In development of the mind, the individual has to find one’s place in the World. Immortality is not a future hope; it is a present possession. These ashes, too, this little dust, our Father’s care shall keep, till the last Angel rise and break the long and dreary sleep. To sacrifice the life of the spirit and gain the whole World of material things is folly. The greater our faith in God is, the more power our word will have. We should act as though we already have dominion over evil. We should declare the truth by stating that there is nothing to be afraid of; God is omnipotent. God’s infinity makes him free. God needs the World as the sphere of his self-development. We can be too easily diverted from remembering and focusing upon essential spiritual priorities because of our many responsibilities and busy schedules. Sometimes we try to accomplish so much that we may forget where we are going and why we are working so hard towards our goals. Every day we should plead with God for his love. It is important to pray unto the Father with all the energy of heart, that we may be filled with his love, which he has bestowed upon all of his children. There are three main routes to God: reason, revelation, and religious experience. Reason can obtain a certain knowledge of God’s existence and nature. #RandolphHarris 1 of 5
It is our goal to gain consciousness of the Absolute Being. Human intellect by nature participates in eternal Truth. We are inspired to avoid obstacles that are spiritually life threatening, so that we can pass safely through mortality to our final, ultimate, Heavenly destination. Because God is infinite in his capacity to know, there is a mind within us that knows exactly what we should do today. Realizing that the spirit is with us is God; being conscious of the Divine Presence as the sustaining principle of our life; we let the mind be with us today in our every decision. We declare the same guidance for all people. Our true inheritance is self-sufficiency, perfection, peace, and wholeness. This certainly includes abundance, self-expression and happiness. Equality means that we are all God’s children, and we all share in the same human-divine substance, and we are all one. Differences between individuals must be respected, and while that is true, each one of us is a unique entity. Whosoever saves a single life is as if one had saved the whole World; whosoever destroys a single life is as if one has destroyed the whole World. The will of God and the nature of God are identical, since God could have no will opposed to his nature. Hence, if God is wholeness, peace and joy, then the Divine will for all is wholeness, peace, and joy. #RandolphHarris 2 of 5
The will of God is always toward the more abundant life. We have misdirected the energy which is already here for us, hence the importance of re-educating the mind to a more direct perception of its relationship to God. We should call upon this inner intelligence, in belief and in confidence, knowing that it will respond to us. In addition to a natural knowledge of God, there is a supernatural knowledge revealed through faith. We are provided with a unique, eternal perspective that we are God’s spirit children. By understanding who our Heavenly Father is and our relationship to him, we accept his commandments and make covenants with God that will lead us back to his eternal presence. We must be grateful for this spiritual understanding in all times. We are here on Earth to learn and grow through the experiences of this Earthly life. The desire for interpersonal fusion is the most powerful striving in human beings. It is the most fundamental passion, it is the force which keeps the human race together, the clan, the family, and society. Love is the mature answer to existence. We warn that individuals who violate covenants of chastity, or who fail to fulfill family responsibilities will one day stand accountable before God. #RandolphHarris 3 of 5
Please remember that commandments and covenants are priceless truths and doctrines of God’s helm. We are part of greatness, of power, of certainty. Love is union under the condition of preserving one’s integrity, one’s individuality. Love is an active power in human beings; a power which breaks through the walls, it unites us with others; love makes us overcome the sense of isolation and separateness, yet it permits us to be ourselves, and to retain our integrity. There is a general demand on us to surrender our rights to God, to lift ourselves above the whole sphere of justice or injustice by love, for in love there vanish not only rights, but also the feeling of inequality and the hatred of enemies, which is this feeling’s imperative demand for equality implies. “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you (Matthew 5.44).” Our goal is to have a beautiful soul. No two persons are alike. Thus, God as infinite person is not only real to each one of us, but real in a unique sense. Treatment should be filled with an atmosphere of this reality. Believe that truth swings instantly into manifestation through your conviction, for this is the power of your treatment. Be simple and direct. #RandolphHarris 4 of 5
Upon the power of God, presence, and light we must depend with complete confidence. Thus, faith passes into experience with scientific certainty. Faith is the most dynamic power known. Effective treatment must be independent of any existing circumstances, for the divine creative spirit knows no circumstances; it is the creator of them. Here is the crux of the whole matter. This is why we are told never to count our enemies, but to look unto God and be saved. It is impossible to divorce a true concept of God from the most powerful mental treatment, merely because God, or the Creative First Cause, constitutes our entire being in reality. The act of self-knowing, which takes place in our thought, is in reality the One Mind recognizing itself. The action of this min, through our thought, creates our experience. Spiritual mind treatment is an active thing, but its activity is a mental and spiritual recognition ether in the form of spoken words or of a deep inner realization of the truth, applied for some particular purpose. And thankfully, God is always near, waiting and willing to help us when we pray for help and are willing to repent and come unto him. Our destination is the full blessings of God, the Kingdom of Heaven, the celestial glory, and the presence of God! #RandolphHarris 5 of 5
The true vocation of human beings is to achieve in ever fuller freedom an ever more loyal devotion to our spiritual ideals. Freedom and loyalty alike are unique and personal. The duty to which we are devoted is our duty; the endeavor to recognize and fulfill it is our true being and career. This insight and commitment constitutes our conscience, our own self-recognition and our self-experience. To act always in accordance with one’s best conviction one’s duty; or act according to one’s conscience. Humanity can only go forward by developing reason, finding a new harmony, a human one. We are gifted with reason; we are life being aware of itself. Sometimes we sit back and think about life, and the future and pray that our family and everyone we love will be safe and protected. Many also think about the life of the planet, and about the plastic and other waste we throw into the landfills and it creates a sense of guilt, it makes us feel like greedy humans. However, that is part of being human. Sometimes we feel helpless before the forced of nature and society. If we did not have spirituality and know that God is in control and do the best we can to be good people, we might “think” ourselves crazy, which basically means it is not good to overanalyze everything. #RandolphHarris 1 of 5
