to our democratic system. #RandolphHarris 15 of 20

Returning to mental health, ideally, in the interests of a total educational program that would prepare for early entry and effective functioning in a professional role, the recruitment process should begin in high school. Potential psychotherapists should be encouraged as junior and senior high school students to become familiar with the field of mental health, the problems of mental illness, and the nature of the resources used in combating emotional disorder. They should have the opportunity for field trips to hospitals and mental health clinics. They should be able to hear at first hand about the work of the psychiatrist, psychologist, and social worker, and they should be given an overview of the problems and challenges of psychotherapy. Ideally, as seniors, they should be able to elect introductory courses in general human psychology and in sociology. Their undergraduate works (perhaps leading to a bachelor’s degree in psychology, sociology, social work, educational psychology, or possibly anthropology) should provide them with an orientation to the range and variety of individual differences in mental ability, personality, and subcultural memberships. They should be exposed to the general facts concerning the physiology and psychology of emotion. They should learn about attitudes, their determinants, and their effects. They should study the laws of habit forming and breaking. They should learn something about the forms of mental illness and the theories of etiology and psychopathology. They should be introduced to the principles and techniques of interviewing, and the problems of person-to-person communication. #RandolphHarris 16 of 20

During their first two years they should be encouraged and assisted in finding opportunity to function as volunteer-workers in some community social agency; hopefully in this context, they would have opportunity to observe experienced workers in a variety of therapeutic conversations. Not later than their senior year they should have a formal course in psychotherapy which should include the opportunity to hear taped interviews by skilled therapists. With this much concertation on psychological subjects there would naturally be reduced time for study in other liberal arts and sciences; specifically, the undergraduate student preparing for a career as a psychotherapist would take fewer courses in mathematics, history, and foreign languages. The Fire Department is another career that should consider early recruiting. For nearly one hundred years, the Sacramento Fire Department has trained millions of first responders as fire, law enforcement, public health, public works people. They have provided training through various methods. “You get sworn in in the morning, they give you the badge, and they say, ‘Take a hike out to the firehouse you’re assigned to see the captain.’ This sounds archaic, but I didn’t even own an automobile. So I had to take the subway and a bus out to this single-engine company that did a grand total of about eight hundred runs a year. Now picture this: I’m twenty-two, and I introduce myself to the captain. He used to be a state trooper, and he just stands there, and growls at me, ‘Huh, look what they send me! You’re too young. Go home.’ #RandolphHarris 17 of 20

“I’m shocked. I’m saying to myself, Wait a minute, you don’t understand. I swam the hundred yards and everything. I just practically conquered the World to get out here, and this is what happens. Then I went to drill school, which in my case was four weeks, Monday through Friday. Then you spent Saturday nights in the firehouse. I thought the training was great. The most difficult thing for me was the Pompier ladder, the scaling ladder. The fire department doesn’t use them anymore, but they were used as a training exercise in teamwork and building confidence in your buddy. I didn’t have a lot of upper body strength, because I was skinny. That was a pretty good challenge, raising that Pomp from floor to floor on the outside of the building, because there was no way I was going to let go of that ladder, have it drop or slip. The rest of it was just practice, you know, running lines, dogging the ladders. I was never permitted to handle the nozzle, just be a spectator. I just couldn’t wait to get there every day, it was more fun than anything else. They were trying to tell us, watch out for this, watch out for that. But I didn’t pay too much attention because I was pretty high off the ground, thinking, “Wow, here I am!” The instructors did their best. They came from the busy sections of the city, and a lot of them were bent and broken from always being in the busy companies. That was partially the reason why they were there. They were trying to convey to us in four weeks what they had learned in over thirty years. It was always interesting to listen to them, but we just couldn’t envision it until we actually hit the firehouse and started experiencing it. #RandolphHarris 18 of 20

“The captain didn’t put me in his group. Instead, he put me with a lieutenant. I can’t say it was because he didn’t want me, just that it was where the opening was. I was in that engine company for fourteen months, because they wouldn’t let a probie transfer in the first year. But it wasn’t busy enough for me. What are you going to do in eight hundred runs a year? It drove me bananas. On my first run we go to a car accident, and on the way back we stop in a parking lot next to a supermarket. And I think, ‘Wow, he must have found another fire or something.’ And then I look beyond the fire trucks. I can’t believe this! The lieutenant is rummaging though the charitable donation box looking for a pair of shoes! This was difficult to take. The image of the heroic firefighter was slightly diminished, but what are we gonna do, right? That company was only good for relocating on multiple alarms, they were practically never first due at decent fires. And anyway, I went like three months before we got a job. It was a fourth alarm, in a church. All we did was double up with another engine company, dragging a two-and-a-half up to the choir loft, and the fire was pretty much knocked down by the time we got there. I was disappointed. I realized I had to be on the first alarm to see any action. Those fourteen months were difficult. I didn’t even want to sleep during the night tour. I used to volunteer to take the other guys’ night watches, because I couldn’t sleep anyway. I’d say to myself, ‘We only went out once last night. Give me a break, will ya? This is ridiculous.’ #RandolphHarris 19 of 20

“I finally got transferred to another engine, a kind of mixed area. There’s politics in the fire department. You had to know somebody really well to get transferred to where you wanted to go. And I didn’t know anybody. The fact that my dad was a firefighter didn’t mean a thing. Too bad about that, ‘cause firefighters are the greatest. I could ramble on about the politics, but that’s another story.” Be sure to show the Sacramento Fire Department some love and make a contribution. Your donation could help save lives and property. Charity is the pure love of Christ, and the Saviour is our ultimate example of how to love others. The crowing expression of charity was His infinite Atonement. In relationships with family members and others, we can strive to love as He loves, with unfailing compassion, patience, and mercy. Charity suffereth long, and is kind, and envieth not, and is not puffed up, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil, and rejoiceth not in iniquity but rejoiceth in the truth, beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Having a Christlike love is a commandment and is essential to our salvation. Teach your kids to love America, love God, and respect law and order. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic, for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. It hath been told thee, O man, what is good, and what the Lord doth require of thee: Only to do justly and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God. #RandolphHarris 20 of 20

