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Certain Varieties of Demons Live on the Juices in Human Blood
Hope is a vigorous principle; it is furnished with light and heat to advise and execute; it sets the head and heart to work, and animates a man to do his utmost. Hope is paradoxical. It is neither passive waiting nor is it unrealistic forcing of circumstances that cannot occur. It is like the crouched tiger, which will jump only when the moment for jumping has come. Neither tired reformism nor pseudo-radical adventurism is an expression of hope. If there is no birth in our lifetime, to hope means to be ready at every moment for that which is not yet born, and yet not become desperate. There is no sense in hoping for that which already exists or for that which cannot be. Those whose hope is weak settle down for comfort or for violence; those whose hope is strong see and cherish all signs of new life and are ready every moment to help the birth of that which is ready to be born. Among the confusion about hope one of the major ones is the failure to distinguish between conscious and unconscious hope. This is an error, of course, which occurs with regard to many other emotional experiences, such as happiness, anxiety, depression, boredom, and hate. It is amazing that in spite of the popularity of Dr. Freud’s theories his concept of the unconscious has been so little applied to such emotional phenomena. There are perhaps two main reasons for this fact. One is that in the writings of some psychoanalysts and some “philosophers of psychoanalysis” the whole phenomenon of the unconscious—that is, of repression—refers to desires of the pleasures of the flesh, and they use repression—wrongly—and synonymous with suppression of sexual wishes and activities. #RandolphHarris 1 of 20
In doing so they deprive Dr. Freud’s discoveries of some of their most important consequences. The second reason lies probably in the fact that it is far less disturbing for the post-Victorian generations to become aware of repressed sexual desires than of those experiences like alienation, hopelessness, or greed. To use only one of the most obvious examples: most people do not admit to themselves feelings of fear, boredom, loneliness, hopelessness—that is to say, they are unconscious of these feelings. (Speaking of the “unconscious” is another form of alienated thinking and speaking. There is no such things as “the unconscious,” as if it were an organ or a thing in space. One can be “conscious of” or “unconscious of” outer or inner events; that is, we deal with a psychic function, not with a localized organ.) This is so for a simple reason. Our social pattern is such that the successful man is not supposed to be afraid or bored or lonely. He must find this World the best of all Worlds; in order to have the best chance for the best of all Worlds; in order to have the best chance for promotion he must repress fear as well as doubt, depression, boredom, or hopelessness. There are many who feel consciously hopeful and unconsciously hopelessness is not primarily what people think about their feelings, but what they truly feel. This can be recognized least from their word and phrases, but can be detected from their facial expressions, their way of walking, their capacity to react with interest to something in front of their eyes, and their lack of fanaticism, which is shown in their ability to listen to reasonable argument. #RandolphHarris 2 of 20
The dynamic viewpoint applied in this report is to social-psychological phenomena and is fundamentally different from the descriptive behaviourist approach in most social-science research. From the dynamic standpoint, we are not primarily interested in knowing what a person thinks or says or how he behaves now. We are interested in his character structure—that is, in the semipermanent structure of his energies, in the directions in which they are channeled, and in the intensity with which they flow. If we know the driving forces motivating behaviour, not only do we understand present behaviour but we can also make reasonable assumptions about how a person is likely to act under changed circumstances. In the dynamic view, surprising “changes” in a person’s thought or behaviour are changes which mostly could have been foreseen, given the knowledge of his character structure. More could be said about what hope is not, but let us press forward and ask what hope is. Can it be described at all in words or can it only be communicated in a poem, in a song, in a gesture, in a facial expression, or in a deed? As with every other human experience, words are insufficient to describe the experience. In fact, most of the time words do the opposite: they obscure it, dissect it, and kill it. Too often, in the process of talking about love or hate or hope, one loses contact with what one was supposed to be talking about. #RandolphHarris 3 of 20
Poetry, music, and other forms of art are by far the best-suited media for describing human experience because they are precise and avoid the abstraction and vagueness of worn-out coins which are taken for adequate representations of human experience. Yet, taking these qualifications seriously, it is not impossible to touch upon feeling experience in words which are not those of poetry. If people did not share the experience one talks about, at least to some degree, this would not be possible. To describe it means to point out the various aspects of the experience and thus to establish a communication in which the writer and the reader know that they re referring to the same thing. In making this attempt, I must ask the reader to work with me and not expect me to give him an answer to the question of what hope it. I must ask him to mobilize his own experiences in order to make our dialogue possible. To hope is a state of being. It is an inner readiness, that of intense but not-yet-spent activeness. The concept of “activity” rests upon one of the most widespread of man’s illusions in modern industrial society. Our whole culture is geared to activity—activity in the sense of being busy, and being busy in the sense of busyness (the busyness necessary for business). In fact, most people are so “active” that they cannot stand doing nothing; they even transform their so-called leisure time into another form of activity. If you are not active making money, you are active driving around, playing golf, or just chatting about nothing. #RandolphHarris 4 of 20
What is dreaded is the moment in which you have really nothing “to do.” Whether one calls this kind of behaviour activity is a terminological question. The trouble is that most people who think they are very active are not aware of the fact that they are intensely passive in spite of their “busyness.” Even if it is only a new man or woman as a partner for pleasures of the flesh, they constantly need the stimulus from the outside, be it other people’s chatter, or the sight of movies or travel and other forms of more thrilling consumption excitements. They need to be prompted, to be “turned on,” tempted, seduced. They always run and never stand. They always “fall for” and never get up. And they imagine themselves to be immensely active while they are driven by the obsession to do something in order to escape the anxiety that is aroused when they are confronted with themselves. Hope is a psychic concomitant to life and growth. If a tree which does not get sun bends its trunk to where the sun comes from, we cannot say that the tree “hopes” in the same way in which a man hopes, since hope in man is connected with feelings and awareness that the tree may not have. And yet it would not be wrong to say that the tree hopes for the sunlight and expressed this hope by twisting its trunk toward the sun. #RandolphHarris 5 of 20
Is it different when the child is born? He may have no awareness, yet his activity expresses his hope to be born and to breathe independently. Does the suckling not hope for his mother’s milk? Dos the infant not hope to stand erect and to walk? Does the sick man not hope to be well, the prisoner to be free, the hungry to eat? Do we not hope to wake up to another day when we fall asleep? Do pleasures of the flesh not imply a man’s hope in his potency, in his capacity to arouse his partner, and the woman’s hope to respond to arouse him? Revelation is an unmerited gift, and we can never be sure that our human questions exhaust its riches. Man is not merely a questioner. He is also a hearer of the Word, and he must open himself to its full impact even when it communicates startling truths, such as the Trinity, or hard truths, such as divine punishment, things he might not ask about if the questions were left to him alone to formulate. Furthermore, the question-answer dialogue is not the sole means to express the human attitude before the revelatory events. Questions and answers are, after all, but figures of speech, and their limitation is seen in this, that the mystery of divine revelation can be described in other terms. It is not only an answer; it is also a fulfilment, a transformation, an elevation, and a gratuitous intervention. Man stands before revelation not simply to play the quizmaster; he stands before it as before the sun, to be cheered and warmed and inspire. #RandolphHarris 6 of 20
In the transfiguration episode all that Peter could utter was, “Lord, it is well that we are here!” (Mt 17.4 RSV). Man does more than question; he also exclaims in crimes of marvel, of wonder, of awe. They kerygmatic aspect of theology must be given its due. It can still only create the impression that it succeeds, but it can never fully succeed, since the receptacle which is the question remains the old wineskin that is burst by the new wine of the answer. The new wine is the kerygma, the divine good news which far surpasses human expectations. Consequently, the bad news of man’s existential situation cannot be the measure of the good news of revelation. In fact, it is revelation that lays bare the roots of the human condition by revealing the true nature and extent of sin, for the bad news of the existential situation it itself a mystery that needs unveiling. When it comes to the Christian mysteries, we know that creation means that “being” is essentially good, the fall or estrangement means that man is a finite mixture of being and nonbeing, and the New Being means that man always participates in being enough to offset the threat of non-being. The New Being is essential manhood, the complete actualization of human potentialities, the term of the historical process of the essentialization of man, the final reunion with the ground of being. Is this merely an ontological humanism? The lost son who returned home is not simply once again at home. He is at home again in a way other than the fondest remembrance of his father’s house had possibly permitted him to hope, other than the human existential question had possibly permitted him to hope, other than the existential question had possibly permitted him to expect. The New Being that he found is other and more than mere reunion. #RandolphHarris 7 of 20
In contrast, the manifestation of demon power—the agency of demons is always brought more conspicuously into notice when God also is at work, in proportion to the manifestation and power of God’s work among souls. When the Son of God was manifest in the flesh, it called forth the activity and outspoken agency of demons more than ever before. Demons are of a multiplied variety. They are of various types, greater in diversity than human beings, and these demons always seek to possess a person congenial to them in some characteristic. The Christian Bible tells us of unclean demons, of fortune telling demons, of despotic demons, theological demons, screeching and yelling demons. There are demons that act particularly on the body, or some organ or appetite of the body. There are others that act more directly upon the intellect, or the sensibilities, and emotions and affections. There are others of a higher order that act directly on man’s spiritual nature, upon the conscience or the spiritual perceptions. These are the ones that act as angels of light, and sidetrack and delude many who are real Christians. How demons fasten on human beings—they seek out those who make-up and temperament is most congenial to themselves, and then seek to fasten themselves on to some part of the body, or brain, or some appetite, or some faculty of the mind—either the reason, or imagination, or perception; and when they get access, they bury themselves into the very structure of the person, so as to identify themselves with the personality of the one they possess. #RandolphHarris 8 of 20
In a great many instances, they do not get possession of the individual, but obtain such a hold on some part of the mind as to torment the person with periodical attacks of something strange and abnormal, out of all proportion to the general character and make-up of the individual. These demons feed themselves on the person with whom they are allied. There are allusions in Christian Scripture, and facts gathered from experience, sufficient to prove that certain varieties of demons live on the juices in human blood. There are religious demons, not holy, but nevertheless religious, and filled with a devilish form of religion which is the counterfeit of true, deep spirituality. These pseudo-religious demons very rarely attack young beginners, but they hover around persons who advance into deeper experiences, and seek every opportunity to fasten themselves upon the conscience, or the spiritual emotions of persons of high states of grace, and especially if they are of a vivid or energetic temperament. These are the demons that play havoc among many professors of holiness. One way they get hold of persons is as follows: A soul goes through a great struggle, and is wonderfully blessed. Floods of light and emotion sweep through the being. The shore lines are all cut. The soul is launched out into a sea of extravagant experience. At such a juncture these demons hover round the soul, and make strange suggestions to the mind of something odd, or outlandish, or contrary to common sense or decent states. They make these suggestions under the profession of being the Holy Ghost. They fan the emotions, and produce a strange, fictious exhilaration, which is simply their bait to get into faculty of the soul. #RandolphHarris 9 of 20
The degrees of evilness are at the same time the degrees of regression. The greatest evil is those strivings which are most directed against life; they love for death, the incestuous-symbiotic striving to return to the womb, to the soil, to the inorganic; the narcissistic self-immolation which makes man an enemy of life, precisely because he cannot leave the prison of his own ego. Living this way is living in “hell.” There is lesser evil, according to the lesser degree of regression. There is lack of love, lack of reason, lack of interest, lack of courage. Man is inclined to regress and to move forward; this is another way of saying he is inclined to good and evil. If both inclinations are still in some balance, he is free to choose, provided that he can make use of awareness and that he can make an effort. He is free to choose between alternatives which in themselves are determined by the total situation in which he finds himself. If, however, his heart has hardened to such a degree that there is no longer a balance of inclinations, he is no longer free to choose. In the chain of events that lead to the loss of freedom the last decision is usually one in which man can no longer choose freely; at the first decision he may be free to choose that which leads to the good, provided he is aware of the significance of his decision. Man is responsible up to the point where he is free to choose for his own action. However, responsibility is nothing but an ethical postulate, and often a rationalization for the authorities’ desire to punish him. #RandolphHarris 10 of 20
Precisely because evil is human, because it is the potential of regression and the loss of our humanity, it is inside every one of us. The more we are aware of it, the less are we able to set ourselves up as judges of others. Man’s heart can harden; it can become inhuman, yet never nonhuman. It always remains man’s heart. We all are determined by the fact that we have been born human, and hence by the never-ending task of having to make choices. We must choose the means together with the aims. We must not rely on anyone’s saving us, but be very aware of the fact that wrong choices make us incapable of saving ourselves. Indeed, we must become aware in order to choose the good—but if we have lost the capacity to be moved by the distress of another human being, by the friendly gaze of another person, by the song of a bird, by the greenness of grass, no awareness will help us. If man becomes indifferent to life, there is no longer any hope that he can choose the good. Then, indeed, his heart will have so hardened that his “life” will be ended. If this should happen to the entire human race or to its most powerful members, then the life of mankind may be extinguished at the very moment of its greatest promise. Our hope is to point to a new dimension of morality—not that of constraint and prohibition but a morality that lies as a fountainhead within the human soul, a mortality of aspiration to spiritual experience. It suggests that necessity is laid upon us to infer entities that are not observed and are not observable. For an unseen Universe is necessary to explain the seen. The flux is seen, but to account for its structure and its nature we infer particles of various kinds to serve as the vertices of the changing patterns, placing less emphasis on the isolated units and more on the structure and nature of relations. #RandolphHarris 11 of 20
The process of knowing involves an immaterial becoming, an immaterial identification, and finally, knowledge itself is seen to be a dependent variable of immateriality. And somewhere along this spiritual pilgrimage man’s pure observation is relinquished and gives way to the deeper experience of awe, for there can be no explanation of a phenomenon by searching for its origin but only by discerning its immanent law—this quality of transcendence that abides even in matter itself. The present situation in the World and the vast accretion of knowledge have produced a serious anxiety which may be overcome by re-evaluating the character, kindship, logic, and operation of man in relation to his work. For work implies goals and intimately affects the person performing the work. Therefore the correlation and relatedness of ideas, facts and values that are in perpetual interplay could emerge from these volumes as they point to the inner synthesis and organic unity of man and his labours. For though no labour alone can enrich the person, no enrichment can be achieved without absorbing and intense labour. We then experience a unity of faith, labour and grace which prepares the mind for receiving a truth from sources over which it has no control. This is especially true since the great challenge of our age arises out of man’s inventions in relation to his life. #RandolphHarris 12 of 20
Thus Credo Perspectives seek to encourage the perfection not only of man’s work but also and above all the fulfillment of himself as a person. And so now we are summoned to consider not only man in the process of development as a human subject but also his influence on the object of his investigation and creation. Observation alone is interference. The naïve view that we can observe any system and predict its behaviour without altering it by the very act of observation was an unjustified extrapolation from Newton’s Celestial Mechanics. We can observe the moon or even a satellite and predict its behaviour without perhaps appreciably interfering with it, but we cannot do this with an amoeba, far less with a man and still less with a society of men. It is the heart of the question of the nature of work itself. If we regard our labours as a process of shaping or forming, then the fruits of our labours play the part of a mold by which we ourselves are shaped. And this means, in the preservation of the identity of the knower and the known, that cognition and generation, that is, creation, though in different spheres, are nevertheless alike. It is hoped that the influence of such a series may help to overcome the serious separation between function and meaning and may show that the extraordinary crisis through which the World is passing can be fruitfully met by recognizing that knowledge had not been completely dehumanized and has not totally degenerated into a mere notebook overcrowded with formulas that few are able to understand or apply. #RandolphHarris 13 of 20
For mankind is now engaged in composing a new theme. Life never manifest itself in negative terms. And hope lies in drawing from every category of work a conviction that nonmaterial values can be discovered in positive, affirmative, visible things. The estrangement between the temporal and nontemporal man is coming to n end, community is inviting communion, and a vision of the human condition more worthy of man is engendered, connecting spiritual energy which breaks for us the bonds of habit and keeps us in touch with the permanence of being through our work. And as, long ago, the Bearers of Bread were succeeded by the Bearers of Torches, so now, in the immediacies of life, it is the image of man and his vocation that can rekindle the high passion of humanity in its quest for light. Refusing to divorce work from life or love from knowledge, it is action, it is passion that enhances our being. We live in an expanding Universe and also in the moral infinite of that other Universe, the Universe of man. And along the whole stretched arch of this Universe, we may see that extreme limit of complicity where reality seems to shape itself within the work man has chosen for his realization. Work then becomes not only a way of knowledge, it becomes even more a way of life—of life in its totality. For the last ed of every maker is himself. “And the places that have been desolate for ages shall be built in thee: thou shalt rise up the foundations of generation and generation; and thou shalt be called the repairer of the fences, turning the paths into rest.” (Isaiah, 58.12). #RandolphHarris 14 of 20