Life is meant to be enjoyed. We would become insane if we could not liberate ourselves from excessive control. It is important in life to unite ourselves with other people and learn to use our human powers to actively make a difference. It is never good to feel separate from humanity because that would mean that we are helpless, unable to grasp the World—things and people—actively; it would mean the World could invade us without us having the ability to react. Evil essentially consists in the laxity or disloyalty of the moral will. Any placidity or routine self-contented stagnation is a denial of our moral career. Any easygoing or cowardly compromise with our bounden duty is a betrayal of our quest. These two evils are in corrupt kinship: laxity and laziness lead to cowardice, and from these two vices issues the third, falseness. We owe every human absolute frankness and truthfulness. We do not need to prove to others that we are someone special. The truth is that we are children of God, and we do not have to prove anything to anyone. Know that you are special and never think that you are worthless. The worth of a soul is its capacity to become as God. God is your Father. He loves you. You value is beyond any measure. You are unique. One of a kind, made of the eternal intelligence which gives you claim upon eternal life. #RandolphHarris 2 of 5
Let there be no question in your mind about your value as an individual. God put us on Earth so that we could have the opportunity to reach our fullest potential, which is eternal progression. In our moral philosophy, there is the self-achievement of the dutiful will, in utter devotion to ideal ends. It is the unique career of each person to be involved and participating in a social institutional milieu. In the system of actual human conduct, one’s duties are not merely one’s own; they imply acknowledgment of others and of their rights. The purposes and projects of my career cannot be realized in a social vacuum; they affect others and others’ claims and rights. These claims and rights, and my relation to them, and not only personal; they affect objective natural conditions in which ethics involves economics. Moral respect for my neighbor precludes violation of what belongs to one, that is, one’s property rights. There is a still small voice of conscience, and we have a dutiful integrity in self-expression. By recognizing our separateness, we remain strangers because we have not learned to love each other (this is made very clear by the fact that Adam defends himself by blaming Eve, rather than by trying to defend her). #RandolphHarris 3 of 5
The reason people have a lack of respect for other is because they look at their differences. The awareness of human separation, without reunion by love—is the source of shame. It is at the same time the source of guilt and stress. The deepest need for humanity is to overcome this separateness, to leave the basement of aloneness. The absolute failure to achieve this aim means insanity, because the panic of complete isolation can be overcome only by such a radical withdrawal from the World outside that the feeling of separation disappears—because the World outside, from which one is separated, has disappeared. Many people believe the love of God is the true union we seek. The person who already has the greatest spiritual faith will make the most active demonstrator of Truth. The person who naturally has a spiritual insight will more quickly sense the truths which the conscience portrays. Many people talk too much about God, but fail to employ the loving principals in their lives. They permit themselves to become confused by the introduction of contradictory ideas. They spend too much time in merely philosophizing, theorizing, speculating, until finally they live in a World of wistful wishing, of daydreams. #RandolphHarris 4 of 5
The soul is truly the mean of all things created by God. Consciousness is aware not only of its own existence, but of the consciousness of others. Altruism is a necessity, since isolation is impossible. Seize upon whatever facts present themselves to your mind today, begin to use such truth as you grasp, and you will become more connection with your spiritual psychology, with its vast possibilities, without fear; in true humility, happily, willing to accept, eager to experiment. We know that faith has healed the sick, and faith has power to produce all kinds of wonder-working and amazing results. Naturally, we believe n God as the infinite spirit permeating everything. We believe that there is a law of mind which responds to our thought, faith, and conviction. We believe that the Universe in which we live is a spiritual system and that the Kingdom of God is now ours and present with us. Our thoughts are creative because our thoughts are God’s power flowing through us will and imagination. For a spiritual treatment to be effective, it must be communicated from a consciousness that knows the power and activity of God. This spiritual power can and will heal, accomplish, demonstrate, and answer prayers. One of the great challenges each of us faces every day is to not allow the concerns of this World to so dominate our time and energy that we neglect the eternal thins that matter most. #RandolphHarris 5 of 5
Human beings always live within relationship because the presence of God is always felt. Love moves the Sun and the other Stars. It is observed that love is not seen as a power that destroys human reason, but rather, as an emotional attitude that can be voluntarily produced. Love defines us; it is the answer to the problem of human existence. The Biblical God is the very antithesis of love. God loves his beings as they love him. Matthew 22.37 instructs us to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul, and with all your might” because without love, humanity could not exist for a day. Honorable love is clearly the attraction that a person has for a virtuous soul and is fused in the mind of the individual with philosophy itself, which is the love of wisdom. It is this honorable love that is the source of harmony and the preserver of the good. Many cultures may provide an unreality for addressing the stresses in life—through being the same as everyone else. Many people are afraid to be individuals. They consume the same goods, work at the similar jobs, adopt identical goals and that is fine if it is authentic. However, if we lack the courage to be individuals, we will never achieve love, as love is union under the condition of preserving one’s integrity. #RandolphHarris 1 of 5