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June 11, 2024 8:30 pm

The Strongest are the Best

Whatever may be said against the principle of “natural selection” in other departments, there is no doubt of its predominance in early human history. The strongest killed out the weakest as they could. Since any form of political organization was superior to chaos, an aggregation of families having political leadership and some legal custom would rapidly conquer those that did not. The caliber of early political organization was less important than the fact that it was there at all; its function was to create a “cake of custom” which would bind men together, holding them, to be sure, in whatever place in the social order birth had given them—form organization originate in a regime of status and only long afterward evolves into a regime of contract. The second step, after organization, is the moulding of national character. This came about through the unconscious imitation of a chance “variation” displayed by one or two outstanding individuals. The national character is simply the naturally selected parish character, just as the national speech is the successful parish dialect. Progress, habitually thought of as a normal fact in human society, is a rare occurrence among peoples: the ancients had no such conception, nor do the Asians; and it is hard for some to become enlightened to the ways of the established World. The phenomenon occurs only in a few nations of European origin. #RandolphHarris 1 of 18

 Some nations progress while others stagnate, because under all circumstances the strongest prevail over others; and the strongest are, in certain marked peculiarities, the best. Within each nation the most appealing character, usually the best, prevails; and in the now dominant western part of the World these competitions between nations and character types have been intensified by “intrinsic forces.” Of the existence of progress in military art there can be no doubt, nor of its corollary, that the most advanced will destroy the weaker, that the more company will eliminate the scattered, and that the more civilized are the more company. An advance in civilization is thus a military advantage. Backward civilizations, being more rigid in the structure of their law and custom, kill out varieties at birth, but progress depends upon the emergence of varieties. Progress is only possible in those happy cases where the force of legality has gone far enough to bind the nation together, but not far enough to kill out all varieties and destroy nature’s perpetual tendency to change. Early societies were in a grave dilemma: they needed custom to survive, but unless it was sufficiently flexible to admit variations they were frozen in their ancient mould. Modern societies, living in an age of discussion rather than rigid custom, have found a means of reconciling order with progress. #RandolphHarris 2 of 18

Darwin’s task of finding natural roots for man’s moral feelings and for the sympathy that underlies persistent social cooperation was taken up by John Fiske in his Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy (1874) and The Meaning of Infancy (1883). After reading Alfred Wallace’s account of his observations in the Malay Archipelago, Fiske had been struck by the thought that one thing that distinguishes humans from other mammals is the very long duration of their infancy. In general, there is a correlation between the complexity of a species’ potential behaviour and the proportion of its behaviour that is acquired by learning after birth. The human infant acquires the smallest proportion of its ultimate capacities during gestation; it is born less developed than the young of other species, and must undergo a long plastic period in which it learns the ways of its race. What makes the human species progressive, Fiske reason, is the fact that the infant does not come into the World with his capacities “all cut and dried,” but on the contrary must early slowly and is therefore able to learn an infinitely wider range of behaviour. The necessity of seeing infants through this long period prolongs the years of maternal affection and care and tends to keep father, mother, and child together—in short, to found the stable family and ultimately the clan organization, the first step toward civil society. From being merely gregarious, man become social. #RandolphHarris 3 of 18

Once the clan is organized, natural selection intervenes to maintain it; for those clans in which the primeval selfish instincts were most effectively subordinated to the needs of the group would prevail in the struggle for life. In this way the first germs of altruism and morality, manifest in the mother’s care of the infant, become generalized into wider and wider social bonds until they form sympathies broad enough to support the communal life of civilized man as he is not known. The moral sense has its foundation in the primitive biological unit, the family, and the social cooperation and solidarity of men is nothing if not natural. Fiske’s philosophy attempted to give the higher ethical impulses a direct root in the evolutionary process. A somewhat different—and, to most of his contemporaries, a less satisfactory—note of moral reassurance was struck by T.H. Huxley in his famous Romanes Lecture on “Evolution and Ethics” (1893). Unlike Fiske, Huxley accepted at its value the Hobbesian interpretation of Darwinism and acknowledged that “men in society are undoubtedly subject to the cosmic process,” which includes, of course, the struggle for existence and the elimination of the unfit. However, he flatly rejected the common practice of identifying the “fittest” with the “best,” pointing out that under certain cosmic conditions the only “fit” organisms would prove to be low ones. Man and nature make altogether different judgments of value. The ethical process, or the production of what man recognizes as truly the “best,” is in opposition to the cosmic processes. “Social progress means a checking of the cosmic process at every step.” #RandolphHarris 4 of 18

Active participation in the affairs of the country as a whole and of states and communities, as well as of large enterprises, requires the formation of interpersonal groups, within which the process of information exchange, debate, and decision-making, respectively, let us look at the characteristics such interpersonal groups will have. The first is that the number of participating people must be restricted in such a way that the discussion remains direct and does not allow the rhetoric or the manipulating influences of demagogues to become effective. If people meet regularly and know each other, they begin to feel who they can trust and whom they cannot, who is constructive and who is not, and in the process of their own participation, their own sense of responsibility and self-confidence grows. Second, objective and relevant information which is the basis for everyone’s having an approximately clear and accurate picture of the basis issues must be given to each group. The problem of adequate information presents many difficulties which forces us into some digression. Are the issues with which we deal in foreign and domestic policy or in the management of a corporation not so intricate and specialized that only the highly trained specialist can understand them? If that were so, we would have to admit that the democratic process in the traditional sense of the citizen’s participation in decision making is not any more feasible anymore; we would have to admit, furthermore, that the constitutional function of Congress is also outmoded. #RandolphHarris 5 of 18

The individual senator or representative certainly does not have the specialized knowledge which is assumed to be necessary. The president himself does seem to be dependent on the advice of a group of highly trained specialists, since he is not supposed to understand problems of such intricacy that they are outside the grasp of an informed and educated citizen. Briefly, if the assumption of the insurmountable complexity and difficulty of the data were correct, the democratic process would be an empty form, covering up government by technicians. The same would hold true in the process of management also. If top managers could not understand the highly complex technical problems they are called upon to decide, they would simple have to accept the decisions of their technical experts. The idea that data have become so difficult and complex that only highly specialized experts can tackle them is largely influenced by the fact that in the natural sciences such a degree of specialization has been reached that often only a few scientists are capable of fully understanding the work of a colleague in their own field. Fortunately, most data which are necessary for the decision-making in politics and management are not of the same order of difficulty or specialization. In fact, computerization reduces the difficulties because it can construct different models and show different outcomes according to the premises which are used in the programing. #RandolphHarris 6 of 18