The chain of associations that reveals a connection need not to be a long one. Sometimes a sequence of only two remarks opens up a path for understanding, provided the second is not a brainchild but is born spontaneously. A patient, for instance, came to analysis feeling tired and uneasy, and his first associations were unproductive. He had been drinking white muscatel and popping reds the night before. I asked him whether he had a hangover, which he denied. The last hour had been very productive for it had brought to light the fact that he was afraid of taking responsibility because he was terrified of possible failure. Thus I asked him whether he wanted to rest on his laurels. At this a memory emerged of his mother dragging him through museums and of his boredom and annoyance at the experience. There was only this one association, but it was revealing. It was partly a response to my remark about his resting on his laurels. I was just as bad as the mother pushing him from one problem to another. (This reaction was characteristic of hum because he was hypersensitive to anything resembling coercion, though at the same time his own initiative for tackling problems was inhibited.) Having become aware of his annoyance with me and of his active reluctance to go on, he then felt free to feel and express another sentiment. Its essence was that psychoanalysis was worse than the situation in the museum because it meant being dragged on to see one failure after another. With this association he unintentionally resumed the thread of the preceding hour, which prevented him from functioning smoothly and effectively meant a “failure.” He thereby revealed one of his basic resistances to psychoanalysis. #RandolphHarris 15 of 20
The same patient came another time feeling depressed. He had met a friend the night before who told him about his climbing of a Swiss mountain, the Piz Palu. The report had awakened the memory of a time when he was in Switzerland and could not climb this mountain because it was befogged during the days he had at his disposal. He had been furious at that time, and the night before he felt the old rage rising again. He lay awake for hours evolving plans how he could still assert his wish, how he could overcome all obstacles of war, money, time. Even after he fell asleep his mind fought against the obstacles in this way, and awoke depressed. During the analysis an apparently irrelevant picture came up in his mind of the outskirts of a Midwestern town, which for him was the epitome of the drab and desolate. This mental image expressed his feelings about life at that moment. However, what was the connection? That if he could not climb the Piz Palu, then life was desolate? When he was in Switzerland, he had set his heart upon climbing the mountain, but it is true that the frustration of this special wish was on passion of his; the incident had occurred years ago and he had since forgotten about it. Apparently then it was not the Piz Palu that was bothering him. When he calmed down, he realized that he would not even care to climb it now. The revival of that Swiss experience meant something much more incisive. If he set his will on achieving something, he believed that he should be able to do it, but this illusory belief disturbed him. Even if it was so much out of his command as fog in the mountains, any unsurpassable obstacle meant to him a frustration of his will. If he must relinquish this belief, it meant that life was not worth living. #RandolphHarris 16 of 20
Repetitive themes or sequences in the material presented by the patient are particularly helpful for understanding. If the associations end always with implicit evidence that the patient has superior intelligence or rationality, or is in general a remarkable person, the analyst will understand that his belief in his possession of these qualities is of paramount emotional value to him. A patient who misses no opportunity to demonstrate how analysis has harmed him will lead to analyst to different hypotheses from those suggested by a patient who misses no opportunity to emphasize his improvement. If the demonstrations of impairment coincide with repeated reports of being unfairly treated, injured, or victimized, in the former instance, the analyst will begin to watch for those factors within the patient that explain why he experiences a large proportion of life in exactly this way, and also for the consequences entailed by this attitude. Since they reveal certain typical reactions, repetitive themes also provide a clue for understanding why the patient’s experiences often follow a certain stereotyped pattern; for example, why he frequently starts on an enterprise with enthusiasm and drops it soon after, or why he frequently encounters similar disappointments with friends or lovers. #RandolphHarris 17 of 20
The analyst will find valuable clues also in the patient’s contradictions, of which as many are bound to appear as are present in the patient’s structure. The same holds true of exaggerations, such as reactions of violence, gratitude, shame, suspicion, apparently disproportionate to the provocation. Such a surplus of affect always signalizes a hidden problem, and it leads the analyst to look for the emotional significance that the provocation has for the patient. Who are the experts to whim the unhappy and maladjusted citizens of our urban communities take their problems for consultations, hopefully for cure? Since close of World War II, it has been increasingly clear that experts in the management of functional mental illness are being drawn from three professions—medicine, psychology, and social work. The medically trained expert is a clinical psychologist. And the specialist from social works is the psychiatric social worker. To the extent that all three of these highly trained experts do (in increasing numbers) engage in one-to-one personal conversations with the therapeutic intent to relieve psychological symptoms, modify attitudes, and improve adjustment—and to the extent that their respective efforts must partake of the factors common to all psychotherapeutic exchanges—it follows that there must be certain minimal overlap and similarities in their professional preparation. They do have specific knowledges, skills, values and goals in common. We will discuss these themes at a later time. #RandolphHarris 18 of 20
We all know at least one know-it-all. They have an infinite amount of useless knowledge—some of it, even questionable. Narcissists are the typical culprits who use this sort of thing to make you feel inadequate, undereducated, and sometimes just plain stupid. Some people can make you feel as if they are so much smarter than you, and that the deserves the best things in life so much more than you do. It is important to realize people who are condescending are manipulating you into perceiving them as superior. And you can politely ignore their impolite behaviour and be the best you can by using real facts and skills to gain the upper hand. When it comes to a job, for example, sometimes when the boss prefers a person who submissive, pretends to be his or her best friend, knows a lot of details about the boss, and this is the type of person who is selected for the job, it could be a blessing that you are not accepted. People like that tend to be involved in unethical and sometimes illegal things and want someone who will cover deviant behaviour up for them or they want a patsy. So, it is really not the type of job you would be interested in anyway. Underlying principles of respect that were once commonplace in society have increasingly given way to unkind behaviour. To help our children and youth set aside the many negative examples that bombard them, we must first understand respect, reasons we sometimes act disrespectfully, gospel principles that apply, and ways we can be better teachers and exemplars of respect. People merit respect for just being human and also for living an honourable life. We admire their commitment or standards. #RandolphHarris 19 of 20
Over the years, the Sacramento Fire Department has become law enforcement, doctors, psychiatrists, plumbers, electricians, roofers, and building construction and flood experts. The fire department has also had to become experts when dealing with CO2. The job has become even more complex because of weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Before September 11, 2001, the Sacramento Fire Department realized just how vulnerable we are to acts of terrorism. As a result, they are trained to maintain situational awareness and be alert for activity that may indicate possible criminal or terrorist activity. Since the horrific incidents of 9/11, the role of Sacramento Fire Department and EMS personnel in protecting the homeland has increased because of the recognition that the need for information and intelligence is vital. Sacramento Fire and EMS personnel provide a critical link in completing the homeland security role. They serve as additional eyes and ears of law enforcement and report suspicious activity so that further investigation by the proper authority can be initiated. As part of an element of homeland security, the Sacramento Fire Department analyzes public and private sector to identify the threat environment, share information, and establish policy for the operation of combatting the threat of terrorism, and have evolved to deal with a range of criminal and terrorist activity. With the crisis at our Southern Boarder posing a national security threat, please make a donation to the Sacramento Fire Department to ensure they have the latest technology and adequate resources to protect the 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. #RandolphHarris 20 of 20
To the materialist and the professional skeptic—that is to say, people who do not wish to be disturbed in their belief that death is the end of life as we know it—the notion of ghosts is unacceptable. No matter how much evidence is presented for the reality of the phenomena, they will argue against it and ascribe it to any of several “natural” causes. Either delusion or hallucination must be the explanation, or perhaps a mirage, if not outright trickery on the part of parties unknown. Entire professional groups who deal in the manufacture of illusions have taken it upon themselves to label anything that defies their ability to reproduce it artificially through trickery or manipulation as false or nonexistent. Especially among photographers and magicians, the notion that ghost exist has never been a popular one. However, authentic reports of psychic phenomena along ghostly lines keep coming into reputable report centers such as the various societies for psychic research and to caretakers of The Winchester Mystery House.
Sometimes demons soar round the high altitudes of the spiritual life, like eagles around great mountain tops, and seek to fasten their talons upon the lofty and conspicuous prey. They cause people to run off into things that are odd and foolish, unreasonable and indecent. It leads them to adopt a peculiar voice or twang, or unnatural shouting, or some shaking of the body; or such an influence is manifested by peculiar heresies in the mind, of which there is a nameless variety. It produces a certain wildness in the eye and harshness in voice. Such persons invariably break the law of love, and severely condemn people who do not conform to themselves. As a rule, such persons lose their flesh, for demoniac possession is very wearing on the vital forces and produces a terrible strain on the heart and nervous system.
Granted that even though a certain number of reports about ghosts may be due to inaccurate reporting, self-delusion, or other errors of fact, there still remains an impressive number of cases that cannot be explained by any other means than that of extrasensory perception. In September of 2007, a caretaker felt a cold sport in one of the kitchens, and when others stepped into the room, they felt it, too. Since none of the doors nor windows could be held responsible for the strong cold draft, they knew that its origin was of a psychic nature, as it often is when there are entities present. Moments later, the spirit whispered, “You see me, don’t you? I love everyone…I’ll go, I won’t bother you.” The translucent figure of a boy then floated into the wall.
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/
Evilness is Not Only Human, but Tragic
The charismatic and his society are bonded in crisis through a mutual attempt to break free of anomie and alienation, and a sense of powerlessness. Hope is a decisive element in any attempt to bring about social change in the direction of greater aliveness, awareness, and reason. However, the nature of hope is often misunderstood and confused with attitudes that have nothing to do with hope and in fact are the very opposite. What is it to hope? Is it, as many think, to have desires and wishes? If this were so, those who desire more and better Ultimate Driving Machines, Millhaven Homes, and gadgets would be people of hope. However, they are not; they are people lusty for more consumption and not people of hope. If hope’s object is not a thing but a fuller life, a state of greater aliveness, a liberation from eternal boredom; or, to use a theological term, for salvation; or, a political term, for revolution, is it to hope? Indeed, this kind of expectation could be hope; but if it has the quality of passiveness, and “waiting for”-until the hope becomes, in fact, a cover for resignation, a mere ideology, it is non-hope. Kafka has beautifully described this kind of resigned and passive hope in a story The Trial. A man comes to the door leading into Heaven (the Law) and begs admittance from the doorkeeper. The doorkeeper says he cannot admit the man at the moment. Although the door leading into the Law stands open, the man decides that he better wait until he gets permission to enter. So he sits down and waits for days and years. He repeatedly asks to be allowed in, but is always told that he cannot be allowed to enter yet. #RandolphHarris 1 of 18
During all these long years the man studies the doorkeeper almost incessantly and learns to know even the fleas in his fur collar. Eventually, he is old and near death. For the first time, he asks the question, “How does it come about that in all these years no one has come seeking admittance but me?” The doorkeeper answers, “No one but you could gain admittance through this door, since this door was intended for you. I am now going to shut it.” The old man was too old to understand, and if he had been younger, maybe he would not have understood. The bureaucrats have the last word; if they say no, he cannot enter. If he had had more than this passive, waiting hope, he would have entered and his courage to disregard the bureaucrats would have been the liberating act which would have carried him to the shining palace. Many people are like Kafka’s old man. They hope, but it is not given to them to act upon their heart’s impulse, and as long as the bureaucrats do not give the green light, they wait and wait. (The Spanish word esperar means at the same time waiting and hoping, and quite clearly it refers to that particular kind of passive hope that I am trying to describe here.) This kind of passive hope is closely related to a generalized form of hope, which might be described as hoping for time. Time and the future become the central category of this kind of hope. Nothing is expected to happen in the now but only in the next moment, the next day, the next year, and in another World if it is too absurd to believe that hope can be realized in this World. #RandolphHarris 2 of 18
Behind this belief that hope can be realized in this World is the idolatry of “Future,” “History,” and “Posterity,” which began in the French Revolution with men like Robespierre, who worshipped the future as a goddess: I do nothing; I remain passive, because I am nothing and impotent; but the future, the projection of time, will bring about what I cannot achieve. This worship of the future, which is a different aspect of the worship of “progress” in modern bourgeois thought, is precisely the alienation of hope. Instead of something I do or I become, the idols, future and posterity bring about something without my doing. The Stalinist concept that history decides what is right and wrong and good and evil is a direct continuation of Robespierre’s idolatry of posterity. It is the extreme opposite of the position of Marx, who said, “History is nothing and does nothing. It is man who is and does.” Or, in Theses on Feuerbach, “The materialist doctrine that men are products of circumstances and upbringing, and that, therefore, changed men are products of other circumstances and changed upbringing, forgets that it is men that change circumstances and that the educator himself needs educating. While passive waiting is a disguised form of hopelessness and impotence, there is another form of hopelessness and despair which takes exactly the opposite disguise—the disguise of phrase making and adventurism, of disregard for reality, and of forcing what cannot be forced. This was the attitude of the false Messiahs and of the Putsch leaders, who had contempt for those who did not under all circumstances prefer death to defeat. #RandolphHarris 3 of 18
In these days, the pseudo-radical disguise of hopelessness and nihilism is not rare among some of the most dedicated members of the young generation. They are appealing in their boldness and dedication but they become unconvincing by their lack of realism, sense of strategy, and, in some, by lack of love for life. Such hopelessness shines through Herbert Marcuse’s Eros and Civilization (Boston: Beacon Press, 1955) and One-Dimensional Man (Beacon Press, 1964). All traditional values, like love, tenderness, concern, and responsibility, are supposed to have had meaning only in a pretechnological society. In the new technological society—one without repressed and exploitation—a new man will arrive who will not have to be afraid of anything, including death, who will develop yet-unspecified needs, and who will have a chance to satisfy his “polymorphous sexuality” (I refer the reader to Dr. Freud’s Three Contributions to the Theory of Sex); briefly, the final progress of man is seen in the regression to infantile life, the return to the happiness of the satiated baby. No wonder that Marcuse ends up in hopelessness. “The critical theory of society possesses no concepts which could bridge the gap between the present and its future; holding no promise and showing no success, it remains negative. Thus it wants to remain loyal to those who, without hope, have given and give their life to the Great Refusal” (One-Dimensional Man, p. 257). These quotations show how wrong those are who attack or admire Marcuse as a revolutionary leader; for revolution was never based on hopelessness, nor can it ever be. #RandolphHarris 4 of 18
However, Marcuse is not even concerned with politics; for if one is not concerned with steps between the present and the future, one does not deal with politics, radical or otherwise. Marcuse is essentially an example of an alienated intellectual, who presents his personal despair as a theory of radicalism. Unfortunately, his lack of understandings and, to some extent, knowledge of Dr. Freud builds a bridge over which he travels to synthesize Freudianism, bourgeois materialism and sophisticated Hegelianism into what him and other like-minded “radicals” seems to be the most progression theoretical construct. This is not the place to show in detail that it is a naïve, cerebral daydream, essentially irrational, unrealistic, and lacking love of life. Credo Perspectives constitute an endeavour to alter the prevailing conceptions, not only of the nature of knowledge and work, but also of creative achievements in general, as well as of the human agent who inquires and creates, and of the entire fabric of the culture formed by such activities. In other words, this is an endevour to show that what we do are no more and no less than what we are. It is the endeavour of Credo Perspectives to define the new reality in which the estrangement of man from his work, resulting in the self-estrangement in man’s existence, is overcome. This new reality is born through the reconciliation of what man knows with what a man is. Being itself in all its presuppositions and implications can only be understood through the totality, through wholeness. #RandolphHarris 5 of 18