Like religious faith, love is a practice. The power of love has the ability to heal discord and fear, and love is represented as a bond between God and human beings. Because we love God, he promises to rescue and protect us, for we acknowledge God. It is because of God’s love for the World that redemption is brought to humanity. Love is in essence the love of beauty and that beauty is nothing material; it is an ideal. Love is not taking out of insecurity; it starts in giving—of joy, interest, understanding, humor, sadness, of all expressions and manifestations of that which is alive in us. To love at all is to be engaged with humankind, with eyes open. There is a discipline, concentration, patience, and mastery in the art of love. The science of the mind is comparatively new, but the mental experience of the invisible Universe is antiquated. There is a theory that there is one infinite mind which of necessity includes all that is, and if we learn to have a spiritual sense of thing, we will discern our purpose in life. Through self-knowledge, we learn to look upon the eternal light and ultimately come to the complete love of God. The fruit of this love is knowledge of the divine. Conscious knowledge gives you the conscious control of the laws of nature, and there could be no advance in science without a conscious use of nature’s laws. #RandolphHarris 2 of 5
The more knowledge is inherent in a thing, the greater the love. It is important that we approach life with an understanding and with a definite intention in the mind of making a conscious use of our lives. It will become clear to see that thought is the tool of mind, and right ideas enforce the practical stream of consciousness that will produce a corresponding change in an objective situation. Like freedom, love demands courage. Love is a capacity we can develop within ourselves. To change the love we receive, we have to change our capacity to give love. Love matters and is a paramount force that allows us to feel sustained. In order to love someone else, we have to have the courage to love ourselves and develop them full capacity of our personality. Every person has inherent God-Power inside. And how can this God-Power be used other than through his thought? It is impossible for a person to act intelligent, unless one establishes the foundation of the spiritual Universe in the premise of one’s own thought, which will equip receptive individuals with an instrument that will allow us to change our own environment. The love of God is the force that holds the Universe together. #RandolphHarris 3 of 5
Our love is a pleasant sensation. Love is an art, just as living is an art; if we want to learn how to love, we must proceed in the same way we have proceeded when we want to learn any other art, such as music, photography, architecture, painting, carpentry, or the art of medicine or engineering. The process of learning art is usually divided into theory and mastery of the practice. If one wants to learn the art of medicine, one must know the facts about the human body, and about various ailments. When one has all the theoretical knowledge, it takes a great deal of practice until the results of theoretical knowledge and the results of practice are blended into intuition, which is the essence of mastery. Many people never master love because everything else is considered to be more important than love: success, prestige, money, and power. Most human energy is used for learning how to achieve everything thing, but love. Love will profit our soul. Our superior purpose is to love and resemble God. There is so much Divine Activity in the World and as we learn to be thankful, we will see it reflected in our lives more and more. By its very nature and by our very nature, God and love are compelled to appear to each one of us in the form of our belief. If we can accept this proposition it will be easy enough for one to see that the knowledge of the truth makes us free by aligning us with that which was never bound. #RandolphHarris 4 of 5
The Divine Creative Principle is already perfect, having neither confusion nor chaos within it. It has always been and will always remain exactly perfect. Our individual Universe shall be redeemed from its bondage in such degree as we become actively conscious of the truth of our being. We must use the law as a law of liberty. When we use ideas correctly, they can and must produce right conditions. All reality is personal. It is pluralistic: reality is a society of persons. It is theistic: God is the ultimate person, and as such, is the ground for all being and the creator of finite persons. The natural World is understood as an order within or as a function of the mind of God. Finite persons are created by the uncreated Person. Human persons are, therefore, centers of intrinsic value. And every day, physical sciences are more completely proving that the physical Universe in which we live is more like a gigantic thought than anything else, and our immediate World is part of this thought. This Body of God, which includes human’s body is a perfect, harmonious unit, and evil which binds humanity is not a principle within itself nor a thing of itself, and most certainly not a person, but merely a false system of thought. Knowledge and expression of good will annihilate that which denies good. Truth is known by the truth demonstrated. #RandolphHarris 5 of 5
I stumbled on this photography, it kind of made me laugh, it took me back, back down memory lane. If the soul as a whole is treated on the analogy of its individual experiences, then, since these do not vanish utterly but often return in the form of memory, the soul itself may likewise continue to exist in God’s memory. Mind and body are not parallel aspects of some third substance, they are identical. The persistence of mind is therefore no more difficult to entertain than the persistence of the material Universe itself, which is only the outward manifestation of an all-inclusive soul. There is an aesthetic threshold where a stimulus must acquire a certain intensity before it can produce pleasure or pain. The effect will then increase gradually until it reaches a maximum point, whereupon it will decrease to the point of indifference. “God sent his holy angel to stop us by the way. And behold he spoke to us as it were the voice of thunder. And we could remember our pains no more; yeah, we were harrowed up by the memory of our sins no more. And oh, what a joy, and what marvelous light we behold; yeah, our souls were filled with joy as exceeding as was our pain (Alma 36.5&19-20).” It is declared and believed that you are going to see God’s goodness in amazing ways! #RandolphHarris 1 of 7
Your faith should give you a boldness and a confidence to believe for the extraordinary. Researchers’ attention is focused on the kinds of messages that can overcome resistance, but it is also true that, in so framing their research efforts, they sometimes neglect other noncontent factors in the communications situation that limits the impact of even the most expertly designed propaganda. The full realization of our rational powers is not something we can achieve or maintain on our own. To realize our powers fully we need at least a group of companions who share our interests and with whom we can cooperate to achieve our mutually recognized goals. This expands our conception of who we are, and they make use of our powers more continuous and more stable. If we and our cooperative partners do their parts responsibly, each will develop feelings of friendship for others involved. In this way, successful cooperative activity transforms persons’ desires and motivations. As a psychological result, we come to like our cooperative partners and develop a concern for their good. Once bonds of friendship are formed, it is natural for us to exhibit the social virtues of generosity, friendliness, and mildness of temper. #RandolphHarris 2 of 7