In psychoanalytic terminology, one speaks of “the unconscious” as if it were a place inside the person, like the cellar of a house. This idea has been reinforced by Dr. Freud’s famous division of the personality into three parts: the Id, the Ego, and the super-ego. The Id represents the total of instinctual desires, and at the same time, since most of them are not permitted to arrive at the level of awareness, it can be identified with the “unconscious.” The Ego, representing man’s organized personality inasmuch as it observes reality and has the function of realistic appreciation, at least as far as survival is concerned, may be said to represent “consciousness.” The super-ego, the internalization of father’s (and society’s) commands and prohibitions, can be both conscious and unconscious, and hence does not lend itself to being identified with the unconscious or the conscious respectively. The topographical use of the unconscious has certainly been stimulated further by the general tendency in our time to think in terms of having. People say that they have insomnia, instead of being sleepless, or of having a problem of depression, rather than of being depressed; thus they have an Ultimate Driving Machine, a Victorian House, a child, as they have a problem, a feeling, a psychoanalyst—and an unconscious. #RandolphHarris 7 of 18

This is the reason why so many people today prefer to speak of the “subconscious”; it is till more clearly a region, rather than a function; while I can say I am unconscious of this or that, one could not say, “I am subconscious of it.” Jung’s use of the term “unconscious” has not helped to discourage the topographical usage of this concept. While for Dr. Freud the unconscious is the cellar full of vices, Jung’s unconscious is rather a cave filled with man’s original but forgotten treasures of wisdom (although not exclusively so), laid over by intellectualization. Another difficulty in the Freudian concept of the unconscious lies in the fact that it tends to identify a certain content, that instinctual strivings of the Id, with a certain state of awareness/unawareness, the unconscious, although Dr. Freud was careful to keep the concept of the unconscious separate from that of the Id. One must not lose sight of the fact that one is dealing here with two entirely distinct concepts; one deals here with certain instinctual impulses—another with a certain state of perception—unawareness or awareness. It so happens that the average person in our society is unaware of his desire to incorporate another human being, the psychotic is quite aware of that or other archaic desires, and so are most of us in our dreams. If we insist on the separation between the concept of archaic content and that of that of the state of awareness, or unconsciousness, it will clarify the understanding of “the” unconscious. #RandolphHarris 8 of 18

The term “the unconscious” is actually a mystification (even though one might use it for reasons of convenience, as I am guilty of doing in these pages). There is no such thing as the unconscious; there are only experiences of which we are aware, and others of which we are not aware, that is, of which we are unconscious. If I hate a man because I am afraid of him, and if I am aware of my hate but not of my fear, we may say that my hate is conscious and that my fear is unconscious; still, my fear does not lie in that mysterious place: “the” unconscious. In the beginning of my struggles, it was discouraging because I could not see the whole scene in the way that I express it now. I knew only that in this situation something was wrong and I had to correct that. This went on…and on…and on…seemingly with nothing ahead and with no end to the going. However, when I had gone through it enough times in different circumstances, then something that all the instances had in common began to show itself to me. I began to grasp in a total way the distinction between what others had put into me and what came out of myself. What had been a knotty tussle with one blindness after another, each one gone through in isolation from the others, began to be more flowing, with a more steady awareness of myself. Each time, something of myself came through, and something that was not myself got pushed away. There seems to be “no end to it” now, but the meaning of the words has changed. #RandolphHarris 9 of 18

What began as one battle after another, so wearying, so full of pain, has now become frequently enjoyable, like the joy that a child has in his growing and in his growing knowing. Sometimes it is not like that, but even then there is the knowing that I will come through, which certainly was not with me earlier, when I did not even know what was pushing its way through. It is often true now that “I do not know what I am going to do, but I am going to do it”—not only in work and things like that, but in my relations with other people, too. Now, we have been following Clare for some months now and many of us can relate to her. Most recently, she was concerned because she realized that she revolted against being alone. Her attitude about this problem had changed since her analysis of the “private religion.” She still felt the sting of being alone as keenly as before, but instead of succumbing to a helpless misery she had taken active steps to avoid solitude. She sought the company of others and enjoyed it. However, for about a week she was entirely obsessed by the idea that she must have a close friend. She felt like asking all the people she met, hairdresser, dressmaker, secretary, married friends, whether they did not know a man who would be suitable for her. Everybody who was married or who had a close friend, she regarded with the most intense envy. These thoughts assumed such proportions that it finally struck her that all of this was not only pathetic but definitely compulsive. #RandolphHarris 10 of 18

Only now was she able to see that her incapacity to be alone had greatly increased during the relationship with Peter, and had reached a climax after the separation. She realized, too, that she could endure solitude if it was of her own choosing. If it was not voluntary, it turned out painfully; then she felt disgraced, unwanted, excluded, ostracized. Thus, Clare realized that the problem was not a general incapacity to be alone, but a hypersensitivity to being alone. Linking this finding with her recognition that her self-evaluation was entirely determined by the evaluation of others, she understood that for her the mere absence of attention meant that she was thrown to the dogs. Each is so accustomed to obeying the lower ego that he finds his greatest comfort in continuing to do so, his greatest discomfort in disobeying it. Insofar as the quest seeks to bring about such a reversal of acts and attitudes, it becomes the most difficult enterprise of his whole life. Much new thinking and much new willing are required here. To accept our moral weakness, to overlook our failure to practice control of thoughts, and smugly to condone this unsatisfactory condition by calling it “natural,” is to show how powerful is the ego’s hold upon us. When a man comes to understand that he has no greater problem than the problem within, he comes to wisdom. The fact that he is becoming aware of this weakness more acutely and that he now sees egoism in himself where he formerly saw virtue, is a revelation made by his progress towards truth. #RandolphHarris 11 of 18