St. Paul, who, like Isaiah before him, went into the marketplace not to secularize truth but to proclaim it, taught man that the “new creation” could be explained only by conquering the daemonic cleavages, the destructive split, in soul and cosmos. And that fragmentation always destroys a unity, produces a tearing away from the source and thereby creates disunity and isolation. The fruit can never be separated from the tree. The Tree of Life can never be disjoined from the Tree of Knowledge for both have one and the same root. And if man allows himself to fall into isolation, if he seeks to maintain a self-segregated from the totality of which he too has his place—including his own labours—then this act of apostasy bears fruit in the demiurgical presumption of magic, a form of animism in which man seeks an authority of the self, placing himself above the law of the Universe by attempting to separate the inseparable. He thus creates an unreal World after having destroyed or deserted the real. And in this way the method of analysis, of scientific objectivity, which is good and necessary or deserted the real. And in this way the method of analysis, of scientific objectivity, which is good and necessary in its right place, is endowed with a destructive power when it is allowed to usurp a place for which it is not fitted. The naturalist principle that man is the measure of all things has been shattered more than ever in our own age by the question, “What is the measure of man?” Postmodern man is more profoundly perplexed about the nature of man than his ancestors were. He is on the verge of spiritual and moral insanity. #RandolphHarris 6 of 18
And having lost the sense of who and what he is, man fails to grasp the meaning of his fellow man, of his vocation and of the nature and purpose of knowledge for itself. For what is not understood cannot be known. And it is this cognitive faculty which is frequently abrogated by the “scientific” theory of knowledge, a theory that refuses to recognize the existence of comprehensive entities as distinct from their particulars. The central act of knowing is indeed that form of comprehension which is never absent from any process of knowing and is finally its ultimate sanction. Science itself acknowledges as real a host of entities that cannot be described completely in materialistic or mechanistic terms, and it is this transcendence out of the domain of science into a region from which science itself can be appraised that Credo Perspectives hope to define. For the essence of the ebb and flow of experience, of sensations, the richness of the immediacy of directly apprehended knowledge, the metaphysical substance of what assails our being, is the very act itself of sensation and affection and therefore must escape the net of rational analysis, yet is intimately related to every cognitive act. It is this increasing intellectual climate that is calling into birth once more the compelling Socratic questions, “What is the purpose of life, the meaning of work?” “What is man?” Plato himself could give us only an indirect answer: “Man is declared to be that creature who is constantly in search of himself, a creature who at every moment of his existence must examine and scrutinize the conditions of his existence. He is a being in search of meaning.” #RandolphHarris 7 of 18
From this it is evident that there is present in the universe a law applicable to all nature including man and his work. Life itself then is seen to be a creative process elaborating and maintaining order out of the randomness of matter, endlessly generating new and unexpected structures and properties by building up associations that qualitatively transcend their constituent parts. This is not to diminish the importance of “scientific objectivity.” It is, however, to say that the mind possesses a quality that cannot be isolated or known exclusively in the sense of objective knowledge. For it consists in that elusive humanity in us, our self, that knows. It is that inarticulate awareness that includes and comprehends all we know. It consists in the irreducible active voice of man and is recognized only in other things, only when the circle of consciousness closes around its universe of events. We have to recognize the cause of human suffering—greed. Man must be confronted with the choice between remaining chained to the wheel of terrestrial life, or of renouncing greed and thus ending suffering and focusing more on Godly qualities. Man can choose between these two real possibilities: there is no other possibility available to hm. We have examined man’s heart, its inclination for good and evil and should be more on solid ground than we had been in the past. As far as we know at this time, evilness seems to be a specifically human phenomenon. It is the attempt to regress to the pre-human state, and to eliminate that which is specifically human: reason, love, freedom. Yet evilness is not only human, but tragic. #RandolphHarris 8 of 18
Even if man regresses to the most archaic forms of experience, he can never cease being human; hence he can never be satisfied with evilness as a solution. The animal cannot be evil; it acts according to its built-in drives which essentially serve his interest in survival. Evilness is the attempt to transcend the realm of the human to the realm of the inhuman, yet it is profoundly human because man cannot become an animal as little as he can become “God.” Evil is man’s loss of himself in the tragic attempt to escape the burden of his humanity. And the potential of evil is all the greater because man is endowed with an imagination that enables him to imagine all the possibilities for evil and thus to desire and act on them, to feed his evil imagination. (It is interesting to note that the word for the good and evil impulse is jezer, which in biblical Hebrew means “imaginings.”) The idea of good and evil expressed here corresponds essentially to the one expressed by Spinoza. “In what follows, then,” he says, “I shall mean by ‘good’ that which we certainly know to be a means of approaching more nearly to the type of human nature, as Spinoza also calls it]; by ‘bad’ that which we certainly know to be a hinderance to us in approaching the said as completely destroyed by being changed into a man, as by being changed into an insect.” Good consists of transforming our existence into an ever-increasing approximation to our essence, evil into an ever-increasing estrangement between existence and essence. #RandolphHarris 9 of 18
Evil is often present in even the best intended situations. For example, a young girl tells e that she had an attack of heart pounding when shopping. Her heart was not strong, but she did not see why shopping should affect it since she could dance for hours without harm. Nor could she see any psychic reasons for the heart-pounding. She had bought a superbly beautiful blouse for her older sister as a birthday gift, and was delighted to do so. She anticipated with pleasure how much the sister would enjoy and admire the gift. Actually, she had spent her last penny on it. She was short of money because she had straightened out all her debts, or at any rate had made arrangements by which she could pay them off in several months. This she said with distinct self-admiration. The blouse was so beautiful that she would have liked to have it herself. Then, after having apparently dropped the subject, a number of grievances against the sister appeared. She complained bitterly about how the sister interfered with her, how she made nonsensical reproaches. These grievances were intermingled with derogatory remarks which made the sister appear quite inferior to the patient. Even at first sight, this unpremeditated sequence of emotions indicates conflicting feelings toward the sister: a wish to win her love, on the other hand, resentment. #RandolphHarris 10 of 18
When shopping, this conflict was accentuated. The loving side asserted itself in the purchase of the present; the resentment had to be suppressed for the time being and thus clamoured all the louder for its share. The result was the heart pounding. Such clashes of contradictory feelings will not always elicit anxiety. Usually one of the incompatible feelings is repressed, or both join in some compromise solution. Here, as the associations show, no side of the conflict was altogether repressed. Instead, love and resentment, both on a conscious level, were placed on a seesaw. When the one feeling went up, in awareness, the other went down. On closer scrutiny the associations disclosed more details. The theme of self-admiration, blatant in the first series, reappears implicitly in the second. The derogatory remarks about the sister not only express diffuse hostility but serve to make the patient’s own light outshine the sister’s. The tendency to put herself above the sister is evident throughout the associations, in the fact that she continually, even though inadvertently, contrasted her own generosity and sacrificing love with the sister’s bad behaviour. This close connection between self-admiration and rivalry with the sister suggests the possibility that the need to be superior to the sister was an essential factor in the development and maintenance of the self-admiration. This assumption also sheds another light on the conflict that occurred in the store. The impulse to buy the expensive blouse represented not only, as it were, a heroic determination to resolve the conflict but also a wish to establish her own supremacy over the sister, partly by winning her admiration, partly by showing herself the more loving, sacrificing, forgiving. #RandolphHarris 11 of 18
On the other hand, by giving to the sister a more beautiful blouse than she had, she actually placed her in a “superior” position. In order to understand the importance of this point, it should be mentioned that the question of who was better dressed played a significant role in the battle of rivalry; the patient, for instance, had often appropriated the sister’s dresses. Therefore, it is clear, that no observation should be regarded as unimportant. Just as the patient should express without reserve everything that comes to his mind, the analyst should regard every detail as potentially meaningful. He should not discard offhand any remark as irrelevant but should take seriously every single observation, without exception. Furthermore, he should constantly ask himself why this particular feeling or thought of the patient comes up just now. What does it mean in this specific context? A friendly feeling toward the analyst, for instance, may in one context indicate genuine gratitude for help and understanding; in another it may connote the patient’s increased need for affection because in the preceding hour the tackling of a new problem aroused anxiety; in a third it may be the expression of a desire to one the analyst body and soul because a conflict has been uncovered which the patient hopes that “love” will solve. Sometimes people feel it is unfair that their expectations are not met. #RandolphHarris 12 of 18
A failure to examine an association’s exact connections with preceding and succeeding associations, and with preceding experiences, may not only lead to wrong interpretations but also deprive the analyst of an opportunity to learn something about the patient’s reactions to a specific occurrence. Nonetheless, in confrontational situations, beware of tactic of someone wanting to get you on his turf. To further highlight the illustration, your boss comes to your office and asks you to come to his office, he would like to talk to you about something. Some people would get right up and follow their boss without asking a thing. Others might want to know why the conversation could not occur right where they are not. Savy people would ask why they need to take the walk down the long hallway when they could talk it right there. That is because they are aware of the home court advantage. Maybe your boss wants to ask you to do something that is not in your job description. Maybe he wants to ask you questions about a fellow employee he is pretty sure you will not want to give him information on. Whatever his motive is, he is not wanting to risk having the conversation anywhere but, on his turf, the place he feels the most powerful. Before you go to meet anyone in a place you know they feel the most at home in, think about why they want to meet there. You can still go, just be prepared for what they might ask of you and be ready to say no if you feel you should not. #RandolphHarris 13 of 18
In the prolonged relationships of intensive psychotherapy, it must be recognized that the patient has opportunity for repeated expression of “punishable” ideas and feelings which do not lead in therapy to punishment or rejection. The anxiety originally accompanying the thoughts is gradually extinguished or reduced through repeated expression without pain. Then it is possible for the patient to see his betes noires differently, to think differently about them, and to plan imaginatively to react differently to their real-life representations. Eventually, with the support and positive suggestion of the therapist, he is able to experiment with new modes of response to those persons and situations which are anxiety symbols and, eventually, to extend the process of learning (and extinction of inappropriate, anxious responses) to the “real” World outside of his therapist’s office. Although there are differences in interpretation as to the elements of the process, differences in emphasis as to whether it is mostly an extinction of old, inappropriate responses or an acquisition of new more appropriate responses, differences as to whether there are basic generalities or necessary specifics in the content of neurosis, nearly all psychotherapists agrees that psychotherapy is a learning process. In this learning, the therapist serves as guide, tutor, model, and primary source of reward. To the extent that all therapists partake of the role of teacher, self-acknowledged or not, we have yet another common dimension. #RandolphHarris 14 of 18
Considering the range and basic nature of these dimensions and processes which are common to all forms of conversation with therapeutic intent, it is remarkable that so many have found so much to say about such a variety of apparent diversities in theory and practice. However, in our culture it is far more acceptable to present oneself as an expert in some moderately occult and complex professionalized technique than to suggest the more modest (grandiose?) claims of being generally perceptive and intelligent about personal problems. Certainly the average counselor can much sooner be confident that he is technically proficient than he can be assured that he is wise. In view of the extensive variety and possibly sizable therapeutic power of those factors which do appear to be shared by all schools of psychotherapy, it is suggested that we might do well to concentrate our researchers on these potential mechanisms of the psychotherapeutic effect, and to emphasize carefully the methods of optimizing their influence when selecting and training psychotherapists, rather than to pursue almost exclusively the search of differences in therapeutic practice that theoretically should be there and theoretically should make a difference. There are men who come as ambassadors from Heaven, and the writings or arts of men, which come as revelators. However, unless the reaction includes recognition, the contact is fruitless, the meeting useless. #RandolphHarris 15 of 18
The Holy Spirit dwells in and acts through the spirit of man, and not through either nerve center, which have both to be under the control of the spirit. If in any way he is given ground, exempli gratia, if the cerebral nerves cease to act by “letting the mind go blank,” and the vegetative nerves are awakened to act in their “streams of life” though the body, then “claiming the blood” cannot protect us from the enemy. No claiming of the precious blood of Christ will prevent these physical laws acting when the conditions for action are fulfilled. Hence, the strange fact which has perplexed many, that abnormal experiences manifestly contrary to the Spirit of God have taken place while the person was earnestly repeating words about the “blood.” Moreover, the arousing of the “vegetative nerves” to such abnormal activity that “floods of life” have appeared to pour through the whole body—the enemy whispering at the same moment. “This is divine!”—(1) dulls the mind and makes it inert in action, (2) causes a craving in the recipient for more of this “divine” life, (3) leads to the danger of ministration of it to others, and all that follows, as the path is pursued in honest faith and confidence of being “specially advanced” in the life of God. Should any who are reading this discover their own case depicted, let them thank God for knowledge of the truth, and (1) simply reject by an attitude of will all that is not of God; (2) consent to trust God in His Word without any “experiences”; (3) stand on Romans 6.11, with James 4.7, in respect to the Adversary, and on John 16.12 in respect to the Holy Spirit. #RandolphHarris 16 of 18
It is important to invigorate the dry bones of being, finitude, essence, existence, potentiality, actuality, and teleology by interpreting them in terms of courage, power, anxiety, estrangement, fulfilment, and the ambiguities of life. Whether this procedure is a happy wedding of metaphysics to psychology or a betrayal of one or the other is a problem which we leave to the philosophers to decide. However, there is an awareness that pure ontology is too strong a medicine for the modern palate. When one reflects upon man’s existential condition, the mind is positively staggered by the enormity and complexity of the task. Who is competent to venture into “all the areas of culture” in order to formulate man’s basic problems? Yet this is what the method of correlation requires: The analysis of the human situation employes materials made available by man’s creative self-interpretation in all realms of culture. Philosophy contributes, but so do poetry, drama, the novel, therapeutic psychology, and sociology. The theologian organizes these materials in relation to the answer given by the Christian message. They only way such a project could conceivably be executed would be to suppose from the beginning that all these cultural areas are ultimately rooted in ontology. The human situation is structured according to his basic metaphysical concepts. The divine is the true Subject to the human being, and thus from Spirit to life, and the Kingdom of God to history. Each quest thus has its own character and its own personality. This it shapes by the act of dedicating itself to the incorruptible integrity of the higher life. #RandolphHarris 17 of 18
After the Sacramento Fire Department was formed nearly 200 years ago, it was not long before it was realized that they could provide first aid. When you are hurting, call the fire department. They started with this basic first aid, Red Cross first responders, and the like, and then moved into the emergency medical technician field—you know the men and women with the big patches—which elevated the Emergency Medical Services (EMS) platform just a little bit higher. And then came paramedicine. Shortly after their introduction to paramedicine, the fire department began getting called to chemical spills and releases, because, when it came down to it, no one else would respond or take care of them due to the serious nature of these incidents. The hazardous waste team if referred to as the “mop” n’ glow crew.” However, anyone who has been around an incident involving hazardous materials, especially a bad one, knows that the haz-mat technicians are definitely the people you want to rely on when the ethyl-methyl-bad-stuff ends up on the ground or in the air. Please be sure to donate to the Sacramento Fire Department to make sure they have the resources necessary to protect the community. Also, Kevin McCarty is running for Mayor of Sacramento. He is a Democrat for Sacramento—on the City Council and in the State Assembly, he had led on housing and homelessness. Sacramento Firefighters endorse McCarthy for Mayor. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic, for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. #RandolphHarris 18 of 18
Ever since the dawn of humankind, people have believed in ghosts. The fear of the unknown—the certainty that there is something in The Winchester Mystery House, bigger than life, beyond its pale, and more powerful than anything walking the Earth—has persisted for nearly century a half. These fears had their origin from Mrs. Winchester and her staff. To them, there were good and evil forces at work in the mansion and on the estate, both ruled over by supernatural beings, and to some degree capable of being influenced by the attitudes of humans and séances. The fear of death was, of course, one of the strongest emotions, which lead Mrs. Winchester to construct the World’s most beautiful and bizarre mansion over nearly forty years of non-stop construction.
In 1906, Daisy, Mrs. Winchester’s niece told a friend in confidence that the hauntings of The Winchester Mansion were not the usual array of footfalls, presences, and the dog starting at someone unseen. It was around the middle of January, Daisy and Mrs. Winchester were having supper, when Daisy looked up, she saw a man. He was standing by the fireplace wearing a white shirt, dark trousers with suspenders, and glasses with round metal frames. He was tall and sturdy. Then suddenly he was gone. No disappearing act or anything fancy, just vanished. Then the brass candlesticks next flew off the mantelpiece, going towards the back door. Everything flew towards the door. Mrs. Winchester nor Diasy could account for the occurrences; but both agreed in attributing the spiritual demonstration to powers higher than human.
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/
Fearfulness Hath Surprised the Hypocrites!