Nevertheless, modern psychologist have greatly enlarged the frontiers of irresponsibility: they needed more space in this territory. This revolution of rising expectations has its counterpart among poor America, who measures their own poverty against the influence shown on television. National coverage also helps sensitize people to standards different from their own. If there is nothing wrong with a person, the best way to cure the individual is by explaining to one what illness one suffers from. Yet, must like Berliners who were exposed to the Western-oriented mass media, when people feel that they are on the front line and the whole World is watching, it can create a feeling that strengthens their resolve. The thing people also do not realize about the sleeper effect is when people are exposed normally to a persuasive message, their attitudes toward the advocacy of the message display a significant increase. Some dramatic changes can help a political personality build the kind of credibility that subsequently increases one’s effectiveness. The long-range effect may be cumulative rather than direct, based partly on what people have heard or read, and it can help an individual gain respect and admiration. #RandolphHarris 3 of 7
However, when it comes to the news media and their agenda, they can be at a disadvantage because research indicates that they have overemphasized the one-way flow of messages—from a mass media source to a recipient—and the recipient’s response to this message as the single relevant stimulus. They have failed to recognize the consequences of feedback from audience to communicator as well as the interactions both between communicators themselves and between members of the audience. As the public wakes up and realize that they are being indoctrinated by the mass media and they are not seeing the information they want to learn about, the incompatible approaches are not longer effect remedies for controlling the masses. Those who stress for the need to take feedback into account also stress the need for a more adequate model of the mass communication process. In an interactive model, members of the audience are studied as participants in a larger social system embracing the mass communicators as well. If the social relationships of audience members influenced what media content they paid attention to and how they responded, then the communicators, too, as members of groups and organizations, were also subject to influence from one another. #RandolphHarris 4 of 7
The messages transmitted by the media thus have to be studied as responses to a whole host of pressures and demands, including feedback from the audience. The state of the mass media is withering away because they are competing with scripted television shows, and trying to be entertainment, as well as tyrannical and authoritative and the audience does not want to tune into the news, hear depressing information and feel like they are being held in an interrogation room and being battered by a dictator when they did not do anything wrong. Let us keep in mind that weather-forecaster’s desire to predict good weather forms no part of meteorology. If an analysis of the soul could be carried out without the collaboration of the patient, just as urinalysis can, then while the attempt might do no good, a least it could do no harm. However, a procedure in which the patient becomes a consultant imbues one with a sense of self-importance which may please one but may not please the messenger. Instead of getting the patient away from their symptoms and distracting one from their illness, this method fosters a pride in one’s problems and a sympathy with one’s suffering. “Whosoever shall put their trust in God shall be supported in their trials, and their troubles, and their afflictions, and shall be lifted up at the last day (Alma 36.4).” #RandolphHarris 5 of 7
Media influence usually operates in the service of reinforcing existing tendencies and is not to be mistaken as the sole agent of change of those relatively few occasions when exposure is followed by conversation. Personal influence as exercised in informal conversation with peers is more potent than influence through exposure to the mass media. Research indicates that people are now looking for opinion leaders, who act as transmitters of news and information, usually of something that has already been in the news or publicized in advertisements. So, the audience is now turning off the news and finding trusted people in their community that they like and feel comfortable with to convey information. A magic enchantment now attaches itself to these opinion leaders, as if the Spirit of the Lord passed by, and seized the devotee, making that personal have some kind of supernatural joy. All this is nothing new in the World, but is a vital part of the tastefully furnished company people like to keep. People for secret societies, and have mass meetings of various kinds. Entertainments, suppers, and lectures are held and considerable sums of money are collected and expended, employment is found for the idle, strangers are introduced, news is disseminated and charity distributed. #RandolphHarris 6 of 7
At the same time this social, intellectual, and economic centre is a centre of great power. People feel in untiring energy and superior strength when they are around people they like and feel chosen. There is a sense of moral strength, an exquisite appreciation of the beautiful, and an infinite capacity of wisdom. In the groups with their opinion leaders, individuals gain the joy of this World, and eagerly seize upon the offered conceptions of the avenging Spirit of the Lord, as they enjoy patience in this World, knowing that a Great Day will come—and this is a comforting dream. We shall all be free when the Lord shall appear. It might appear that what is being claimed is, rather, the institution of political and economic arrangements by means of which people may be made immune from feelings and circumstances which they find to be ungodly. These atoms that we are made of are only the simplest elements in a spiritual hierarchy leading up to God. Each level of this hierarchy includes all those levels beneath it, so that God contains the totality of spirits. God is the soul of the Universe; he is to the system of nature as that system is to itself. “And now I know of myself—not of the temporal but of the spiritual, not of the carnal mind but of God. If I had not been born of God I should not have known these things; but God has, by the mouth of his holy angel made these things known (Alma 36.4-5).” #RandolphHarris 7 of 7
When people speak of their being free or claim freedom for themselves, they are referring not only to the absence of coercion and restraint imposed by others (freedom from) but also to that on behalf of which freedom is being claimed (what they are claiming freedom for). My consciousness has a servant who watched to make sure that no uninvited guests enter the premises. As psychoanalysts have no business on the main floor, they have even less in the basement. Should my servant catch one trying to steal into the study, one is conducted to the reception room where I personally shine my flashlight in one’s face and expose one as the thief that one is. If you have been robbed, do not complain either to the police nor the psychologist: the police are not interested; and the psychologist is interested only in proving that you are not the victim but the thief. Technology has robbed humans of their souls. This has made us at once feeble and factious. Freedom has been identified with the absence of obstacles to the exercise and satisfaction of specific interests and forms of activity which are accepted as possessing especial moral and social significance. #RandolphHarris 1 of 10