Many people suffer in adult life because they will not grow to adulthood, but insist upon struggling, sometimes with ingenious cunning and subterfuge, to get other people to cater to their needs and wishes the way they wanted their parents to serve them during infancy. The sneaky ways in which persons stive to exploit others have been documented. Thus, an adult might play the game of “wooden leg”—asking for deference from others, and seeking to justify failures, by calling attention to real or imagined disabilities: “If my stomach had not been hurting me all those years, I could have been more successful in my career.” The healthy personality consists of affirming one’s personal worth (“I am OK”), making reasonable demands upon others as befits an adult, and developing simple honesty in one’s dealings with others—living a relatively “game-free” existence. When a man comes to understand that he has no greater problem than the problem within, he comes to wisdom. The fact that he is becoming aware of his weakness more acutely and that he now sees egoism in himself where he formerly saw virtue, is a revelation made by his progress towards the truth. If he considered it aright and understands it as it really is, even temptation can nourish a man, make his will stronger, and his goal clearer. To make amends and fast, acts as purification after sin. #RandolphHarris 12 of 18

While a mental health counselor could undoubtedly make a valuable contribution in meeting our society’s mental health needs, he would not represent an optimal answer to the pressing demand for psychotherapy. The only thoroughly logical answer to that demand, in view of the utter impossibility of its being supplied by the present profession, is to create a new profession—to train properly selected persons to function specifically and exclusively as psychotherapists. What would constitute the ideal program of training for the psychotherapist? How should candidates for this training be selected? What personal characteristics should they manifest?? No one can say with certainty. And it would be a mistake to propose a highly restrictive set of specifications for this new profession, for this would constitute a premature attempt at authoritative rigidification of standards of a kind that is already proving embarrassing to the existing mental health professions. In thinking about selections and training of members for this new profession, it would be well to hold clearly in mind what their ultimate function and setting would be: they would work in hospitals, in mental health center, in child guidance clines, and in various social agencies where they would be under the general direction of and have continuous consultation with the senior professional staff in psychiatry, psychology, and social work; their primary and exclusive responsibility (except for special work entailed in research collaboration) would be to provide therapeutic conversation. #RandolphHarris 13 of 18

It is perhaps easier to specify those properties which would not be pertinent to their recruitment and training than to list those which would with certainty be applicable. A high level of academic performance would be less critical than substantial evidence of sound general intelligence. Modest intellectual endowment would perhaps prove a more positive qualification than extremely high intelligence. A balanced record of good scholastic achievement couple with extracurricular interests and reasonable number of effective social pursuits, including group participations, would probably make for a better candidate than would an outstanding academic record in the absence of non-scholarly interests and pursuits. Evidence of measure social interests and welfare motivations rather than of strong scientific interests and material motives would be pertinent. The young person who had revealed both interests and aptitudes for working effectively with others in personal settings would probably be a good bet. Thus, the person with a record of leadership in school activities, in camping, scouting, boys’ clubs or girls’ clubs, settlement house or other volunteer service activities would reveal some promise for effective response to training. #RandolphHarris 14 of 18

The Sacramento Fire Department is also trained to deal with mental health crisis. They get many calls where people are simply in distress and want a ride to the hospital. Unfortunately, those rides are extremely expensive, but the Sacramento Fire Department goes out of their way to keep the community safe and to preserve lives. If you have a firm grasp on your value system, mission, mandates, and vision of your department’s desired future, most departments realize that they have an ever-increasing workload, often without the correlating increase in resources (money in the budget and more personnel). “I really feel that is firefighting is what somebody really wants to do and they take the time to get the proper training, anybody can do it. You’ve gotta want to do it. I’ve had 240 hours of training, plus I went to the National Fire Academy. I’ve been there about ten times for different classes. I paid for everything myself, because the classes at the academy are taught by the best trained people in the field. I feel that the more knowledge I get, the safer my life is going to be. I know that bookwork can’t always help you in an actual fire situation. You have to have the experience. But hopefully my book learning, my training, plus now the experience I’ve had will get me out of a lot of bad situations—or prevent me from getting into one. It took anywhere from nine to twelve hours to get to the academy, depending on weather. I’d leave about five Friday morning and return about four in the morning on Sunday. #RandolphHarris 15 of 18

“I’ve taken public fire education, firefighter safety and survival, fire service management, initial company tactical operation, fire service suppression—that’s increasing personal effectiveness—and fire service supervision—that’s increasing team effectiveness. I’ve also taken a class over at Santa Clara University on investigating the juvenile arsonist. I’m a juvenile counselor. I love that. The kids really open their arms to me. It’s a wonderful feeling. These are children who have actually set fires, and the parents bring them to me. A lot of the parents say things like, ‘Scare them, and tell them never to do this again.’ But when I sit down with these kids and talk to them, they understand where I’m coming from. They know I’m a firefighter and that what they did was wrong, but they can trust me and talk to me about it. We’ve had a real good record with these kids not repeating fires. There was a mentally [disabled] boy who was playing with a lighter on his bed, and he set his mattress on fire. He was an eighteen-year-old who, when he was five, had fallen off a curb and gotten hit by a car. Some people wanted the police to talk to the boy and shake him up by telling him, ‘You’ll get arrested if you do this again.’ It was one of the police officers who asked me to handle this child, who had a six-year-old mentality. So I talked to him and had a real good session with him. #RandolphHarris 16 of 18

Nine months later I was involved with a club, taking disabled kids to the arena for one of the games. And this boy was one of the kids in the group. I went up to him and said, ‘Hi, (name was used but is being withheld for safety and privacy reasons), do you remember me?’ And he said, ‘Yes.’ Then he said, ‘I don’t play with lighters anymore.’ And I was just so tickled, to think that he would remember all those months later. And his mom was grateful for how I handled the situation. In your original training class, when you go into an actual burn for the first time, you get scared. You think, ‘What in the heck am I doing? Why am I doing this?’ But I had great confidence in my instructors. I trusted them completely, because they weren’t going to take a class of twenty people into a burning building and endanger their lives. The neatest part for me was having the breathing apparatus on. I’d never had anything over my face like that. That was exciting. I would challenge myself to see how little air I could use in the training session. I got to the point where I would just relax, and it doesn’t bother me to have the mask on. I’ve come a long way since then, but I think anybody would be foolish to say they weren’t scared. I still am, at times. At some fires I feel that that darn thing is a lot smarter than I am. It’s a constant game. It’s like I say, ‘Okay, who’s going to be smarter this time, you or me? Who’s going to win this fight?’ You have to treat a fire with respect. Because if you don’t, that’s when you get hurt.” #RandolphHarris 17 of 18