When a man has the right stuff in him, all he needs is just opportunity, and nothing else. If he possesses a sufficient degree of talent plus the determination to succeed, there is no stage so humble that it cannot be made a jumping-off ground to better things. The welfare principles of the Church are not simply good ideas; they are revealed truths from God—they hare His ways of helping the needy. In the Lord’s plan, our commitment to welfare principles should be at the very root of our faith and devotion to Him. Since the beginning of time, our Heavenly Father has spoken with great clarity on this subject: from the gentle plea, “If thou lovest me…thou wilt remember the poor, and consecrate of thy properties for their support”; the direct command, “Remember in all things the poor and the needy, the sick and the afflicted, for he that doeth not these things, the same is not my disciple”; to the forceful warning, “If any man shall take of the abundance which I have made, and impart not his portion, according to the law of my gospel, unto the poor and the needy, he shall, with the wicked, lift up his eyes in hell, being in torment.” The two great commandments—to love God and our neighbour—are a joining of the temporal and the spiritual. It is important to note that these two commandments are called “great” because every other commandment hangs upon them. In other words, our personal, family, and Church priorities must begin here. All other goals and actions should spring from the fountain of these two great commandments—from our love for God and for our neighbour. #RandolphHarris 1 of 20
We make attempts to preserve the “both-and” of Christ and culture and that is a dualism which holds them together in paradox. The dualist begins with two absolute principles: grace is in God, and sin is in man, and there is no bridging the chasm. This differs from the synthesis in that we see a deeper and more extensive corruption in man and culture, but over this human depravity is cast the cloak of divine forgiveness and reconciliation in Jesus as the Christ. As examples of this motif, we refer to St. Paul, Marcion, and especially Luther. The latter distinguishes but does not divide the Kingdom of God from the kingdom of the World. The dualism is spanned by attributing to Christ the spirit or the how of moral action, but leaving to an autonomous culture the what of the content: From Christ we received knowledge and the freedom to do faithfully and lovingly what culture teaches or requires us to do. Although sinful culture stands under the condemnation of God, the same divine authority commands us to participate in it. Hence the paradox of Christ and culture. The estimate is that this dualistic paradox corresponds to the human experience in which man is forever bumping up against the prevalence of sin, and yet always receiving the gift of grace. This dualist’s position inclines also to a cultural conservatism because it does not contribute to the content of culture, but views social and political institutions as bulwarks against sin rather than as beneficial agencies for good. However, we try to keep in our theonomy a beneficial side, religious substance in culture. #RandolphHarris 2 of 20
The Giver of all life has proclaimed, “All things unto me are spiritual, and not at any time have I given unto you a low which was temporal.” This means to me that, “spiritual life is first of all a life. It is not merely something to be known and studied, it is to be lived.” Unfortunately, there are those who overlook the temporal because they consider it less important. They treasure the spiritual while minimizing the temporal. While it is important to have our thoughts inclined toward Heaven, if our hands are not also inclined toward our fellowman, we miss the essence of our religion. Evil spirits sometimes work in “Christian” gatherings. Suppose “conviction of sin” by deceiving spirits…I untied with a number of brethren and sisters one whole week every month, in prayer to God to pour out more of His Spirit, gifts and power. After having done this for some time with great earnestness, such powerful and wonderful manifestations of God and His Holy Spirit (apparently) took place that we no longer doubted God had heard our prayer, and His Spirit had descended into our midst, and on our gathering. Amongst other things, this spirit, which we thought to be the Holy Spirit, used a fifteen-year-old girl as his instrument, through whom everyone belonging to our fathering, and having any sin or burden of conscience, had it revealed to the gathering. Nobody could remain in the meeting with any burden of conscience without it being revealed to the meeting by this spirit. #RandolphHarris 3 of 20
To further highlight this illustration: a gentleman of esteem and respect from the neighbourhood came to the meeting, and all his sins were exposed in the presence of the gathering by the fifteen-year-old girl. Thereupon he took me into an adjoining room, so broke down, and admitted to me, with tears, that he had committed all these sins which the girl had exposed. He confessed this and all other sins known to him. Then he came again into the meeting, but hardly had he entered when the same voice said to him, “Ha! you have not confessed all yet; you have stolen ten gulden, that you have not confessed.” In consequence, he took me again into the adjoining room and said, “It is true, I have also done this…” This man had never seen this fifteen-year-old girl in his life, neither she him. With such events, was it astonishing that a spirit of holy awe came over all at the meeting, and there was one controlling note which can only be expressed in the words, “Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? Who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings? Fearfulness hath surprised the hypocrites.” There was a most earnest spirit of adoration, and who could doubt when even the strong were broken down, and nobody dared remain in the meeting if they were a hinderance. And yet we had to unmask this spirit which had brought about these things—and which we took to be the Holy Ghost—as a terrible power of darkness. I had such an uneasy feeling of distrust which could not be overcome…As I made this know for the first time to an older brother and friend…he said, “Brother Winchester, if you continue to foster unbelief, you can commit the sin against the Holy Ghost which will never be forgiven.” #RandolphHarris 4 of 20
These were terrible days and hours for me, because I did not know whether we had to do with the Power of God or a disguised spirit of the ultimate negative, and once thing only was clear to me, that I and this meeting should not let ourselves be led by a spirit when we did not have clear light and confirmation whether this power was from above or below. Thereupon I took the leading brethren and sisters to the uppermost room of the house, and made known to them my position and said we must all cry and pray that we may be able to prove whether it was a power of light or darkness. As we came downstairs the voice of this power said, using the fifteen-year-old girl as his instrument, “What is this rebellion in your midst? You will be sorely punished for your unbelief.” I told this voice that it was true we did not know with whom we had dealings. However, if it was an angel of God, or the Spirit of God, we wanted to be in that attitude that we would not sin against Him, but if it was an ultimate negative, we would not be deceived by him. “If you are the power of God, you will be in accord as we handle the Word of God.” “Try the spirits whether thy be of God.” We all knelt down and cried and prayed to God in such earnestness, that He would have mercy upon us, and reveal to us in some manner whom we had dealings with. #RandolphHarris 5 of 20
Then the power had to reveal itself of its own accord. Through the person which he had been using as his instrument he made such abominable and terrible grimaces, and shrieked in such a piercing tone, “Now I am found out, now I am found out…” There are many good people and organizations in the World that are trying to meet the pressing needs of the less affluent and those who have not, everywhere. We are grateful for this, but the Lord’s way of caring for the less affluent is different from the World’s way. The Lord has said, “It must needs be done in mine own way.” He is not only interested in our immediate needs; He is also concerned about our eternal progression. For this reason, the Lord’s way has always included self-reliance and service to our neighbour in addition to caring for the less affluent. This very hour there are many members of the Church who are suffering. They are hungry, stretched financially, and struggling with all manner of physical, emotional, and spiritual distress. They pray with all the energy of their souls for succor, for relief. Brethren, please do not think that this is someone else’s responsibility. It is mine, and it is yours. We are all enlisted. “All” means all—every Aaronic and Melchizedek Priesthood holder, rich and poor, in every nation. In the Lord’s plan, there is something everyone can contribute. The lesson we learn generation after generation is that rich and poor are all under the same scared obligation to help their neighbour. It will take all of us working together to successfully apply the principles of welfare and self-reliance. #RandolphHarris 6 of 20
Not only are teachers more rare, but the most sensitive seekers feel shyly inhibited from approaching them. Statistical studies of psychotherapy consistently report that about two thirds of neurotic patients are improved immediately after treatment, regardless of the type of psychotherapy they have received, and the same improvement rate has been found for patients who have not received any treatment that was deliberately psychotherapeutic. It has been suggested that some sort of “systematic ideology” may be an essential element in successful therapy: Whether the therapist talks in terms of psychoanalysis or Christian Science is from this point of view relatively unimportant as compared with the formal consistency with which the doctrine employed is adhered to, for by virtue of this consistency the patient receives a schema for achieving some sort and degree of personality organization. In essence, psychotherapy is conversation with therapeutic intent. As conversation it entails all of the modes of communication (some facilitant and some deterrent) that are active whenever two persons speak to one another. Language carries the major mediational load and is the primary transmitter of communication in conversation. We have long been aware of the distinction between connotative and denotative language—words have “agreed upon” meaning as specified by the dictionary, but they also have more or less individualistic meanings for each person who uses them. If it were humanly possible for persons to restrict their language to purely denotative words, communication would be easier (simple and more accurate); it is not. #RandolphHarris 7 of 20
While members of a culture may share the same official dictionary, they naturally do not share in identical personal experiences whereby words acquire the personal connotations that individuals unconsciously seek to use in their conversations. Some words make for better communication because they have a scientifically precise definition, or in the nature of things to which they refer there is a limited range of possible connotations; other words tend to contribute a lot of “static” to communication because they do not permit of objective definition but rather represent certain personal meanings of high frequency in a particular group of persons. Th following lists will suggest this aspect of communication problem. More Denotative Words: Inch, minute, black, round, north. More Connotative Words: Good, strong, liberal, pretty, smart. This is only one of the problem areas receiving intensive investigation in the rapidly evolving technical fields known as psycholinguistics and communication theory. Man has long been aware that his oral communications are neither given nor received purely in terms of the words spoken (and their explicit or implicit meanings) but that additional and particular meanings are communicated by the general contextual communication is undoubtedly the facial expression of the conversants. The particular meaning of a word is frequently signaled by a frown or a smile or a grimace. And responses to questions or assertions may be wordlessly communicated by a nod, by a smile, by “silence freighted with meaning.” #RandolphHarris 8 of 20
When communication is emotionally charged, when the topic of conversation is loaded with emotional “meanings” as is frequently the case in psychotherapy, it is imperative that the therapist be skilled in receiving (and sending?) wordless messages or words whose meaning has been silently labeled by the emotional attitude of the sender. In accepting candidates for advanced training in the specialty of psychotherapy, it is generally true that considerable emphasis is given to intellectual ability, with applicants of every superior general intelligence being preferred. There is little in the nature of substantive information or treatment technique to be learned that justifies such emphasis. However, sensitivity to the subtle aspects of the wordless communications in psychotherapy is a most important dimension of therapeutic skill. This skill is not too readily learned but rather reflects native or very early acquired aptitudes that are highly correlated with general intelligence. And a high level of general intelligence is required to meet the scholastic requirements (many of them irrelevant to psychotherapy) that loom large in the formal education of the physician, psychologist, and social worker. This nonlinguistic aspect of oral communication is a difficult area for research but it is part of the total domain of psycholinguistics. Any general theory of communication must and will encompass the conversations of psychotherapy and, as a general theory, the researches generated by it must inevitably show those particulars of the communication process which are common to all such conversations. #RandolphHarris 9 of 20
Thus, the essentials of the communication process are identical regardless of the school of psychotherapy under whose aegis a particular therapeutic conversation is being conducted. The participants do not have access to special communication media beyond those of any other conversation—they are limited to words and sentences, to assertions and questions, to the silent “labels” of smiles and frowns, tics and tears, and to silences. Within the frame of the communality of the communication process which is shared by all approaches to psychotherapy is a particular common factor—the therapist. Regardless of his theoretical allegiance, the therapist is an expert conversationalist whose specialized equipment include: sensitivity to the emotional nuances of the patient’s communication, an ability to listen selectively, facility in encouraging the patient to start and continue conversations, deftness in leading the patient to particular topics, capacity both to tolerate the patient’s silences and to use his own silence in communication. These are basic common skills of all expert psychotherapists, contributing to their capacity to establish and maintain communication. The presence of these skills in high degree is, unfortunately, not necessarily correlated with the achievement of a valid understanding of the patient (a common goal of most schools) nor with achievement of successful treatment (the ultimate goal of all schools). #RandolphHarris 10 of 20
Closely related to the liberation of energies, the lifting of a repression frees the way for action. As long as a striving or feeling is repressed the person is caught in a blind alley. As long as he is entirely unaware of a hostility to others, for example, and knowns only that he feels awkward with people, he is helpless to do anything about his hostility; there is no possibility of understanding the reasons for it or of discovering when it is justified or of diminishing or removing it. However, if the pression is lifted and he feels the hostility as such, then and only then can he take a good look t it and proceed to discover the vulnerable spots in himself which produced it and to which he has been as blind as to the hostility itself. By thus opening up the possibility of eventually changing something about the disturbing factors, the insight is likely to produce considerable relief. Even if immediate change is difficult, there is the vision of a future way out of the distress. This holds true even though the initial reaction may be one of hurt or fright. If you remember or cast study on Clare, well, her insight into the fact that she had excessive wishes and demands for herself provoked a panic in her at first, because it shook the compulsive modesty which was one of the pillars supporting her feeling of security. However, as son as the acute anxiety subsided it gave her relief, for it represented the possibility of a liberation from the shackles that had tied her hand and foot. However, the first reaction to an insight may be one of pain rather than relief. #RandolphHarris 11 of 20
There are two principal kinds of negative responses to an insight. One is to feel it only as a threat; the other is to react in discouragement and hopelessness. Different though they appear, these two responses are essentially merely variations in degree. They are both determined by the fact that the person is not, or not yet, able and willing to give up certain fundamental claims on life. Which claims they are depends of course, on his neurotic trends. It is because of the compulsive nature of these trends that the claims are so rigid and so hard to relinquish. One who is obsessed by a craving for power, for instance, can do without comfort, pleasure, women, friends, everything that usually makes life desirable, but power he must have. As long as he is determined not to relinquish this claim, any questioning of its value can only irritate or frighten him. Such fright reactions are produced not only by insights disproving the feasibility of his particular striving but also by those revealing that its pursuit prevents him from attaining other objectives that are also important to him, or from overcoming painful disabilities and sufferings. Or, to take other examples, one who suffers from his isolation and his awkwardness in contacts with others, but is still basically unwilling to leave his ivory tower, must react with anxiety to any insight showing him that he cannot possibly attain the one objective—less isolation—without abandoning the other—his ivory tower. As long as a person basically refuses to relinquish his compulsive belief that he can master life through the sheer force of his will, any insight indicating the fictitious nature of that belief must arouse anxiety, because it makes him feel as if the ground on which he stands is pulled away from under him. #RandolphHarris 12 of 20
If he wants to become free, the anxiety produced by such insights is the person’s response to a dawning vision that he must eventually change something in his foundations. However, the factors that must be changed are still deeply entrenched, are still vitally important to him as a means of coping with himself and others. He is therefore afraid to change, and the insight produces not relief but panic. And if he feels deep down that such a change, though indispensable for his liberation, is entirely out of the question, he will react with a feeling of hopelessness rather than fright. In his conscious mind this feeling is often overshadowed by a deep anger toward the analyst. When he cannot do anything about them anyhow, he feels that the analyst is being pointlessly cruel in leading him to such insights. If they do not ultimately serve some purpose we affirm, this reaction is understandable because none of us is willing to endure hurts and hardships. A negative reaction to an insight is not necessarily the last word in the matter. Sometimes, in fact, it is of relatively short duration and quickly changes to relief. The factors that determine whether a person’s attitude toward a particular insight can change through further psychoanalytic work require that the change is within the range of possibility. Brainwashing—a scary word. No one wants to believe that they could be brainwashed, but it happens. It happens more than you ever know. Brainwashing is known by other names too—mind abuse, coercive persuasion, and thought control. What happens, is a person or even a group of people use systematic methods to get the victim to bend or conform to things they would not conform to otherwise. Think about members of a cult. #RandolphHarris 13 of 20
That is scary, but even scarier is the fact that advertisers have learned these dark techniques and use them regularly on the unsuspecting public. By controlling the physical and social environment, an attempt is made to destroy loyalties to any unfavourable groups or individuals, to demonstrate to the individual that his attitudes and patterns of thinking are incorrect and must be changes, and to develop loyalty and unquestioning obedience to the ruling party. The term is most appropriately used in reference to a program of political or religious indoctrination or ideological remolding. The techniques of brainwashing typically involve isolation from former associates and sources of information; and exacting regimen requiring absolute obedience and humility; strong social pressures and rewards for cooperation; physical and psychological punishments for non-cooper ranging from social ostracism and criticism, deprivation of food, seep, and social contact, to bondage and torture; and continual reinforcement. Furthermore, currently we do know for sure that our brain processes result from the interactions of different factors: genetics (for small part), experience and thus learning, as well as triggers deriving from internal and external environments. Without the constant relationships with the context, we could not exist. The complete absence of context is “impossible.” Every kind of triggers and stimuli leaves traces in our brain that, if beneficial, may become good incentives or memories somehow comforting us in bad days, but if negative, may represent a sort of “wound” that might lead to a permanent “scar.” #RandolphHarris 14 of 20
In both cases there are new fingerprints in the brain that continuously changes and remodels itself through neuroplasticity, that is one of its most peculiar functions permitting neuronal development, growth, repair and survival. Perhaps, while trying to answer the question of being or not being free, we could say that we are slavers of the dynamic activity of the brain working in the range of milliseconds, the so-called connectome that modifies functions through neuroplasticity, just to simply explain the complexity of these processes. People often persuade people that they need particular foods or products because they are good for them and will help them achieve goals that they want so people start to associate these items with their desires and consumer them. When people ask too many questions, like a series of questions, but are not having a conversation, that is an indication that they are up to something. It is also possible to use fear to control people and get them to do things that they would not do. These methods have been used to get people to commit suicide or jump out of buildings, when they were not actually in any danger. However, because individuals are naïve, or unaware, psychopathological offenders know that it is easy to use fear to manipulate individuals. Some may even use anger to try to control an individual, and make them do something they had not intended to do. A girl pushed her sister down the stairs and she died. However, she blamed in on her young brother and everyone believed that he was guilty. #RandolphHarris 15 of 20
Why did everyone believe the little brother was the guilty party? Well, when he was born, doctors discovered he had an extra Y chromosome (XYY). They told his parents that this was a killer gene because it makes men more aggressive. As a result, his father and mother called him a freak and just knew that he was going to grow up and be a killer. So, when his sister killed the other sister, they knew without a shadow of a doubt that he was guilty. However, he was innocent. Because he was blamed and sent to juvenile hall, when he got out, he fulfilled a self-fulfilling prophecy and because a kill. However, in the process, his sister also became a series killer because she was able to get away with murder at a young age. Had the boy not been stigmatized, and people listened to him, they could have got his sister the help she needed to become a well-rounded adult. Later research indicated that having an extra Y chromosome does not necessarily make someone more aggressive. So because this boy was stigmatized and framed, countless lives were ruined. Sometimes this kind of stigmatization is done intentionally so doctors can create a case study to back up their junk science. Isolation is also another way of brainwashing an individual. Psychopathological offenders like to isolate youth and convince them of certain things that are not true so these individuals grow up disoriented and disturbed, it is a method of control. For instance, if you can isolate someone in a community where everyone they come into contact with is crazy, incompetent, violent, and a criminal, they may believe that is how the World really is. However, there are some good people out there. #RandolphHarris 16 of 20
Awareness of what is good and evil is different from theoretical knowledge of what is called good and evil in most moral systems. To know on the authority of tradition that love, independence, and courage are good and that hate, submission, and cowardice are bad means little, as the knowledge is alienated knowledge learned from authorities, conventional teaching, etcetera, and is believed to be true only because it comes from these sources. Awareness means that the person makes that which he learns his own way, by experiencing it, experimenting with himself, observing others and, eventually, gaining a conviction rather than having an irresponsible “opinion.” However, deciding on the general principles is not enough. Beyond this awareness one needs to be aware of the balance of forces within oneself, and the rationalizations which hide the unconscious forces. Let us take a specific example: A man is greatly attracted by a woman and experiences a strong wish to have pleasures of the flesh with her. He thinks consciously that he has this wish because she is so beautiful, or so understanding, or so in need of being loved, or that he is so sexually starved, or so in need of affection, or so lonely, or…He maybe aware that by having an affair with her he might mess up both their lives; that she is frightened and seeking for protective strength, and hence will not easily let him go. In spite of knowing all this he goes ahead and has an affair with her. Why? Because he is aware of his desire but not of the forces underling it. What could these forces be? The forces are his vanity and narcissism. #RandolphHarris 17 of 20
If he has set his mind on the conquest of this young lady as a proof of his attractiveness and value, he will usually not be aware of this real motive. He will fall for all the rationalizations mentioned above, and many more, and thus act according to this true motive precisely because he cannot see it, and is under the illusion that he is acting according to other more reasonable motives. The next step of awareness is that of the full awareness of the consequences of his act. At the moment of decision his mind is filled with desires and soothing rationalization. If he could clearly see the consequences of his act; if he could see, for instance, a long-protracted, insincere love affair, his getting tried of her because his narcissism can be satisfied only by fresh conquests, yet his continuing to make false promises because he feels guilty and afraid of admitting that he never really loved her, the paralyzing and weakening effect of this conflict on him and on her, etcetera, his decision, however, might be different. However, even awareness of the underlying, real motivations and of the consequences is not enough to increase the inclination for the right decision. Another important awareness is necessary: that of when the real choice is made, and to be aware of what the real possibilities are between which a person can choose. Assume he is aware of all motivations and of all consequences; assume he has “decided” not to go to be with this woman. He then takes her out to a show and before taking her home he suggests, “Let’s have a drink together.” On the face of it this sounds harmless enough. #RandolphHarris 18 of 20
There seems to be nothing wrong in having a drink together; in fact, if the balance of forces were not already so delicate, there would be nothing wrong. If at the moment he could be aware of what “having a drink together” will lead to, he might not ask her. He would see that the atmosphere will be romantic, that the drink will weaken his willpower, that he will not be able to resist the next step of dropping into her apartment for another drink, and that almost certainly he will find himself enjoying pleasures of the flesh with her. With full awareness he would be able to foresee the sequence as being almost unavoidable, and if he could foresee it, he could refrain from “having a drink together.” However, since his desire makes him blind to seeing the necessary sequence, he does not make the right choice when he still would have the possibility of doing so. In other words, the real choice here is made when he invites her to have a drink (or perhaps when he asked her to the show) and not when he starts enjoying pleasures of the flesh with her. At least point of the chain of decision he is no longer free; at an earlier point he might have been free had he been aware that the real decision was to be made right there and then. The argument for the view that man has no freedom to choose the better as against the worse is to some considerable extent based on the fact that one looks usually at the last decision in a chain of events, and not at the first or second ones. Indeed, at the point of final decision the freedom to choose has usually vanished. #RandolphHarris 19 of 20
However, the freedom to choose may still have been there at an earlier point when the person was not yet so deeply caught in his own passions. One might generalize by saying that one of the reasons why most people fail in their lives is precisely because they are not aware of the point when they are still free to act according to reason, and because they are aware of the choice only at the point when it is too late for them to make a decision. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic, for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. The thoughtless person passing a fire engine house and seeing the men and women sitting around or amusing themselves with games or sports sometimes conclude that the firefighter has an easy life, but a little reflection brings the conviction that they are under a watchful, waiting strain. With long hours, deprived of many of the pleasures of family life, the gong may at any moment send them to battle with the flames for days and nights without sleep or as long as human endurance permits. And the gong may also send them to their deaths. The firefight leads a strenuous life and faces death frequently. However, the victories of peace achieved by firefighters are their own best reward, though they should have a full mead of appreciation and support from the public they serve fearlessly, loyally, faithfully. Therefore be sure to open up your hearts to the Sacramento Fire Department and make a donation to ensure that they have support from the community and the resources they need to continue saying lives and property. #RandolphHarris 20 of 20
After Mrs. Winchester died in 1922, construction ceased. Carpenter left their tools and immediately stopped all work. The furniture was moved out of the home and auctioned off. It took six moving trucks, six weeks to empty her house of all the furniture. Although the house was empty, it did not seem to be. A caretaker had been closing the house one evening when he became aware of a sound issuing from somewhere inside of the house that was very much like the sawing of wood. Then other noises began to accompany this sound—among them knocking and hammering and planning. It was as if half a dozen carpenters were in busy employment. The caretaker was of a bold disposition and, wishing to discover more, took off his shoes, and quietly descended the stairs with a flashlight in his hand. The noises of work continued as he came down into the hallway; but then, when he unlatched the door and went into the parlour, all was silent and still. None of the tools had been touched. None of the wood had been moved. Having examined every part of the room, he began to doubt the evidence of his sense in this matter. However, after he was leaving the house, the noises of sawing and hammering began again and continued for approximately half an hour. When they ceased, he went home. He had decided to tell no one about his experience, but, instead, to listen the next day for any unusual sounds. On the following day they began again, just as before. So he confided in the board of trustees, and a few of them agreed to watch with him on the next day. The noises commenced once more but, instead of entering the parlour, many of them rushed horrified out of the house. A few months later, the haunted house was opened as a tourist attraction.