Thus, freedom in the abstract is a class comprising many species—freedom of thought and speech freedom of association freedom of assembly, freedom of worship, freedom of movement, freedom in the use or disposal of one’s property, freedom in the choice of one’s employer or occupation, and so on. In every case there is, of course, a reference to the absence of coercion or interference and to an area within which one can choose or act on one’s own initiative; not to an abstract or indeterminate possibility of choosing but instead to a specific sphere of individual or social activity within which the right to make one’s own choices and decisions, to follow one’s own course, it regarded as being of particular importance in the moral life of the individual. It might appear that what is being claimed is, rather, the institution of political and economic arrangements by means of which people may be made immune from feelings and circumstances which they find to be evil. The historical link between the development of the press and the formation of public opinion has been a natural though not the only focus of sociological interest. #RandolphHarris 2 of 10
The continuing development of communication technology has given rise to other sociological concerns, including the role of mass communication as an agent of socialization, the effect of the various media on cognitive processes, their potential for teaching, persuasion, and propaganda, as well as their consequences for leisure time usage, political participation, and other behavior. There is a clear link between the mass media and public opinion. For without the communication facilities that bridge the barriers of geographical and social distance, the mass of people in the Great Society could rarely involve themselves in the central issues of the time. Overall, without the mass media, there would be no mass public opinion, only elite opinion. The succinct formula under which a large variety of research questions could be conveniently grouped: Who says what in which channel to whom and with what effect? Mass communication is the transmission by professional communicators of a continuous flow of the same symbolic content by means of a complex technological and organizational apparatus (channel) to a large, heterogeneous, and physically dispersed audience. #RandolphHarris 3 of 10
The communicator or source, the channel or medium, the characteristics of the audience can all greatly influence the reactions to one and the same content, and the content itself can be packaged in different ways. The glitzy, high-tech studio sets; the pretty faces and pleasing, entertaining personalities of the anchors and special assignment people; it is easy to enter, but hard to escape. The mass media can bind you and bar you from your freedom and cause you to just about lose your soul. This door to the room of entertainment like many others promise pleasure and fun, enlightenment and entertainment, but it can lead to the horrible place called hell. The mass media can be a gateway to the bottomless pit—a place of no return. The slick graphics that transition the movement between segments, the constant interspersing of the bizarre, celebrity guest-spots, the inane, and the potentially World shattering—you may think you will find pleasure and a good time, but once inside you will find it leads to nowhere but sorrow and trouble. The news often lies and has deceived millions along the hall way of time. #RandolphHarris 4 of 10
The news graphics may light up like a neon sigh in beautiful flashing colors—but inside is a cold mist that ascends from the pit of eternal darkness. Sin and hate is there. Murder and suicide. Lust and uncleanness. Demons are waiting. Hell and destruction are look for more victims to fill with misery. Voices from the other side are beckoning and calling for you to join them. They want to start your day of with the intermingling of the titillating and the humorous with the semi-serious, especially on the morning news programs and right before bed they want to put you to sleep by speaking of murder, bloodshed, suicide, abuse, rebellion, perverted sex, homosexuality, alcohol and drug use. There are hidden messages in their scripts that evokes the audience to get high and do ungodly things. There is evil working undercover and below the surface with hidden messages influencing the mind and behavior with evil impulses. In other words, the news is trying to strip away your moral virtues with their music blaring loudly and the flashing graphics, to work up to a hypnotic state and through their scripts they work their way into the audience’s subconscious mind. You are being indoctrinated and controlled by demons, stripped of all your Godly morals. #RandolphHarris 5 of 10
In this rampant context of no context, if not deliberately orchestrated confusion, the only constant is the personalities of the TV news anchors and reporters. Many of us see them more often, certainly in our homes, than we do our friends, neighbors, relatives, and even our co-workers from whom we are increasingly distant on our jobs anyway. You call the news entertainment? Evil means business and the media is using alcohol, drugs, and the news in a game of mind control to destroy the soul of this generation. Now you know why parents cannot control their kids anymore, the news allows evil to have easy access to the mind and heart and possess the soul. Anger is spewed forth. Fights break out. Parents are despised, law enforcement hated. The media has considerable power to shape opinion and belief, change habits of life, actively mould behavior and impose political systems against resistance. The news uses techniques of propaganda and people need to learn to recognize deception for what it is. Researchers understand that for a message to elicit the intended response, at least the following questions need to be met: the message has to gain the attention of those toward whom it is aimed; it has to be correctly understood; its implications had to be sanctioned by self and/or relevant others: and compliance has to be within their capability. #RandolphHarris 6 of 10
The detailed examination of how individuals respond to the news content is called sleeper effects. The research unit demonstrated experimentally that sometimes the amount of change immediately after exposure was smaller than after several months. The increase could be interpreted as reinforcement by cumulative communication activity. Here the emphasis is less on persuasion than on the whole range of effect, many not even contemplated by communicators. The addiction of some people to the news enabled them to sustain unrewarding life styles. There is a relationship between social isolation and the use of mass media fare for personal gratification, ore as a substitute for other meaningful contact than as a supplement to social participation. So, too, research found that some of the audience use the daily TV news as much (or more) as a source of security in a disturbing World as for information. Heavy media use, even if it does not exactly cause passivity, might nevertheless be a convenient substitute for remedial action that required effort or might prove painful or expensive. It is apparent that mass communication effects are additive. #RandolphHarris 7 of 10