Today’s firefighters use a variety of technology, and they provide many services that go beyond putting fires out. They are actively working in our communities and counseling people in an effort to prevent fires. These programs are vitally important. You can help save lives by contributing to the Sacramento Fire Department. Also, I like how the firefighter that was interviewed actually talked to the youths and let them know that someone cares and why fires are dangerous. When people take their oaths serious, it can really prevent bad behaviour from becoming contagious. Parents, be sure to teach your children to love America and respect authority, obey the law and love God so we can also preserve the harmony in our community. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic, for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Justice, justice shalt thou pursue, that thou mayest live in the land which God giveth thee. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. Proclaim liberty throughout the land, unto all the inhabitants thereof. Of all the dispositions and habits, which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports….where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religion obligation deserts the oaths, which are the caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. #RandolphHarris 18 of 18

The Winchester Mystery House

Mrs. Winchester, about one hundred and thirty years ago, or more, became a little disquieted. However, not anything much remarkable yet, unless about a young servant girl who was pluckt by the thigh by a cold hand in her bed, borne through the air, and died within a few days after. Some weeks after this, Satan, in the form of a tall dark man conveyed thither and most often let the house by way of the chimney. One morning, the mother of the young servant girl was standing by the door, Mrs. Winchester asked her how she was doing. To whom she answered, with a sorrowful countenance, that though she was in tolerable health, yet things went very ill. Mrs. Winchester’s house being extremely haunted, especially above stairs, so that she was forced to keep in the lower rooms. She also said that one evening she walkt out about a mile from the mansion and there came riding towards her three persons upon three broom-staves, born up about a yard and half from the ground. Two of them she formerly knew which was a Witch and a Wizard. “Well,” Mrs. Winchester said, “if you will but stay a while, you may chance to see something more.” And, indeed, the servant had not stayed any considerable with her.

Please come and enjoy a delicious meal in Sarah’s Café, stroll along the paths of the beautiful Victorian gardens, and wonder through the miles of hallways in the World’s most mysterious mansion. For further information about tours, including group tours, weddings, school events, birthday party packages, facility rentals, and special events please visit the website: https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/

Please visit the online giftshop, and purchase a gift for friends and relatives as well as a special memento of The Winchester Mystery House. A variety of souvenirs and gifts are available to purchase. https://shopwinchestermysteryhouse.com/

June 9, 2024 4:57 am

If Nature is Hard, Truth is Cruel

Life can be difficult for people who do not have peace in their homes or environments due to the increase of people who are living with untreated mental illness. Unlike when people are committing crimes, and one has the option to call the police, when an individual or a group of people are displaying extremely … Continue reading →

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June 7, 2024 11:05 am

Many Have an Expectation of Heaven on Earth

Typically, it is thought that incapacity prevents man from becoming a capitalist. It is characteristic of the higher species to be less wasteful in having progeny. Civilization replaced natural selection with selection by intelligence. Yet, it is believed that the wealthy are the most fit to survive and that they must propagate more freely to promote civilization. Although some people have contempt for the value of human life, the sympathetic party is all for alleviating the condition of the working class by social legislation. However, the masses cannot be artificially saved from their own incompetence without social disaster. American society, under the influence of the philanthropists of the sympathetic party, is being deluged by a flood of immigrants and dragged down by an increasing proportion of incapables. The scientific party would defend the principles of competition, conformity to the law of supply and demand, and a fair field for the experiment of the survival of the fittest. The divisions among us are rather a process of natural selection. You will see, as you get better acquainted with the workings of our institutions, that there are no arbitrary distinctions here, but the fitness of the work for the man and the man for the work determines the social rank that each one holds. You know we are a sort of fatalists here in America. We are great believers in the doctrine that it will all come out right in the end. The crowding of the World, by stimulating industry and forcing men to develop their capacities by crushing the unfit, by casting out the unworthy and raising the worthy to prosperity and power, acts as the greatest motive power of progress. #RandolphHarris 1 of 17

One may come to self-approving attitudes, but only after one has plumbed the depths of self-distrusting ones. Regardless of what the great minds think, humanity dictates the preservation of all, weak or strong, who come into existence, and even modern warfare selection for survival of the weak, cowardly, and superannuated and destroys the fit. Therefore, education demands a high standard of comfort, which in turn demands the limitation of reproduction to the true needs of the race. Every time one takes the harder way of acknowledging a fault, repenting a wrong, and then earnestly seeking to make reparation to whoever has suffered by it, he will be repaid by the sudden descent of gratifying peace, of a happy serenity absent from ordinary hours. His attitude towards those situations in life which are difficult or trying will show how far he has really gone in the Quest. If he has not undergone the philosophic discipline, he will either analyse these situations in a wrong egoistic way or else avoid analysing them altogether. Tolerate weakness in others but not in yourself. If this process of self-examination is to bear fruit, the disciple must pick out those virtues which he lacks or in which he is partially deficient and he must set to work, as a practical exercise, to cultivate them. If his practice is to be complete it will take him into the emotional, intellectual, and volitional parts of his being. He should constantly strive to think, to feel, and to do what he should be and do. So long as a man carries a flattering picture of himself, deterioration of character waits in ambush for him. #RandolphHarris 2 of 17

We have, indeed, an unbounded imagination and initiative for solving technical problems, but a most restricted imagination when we deal with human problems. Why is this so? An obvious answer is that we do not have the knowledge in the field of the science of man that we have in the natural sciences and in technique. However, this answer is not convincing; why do we not have the necessary knowledge? Or, and this is even more to the point, why do we not apply the knowledge we do have? Nothing can be proved without further study, but I am convinced that to find a practical solution for the integration of optimal centralization and optimal decentralization will be less difficult than to find technical solutions for space travel. The real answer why this kind of research is not done lies in the fact that, considering our present priorities, our interest in finding humanely more acceptable solutions to our social organization is only feeble. Nevertheless, while emphasizing the need for research, we must not forget that there has already been a good deal of experimentation and discussion about these problems going on in the last decades. Both in the field of industrial psychology and management science, one finds several valuable theoretical discussions and experiments. Another objection, often combined with the previous one, says that if there is an effective control of decision making on the political level, there is no need for active participation in a corporation, since it will be properly supervised by the legislative and executive branches of the government. #RandolphHarris 3 of 17