Take pleasure in the antiques, the gardens and experience the homemaking of Victorian times. Enjoy a delicious meal in Sarah’s Café. For further information about tours, including group tours, weddings, school events, birthday party packages, facility rentals, and special events please visit the website: https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
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/
Sustained, Difficult Experiences that Make it Hard to Go On
A man must stay in his own orbit and take his directives from within. If through fear of loneliness, intimidation, or suggestion, he joins the marching groups of time, he will not reach his best. Covert hypnosis might sound like something that just would not work. After all, if they are going to be hypnotized, a person has to be aware of things. The back-and-forth action of an old pocket watch repeated words. You are getting sleepy. Those kinds of things cannot be done without the subject knowing what you are trying to do. Some people claim to be able to contact the unconscious mind of others. Manipulating thoughts of other without the subjects being aware of what they are doing is what covert hypnosis is. Of course, with something this sinister, there are huge controversies surrounding the subject. Who has not ever been sleep deprived? A lack of sleep degrades both short-term and long-term memory. Sleep deprived decision-makers are likely to have access to fewer strategic options, decision criteria and other information in their long-term memory. This knowledge, however, is crucial for making informed strategic decisions. That is why people use sleep deprivation to get others to do what they want. Intense emotions such as fear, anger, and shame can alter individuals’ capacities for decision-making, emotional regulation, and relating to others. It is well established that emotion plays a key role in human social and economic decision making. People evaluate objective features of alternatives such as expected return in a subjective way, and emotions are understood to influence these subjective evaluations. #RandolphHarris 1 of 20
People often play on old fears to get other to do what they want them to do. The history of neuroscientific research on fear has developed extensively over the last 50 years, in particular focusing on the neural structures involved in fear, and how fear can affect decision making processes. The neurocircuitry supporting fear conditioning has been extensively investigated in animal models and humans and highlights the central role of amygdala in fear acquisition, storage, and expression. The amygdala triggers the release of stress hormones epinephrine and cortisol, which increase heart rate, respiration, and blood pressure, helping the body prepare to enact fight or flight. Very often the effects of fear on cognition are beyond our control. It is easier for emotions to invade our thought processes than it is for us to take cognitive control of our emotions because the amygdala is better at driving the prefrontal cortex than vice versa. Although there may be some experiences of fear that agents find tolerable, enjoyable, or even worth seeking (exempli gratia, horror movies, haunted houses, roller coasters), experiences of genuine and sustained fear for the wellbeing of one’s self, one’s loved ones, or fear for the security of one’s environment are all forms of suffering. To be fearful in these senses is to suffer. These physiological components of fear experiences have been shown to alter a variety of everyday cognitive processes. Fear has been shown to alter processes of visual perception, risk perception, and information uptake. Fear has been shown to sometimes radically alter individuals’ practices of decision-making. #RandolphHarris 2 of 20
Perhaps unsurprisingly, experiences of fear sometimes prompt individuals to make more risk-averse decisions, and to be more pessimistic about the likelihood of beneficial events in the future. Fear in some cases alters study subjects’ capacity for making decisions by making them excessively focused on the possibility of catastrophic events. This means that fearful subjects are not able to proceed in decision-making as they ordinarily would, because they are held up by fear of risks or devasting outcomes. As such, fear can certainly have serious effect on belief, and in some cases, can have epistemic costs. In conjunction with the ways fears can augment what agents see, perceive as dangerous, how agents process information, and make decisions, fears can certainly alter individuals’ beliefs in relation to processes of perception, information-processing, and decision-making. If a fearful individual is more likely to visually process only some parts of their environment, or to be able to take in more limited amounts of new information, this can limit what they know about their environment. If a fearful agent is more likely to perceive some object or event as risky than their non-fearful counterpart, their beliefs about that object or event may not accurately reflect the actual risk posed. Fear can have serious implications for what agents believe, and for how accurately those beliefs reflect reality. In some cases, this can amount to epistemic damage. Fear can also disrupt agents’ ways of relating to others: subject can become more suspicious of others, less trusting, and more circumspect. #RandolphHarris 3 of 20
Both fears directly related to one’s relationship (exempli gratia, fears of the person with whom one is in relationship, or fears that something bad may happen to them) and unrelated fears (exempli gratia, fears of some other perceived danger) can stall one’s ability to relate to others: they can distract individuals, make one unable to focus on treating others well, or disrupt one’s capacity for trusting ways of relating. If fear can have these effect, causing suffering, fundamentally altering even one’s most basic capacities for visual perception, risk perception, information uptake, making subjects less sure of themselves and their futures, making it difficult or impossible to relate to others in practiced ways, it seems unsurprising that serious experiences of fear can, in some instances, be disorienting. In addition to the ways fears can disrupt these foundational capacities, they can also make one question who one is, and how one should continue to act in everyday life. Disorientation is sustained, difficult experiences that make it hard to go on. Disorientations regularly follow devasting experiences like the loss of a loved one, serious illness, trauma, o oppression, and they can also follow more neutral or beneficial events like migration, feminist education, queer identification, or consciousness-raising. In all cases, to be disoriented is to feel up in the air, and unsure of oneself, in more or less debilitating ways. Disorientations are not one-time events: they may be triggered by discrete events (exempli gratia, the death of a loved one), but to be disoriented in this sense is a sustained experience. #RandolphHarris 4 of 20
Less metaphorically, to be disoriented is to have difficulty making plans, feeling secure and confident in one’s actions, or being able to go about one’s daily life with ease. Think of the common feelings following the loss of a loved one or diagnosis of a serious illness: who am I now? How can I go one with my life? My home and job may not feel comfortable anymore. I may struggle to feel happy, and be constantly questioning myself and my decisions. Disorientation is used to capture a sense in which major life experiences can make it hard to know how to go on in the sense of becoming unsure of how we should identify ourselves, what we should believe, what projects we should pursue, and what actions we should prioritize. Psychopathological offenders also use panic to get victims to do what they want. An offender may scare a large group of people and keep repeating a fearful trigger word to get others to shout it and warn people, until there is total chaos in what was a peaceful environment. A moral panic is a widespread fear, most often an irrational one, that someone or something is a threat to the values, safety, and interests of a community or society at large. Typically, a moral panic is perpetuated by the news medica, fueled by politicians, and often results in the passage of new laws or politicians that target the source of panic. In this way, moral panic can foster increased social control. #RandolphHarris 5 of 20
Moral panics are often centered around people who are marginalized in society due to their race or ethnicity, class, sexuality, nationality, or religion. As such, a moral panic often draws on known stereotypes and reinforces them. It can also exacerbate the real and perceived differences and divisions between groups of people. Moral panic is well known in sociology of deviance and crime and is related to the labeling theory of deviance. Manipulators also use confusion as a method of control. One hypnotic process that stands out in this context is called, “the confusion technique.” This method can be employed by manipulators to induce a trance-like state by overwhelming the listener with a barrage of information that does not quite connect logically. They talk incessantly, and eventually, you submit and do what they want. Why do some people do this? The goal is to disorient you to the point where you seek any relief. When the instruction finally simplifies, offering a clear action, your brain latches on, grateful for direction instead of confusion. This is the essence of the confusion technique: it leads you through a maze until you are so desperate for a way out that you will latch onto the first clear directive which is often what the manipulator wants you to do. Confusion can be a manipulation that preys on our desire to escape discomfort, offering a solution that aligns with a manipulator’s wishes. Being aware of such techniques is crucial. The confusion technique is often employed without conscious intent; many manipulators are not studying manuals about unethical influence. They have simply learned that their method yield results they want. #RandolphHarris 6 of 20
The freedom to follow the commands of reason is a psychological problem. Let us return to our example of the man who is confronted with the choice of either smoking or not smoking this cigarette or, to put it differently, to the problem of whether he has the freedom to follow his rational intention. We can imagine an individual whom we can predict with near certainty that he will not be able to follow his intention. Assuming he is a man deeply bound to a mothering figure and with an oral-receptive orientation, a man who is always expecting something from other, who has never been able to assert himself, and because of all this is filled with intense and chronic anxiety; smoking, to him, is the satisfaction of his receptive craving, and a defense against his anxiety; the cigarette, to him, symbolizes strength, adultness, activity, and for this reason he cannot do without it. His craving for the cigarette is the result of his anxiety, his receptiveness, etcetera, and is as strong as these motives are. There is a point where they are so strong that the person would not be able to overcome his craving unless some drastic change went to occur in the balance of forces within him. Otherwise we can say that he is, for all practical purposes, not free to choose what he had recognized to be better. On the other hand, we may imagine a man of such maturity, productivity, lack of greed, that he would not be able to act in a way that is contrary to reason and to his true interests. He also would not be “free”; he could not smoke because he would feel on inclination to do so. This is a state of beatitude in which man is not free to sin. #RandolphHarris 7 of 20
Freedom of choice is not a forma abstract capacity which one either “has” or “has not”; it is, rather, a function a person’s character structure. Some people have no freedom to choose the good because their character structure has lost the capacity to act in accordance with the good. Some people have lost the capacity of choosing the evil, precisely because their character structure has lost the craving for evil. In these two extreme cases we may say that both are determined to act as they do because the balance of forces in their character leaves them no choice. In the majority of men, however, we deal with contradictory inclinations which are so balanced that a choice can be made. The act is the result of the respective strength of conflicting inclinations within the person’s character. It must be clear by now that we can use the concept “freedom” in two different senses: In one, freedom is an attitude, an orientation, part of the character structure of the mature, fully developed, productive person: in this sense I can speak of a “free” person as I can speak of a loving, productive, independent person. In fact, a free person in this sense is a loving, productive, independent person; freedom in this sense has no reference to a special choice between two possible actions, but to the character structure of the person involved; and in this sense the person who “is not free to choose evil” is the completely free person. #RandolphHarris 8 of 20
The second meaning of freedom is the one which we have mainly used so far, namely, the capacity to make a choice between opposite alternatives; alternatives which, however, always imply the choice between the rational and the irrational interest in life and its growth versus stagnation and death; when used in this second sense the best and the worst man are not free to choose, while it is precisely the average man with contradictory inclinations, for whom the problem of freedom of choice exist. If we speak of freedom in this second sense the question arises: On what factors does this freedom to choose between contradictory inclination depend? Quite obviously the most important factor lies in the respective strengths of the contradictory inclinations, particularly in the strength of the unconscious aspects of these inclinations. However, if we ask what factor support freedom of choice even if the irrational inclination is stronger, we find that the decisive factor in choosing the better rather than the wore lies in awareness. Awareness of what constitutes good or evil; which actions in the concrete situation is an appropriate means to the desired end; awareness of the forces behind the apparent wish; that means the discovery of unconscious desires; awareness of the real possibilities between which one can choose; awareness of the consequences of the one choice as against the other; awareness of the fact that awareness as such is not effective unless it is accompanied by the will to act, by the readiness to suffer the pain of frustration that necessarily results from an action contrary to one’s passions. #RandolphHarris 9 of 20
Many of the patient’s difficulties in expressing his thoughts and feelings are related to the analyst. Thus the person who is unable to associate freely—whether because it would threaten his defenses or because he has lost too much of his own initiative—is likely to transfer to the analyst his aversion to the process of his chagrin at failure, and react with an unconscious defiant obstruction. That his own development, his happiness, is at stake is practically forgotten. And even if the process does not give rise to hostility toward the analyst, there is the further fact that fears concerning the analyst’s attitude are always present to some degree. Will he understand? Will he condemn? Will he look down upon me or turn against me? Is he really concerned with my own best development, or does he want to mold me into his pattern? If I make personal remarks about him, will he feel hurt? If I do not accept his suggestions, will he lose patience? It is this infinite variety of concerns and obstacles that makes unreserved frankness such an extremely difficult task. As a result, evasive tactics will inevitably occur. Th patient will deliberately omit certain incidents. Certain factors will never occur to him in the analytical hour. Feelings will not be expressed because they are too fleeting. Details will be omitted because he considers them trivial. “Figuring out” will take the place of a free flow of thoughts. He will stick to a long—winded account of daily occurrences. There is almost no end to the ways in which he may consciously or unconsciously try to evade this requirement. #RandolphHarris 10 of 20
A second task confronting the patient in analysis is to face his problems squarely—to gain an insight into them by recognizing factors that were hitherto unconscious. This is not only an intellectual process, however, as the word “recognize” might suggest; as emphasized in analytical literature since Ferenczi and Rank, it is both an intellectual and an emotional experience. If I may use a slang expression, it means gaining information about ourselves which we feel in our “guts.” The insight may be a recognition of an entirely repressed factor, such as the discovery made by a compulsively modest or benevolent person that actually he has a diffuse contempt for people. It may be a recognition that a drive which is at the level of awareness has an extent, intensity, and quality that were never dreamed of: a person may know that he is ambitious, for instance, but never have suspected before that his ambition is an all-devouring passion determining his life and containing the destructive element of wanting a vindictive triumph over others. Or the insight may be a finding that certain seemingly unconnected factors are closely interrelated. A person may have known that he has certain grandiose expectations as to his significance and his achievements in life, and have been aware also that he has a melancholy outlook and a general foreboding that he will succumb to some pending disaster within a brief span, but never have suspected that either attitude represents a problem or that the two have any connection. #RandolphHarris 11 of 20