The news media is able to appeal existing social divisions, and change the line of division by dramatizing socioeconomic aspects, making the class status of listeners more important than the law. For instance, illegal immigration is illegal, but many people are now afraid to speak out against illegal immigration because they fear offending someone, losing friends, or being ostracized. Now, even celebrities are defending illegal immigration. Mass communication has changed public opinion by playing into dispositions already presented in the audience instead of meeting them head-on. However, no one has looked at how serious it is to have undocumented citizens in the country because many of them have never had their identity stolen by an illegal immigrant who is trying to kill them and take their place. The news media is now what is called agenda setting and once known as the power of the media to structure issues. The mass media has created secondary symbols around which interracial tensions crystallized to the point of open rioting. When ideas and events themselves no longer carry any badge or mark of instant coherency and credibility, then the cohesion we need to make sense of our lives has to be carried by some other elements in our society. #RandolphHarris 8 of 10
In this age of huge, bureaucratic institutions, lacking not only the personal touch, care, and concern, but also regard for the dignity of either their employees or those whom they pretend to serve, what better supplier of continuity could there be than the pleasant faces who make pablum out of chaos and soothe our fragile egos by masquerading as our friends. While states and cities are spending millions of taxpayer dollars to defend illegal immigrants and celebrities and local government talks about how important and special they are and pledge money to help them, Puerto Rico, which is part of the United States of America lost countless lives, but no one is stepping up to donate money to the people of Puerto Rico. The federal government is helping them, but they need more than that. How can we stand up for people who are not even citizens of the United States and offer them money and support, but leave our own people to die, without water, food, and housing? Because helping the island of Puerto Rico is not an agenda on the mind of most media outlets. None of this should be really surprising once one understands that all human institutions and games operate by a distinctive set of rules. #RandolphHarris 9 of 10
In today’s World so much suffering because of different circumstances, sending a text message with a funny emoji or posting a picture with the word “I love you” is good and valuable. However, what many of us need to do is leave our mobile devices behind and, with our hands and feet, help others in great need. In 1958, during the psychological atmosphere in which nuclear testing had become an issue, media reports helped trigger a veritable epidemic of calls about mysterious windshield pitting, sufficiently alarming to send the mayor of Seattle appealing to Washington for help. The damage to windshields was no more than normal wear and tear, and calls ceased when the story faded from the newspaper. Therefore, let God’s peace enter your soul and think about what truly matters, do not allow the media to program you. Love one another as God has loved us. By serving and forgiving others with real love, we can be healed and receive the strength to overcome our own challenges. Love is a feeling of deep devotion, concern, and affection. You know when you love someone because you feel it inside your heart. Love without service is like faith without works; it is dead indeed. #RandolphHarris 10 of 10
Individual experiences of life are tempered, tailored, and considerably determined by personal level of consciousness as well as that of prevailing society. Psychoanalysis is a passion, not a science. It lacks the steady hand of the investigator. Indeed, it is precisely this lack which characterizes the psychoanalyst: One loves and hates one’s subject, envies one’s freedom and power, and busies oneself with reducing one patient’s strengths to the level of one’s own weakness. One claims that the artist sublimates a defect because one feels defective. Psychoanalysis is, in fact, an act of revenge through which the analyst’s inferiority is transformed into superiority. The patient tends naturally to subordinate oneself to the physician. This is why today every idiot wants to treat every genius. However, no matter how hard the physician tries to explain genius, all one can come up with is one’s own lack of it. Genius requires no explanation. Moreover, efforts to explain genius are usually only the defenses of mediocrity against it. Hence, there is only one justification for the existence of psychoanalysis: it is useful for unmasking psychoanalysis. The process in disengagement from the conventional culture and dealing with the negative societal labeling of freaks generates very high levels of stress. #RandolphHarris 1 of 6
Social problems (and the possibility of social change) arise when societal forces prevent, rather than advance, the fulfillment of such individual needs as affection, recognition, and self-actualization. The needs are universal and not determined (caused) by social structures, cultural patterns, or socialization processes. Social change arises as a response to personality demands. The response may be inauthentic, moreover, when the social structure merely presents itself as responsive without actually changing. Surely, we would expect cultural differences to influence these kinds of changes as well. It was discovered that people of higher status in society appear to be predisposed to accept modern attitudes more readily. The rise in an apparently rapid increase in recent years in numbers of attempted suicides among males under twenty-five and increased frequency of other deviant behavior, such as drugs, is due to the conflict between the enhanced expectations on the part of young adults and the scarcity of opportunities for gratification provided by society. #RandolphHarris 2 of 6
Many personality-affecting forces work through the family institution. The disintegration of the family in industrial society is alarming because family instability (divorce, for example) and a further decline in the family’s domestic responsibility (with the spread of ancillary social context for nurturing psychological growth in children is perceived to lead to an increase in alienated behavior. American society tends to rely more and more on external controls for behavior and de-emphasize affective (for example, familial) relationships. Also, large-scale social changes (especially the rise in importance of affectless organizations in bestowing individual identity) produce individuals alienated from intimacy and unable to cope with personal loss. The combination of increased economic and domestic obligations (associated with modernizing trends in society) apparently is responsible for generating high levels of psychophysiological stress in men and women. However, women over forty appear to experience more stress. Nevertheless, women are now more prosperous economically, and that prosperity has increased their sense of power and status; this, in turn, has given them greater individual control over their children. #RandolphHarris 3 of 6