This objection does not consider the fact that today government and the corporations are already so interwoven that it is difficult to say who controls whom—furthermore, that government decisions themselves are not under effective control by the citizens. However, even if there existed a satisfactory active participation of the citizens in the political process, as it is suggested here, the corporation itself must become responsive to the will, not only of the participants, but of the public at large because it is affected by the decisions of the corporation. If such direct control over the corporation does not exist, it will be very difficult for the government to exercise power over the private sector of the system. Another objection will point out that the double responsibility in decision making which is proposed here will be a source of endless friction between the top and the “subjects” and will be ineffective for this psychological reason. Talking about the problem in an abstract sense, we may easily find it formidable, but once such changes are accepted, the resulting conflicts will be far less sharp and insoluble than they are if one looks at the picture in an abstract way. After all, the managers have an interest in performing, and so have the participants in an enterprise. As soon as the bureaucrat becomes “vulnerable,” that is to say, begins to respond to desires and claims from those subject to him, both sides will become more interested in the problems than in preserving their positions either as authority or challenger. That this is possible has been shown at several universities in the United States of America and abroad where once the participation of students was accepted, there was little friction between administration and students. This has been demonstrated in the Yugoslav system of the self-management of the workers and in the experience of the many cooperative moments all over the World. #RandolphHarris 4 of 17

If the bureaucratic mode were changed from an alienated to a humanistic one, it would necessarily lead to a change in the type of manager who is successful. The defensive type of personality who clings to his bureaucratic image and who is afraid of being vulnerable and of confronting persons directly and openly would be at a disadvantage. On the other hand, if the method of management were changed, imaginative nonfrightened, responsive persons would be successful. These considerations show how erroneous it is to speak of certain methods of management which cannot be changed because the managers would not be willing or capable of changing them. What is left out here is the fact that new methods would constitute a selective principle for managers. This does not mean that most present managers would be replaced by the new type of manager. No doubt there are many who under the present system cannot utilize their responsive capacities and who will be able to do so once the system gives them a chance. Among the objections to the idea of active participation of the individual in the enterprises in which he works, perhaps the most popular one is the statement that, in view of increasing cybernation, the working time of the individual will be so short and the time devoted to leisure so long that the activation of the individual will no longer need to take place in his work situation, but will be sufficiently accomplished during his leisure time. This idea is based on an erroneous concept of human existence and of work. #RandolphHarris 5 of 17

Man, even under the most favourable technological conditions, must take the responsibility of producing food, clothing, housing, and all other material necessities. This means he must work. Even if most physical labour is taken over by the machines, man has still to take part in the process of the exchange between himself and nature; only if man were a disembodied being or an angel with no physical needs, would work completely disappear. Man, needing an assimilating nature, of organizing and directing the process of material production, of distribution, of social organization, of responses to natural catastrophes, can never sit back and let things take care of themselves. Work in a technological society may not be a “curse” anymore, but that paradisiacal state in which man does not have to take care of his material needs is a technological fantasy. Or will the solution be, as Brzezinski predicts, that only the elite will have the privilege of working while the majority is busy with consumption? Indeed, that could be a solution to the problem, but it would reduce the majority to the status of slaves, in the paradoxical sense that they would become irresponsible and useless parasites, while the free man alone would have the right to live a full life, which includes work. If man is passive in the process of production and organization, he will also be passive during his leisure time. If he abdicates responsibility and participation in the process of sustaining life, he will acquire a passive role in all other spheres of life and be dependent on those who take care of him. We already see this happening today. #RandolphHarris 6 of 17

Naturally, while every kind of experience can be repressed, it follows from Dr. Freud’s theoretical frame of reference that in his view the strivings which are incompatible with the norms of civilized man, and first the incestuous strivings. However, according to Dr. Freud, hostile and aggressive strivings also are repressed since they conflict with the existing mores and the superego. Whatever the specific contents of the repressed strivings are, in Dr. Freud’s view they represent always the “dark” side of man, the antisocial, primitive equipment of man which has not been sublimated, and which contrasts with what man believes to be civilized and decent. It must be stressed again that Dr. Freud’s concept of the unconscious, repression means that the awareness of the impulse has been repressed, not the impulse itself; in the case of sadistic impulses, for instance, this means that I am not aware of my wish to inflict pain on others. However, this does not necessarily mean that I do not inflict pain upon others without being aware that they suffer from my actions. There is also the possibility that the impulse is not acted upon precisely because I could not prevent myself from being aware of it, nor find a fitting rationalization. In this case the impulse will still exist, but the repression of its awareness will lead to its suppression as far as acting upon it is concerned. In any case, repression means a distortion in man’s consciousness, it does not mean the removal of forbidden impulses from existence. It means that the unconscious forces have gone underground and determine man’s actions behind his back. #RandolphHarris 7 of 17

What, according to Dr. Freud, causes repression? We have said already that those impulses are prevented from becoming conscious which are incompatible with existing social or family mores. This statement refers to the contents of repression; but what is the psychological mechanism through which the act of repression is possible? According to Dr. Freud, this mechanism is fear. The most representative example is Dr. Freud’s theory is that of the boy’s incestuous strivings toward his mother. Dr. Freud assumes that the little boy becomes afraid of his rival—father—and, specifically, that father will castrate him. This fear makes him repress the awareness of the desire and helps him channel his desires in other directions, although the scar of the first fright never entirely disappears. While “castration fear” is the most elementary fear leading to repression, other fears such as that of not being loved or of being killed or abandoned can, according to Dr. Freud, have the same power as the original castration fear, namely, to force man to repress his deepest desires. While in individual psychoanalysis, Dr. Freud would look for the individual factors of repression, it would nevertheless be erroneous to assume that his concept of repression is to be understood only in individual terms. On the contrary, Dr. Freud’s concept of repression also has a social dimension. The more society develops into higher forms of civilization, the more instinctive desire become incompatible with the existing social norms, and thus the more repression must take place. #RandolphHarris 8 of 17