In this case his insight might reveal to him that his urge to be admired for his unique value is so rigid that he feels a deep indignation as its nonfulfillment and therefore devalues life itself: like an inveterate aristocrat who is faced with the necessity of stooping to a lower standard of living, he would rather stop living than be satisfied with less than he feels entitled to expect. Thus his preoccupation with impending disaster would actually represent an underlying wish to die, partly as a spiteful gesture toward life for not having measured up to his expectations. It is impossible to say in general terms what it means to a patient to obtain an insight into his problems, just as it would be impossible to say what it means to a person to be exposed to sunshine. Sunshine may kill him or save his life, it may be fatiguing or refreshing, its effect depending on its intensity and also on his own condition. Similarly, an insight may be extremely painful or it may bring an immediate relief. There are several reasons why an insight may produce relief. To begin with the least important consideration, it is often a gratifying intellectual experience merely to learn the reasons for some phenomenon not hitherto understood; in any situation in life it is likely to be a relief merely to recognize the truth. If such memories help one to understand precisely what factors influenced one’s development at the start, this consideration applies not only to elucidations of present peculiarities but also to memories of hitherto forgotten childhood experiences. #RandolphHarris 12 of 2019
More important is the fact that an insight may reveal to a person his own true feelings by showing him the speciousness of his former attitude. When he becomes free to express the anger, irritation, contempt, fear, or whatever it was that was hitherto repressed, an active and alive feeling has replaced a paralyzing inhibition and a step is take toward finding himself. The inadvertent laughter that frequently occurs at such discoveries reveals the feeling of liberation. Even if the finding itself is far from agreeable, even if the person recognizes, for instance, that all his life he has merely tried to “get by” or has tried to hurt and dominate other, this may hold true. In addition to producing this increase in self-feeling, in aliveness, in activity, the insight may remove the tensions generated by his former necessity to check his true feelings: by increasing the forces that were needed for repression it may increase the amount of available energies. The extent to which the patient has gained true and lasting insight into his personality, or the degree to which he has learned how to use the natural equipment of his personality in achieving more effective adaptation to future problems or stresses are vital dimensions in the patient’s total response to psychotherapy. Some of these criterion measures are relatively objective, accessible, and easy to record. Others require the development of particular methods of assessment, direct and indirect. Some are of a nature that demand clinical appraisal and subjective judgment; with these it is necessary to avoid so far as possible the usual sources of error in the fallible human observer-evaluator, especially the bias which operate if the expert responsible for an activity is asked to be a judge of its success. #Randolphharris 13 of 20
Through the joint efforts of psychiatrist, psychologists, and social workers there is presently available a sturdy armamentarium of psychometric and sociometric devices that can yield complex measures of the patient’s level of mental health. There is increasing evidence of readiness to use multiple measures in evaluating the effectiveness of treatment. With all of the above evidences of the vitality of the research endeavour in psychotherapy, it is to be hoped that within the next 25 years we shall have a fair answer to our questions: Does psychotherapy work? Does a particular method of therapy work better with certain patients than another method? It is probable that, in addition to perfection of research techniques, the answering of these crucial questions will require establishment of special research clinics in order to assure the participation in the evaluation studies of therapists who represent them major schools and who presumably practice different forms of psychotherapy. In this regard, it is interesting to note that the often-voiced opinion that different approaches may be differentially effective with different problems has no led to a general pattern of staffing clinics or hospitals with therapists representing schools of apparently divergent orientation and practice. The homogeneity of the theoretical “climate” in most treatment centers is probably not so much a function of administrative policy (or oversight) as a “mating” tendency among therapists. To paraphrase the old saw about the birds, “Psychotherapists of persuasion agglutinate.” #RandolphHarris 14 of 20
This tendency toward professional cohabitation of therapists trained in a particular school is probably only a natural response to subtle psychological pressures, and it might be hypothesized that such homogeneous clinics have a higher therapeutic effectiveness on the average than would a group of therapists of diverse persuasion. Obvious differences of conviction interfere with certainty, reduce certainty depress confidence, and impaired confidence is likely to lower competence! Again and again, an “objective” and a “wile” are quite distinct. The wile is a means used by the foe to gain an objective. The evil spirits must use “wiles” to carry out their objective. Their objective is deception, but their “wiles” will be counterfeits. They are liars, but how can they succeed in getting their lies into the mind of a man? They do not need wiles to make themselves liars, but they need the wile to get the lies accepted by the self-actualized. The wiles of the ultimate negative and his emissaries are countless and fitted to the individual self-actualized. If he is to be moved by suffering from any course of action detrimental to their interests, they will play upon his sympathies by the suffering they cause to someone near and dear to him. Of if he shrinks from personal suffering, they will work upon this to make him change his course. To those who are naturally sympathetic, they will use a counterfeit love. Those who can be attracted by intellectual things will be drawn from the spiritual sphere by being driven to excessive study, or be given mental attractions of many kinds. #RandolphHarris 15 of 20
While others—those who are oversensitive and conscientious—may be constantly charged with the blame of apparently continuous failure. They lying spirits lash the person for what they themselves but, but if the believer understands how to refuse all blame from them, he can use their very doings as a weapon against them. For this conflict with the powers of darkness the self-actualized must learn by experience how to take and use the armour for the battle. The objective is clearly not victory over sin—this is assumed—but VICTORY OVER THE ULTIMATE NEGATIVE. The call to stand in armour; to stand in the evil day; to stand against the powers of darkness; to stand after accomplishing the work of overthrowing them—having overcome all—by the strength of God. The armour is provided that the child of God should be able to stand against the wiles of the ultimate negative—clearly showing that the self-actualized can be made able to conquer all the principalities and powers of hell if he fulfills the necessary conditions, and uses the armour provided for him. If it is provided for meeting a real foe, and God evidently demands a real knowledge of it on the part of the self-actualized—to whom the fact of the provision, the real fact of the foe, and the fact of the fight must be as real facts as any other facts declared in the Scriptures, it must be a real armour. The armoured Christians is armoured with truth, righteousness of life, marking and keeping peace. Self-preservation (the root meaning of the word “salvation) and control, faith as a shield, scriptures on hand and often memorized, and praying without ceasing. #RandolphHarris 16 of 20
The non-armoured Christian is much different. One is opened to lies, through ignorance. Unrighteousness through ignorance, divisions and quarrels, reckless unwatchfulness, doubt and unbelief, relying on reason instead of God’s Word. Relaying on work without prayer. The self-actualized who takes up the whole armour of God as a covering and protection against the foe should himself then start walking in victory over the enemy. To do this he must have his spirit indwelt by the Holy Spirit, so that he is strengthened with the might of God to stand unshaken—and to be given continuously a supply of Jesus as the Christ to keep his spirit sweet and pure; have his mind renewed so that he has his understanding filled with the light of truth, displacing the lies of the ultimate negative, and destroying the veil with which the ultimate negative once held it—the mind being clarified so that he intelligently understands what the will of the Lord is; have his body subservient to the Spirit, and obedient to the will of God in life and service. Let a person be brought before your tribunals who is plainly under demonical possession. The wicked spirit, bidden to speak by a follower of Jesus as the Christ, will as readily make the truthful confession that he is a demon as elsewhere he has falsely asserted that he is a god. Or, if you will, let there be produced one of the “god-possessed,” as they are supposed. If they do not confess, IN THEIR FEAR OF LYING TO A CHRISTIAN, that they are demons, then and there pray for their souls, or bodies void of a soul. #RandolphHarris 17 of 20
ALL THE AUTHORITY AND POWER WE HAVE OVER THEM IS FROM OUR NAMING THE NAME OF CHRIST, AND RECALING TO THEIR MEMORY THE WORD WITH WHICH GOD THREATENS THEM AT THE HAND OF JESUS AS THE CHRIST, THEIR JUDGE, AND WHICH THEY EXPECT ONE DAY TO OVERTAKE THEM. FEARING CHRIST IN GOD AND GOD IN CHRIST, THEY BECOME SUBJECT TO THE SERVANTS OF GOD AND CHRIST. SO AT ONE TOUCH AND BRETHING, OVERWHELMED BY THE THOUGHT AND REALIZATION OF THOSE JUDGMENT FIRES, THEY LEAVE AT OUR COMMAND THE BODIES THEY HAVE ENTERED, UNWILLING AND DISTRESSED, AND BEFORE YOUR VERY EYES, PUT TO AN OPEN SHAME. Numberless demoniacs throughout the whole World and in your city, many of our Christian men—exorcising them in the name of Jesus as the Christ who was crucified under Pontius Pilate—have healed and do heal, rendering helpless, and driving the possessing demon out the men, though they could not be cured by all other exorcists, and those who use incantations and drugs. CYPRIAN expressed with confidence that they are evil spirits that inspire the false prophets of the Gentiles, and deliver oracles by always mixing truth with falsehood to prove what they say, he adds: “Nevertheless these evil spirits adjured by the living God IMMEDIATELY OBEY US, SUBMIT TO US, OWN OUR POWER, and are forced to come out of the bodies they possess.” The one under demon-power is an involuntary victim. (The willing soul is known as a medium.) The chief characteristic of demonomania is distinct “other personality” within. (This is different to demon-influence, for in this, men follow their own wills, and retain their own personality.) #RandolphHarris 18 of 20
These demons have a longing for a body to possess, as it seems to give then some relief, and they enter the bodies of animals as well as men. There are distinctly individual peculiarities of the spirits. They converse through organs of speech, and give evidence of personality, desire, fear. They give evidence of knowledge and power not possessed by the subject. In Germany, Pastor Blumhardt gives instances of demons speaking in all the European languages, and in some languages unrecognizable. In France there were some cases having the “gift of tongues,” speaking in German, Latin, Arabic. The demon possession of the body entirely changes the moral character of those they enter, compelling them to act entirely contrary to their normal behaviour. Reserved, reticent men will weep, sing, laugh, talk; meek souls will rage; ordinarily pure-tongued men and women will speak of things not to be named among children of God, and act in manner and conduct contrary to their normal dignity and behaviour—all of which they are not responsible for while under “control” of this other personality within them. In brief, they will exhibit traits of character utterly different from those which belong to them normally. There are also nervous and muscular symptoms peculiar to demon possession in the body. There is also an afflatus of the breast, which is a special mark of demon possession. Oracular utterances are given in jerks and sentences, quite unlike the calm coherent sequence of language seen in the utterances of the apostles at Pentecost. There is “levitation” of the body—well known by spiritists—when the subject will say he is quite unconscious of possessing a body; and there is invariably a passive mind. There is often a distinct voice which speaks through the lips of the subject, expressing thoughts and word unintentionally. #RandolphHarris 19 of 20
How different would be the history of the World without keeping the fire department in mind—a department that has changed or arrested the course of civilization, and the effect of which has been as far-reaching as that of wars. In every day life the human hazard, the risk of losing all of one’s Earthly possessions, is ever present. When you consider that sixty-four percent of all fires in the United States of America occur in dwelling houses, the question of an adequate fire department is brought home. With the growing number of skyscrapers, enormous factories, and a constantly growing use of chemicals in these factories, and other features of modern life that tend to make fire-fighting more difficult, the fireman’s calling has been raised to the dignity of profession. The fire department must know something of electricity and various branches of mechanics to be efficient. They must have training, skill and judgment. All fires are not alike, and the best fire fighters knows at a glance from the colour of the flames the temperature of the blaze, the amount of water pressure and the size of the nozzle to use, for an inadequate stream would only make the fire worse. Furthermore, the prevention of panics in theaters, schools, and other public buildings have become an important function of the fire department. Statistic show that more persons are killed by being trampled and crushed than actually burned. A cool heard and quick wits and special training are required on the part of the fire fighters to take such measures as will reassure and control the people. Let us make sure that the Sacramento Fire Department receives adequate funding by making a donation. Without them, there would not be a United States of America. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. #RandolphHarris 20 of 20
Spectral dogs are familiar throughout the Winchester Estate. They tend to be black, and hairy. They are known as “barhgasts.” Suicides, and hanged men, were reputed to come again in that guise, haunting the place of their death. Unbaptised babies also took that form, in order to pursue their offending parents. Mrs. Winchester’s dog known as “Zip” often appears on the estate as a spectral dog. The Winchester Mansion is apparently his lair, but not his alone. The Devil and his Hell Hounds are said to run, howling, across the estate. On 18 April 1906, many people saw and heard a hunting pack in full cry. The dogs were as black as pitch with large and staring eyes. Throughout the night, fire fighters heard the hunters sounding and blowing their horns. These black dogs have been observed jumping over hedges, and frequenting a certain path. One caretake of the mansion “saw a black dog with a chain dangling from its collar, which passed him absolutely noiselessly, and went through a closed door.”
There is a room in the Winchester Mansion, with the largest cupboard in the house, and something used to pass through the cupboard, cross the room, and walk through the wall. The “thing” was large, dark, and animal-like. There are also accounts of a dog, commonly described as white with blood dripping from its fangs. It is believed to presage death. The ghost that brings news of death is known as a “fetch.” Some dogs in the house are invisible, but their panting can be heard as they walk beside a guest; these are believed to be friendly guardians. Dogs are, in addition, held to be highly sensitive to unusual activity that human beings construe as ghost-like. The natural human body has it senses, the spirit also has its senses. There are busy senses within, examining and judging, approving and condemning, joying and grieving, hoping and fearing, after a fashion of their own, which no bodily sense can imitate. There is a spirit within which we call ourselves, and it is perfectly distinct from the body in which we dwell.
If our spirits, which are generated in or without bodies, are elaborated from immaterial substances into separate existences, constituting individual spirits, these individual spirits must be presumed to be composed of spirit substance or substances, and possessed of different faculties. Our very language implies that human spirit is an organism composed of parts mutually related, which though individually different, are generically the same. It is a well-established doctrine of Scripture, that the body is animated by an intelligent and immortal spirit, that feels and acts by means of its material mechanism, without being itself material. The activity given the name of “Poltergeist” is so well known and so frequently attested that it may seem unnecessary to detail its particular manifestations. However, as if something were trying to announce its presence, the activity generally begins with “knocking” or “rapping” in certain rooms. Then characteristically there follow lounder or more frightened noises such as the thumping on floors and walls or the sounds of scratching. These in turn tend to be followed by noises as of furniture being thrown violently around a room that can increase in frequency and intensity within a matter of days or weeks. In one recent case there was heard the distinct noise of someone “grinding his boot heel in a scattering of grit or gravel.”