Still, the virtuous person’s soul is unified and not torn by conflict. Any non-virtuous person is plagued by inner doubt or conflict, even if on the surface the individual appears to be as psychologically unified as virtuous people. Although a vicious person may appear to be single-minded about one’s disdain for justice and one’s pursuit of material goods and power, one must seek out others’ company to forget or ignore one’s actions. Vicious people are at odds with themselves and do not love themselves. Virtuous persons, on the other hand, enjoy who they are and take pleasure in acting virtuously. Most people desire the good and aim at it in one’s actions, no one would intentionally choose a course of action believed to yield less good overall. It is important to facilitate spiritual awareness and thus contribute to the relief of the suffering of humankind. The energy field with which that function is accompanied does by itself silently contribute to the well-being of human life and diminish human suffering, which itself is a satisfaction and completion. It is important that we cleave to the Lord, and be vehicles of divine love, a channel of God’s will. #RandolphHarris 4 of 6
It is important that we ask God for direction and divine assistance and surrender all personal will through devotion. We must dedicate one’s life to the service of God. And in the process, choose love and peace above all other options, as we commit to the goal of unconditional love and compassion for all life in its expression and surrender all judgment to God. It is true that compassion and wisdom go hand in hand. To complain about the limitations and defects of others is futile and unrealistic. It is very immature to expect others to live up to one’s standards or ideals. Every forgiveness is a benefit to everyone. The Universe notes and records every action and returns it in kind. Karma is actually the very nature of the Universe because of the innate structure and function of the life itself. In the Universe, time is measured by eons. Beyond that, time does not exist at all. Every kindness is therefore eternal. Virtue is a unified, unconflicted state where emotional responses and rational assessment speak with the voice of God. The education of our emotional responses is crucial for the development of virtuous character. If our emotional responses are educated properly, we will learn to take pleasure or pain in right things. #RandolphHarris 5 of 6
One must trust that the Savior has given us all we need so that we can make the required changed in life, changes that will bring peace. Many people suffer needlessly from carrying heavy burdens because we do not open our hearts to the healing power of the Lord. May this message encourage people to feel the prompting of the Holy Ghost to make those changes that will lead one to be free of oppressive burdens. The Savior promised that he would ease the burdens which are put upon us, that we will not be able to feel them. The World is really a place of joy and happiness, of true friendships where faith in God and obedience to his commandments invites the Holy Ghost to dominate and influence our lives. It is possible to escape the repressive chains that bind our lives. Relief will come from exercising faith in our Father in Heaven who loves us. God will bring us peace and the illusive success that always seems beyond our reach at times. Believe that we can overcome the depressing environment in which we live by trusting that there is a better way. Repentance is a process of cleansing. It is difficult, but it has an end, a glorious end with peace and refreshing forgiveness and the miracle of a new beginning. #RandolphHarris 6 of 6
It is good to realize that is love and peace can prevail on Earth, and if we can teach our children to honor the Earth and each other, our days on this planet shall be long and many. We who have received a knowledge of the great plan of happiness—and its implementing commandments—should feel a desire to share that knowledge since it makes all the difference here and in eternity. The virtue of mildness or good temper is concerned with anger. A mild person ought to be angry about some things (about injustice and other forms of mistreatment) and should be willing to stand up for oneself and those one cares about. Not to do so would indicate the morally deficient character of the inirascrible person. It would also be inappropriate to take offense and get angry if there is nothing worth getting angry about. That response would indicate the morally excessive character of the irascible person. The mild person’s reactions are appropriate to the situation. Sometimes intense anger is appropriate; at other times calm detachment is. It is understandable that when students of the self-concept turn their attention to the educational institution, they tend to focus primarily on academic performance. School, after all, is the main business of a child’s life. #RandolphHarris 1 of 10
Furthermore, there are very few areas of life in which a person is so constantly and explicitly evaluated. Report cards, or school marks, represent public objective, and authoritative assessment of an important aspect of the child’s worth. It thus is not surprising to find that there tends to be a beneficial association between academic performance and self-esteem (through the association is not always strong). What is less clear is what this statistical association means. If the self-concept does influence academic performance, is it the individual’s overall feeling of worth (one’s global self-esteem) that is responsible or is it the specific component of self-concept of academic ability tends to be more strongly associated with school achievement. In other words, it is not one’s overall feeling of worth as a human being (which may be based on many things) but one’s self-conceived talent in a specific area that is most closely related to performance. For example, the relation ship between ability on IQ tests and global self-esteem generally appears to be about r = .20–.30. This shows that the correlation between school marks and academic self-concept is r = .57. In general, there is a much higher correlation between school marks and academic self-concept than between marks and global self-esteem. #RandolphHarris 2 of 10
This observation concerning the part and whole may be generalized beyond school marks. If specific types of behavior are under consideration, the specific self-concept component will almost invariably be more relevant than the global attitude. Some educators, concerned about the academic performance of disprivilieged children, have attributed this performance to the lower global self-esteem of the disprivilieged children and have argued that it is necessary to enhance dispriviliged children’s global self-esteem. However, if self-concept change is to affect school performance, it will be less through convincing the child that one is generally a person of worth than in persuading one that one has the specific ability to do well on tests. In viewing the self-concept either as a social product or a social force, it is important to keep the distinction between the part and the whole in the forefront of attention. So, it may be more adventitious to encourage students and tell them that they have potential to do well, rather than not grading them fairly or being overly harsh. If an individual truly wants to learn, their homework assignments and tests are a way of communicating that through their effort. If students are not doing well, it may be that they have some other distractions keeping from their assignments. #RandolphHarris 3 of 10