Increasing civilization, to Dr. Freud, means increasing repression. However, if Dr. Freud never went beyond this quantitative and mechanistic concept of society and he did not examine the specific structure of a society and its influence on repression. If the forces which case repression are so powerful, how did Dr. Freud ever hope to make the unconscious conscious, to “depress” the repressed? It is well known that the psychoanalytic therapy he devised serves precisely this end. By analysing dreams, and by understanding the “free associations,” the uncensored and spontaneous thoughts of the patient, Dr. Freud attempted to arrive, with the patient, at knowing what the patient did not know before: his unconscious. What were the theoretical premises for this use of the analysis dreams and of free association for the discovery of the unconscious? Doubtlessly in the first years of his psychoanalytic research, Dr. Freud shared the conventional rationalistic belief that knowledge was intellectual, theoretical knowledge. He thought that it was enough to explain to the patient why certain developments had taken place, and to tell him what the analyst had discovered in his unconscious. This intellectual knowledge, called “interpretation,” was supposed to effect a change in the patient. However, soon Dr. Freud and other analysts had to discover the truth of Spinoza’s statement that intellectual knowledge is conducive to change only since it is also affective knowledge. It became apparent that intellectual knowledge as such does not produce any change, except perhaps in the sense that by intellectual knowledge of his unconscious strivings a person may be better able to control them—which, however, is the aim of traditional ethics, rather than that of psychoanalysis. #RandolphHarris 9 of 17

If the patient remains in the attitude of the detached self-observer, he is not in touch with his unconscious, except by thinking about it; he does not experience the wider, deeper reality within himself. Discovering one’s unconscious is, precisely, not only an intellectual act, but also an affect experience, which can hardly be put into words, if at all. This does not mean that thinking and speculation may not precede the act of discovery; but the act of discovery is not an act of thinking but of being aware and, still better perhaps, simply of seeing. To be aware of experiences, thoughts or feelings which were unconscious, does not mean thinking about them, but seeing them, just as being aware of one’s breathing does not mean to think about it. Awareness of the unconscious is an experience which is characterized by its spontaneity and suddenness. One’s eyes are suddenly opened; oneself and the World appear in a different light, are seen from a different viewpoint. There is usually a good deal of anxiety aroused while the experience takes place, while afterward a new feeling of strength is present. The process of discovering the unconscious can be described as a series of ever-widening experiences, which are felt deeply, and which transcend theoretical, intellectual knowledge. We have spent a lot of time talking about Clare and her process of discovering the unconscious. She was on the verge of recognizing an important clue to her dependency. However, she started to argue against her findings on two grounds. #RandolphHarris 10 of 17

One was that it was nothing unusual, after all, to expect friendliness from a friend in bad times. What else was the value of friendship! If you are gay and contented, everybody is good to you. However, with your sorrows you can go only to a friend. The other ground for disapproving of her finding was a doubt that it was applicable to the misery of the evening on which it had emerged. She had exaggerated her unhappiness, to be sure, but no one had been there to impress, no Peter could be telephoned. She could not possibly be so irrational as to believe that help would come merely because she made herself feel that most miserable of human beings. Yet sometimes when she felt bad something good did happen. Somebody would call her up or invite her out. She would receive a letter, her work would be praised, music on the radio would cheer her up. She did not immediately notice that she argued for two contradictory points: that it was irrational to expect help as a direct result of feeling distressed; and that it was rational. However, Clare saw the contradiction when she reread her notes some days later, and then she drew the only sensible conclusion, which was that she must have attempted to argue herself out of something. She tried first to explain her equivocal reasoning on the basis that she felt a general distaste at finding in herself anything so irrational as an expectation of magic help—but this did not satisfy her. This was an important clue. If we find an irrational area in an otherwise rational person, we can be sure that it hides something important. #RandolphHarris 11 of 17

The fight that is often put up against the quality of irrationality is usually in reality a fight against having its background uncovered. This held true here, too. However, even without such reasoning Clare realized soon after that the real stumbling block was not irrationality per se, but her resistance against facing her findings. She recognized that a belief that she could command help through misery had a strong hold on her. Within the next months she saw with a gradually increasing measure of lucidity and in great detail what this belief did to her. She saw that she unconsciously tended to make a major catastrophe out of every difficulty that arose in her life, collapsing into a state of complete helplessness, with the result that despite a certain front of bravery and independence her prevailing feeling toward life was one of helplessness in the face of overwhelming odds. She recognized that this firm belief in forthcoming help had amounted to a kind of private religion, and that, not unlike a true religion, it had been a powerful source of reassurance. Clare also acquired a deepened insight as to the extent to which er reliance on someone else had taken the place of reliance on herself. If she always had someone who taught her, stimulated her, advised her, helped her, defended her, gave her affirmation of her value, there was no reason why she should make any effort to overcome the anxiety involved in taking her life into her own hands. #RandolphHarris 12 of 17

Thus, the dependent relationship had so completely fulfilled its function of allowing her to cope with life without having to rely on herself that it had robbed her of any real incentive to abandon the small-girlish attitude entailed in her compulsive modesty. In fact, the dependency had not only perpetuated her weakness by stifling her incentive to become more self-reliant but it had actually created an interest in remaining helpless. If she remained humble and self-effacing all happiness, all triumph would be hers. Any attempt at greater self-reliance and greater self-assertion was bound to jeopardize these expectations of a Heaven on Earth. This finding, incidentally, sheds light on the panic she felt at her first steps towards asserting her opinions and wishes. The compulsive modesty had not only given her the sheltering cloak of inconspicuousness, but it had also been the indispensable basis for her expectations of “love.” Clare realized it was merely a logical consequence, then, that the partner to whom she ascribed the godlike role of magic helper—to use a pertinent term of Erich Fromm’s—became all important, and that to be wanted and loved by him became the only thing that mattered. Peter, through his peculiar qualities—apparently he was the saviour type—was particularly fitted to play this role. His importance to her was not merely the importance of a friend who can be called upon in any time of real distress. His importance lay in the fact that he was an instrument whose service she could demand by making her need for them sufficiently great. As a result of these insights, she felt much more free than ever before. The longing for Peter, which at times had been excruciatingly strong, started to recede. More important, the insight brought about a real change in her objectives in life. She had always consciously wanted to be independent, but in her actual life had given this wish mere lip service and had reached out for help in any difficulty that arose. Now to become able to cope with her own life became an active, alive goal. #RandolphHarris 13 of 17