Only after the stage of sound has been passed is there evidence of actual movement. Pieces of furniture seem to shift of their own accord. Doors are flung open or violently closed. The drawers of cupboards also open and close of their own volition. Plates are smashed. Light bulbs explode or flicker uncontrollably. This activity can then be followed by the witnessing of objects being thrown into the air, apparently of their own accord. The curious thing is that if these objects strike a human being, they generally inflict no injury. However, if they strike inanimate objects, they can cause damage. What strange disorders of the night can prompt these accounts? Take pleasure in the antiques, the gardens and experience the homemaking of Victorian times. Enjoy a delicious meal in Sarah’s Café. For further information about tours, including group tours, weddings, school events, birthday party packages, facility rentals, and special events please visit the website: https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
Please visit the online giftshop, and purchase a gift for friends and relatives as well as a special memento of The Winchester Mystery House. A variety of souvenirs and gifts are available to purchase. https://shopwinchestermysteryhouse.com/
The Syndrome of Decay
The ballot is stronger than the bullet. Sexual relations between family members who are not spouses, formally known as incest, is illegal across the United States of America because of the harm that it can cause to family relationships. With genetic inbreeding there is a high rate of birth defects. Incest has long been taboo and has been the subjects of myths, legends and literature (for example Oedipus—the tragedy of Sophocles). A large number of sources explain why incest should be banned. The reasons for the band range from psychodynamic traditions to genetic, sociological, religious, and historical needs in relations between kinship systems. Peter Choate and Radha Sharan note a high incidence of pathological genes in offspring. If incest leads to pregnancy and childbirth, the risk of genetic defects in such offspring is higher than that of offspring of unrelated couples—especially if both partners have a recessive gene in incest. The pathology of incestuous fixation depends obviously on the level of regression. In the most benign cases there is hardly any pathology to speak of except, perhaps, a slight overdependence on and fear of women. The deeper the level of regression the more intense are both the dependence and the fear. On the most archaic level, both dependence and fear have reached a degree which conflicts with sane living. There are other elements of pathology which also depend on the depth of regression. The incestuous orientation conflicts, as narcissism does, with reason and objectivity. #RandolphHarris 1 of 18
If I fail to cut the umbilical cord, if I insist on worshipping the idol of certainty and protection, then the idol becomes sacred. It must not be criticized. If “mother” cannot be wrong, how can I judge anyone else objectively if he is in conflict with “mother” or disapproved of by her? This form of impairment of judgement is much less obvious when the object of fixation is not mother but the family, the nation, or the race. Since these fixations are supposed to be virtues, a strong national or religious fixation easily leads to biased and distorted judgments which are taken for truth because they are shared by all others who participate in the same fixation. After the distortion of reason, the second most important pathological trait in incestuous fixation is the lack of experiencing another being as fully human. Only those who share the same blood or soil are felt to be human; the “stranger” is a barbarian. As a consequence I remain also a “stranger” to myself, since I cannot experience humanity beyond that crippled form in which it is shared by the group united by common blood. Incestuous fixation impairs or destroys—in accordance with the degree of regression—the capacity to love. The third pathological symptom of incestuous fixation is conflict with independence and integrity. The person bound to mother and tribe is not free to be himself, to have a conviction of his own, to be committed. He cannot be open to the World, nor can he embrace it; he is always in the prison of the motherly racial-national-religious fixation. #RandolphHarris 2 of 18
Man is only fully born, and thus free to move forward and to become himself, to the degree to which he liberates himself from all forms of incestuous fixation. Incestuous fixation is usually recognized as such, or it is rationalized in such a way as to make it appear reasonable. Somebody strongly bound to his mother may rationalize his incestuous tie in various ways: It is my duty to serve her; or, She did no much for men and I owe her my life; or, She has suffered so much; or She is so wonderful. If the object of fixation is not the individual mother but the nation, the rationalizations is the concept that one owes everything to the nation, or that the nation is so extraordinary and so wonderful. The tendency to remain bound to the mothering person and her equivalents—to blood, family, tribe—is inherent in all men and women. It is constantly in conflict with the opposite tendency—to be born, to progress, to grow. In the case of normal development, the tendency for growth wins. In the case of severe pathology, the regressive tendency for symbiotic union wins, and it results in the person’s more or less total incapacitation. Dr. Freud’s concept of the incestuous strivings to be found in any child is perfectly correct. Yet the significance of this concept transcends Dr. Freud’s own assumption. #RandolphHarris 3 of 18
Incestuous wishes are not primarily a result of sexual desire, but constitute one of the most fundamental in man: the wish to remain tied to where he came from, the fear of being free, and the fear of being destroyed by the very figure toward whom he had made himself helpless, renouncing any independence. In their less severe manifestations, necrophilia, narcissism, and incestuous fixation are quite different from each other, and very often a person may have one of these orientations without sharing in the others. Also, in their non-malignant forms no one of these orientations causes grave incapacitation of reason and love, or creates intense destructiveness. (As an example for this, I would like to mention the person of Franklin D. Roosevelt. He was moderately mother-fixed, moderately narcissistic, and a strongly biophilous person. In contrast, Mr. Hitler was an almost totally necrophilous, narcissistic and incestuous person.) However, the more malignant the three orientations are, the more they converge. First of all there is a close affinity between incestuous fixation and narcissism. Inasmuch as the individual has not yet fully emerged from mother’s womb or mother’s breast, he is not free to relate to others or to love others. He and his mother (as one) are the object of his narcissism. This can be seen most clearly where the personal narcissism has been transformed into group narcissism. There we find very clearly incestuous fixation blended with narcissism. It is this particular blend which explains the power and the irrationality of all national, racial, religious, and political fanaticism. #RandolphHarris 4 of 18
In the most archaic forms of incestuous symbiosis and narcissism they are joined by necrophilia. The craving to return to the womb and to the past is at the same time the craving for death and destruction. If extreme forms of necrophilia, narcissism, and incestuous symbiosis are blended, we can speak of a syndrome which I propose to call the “syndrome of decay.” The person suffering from the syndrome is indeed evil, since he betrays life and growth and is a devotee of death and crippledness. Th best-documented example of a man suffering from the “syndrome of decay” is Mr. Hitler. He was deeply attracted to death and destruction; he was an extremely narcissistic person for whom the only reality was his own wishes and thoughts. Finally, he was an extremely incestuous person. Whatever his relationship to his mother may have been, his incestuousness was mainly expressed in his fanatical devotion to the race, the people who shared the same blood. He was obsessed by the idea of saving the Germanic race by preventing its blood from being poisoned. First of all, as he expressed it in Mein Kampf, to save it from syphilis; second, to save it from being polluted by Jewish people. Narcissism, death, and incest were the fatal blend which made a man like Mr. Hitler one of the enemies of mankind and of life. This triade of traits has been most succinctly described by Richard Hughes in The Fox in the Attic: #RandolphHarris 5 of 18
“After all, how could that monistic “I” of Hitler’s ever without forfeit succumb to the entire act of sex, the whole essence of which is recognition of other “Other”? Without damage I mean to his fixed conviction that he was the universe’s unique sentient centre, the sole authentic incarnate Will it contained or had ever contained? Because this of course was the rationale of his supernal inner ‘Power’: Hitler existed alone. ‘I am, none else beside me.’ The universe contained no other persons than him, only things; and thus for him the whole gamut of the ‘personal’ pronouns lacked wholly its normal emotional content. This left Hitler’s designing and creating motions enormous and without curb: it was only natural for this architect to turn also politician for he saw no real distinction in the new things to be handled: thee ‘men’ were merely him-mimicking ‘things,’ in the same category as other tools and stones. All tools have handles—this sort was fitted with ears. And it is nonsensical to love or hate or pity (or tell the truth to) stones. Hitler’s then was that rare diseased state of the personality, an ego virtually without penumbra: rare and diseased, that is, when abnormally such an ego survives in an otherwise mature adult intelligence clinically sane (for in the new-born doubtless it is a beginning normal enough and even surviving into the young child.) Hitler’s adult “I” had developed thus—into a larger but still undifferentiated structure, as a malignant growth does. The tortured, demented creature tossed on his bed. ‘Rienzi-night,’ that night on the Freinberg over Linz after the opera: that surely had been the climatic night of his boyhood for it was then he had first confirmed that lonely omnipotence within him. #RandolphHarris 6 of 18
“Impelled to go up there in the darkness into that high place he had not been shown there all earthly kingdoms in a moment of time? And facing there the ancient gospel question had not his whole being been one assenting Yea? Had he not struck the everlasting bargain there on the high mountain under the witnessing November stars? Yet now…now, when he had seemed to be Rienzi-like the crest of the wave, the irresistible wave which with mounting force should have carried him to Berlin, that crest had begun to curl: it had curled and broken and toppled on him, thrusting him down, down in the green thundering water, deep. Tossing desperately on his bed, he gasped—he was drowning (what of all things always Hitler most feared). Drowning? Then…that suicidal boyhood moment’s teetering long ago on the Danube bridge at Linz…after all the melancholic boy had leaped that long-ago day, and everything since was dream! Then this noise now was the mighty Danube singing in his dreaming drowning ears. In the green watery light surrounding him a dead face was floating towards him upturned: a dead face with his own slightly-bulging eyes in it unclosed: his dead Mother’s face as he has last seen it with unclosed eyes white on the white pillow. Dead, and white, and vacant even of its love for him. But now that face was multiplied—it was all around him in the water. So his Mother was this water, these waters drowning him! At that he ceased to struggle. He drew up his knees to his chin in the primal attitude and lay there, letting himself down. So Hitler slept at last.” #RandolphHarris 7 of 18
In this short passage all the elements of the “syndrome of decay” have been brought together in the way only a great writer can do. We see Mr. Hitler’s narcissism, his longing to drown—the water being his mother—and his affinity to death, symbolized by his dead mother’s face. The regression to the womb is symbolized in his posture, with his knees drawn up to his chin in the primal attitude. Mr. Hitler is only one outstanding example of the “syndrome of decay.” There are many who thrive on violence, hate, racism, and narcissistic nationalism, and who suffer from this syndrome. They are the leaders of or the “true believers” in violence, war, and destruction. Only the most unbalanced and sick among them will express their true aims explicitly, or even be aware of them consciously. They will tend to rationalize their orientation as love of country, duty, honor, et cetera. However, when the forms of normal civilized life have broken down, as happens in international war or civil war, such people no longer need to repress their deepest desires; they will sing hymns of hate; they will come to life and unfold all their energies at times when they can serve death. Indeed, war and an atmosphere of violence is the situation in which the person with the “syndrome of decay” becomes fully himself. Most likely it is only a minority of the population who are motivated by this syndrome. Yet the very fact that neither they nor those who are not so motivated are aware of the real motivation makes them dangerous carriers of an infectious disease, a hate infection, in times of strife, conflict, cold and hot war. #RandolphHarris 8 of 18
Hence it is important that they be recognized for what they are: men who love death, who are afraid of independence, for whom only the needs of their own group have reality. They would not have to be isolated physically, as is done with lepers; it would be sufficient if persons who are normal were to understand their crippledness and the malignancy of the strivings hidden being their pious rationalizations, in order that normal persons might acquire a certain degree of immunity to their pathological influence. In order to do this it is, of course, necessary to learn one thing: not to take words for reality, and to see through the deceptive rationalizations of those who suffer from a sickness that only man is capable of suffering from: the negation of life before life has vanished. The recognition of neurotic trend, means the recognition of a driving force in the disturbance of the personality, and this knowledge in itself has a certain value for therapy. Formerly the person felt powerless, at the mercy of intangible forces. The recognition of even one of these forces not only means a general gain in insight but also dispels some of the bewildered helplessness. Knowledge of the concrete reason for a disturbance provides a realization that there is a chance to do something about it. This change may be illustrated with a simple example. A farmer wants to grow fruit trees, but his trees do not thrive, though he puts great efforts into their care and tries all the remedies he knows. After some time he becomes discouraged. #RandolphHarris 9 of 18
However, finally he discovers that the trees have a special disease or need a special ingredient in the soil, and there is an immediate change in his outlook on the matter and his mood regarding it, though nothing has changed as yet in the trees themselves. The only difference in the external situation is that there is now a possibility of goal-directed action. Sometimes the mere uncovering of a neurotic trend is sufficient to cure a neurotic upset. A capable executive, for instance, was deeply disturbed because the attitude of his employees, which had always been one of devotion, changed for reasons outside his control. Instead of settling differences in an amicable way, they started to make belligerent and unreasonable demands. Although he was a highly resourceful person in most matter he felt utterly incapable of coping with this new situation, and reached such a measure of resentment and despair that he considered withdrawing from the business. In this instance the mere uncovering of his deep need for devotion of people dependent on him sufficed to remedy the situation. Usually, however, the mere recognition of a neurotic trend does not engender any radical change. In the first place, the willingness to change which is elicited by the discovery of such a trend is equivocal and hence lacks forcefulness, and, in the second place, a willingness to change, even if it amounts to an unambiguous wish, is not yet an ability to change. This ability develops only later. #RandolphHarris 10 of 18
The reason why the initial willingness to overcome a neurotic trend does not usually constitute a reliable force, despite the enthusiasm that often goes with it, is that the trend has also a subjective value which the person does not want to relinquish. When the prospect arises of overcoming a particular compulsive need, those force are mobilized which want to maintain it. In other words, soon after the first liberating effect of the discovery the person is confronted with a conflict: he wants to change and he does not want to chance. This conflict usually remains unconscious because he does not like to admit that he wants to adhere to something which is against reason and self-interest. If for any reason the determination not to change prevails, the liberating effect of the discovery will be only a fleeting relief followed by a deeper discouragement. To return to the analogy of the farmer, if he knows or believes that the required remedy is not available to him, his change in spirit will not last long. Fortunately these negative reactions are not too frequent. More often the willingness and the unwillingness to change tend to compromise. The patient then sticks to his resolution to change, but want to get away with as little as possible. If he uncovers the origin of the trend in childhood, or if her merely makes resolution to change, or he may hope that it will be enough, or he will fall back on the delusion that a mere recognition of the trend will change everything overnight. Earlier attempts to train experts in neuropsychiatry have largely failed. #RandolphHarris 11 of 18
Medical education is still struggling, without notable success, to produce physicians who can understand not only the peculiarities and limitations of the biological apparatus with which man has to effect his adaptations, but who can appreciate the problems of man in making the psychosocial adaptations demanded by modern culture. Neuropsychiatry has been replaced in recent time by the separate specialties of psychiatry and neurology. And within psychiatry there is growing evidence of a “working” schism—on the other hand, there are psychiatrists who treat almost exclusively by the administration of drugs, electroshock, or other physical means, and on the other hand, there are psychiatrist who almost exclusively treat by conversation. In his own nature, man is not a complex of dissociated parts and functions. He is a unity. A proper pill will lift his spirits, so will a proper word. It is probably that an appropriately integrated application of medicine and conversation will accomplish more thorough and lasting therapeutic benefit than will either alone. We do not now understand all that we must in order to be able to prescribe and administer optimally integrated therapy to the emotionally ill, but even if we had such knowledge there are strong forces that would continue to work toward fractioned, one-sided treatment. A very provocative study points up not only the marked dualism in the therapeutic activities of psychiatrists, but also indicates that the selection of physical or psychological treatment is determined less by the nature of the illness than it is by the social class of the patient. #RandolphHarris 12 of 18
Members of the higher social class (defined by education, occupation, and residence) are much more likely to receive psychotherapy than are members of the lower social class who typically receive electroshock therapy or custodial hospitalization. With this comparison we can once again look at the treatment of mental illness in historical perspective. Today we recognize three major forms of treatment: chemotherapy (the tranquilizers, anti-depressants, and other drugs), shock therapies (electroshock, insulin coma therapy, and variants of these), and psychotherapy. The use of drugs in treatment of emotionally disturbed persons has a long history. The current upsurge of interest and enthusiasm with the advent of the ataractic (tranquilizing) medications is responsive to a technology advance in drug chemistry rather than to any basically new idea. The ancient physicians of Greece had their pharmacopoeia; though their medications were selected with less knowledge both of chemistry and physiology, they allowed for the ubiquitous and potent effect of suggestion which is almost inextricably associated with any clinical use of medication. The Greeks were not without enthusiasm for their prescriptions. While electroshock therapy represents a highly refined and nicely controlled administration of a physical agent to produce sudden unconsciousness, the general notion of severe stimulation and violent psychological shock was a stock-in-trade of early physicians, exempli gratia, immersion to the point of drowning, the “surprise bath,” and comparable procedures. #RandolphHarris 13 of 18
The physical and chemical treatments of the early physicians are better recorded than are their prescriptions for psychological counseling, but we do know that the ancients were not totally ignorant of psychogenic factors in hysteria and melancholy and it is likely that therapeutic conversation was effectively engaged in, although the forerunner of our modern psychotherapist may not have been aware that his words were having beneficial impact. If we look to ancillary treatments such as music therapy, recreational therapy, and milieu therapy, we readily find their counterparts in the descriptions of the Aesculapian sanitaria. Objective observation of distinctive avenues of therapeutic approach to the psychiatric patient would suggest that time has brought chiefly refinement and extension rather than basic innovation. Psychotherapy is practiced on a broader scale than ever before in history and with a greatly increased knowledge of psychopathology. When seen in full perspective this historical development constitutes less progress than suggested at first glance. The availability of therapeutic conversion, which many authorities would hold to be the most thorough and effective of psychiatric therapies, is largely restricted by social class membership. It has been true throughout history that the treatment of the emotionally ill person has been determined less by the nature of his illness, less by his need, less by what promised cure than by his ability to pay. Sedation, seclusion, recreation, and extended personal access to the physician for support, reassurance, and exhortation (and possibly insight), have been the prescription for the wealthy. #RandolphHarris 14 of 18
Institutionalization, restraint, and shock therapy have been the prescription for the indigent psychiatric patient. Neither the essential content and nature of psychiatric treatment nor its distribution have really changed markedly over the centuries. With the development of dynamic psychiatry based upon the more fundamental and durable of psychoanalytic insight, with the modern developments in chemotherapy, and with the growing availability of community mental health centers, it is possible for an enlightened public with the help of the pertinent professions to develop now a truly integrated and logistically feasible program for the treatment of mental illness, with treatment optimally prescribed in accord with the needs of the individual rather than dictated by irrelevant economic factors or denied by an artificially limited supply of personnel. Closely bound up with the wrestling of the spirit is the necessity of prayer—not so much the prayer of petition to a Father as the prayer of one joined in spirit with the Son of God, his will fused with His—declaring to the enemy the authority of Christ over all their power. Sometimes the self-actualized has to “wrestle” in order to pray; at other times, to pray in order to wrestle. If he cannot “fight” he must pray, and if he cannot pray, he must fight. To further highlight this illustration, if the self-actualized is conscious of a weight on his spirit, he must get rid of the weight by refusing all the “causes” of the weight—for it I necessary to keep the spirit unburdened to fight, and to retain the power of detection. #RandolphHarris 15 of 18
The delicate spirit-sense becomes dull under “weights” or pressure upon it; hence the enemy’s ceaseless tactics to get “burdens” or pressure on the spirit, unrecognized as from the foe, or else recognized and allowed to remain. The man may feel “bound up” and the cause be in others, for there may be no open spirit or open mind in another disciple to receive from the spirit and mind of the one who feels bound up; there may be no capacity in the other to receive any message of truth; there may be no capacity in the other to receive any message of truth; there may be some thought in the mind of the other which is checking the flow of the spirit. If in the morning the self-actualized finds a “weight” or heaviness on his spirit, and it is not dealt with, he is sure to lose his position of victory through the day. In dealing with weight on the spirit, the moment it is recognized the self-actualized must at once act in spirit, and stand withstand and resist the powers of darkness. Each of these positions requires spirit-action, for these words do not describe a “state” or an “attitude,” nor an act by soul or body. To “stand” is a spirit-action repelling an aggressive move of the enemy; to “withstand” is to make an aggressive move against them; and to “resist” is actively to fight with his spirit, even as a man “resists” with his body another who is physically attacking him. When we consider the Christ of Culture, there is a pro-culture people, those who feel no great tension between church and World, the social laws and the Gospel, the workings of divine grace and human effort, the ethics of salvation and the ethic of social conservation or progress. #RandolphHarris 16 of 18