Children that come from dysfunctional homes or are bullied sometimes are emotionally distracted and need to talk about what it happening so they can release the tension and adequately focus on their assignments. When people go out of their way to target individuals, it negatively impacts their performance and will prohibit from advancing with the rest of their peers. Therefore, consoling could be an important part of the educational process. However, even when we find an association between academic performance and self-esteem, the question remains: is self-esteem a consequence of academic performance or a cause of it? There is theoretical support for both positions. Self-consistency theory, which holds that we tend to behave in accordance with our self-expectations, would view the self-concept as the cause of behavior. For example, a child with ample ability may unconsciously make a number of spelling errors because one has developed a view of oneself as a poor speller. One’s poor performance represents an effort to remain true to one’s self-concept. Nevertheless, spellings errors do not mean that a child has an intellectual deficiency. #RandolphHarris 4 of 10
Spelling errors can go back to when a child is learning to read and sound out words. If an instructor rushes through this process, a child may be very good at reading, but not know how to spell as well as others because they do not know how to sound out words. Also, children who speak more than one language could have difficulties spelling. And if adults do not pronounce words correctly, children will pick that up and spell them wrong. For instance, on an episode of Bewtiched: Samantha on the Keyboard (original airdate 10 October 1968), Grandmama Endora makes Tabatha, who is only four years old, play like a musical genius. Her father, Darrin, overhears the music and gets upset because he thinks it is a product of witchcraft and upsets Endora and she takes the piano back and leaves. Then Darrin promises Samantha he will buy a new piano as long as Samantha learns to play it. So, Tabatha overhears her mother playing then piano and later mimics the novice way in which her mother plays. The self-attribution theory holds that we draw conclusions about what we are likely be observing our behavior or its outcomes. The person who fails in school judges oneself, as one would judge anyone else, as academically inept. In this case, these marks are viewed as the cause of the academic self-concept. #RandolphHarris 5 of 10
That proves that if children are taught to pronounce words right, they will likely be able to spell them properly. Nevertheless, President George Washington was not a great spelling, but very smart and also the first American President. Also, when children are learning, we should never tease them about how they are performing, but encourage them. It is best to use a dictionary to find works one cannot spell or sound them out and try that way. Since the self-concept and the behavior may thus affect one another, the question is: which has the greater effect on the other? By means of a cross-lagged panel correlation, it was concluded that academic performance affected academic self-concept more than the other way around; the effect, however, is stronger for girls than for boys. The evidence indicates that the self-concept also affects academic performance, but that this effect is weaker. When we are doing well in school we feel better about ourselves because it is our job and will have a huge impact on the rest of our lives. In addition, sometimes being confident is a good thing because confident students may feel more comfortable to seek help in academic areas where they are underperforming. #RandolphHarris 6 of 10
Another critical issue involved in interpreting the relationship between academic self-concept and academic achievement is the question of whether the marks are attributed to qualities of the person or components of the self-concept. Does someone do well on test because one believes one is academically competent or because one actually is academically competent? This issue is widely overlooked. If people who believe they are tall are more likely to be good basketball players, their basketball skill is less attributable to their views of themselves as tall than to their actual height. To be able to conclude that the self-concept per se affect behavior, one must equate people in terms of objective characteristics. This issue was explored in a large-scale study of junior high school pupils. The question raised by these investigators was whether, among pupils of equivalent academic talent, youngsters with optimistic academic self-concepts did better in school than those with negative self-concepts? For both boys and girls, it was found, the zero order correlation between academic self-concept and school marks was .57; controlling on IQ, however, the partial correlation remained .42 and .39 for boys and girls, respectively. #RandolphHarris 7 of 10
The self-concept doubtlessly affects and is affected by the educational institution in many other ways as well. Many people have discussed how the teacher’s expectations for the child may affect the child’s performance. If such effects do, in fact, exist, they are almost certain to be mediated by the child’s self-concept. Children have enormous respect for adults. Teachers should not say things like, “I sense some confusion in this room, in relation to the subject matter, and it is not general,” then look at a certain student. If a child believes that the teacher expects him or her to fail, the child, attributing great wisdom to the teacher, is likely to expect oneself to fail. It is thus possible that the teacher’s expectations for the child are converted into the child’s self-expectations, which, following the principle of self-consistency, are converted into academic performance. On another note, children, and even college students should be respectful of their parents and spend time with them because there may be things that a parent is going through that they do not want to share with you and one day you will look back an understand why. #RandolphHarris 9 of 10
There was a father who served in war and ended up catching cancer from agent orange, which was a poison used to kill trees that was also sprayed on the soldiers. He got ride of the cancer, but was sick all of his life and worked to support his children. When he son was in college, the father kept him on a tight budget and did not like going places and even asked his son if we wanted him to enroll in college with him. The son, embarrassed, of course did not know why and said no. The father knew he was dying soon and really wanted to spend time with his son. About a year later, he died while his son was preparing for final exams. Family is so important and you really should love and support them because we do not know how long we will have each other. It is just my wish that people who have passed into Heaven know how much we care about them and how much we think about them and how much we miss them. When the seed of love is sown into our hearts, you have to water it with loyalty and cultivate it with sincerity, and then the fruit it bears is sure to be happiness. The clash of souls touches off the flashes over the Winter jasmine, and we walk hand in hand into the World of youth. #RandolphHarris 10 of 10
Randolph Harris II International Institute 