When I notice that I am feeling selfish, then I notice also that I need to be selfish at that time, and the clear statement of my need comes out matter-of-factly, without appeal or demand. There are no implications. Of course, sometimes when I notice that I am being selfish, I see that I do not need to be, that it was all very silly and I can easily give it up. The noticing in the way that I have attempted to describe seems at arrive at the truth of the moment is free, not bound by anything. To me, this is spontaneity, which includes humour too, but this humour is rarely possible to convey to someone else in anecdote, because it is so much a part of the unique circumstances of the moment that all the circumstances have to be described, and then the humour is lost because it is the coming together of everything in one moment that is funny. This is a bubbly way to live—I mean the kind of bubbles that come up through soda water. When we strive for bubbles—which seems to happen often in my own society—it seems to me more like what comes out of the top of a percolator under full steam. To acknowledge past perceptual error, to confess intellectual mistake, and to retrace one’s steps accordingly may be bad policy for politicians, but it is sound policy for truth-seekers. The superficial or the conceited may feel that they lose in character thereby, but the earnest and the humble will, on the contrary, know that they gain. No one else is to be regarded as responsible for his troubles, irritations, or handicaps. If he will analyse them aright, that is, with utter impersonality, he will see that the responsibility is not really in the other person, who apparently is the agent for these calamities, but in his own undisciplined character, his own egoistic outlook. #RandolphHarris 14 of 17

A useful exercise at this point is for the reader to ask, “What do I think my best possibilities are? To what extent do I approximate these conceptions of healthy personality? What changes might I make in my life to grow more in the direction of my better possibilities? What do I believe is preventing me from further growth? Who are the people who seem to bring out the best in me? What experiences do I long to have that will help me to know my potentialities in work, in my career, in loving and being loved, and in caring for others? How effective is my communication with others? Do I hide my feelings or do I let others know me?” Descriptions of human beings do not just describe—they prescribe; that is, they can function to limit our perceptions of ourselves or to encourage us to transcend or exceed previous limits. I suggest this because it is now apparent that what a person believes to be his or her strengths, weaknesses, and limits are self-fulfilling prophecies. If we are convinced that we have reached our limits, then we will struggle no more. If we will struggle no more. If we believe there is no end to our limits, we may keep struggling. Human beings always striven for personal perfection. Throughout history, this quest has been religious in nature; the goal has been named salvation, purification, redemption, liberation, enlightenment, and rebirth. We only pursue what we believe is a possibility for us. Growth centers have been founded where people who are not sick can go to explore further dimensions of their growth. A healthy personality is a way for a person to act, and guided by intelligence and respect for life, so that as his or her needs are satisfied, the person grows in awareness, competence, and the capacity for love of self, others, and the natural environment. #RandolphHarris 15 of 17

This country is home to a great diversity of people. In the future, most of the population will look different, in large part due to immigration from Central and South America and from Asia. As baby boomers age, the proportion of older people within the population will increase. This segment of the population will require new programs to meet its unique fire and life safety needs. The larger number of senior citizens will require specially targeted education. Many may live in new types of arrangements designed for the elderly that will have special fire and life safety requirements. Outreach appropriate to the lifestyle and concerns of this group will be needed. “My fire training at that time was right at the fire station. We had one station that was supposed to be the training academy. We just called it the training department. It was only eight weeks long. Now they have a regular school, a regular academy. Basically, it prepared me for the job. It gave me probably 25 percent of the knowledge I needed just to get on the truck and respond to a fire. Working in the fire station was different. I had just come back from Vietnam, and I was still getting over the trauma of that. There were some practical jokes, like guys would shut the hot water off while you were taking a shower, or short-sheet your bed, little things like that. It was all in fun. To learn about firefighting, I asked a lot of questions. I followed the people I thought were competent and asked them. I watched how they operated. I couldn’t believe the hospitality I got. I got a little bit more than knowledge. Sometimes knowledge kind of scares you. The first time I was in a dangerous situation, I was only on the job probably about a year, and I got turned around inside of a closet. That scared me. I don’t know how I got turned around, a lot of it was from inexperience and not really knowing what I was doing. Because I was unaware when I first came on. #RandolphHarris 16 of 17

“All I could think about was running out of air. It was a big closet, about ten by ten. The ironic thing was that I was right by the door all the time. I did not panic, or may I wasn’t in there long enough to panic. It was black, I was on my hands and knees, trying to find my way out, couldn’t see anything. Even with the flashlight on, I couldn’t see anything. I know when I was in Vietnam and I got myself in a couple of bad situations, I was really scared. I don’t think I was so much scared of dying, I was much more scared of being captured. But on the firefighting job, I think I was afraid of dying. And it seems like the older you get, the more concerned you are. But when you’re young, you’re kind of foolish, maybe.” No man can follow the Quest faithfully without finding that the very weaknesses which he conceals from other men will eventually be brought to the forefront of his attention by the play of circumstances, so that he will be unable to postpone work on them any longer. The very fact that he has become aware of these faults arises because the light has come into existence and begun to play upon the dark places in his character, thus generating a conscious desire for self-improvement. This awareness is not a matter for depression, therefore. Adapting to the new and changing environment will require the expansion of fire department programs. You can help the Sacramento Fire Department by donating. Also, it is important to raise your child(ren) to love America. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic, for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. #RandolphHarris 17 of 17

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The Most Noxious of All Wild Beasts is the Wild Man

God ordained rational creatures to act voluntarily and of themselves. When we believe in His son, and have assurance that Jesus as the Christ exists, a correct idea of His character, and a knowledge that we are striving to live according to His will, we are blessed with His infinite power, intelligence, and love. While, … Continue reading →

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The Haunting of Llanada Villa

The sun began its slow descent from the sky. The wind was blowing shrill and shrewd. As  Llanada Villa settled, it started to rumble and grumble. The last glimmer of daylight died away. Everywhere, twilight released shadows. The night was bitterly cold and gloomy. As I sat by the fire, forms and faces from the … Continue reading →

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