They interpret the culture through Christ and Christ through culture. They establish this harmony by selecting the best elements of civilization and matching them with the eternally true, rational principles exemplified in Christianity. There are, however, several objections to the Christ-of-culture position. First, it constructs apocryphal gospels by exclusive attention to a single trait of Jesus, such as spiritual knowledge, reason, a sense for the infinite, the moral law, or brotherly love. The result is that loyalty to contemporary culture has so far qualified the loyalty to Christ that he has been abandoned in favour of an idol called by his name. Secondly, the culture Christian dilutes the radical power of sin by explaining it as ignorance, superstition, or stupidity which is dispelled by the pure light of reason refracted through Christ. Finally, cultural Christianity is embarrassed by the doctrine of grace because it seems to demean the natural goodness of human nature. Still, we consider Jesus the Christ and the New Being. We recognize the fact of universal estrangement, and the power of sin to tear the cultural fabric asunder. And, we know that the all-pervading influence of grace grasps the human spirit in an ultimate concern and reveals the religious depths of cultural creations. The cultural Christians operate at the level of morality. They are content with the essential harmony of Christ and the World. They are confident in the power of man’s rational spirit, while we rely upon the grace of the divine Spirit. #RandolphHarris 17 of 18
The “True” and the “Apparent World”—the seductions that emanate from this concept are of three kinds: An unknown World: we are inquisitive adventurers—the known World seems to make us weary (the danger of the concept lies in its insinuating that “this” World is known to us). Another World, where things are different: something in us recalculates; our silent acquiescence, or reticence thereby lose their value—perhaps everything will be fine, we have not hoped in vain. The World where things are different, where we ourselves (who knows?) are different. A true World: this is the most amazing trick and offense that has ever been perpetrated against us; so much has gotten encrusted on the word true that we unwittingly offer it all up as a present to the “true World”—the true World must also be a truthful World, one that does not cheat us, does not make fools of us: believing in it is virtually having to believe (out of decency, as it is among those worthy of confidence). The concept “the unknown World” insinuates that this World is “known” (as tedious); the concept “the other World” insinuates that the World could be otherwise—supersedes necessity and fate (unnecessary to submit, to adapt); the concept “the true World” insinuates that this World is untruthful, deceitful, dishonest, inauthentic, inessential—and, consequently, not a World adapted to our needs (inadvisable to adapt to it; better to resist it). We therefore divest from “this” World in three ways: With our inquisitiveness—as if the most interesting part were elsewhere; with our submission—as if it were not necessary to submit; as if this World were not a necessity of the highest order; with our sympathy and respect—as if this World did not deserve them, were impure, had been dishonest with us. We have revolted three ways—we have made an x into a critique of the “known World.” I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic, for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. The Sacramento Fire Department has courage, integrity, selflessness, and determination. They help humanity progress and prosper by saving lives and property. Please make a donation to these heroes. #RandolphHarris 18 of 18
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To be what we are, and to become what we are capable of becoming, is the only end of life. There is a degree of regression within the incestuous complex. Here, we can distinguish between very benign forms of “mother fixation,” forms which in fact are so benign that they can hardly be called pathological, and malignant forms of incestuous fixation which we call “incestuous symbiosis.” On the benign level we find a form of mother fixation which is rather frequent. Such men need a woman to comfort them, love them, admire them; they want to be mothered, fed, cared for. If they fail to obtain this kind of love, they tend to feel slightly anxious and depressed. When this mother fixation is of slight intensity it will not impair the man’s sexual or affective potency, or his independence and integrity. It may even be surmised that in most men there remains an element of such fixation and the desire to find something of the mother in a woman. If, however, the intensity of this tie is greater, one usually finds certain conflicts and symptoms of a sexual or emotional nature. There is a second level of incestuous fixation which is much more serious and neurotic. (In speaking of distinct level here, we are only choosing a form of description which is convenient for the purpose of a brief presentation; in reality there are not three distinct levels; there is a continuum which stretches from the most harmless to the most malignant forms of incestuous fixation. The levels described here are typical points in this continuum; in a more fully developed discussion of this topic, each level could be divided into at least several “sub-levels.”) #RandolphHarris 1 of 18
On this level of mother fixation, the person has failed to develop his independence. In its less severe forms it is a fixation which makes it necessary always to have a mothering figure at hand, waiting, making few demands, the person on whom one can depend unconditionally. In its more severe manifestations we might find a man, for instance who chooses a wife who is a stern mother-figure; he feels like a prisoner who has no right to do anything which is not in the service of the wife-mother, and he is constantly afraid of her, lest she might be angry. He will probably rebel unconsciously, then feel guilty and submit all the more obediently. The rebellion may manifest itself in sexual infidelity, depressive moods, sudden outbursts of anger, psychosomatic symptoms, or general obstructionism. This man may also suffer from serious doubts in his manliness, or from sexual disturbances such as impotence or homosexuality. Different from this picture in which anxiety and rebellion dominate, is another where mother fixation is mixed with a seductive male-narcissistic attitude. Often such men at an early age felt that mother preferred them to father; that they were admired by mother, while the father was held in contempt. They develop a strong narcissism which makes them feel that they are better than father—or rather, better than any other man. This narcissistic conviction makes it unnecessary for them to do much, or anything, to prove their greatness. Their greatness is built on the tie to mother. #RandolphHarris 2 of 18
Consequently, for such men their whole sense of self-worth is bound up with the relationship to the women who admire them unconditionally and without limits. Their greatest fear is that they may fail to obtain the admiration of a woman they have chosen, since such failure would threaten the basis of their narcissistic self-evaluation. However, while they are afraid of women, this fear is less obvious than in the previous case, because the picture is dominated by their narcissistic-seductive attitude that gives the impression of warm manliness. However, in this, as in any other type of intense mother fixation, it is a crime to feel love, interest, loyalty toward anyone, whether men or women, except the mother figure. One must not even be interested in anybody or anything else, including work, because mother demands exclusive allegiance. Often, if they have even a most harmless interest in anybody, or they develop into the type of “traitor” who cannot be loyal to anybody, because they cannot be disloyal to mother, such men have a guilty conscience. Here are some dreams characteristics of mother fixation. A man dreams that he is alone on the beach. An elderly woman comes and smiles at him. She indicates to him that he may drink her “mother’s milk.” A man dreams that a powerful woman has seized him, hold him over a deep ravine, drops him, and he falls to his death. A woman dreams that she is meeting a man; at that moment a witch appears and the dreamer is deeply frightened. The man takes a gun and kills the witch. She (the dreamer) runs away, being afraid of being discovered, and beckons to the man to follow her. These dreams hardly need explanation. #RandolphHarris 3 of 18
In the first one the main element is the wish to be nursed by mother; in the second, if she falls in love with a man, there is a fear of being demolished by an all-powerful mother (the witch) who will destroy her, and only her mother’s death can liberate her. However, what about fixation to father? Indeed, there is no doubt that such fixation exists both among men and women; in the latter case it sometimes is blended with sexual desires. Yet it seems that fixation to father never reaches the depth of fixation to mother-family-blood-Earth. While of course in some particular case father himself can be a mothering figure, normally his function is different from mother’s. It is he who in the first years of life burses the child and gives it that feeling of being protected which is part of the mother-fixated person’s eternal desire. The infant’s life depends on mother—hence she can give life and take away life. The mother figure is at the same time that of the life-giver and that of the life-destroyer, the loved one and the feared one. (In mythology, for instance, the double role of the Indian goddess Kali, and in dreams the symbolization of mother as a tiger, lion, witch, or child-eating sorceress.) The father’s function, on the other hand, is a different one. He represents manmade law and order, social rules and duties, and he is the one who punishes or rewards. His love is conditional, and can be won by doing what is required. For this reason, the person bound to father can more easily hope to gain his love by doing father’s will; but the euphoric feeling of complete and unconditional love, certainty and protection is rarely present in the experience of the father-bound person. #RandolphHarris 4 of 18
We also rarely fin in the father-centered person the depth of regression which we find in regards to mother fixation. The deepest level of mother fixation is that of “incestuous symbiosis.” What is meant by “symbiosis”? There are various degrees of symbiosis, but they all have in common one element: the symbiotically attached person is part and parcel of the “host” person to whom one is attached. One cannot live without that person, and if the relationships is threatened, he feels extremely anxious and frightened. (In patients close to schizophrenia the separation may lead to a sudden schizophrenic breakdown.) When I say he cannot live without that person, I do not mean that he is necessarily always physically together with the host person; he may see him or her only rarely, or the host person may even be dead (in this case the symbiosis may take the form of what in some cultures is institutionalized as “ancestor worship”); the bond is essentially one of feeling and fantasy. For the symbiotically attached person it is very difficult, if not impossible, to sense a clear delineation between himself and the host person. He feels himself to be one with the other, a part of her, blended with her. The more extreme the form of symbiosis, the less possible is a clear realization of the separateness of the two persons. This lack of separateness explains also why in the more severe cases it would be misleading to speak of a “dependency” of the symbiotically attached person to his host. “Dependency” presupposes the clear distinction between two persons, one of whom is dependent on the other. #RandolphHarris 5 of 18
In the case of symbiotic relationship the symbiotically attached person may sometimes feel superior, sometimes inferior, sometimes equal to the host person—but always they are inseparable. Actually, this symbiotic unity can best be exemplified by mentioning the unity of the mother with the fetus. Fetus and mother are two, and yet they are one. It happens also, and not too rarely, that both persons involved are symbiotically attached, each to the other. In this case one is dealing with a folie a deux, which makes the two unaware of their folie because their shared system constitutes reality for them. In the extremely regressive forms of symbiosis the unconscious desire is actually that of returning to the womb. Often this wish is expressed in symbolic form as the wish (or fear) of being drowned in the ocean, or the fear of being swallowed by the Earth; it is a desire to lose completely one’s individuality, to become one again with nature. It follows that his deep regressive desire conflicts with the will to live. To be in the womb is to be removed from life. The tie to mother, both the wish for her love and the fear of her destructiveness, is much stronger and more elementary the Dr. Freud’s “Oedipus tie,” which he thought was based on sexual desires. There is a problem, however, which lies in the discrepancy between our conscious perception and the unconscious reality. If a man remembers or imagines sexual desires toward his mother, he meets with the difficulty of resistance, yet since the nature of sexual desire is known to him, it is only the object of his desire of which his consciousness does not want to be aware. #RandolphHarris 6 of 18
It is quite different with the symbiotic fixation we are discussing here, the wish of being loved like an infant, losing all one’s independence, being a suckling again, or even being in mother’s womb; all these are desires which are by no means covered by the words “love,” “dependence,” or even “sexual fixation.” All these words are pallid in comparison with the power of the experience behind them. The same holds true of the “fear of mother.” We all know what it means to be afraid of a person. He may acold us, humiliate us, punish us. We have gone through this experience and faced it with more or less courage. However, if we were to be pushed into a cage where a lion expected us, or if we were thrown into a pit filled with snakes, we do not know how we would feel? Can we express the terror which would strike us, seeing ourselves sentenced to trembling impotence? Yet it is precisely this kind of experience which constitutes the “fear” of mother. The words we use here make it very difficult to reach the unconscious experience, and hence people often speak of their dependence, or fear, without really knowing what they are talking about. The language which is adequate to describe the real experience is that of dreams or symbols in mythology and religion. If I dream that I am drowning in the ocean (accompanied by a feeling of mixed dread and bliss) of if I dream that I am trying to escape from a lion that is about to swallow me, then indeed, I dream in a language which corresponds to what I really experience. Our everyday language corresponds, of course, to the experiences which we permit ourselves to be aware of. If we want to penetrate to our inner reality, we must try to forget customary language and think in the forgotten language of symbolism. #RandolphHarris 7 of 18
In regards to our case study on Clare, the fighting spirit involved in this trend appeared quite early in life. Indeed, it preceded the development of other trends. At this period of the analysis early memories occurred to her of opposition, rebellion, belligerent demands, all sorts of mischief. As we know, she lost this fight for her place in the sun because the odds against her were too great. Then, after a series of unhappy experiences, this spirit re-emerged when she was about eleven, in the form of a fierce ambition at school. Now, however, it was loaded with repressed hostility: it had absorbed the piled-up vindictiveness for the unfair deal she had received and for her downtrodden dignity. It had now acquired two of the elements mentioned above: though being on top she would reestablish her sunken self-confidence, and by defeating the others she would avenge her injuries. This grammar-school ambition, with all its compulsive and destructive elements, was nevertheless realistic in comparison with later developments, for it entailed efforts to surpass others through greater actual achievements. During high school she was still successful in being unquestionably the first. However, in college, where she met greater competition, she rather suddenly dropped her ambition altogether, instead of making the greater efforts that the situation would have required if she stilled wanted to be first. There were three main reasons why she could not muster the courage to make these greater efforts. One was that because of her compulsive modesty she had to fight against constant doubts as to her intelligence. #RandolphHarris 8 of 18
Another was the actual impairment in the free use of her intelligence through the repression of her critical faculties. Finally, she could not take the risk of failure because the need to excel the others was too compulsive. The abandonment of her manifest ambition did not, however, dimmish the impulse to triumph over others Clare had to find a compromise solution, and this, in contrast to the frank ambition at school, was devious in character. In substance it was that she would triumph over the others without doing anything to bring about that triumph. She tried to achieve this impossible feat in three ways, all of which were deeply unconscious. One was to register whatever good luck she had in life as a triumph over others. This ranged from a conscious triumph at good weather on an excursion to an unconscious triumph over some “enemy” falling ill or dying. Conversely, she felt bad luck not simply as bad luck but as a disgraceful defeat. This attitude served to enhance her dread of life because it meant a reliance on factors that are beyond control. The second way was to shift the need for triumph to love relationships. To have a husband or lover was a triumph; to be alone was a shameful defeat. And the third way of achieving triumph without effort was the demand that husband or lover, like the masterful man in the fantasy, should make her great without her doing anything, possibly by merely giving her the chance to indulge vicariously in his success. These attitudes created insoluble conflicts in her personal relationships and considerably reinforced the need for a “partner,” since he was to take over these all-important functions. #RandolphHarris 9 of 18
The consequences of this trend were worked through by recognizing the influence they had on her attitude toward life in general, toward work, toward others, and toward herself. The outstanding result of this examination was a diminution of her inhibitions toward work. We then tackled the interrelations of this trend with the two others. There were, on the one hand, irreconcilable conflicts and on the other hand, mutual reinforcements, evidence of how inextricably she was caught in her neurotic structure. Conflicts existed between the compulsion to assume a humble place and to triumph over others, between ambition to excel and parasitic dependency, the two drives necessarily clashing and either arousing anxiety or paralyzing each other. This paralyzing effect proved to be one of the deepest sources of the fatigue as well as of the inhibitions toward work. No less important, however, were the ways in which the trends reinforced one another. To be modest and to put herself into a humble place became all the more necessary as it served also as a cloak for the need for triumph. The partner, as already mentioned, became an all the more vital necessity as he had also to satisfy in a devious way the need for triumph. Moreover, the feelings of humiliation generated by the need to live beneath her emotional and mental capacities and by her dependency on the partner kept evoking new feelings of vindictiveness, and thus perpetuated and reinforced the need for triumph. The analytical work consisted in disrupting step by step the vicious circles operating. The fact that her compulsive modesty had already given way to some measure of self-assertion was of great help because this progress automatically lessened also the need for triumph. #RandolphHarris 10 of 18
Similarly, the partial solution of the dependency problem, having made her stronger and having removed many feelings of humiliation, made the need for triumph less stringent. Thus when Clare finally approached the issue of vindictiveness, which was deeply shocking to her, she could tackle with increased inner strength an already diminished problem. To have tackled it at the beginning would not have been feasible. In the first place we would not have understood it, and in the second place she could not have stood it. The result of this last period was a general liberation of energies. Clare retrieved her lost ambition on a much sounder basis. It was now less compulsive and less destructive; its emphasis shifted from an interest in success to an interest in the subject matter. Her relationships with people, already improved after the second period, now lost the tenseness created by the former mixture of a false humility and a defensive haughtiness. From experience, this report illustrates the typical course of an analysis, or, the ideal course of an analysis. The fact that there were three main divisions in Clare’s analysis is only incidental; there may just as well be two or five. It is characteristic, however, that in each division the analysis passed through three steps: recognition of a neurotic trend; discovery of its causes, manifestations, and consequences; and discovery of its interrelations with other parts of the personality, especially with other neurotic trends. These steps must be taken for each neurotic trend involved. Clare recognized many important implications of her morbid dependency before she recognized the fact of being dependent and the powerful urge driving her into a dependent relationship. #RandolphHarris 11 of 18
With man’s gradual increments of knowledge of the regularities of his World—of lunar cycles, the seasons, the migration of birds, and other periodic phenomena, he was able to develop an awareness of his environment as “natural.” Though his World remained harsh, threatening, and in measure unpredictable, man was slowly able to free himself from fear of the supernatural. As part of this freedom, he came slowly to recognize that his own bodily ills were an expression of natural forces. In this context, mental and emotional disturbances could be seen as eruptions from within the sick person rather than the violent visitations of an evil force. The priest gradually surrendered to the physician. However, for the time, the scourgings and other violences which had evolved in the struggle to cleanse man of “foreign powers” were continued when the naturalistic understanding of disordered behaviour was under way. In the spirit of the new understanding of deranged behaviour as natural phenomena, the same physically violent treatments could be administered in an atmosphere of humane acceptance of the victim and sympathy for him. Again, we see the start of a paradox which has marked much of the history of psychiatry—faulty theory or neglect of theory, coupled with humane motive, permits the efficiency of symptom reduction to justify violence to the individual—from the minimal assault of incarceration to the extreme of brain mutilation. #RandolphHarris 12 of 18
There have been three great stages of enlightenment in the history of man’s struggles with mental illness. The first of these came when derangements of the mind were seen as natural phenomena, not as expressions of supernatural assaults. The second came with the recognition that a humane approach, gentle care coupled with physical hygiene in a calm and sympathetic environment, brought amelioration of symptoms. The third enlightenment, most recent and still only partially realized in consistent and large-scale application, came with the gradual appreciation of the indissoluble bonding of the mental and emotional life of the individual with his physical functioning, and brought the first real understanding of the psychological origins of physiological disorders. The healing touch was replaced with the healing word, physical symptoms were seen to respond to nonphysical treatment, and the potency of thought both to produce and to alleviate distress was revealed. The power of suggestion was appreciated and effectively utilized long before there was any understanding of the psychological laws governing it; even today, as crystallized in the specific phenomena of hypnosis, we are without a generally accepted unifying theory. From knowledge of the power of words to relieve painful physical and mental disorders, there came finally in the discoveries of Dr. Freud a recognition of the potency of ideas and their associated emotions to give rise to malfunction and failure. In our accumulated wisdom, we now recognize that gross pathological disruption or destruction of the brain can produce disorders of behaviour, and that similar disorders can be instigated by stress, frustration, and emotional trauma in the absence of any observable alteration of the gross structure or function of the central nervous system. #RandolphHarris 13 of 18
On the side of therapy, we recognize that a painful, recurrent symptom can be relieved by ingestion of a drug, but may be also with equal effectiveness diminished or removed as a result of conversation with a perceptive counselor. It seems relatively easier to explain those disorders in which we can point to a physical agent as cause, and it seems relatively more efficient to use a physical treatment for a symptom which is responsive to it. Because of these apparent utilities and their associated practical efficiencies, we continue to labour with a dualistic approach to mental illness. We fail to establish and maintain an integrated view of man as a unified organism who functions holistically in adapting to the ocean stimuli in which he is immersed. It is possible to wrestle against the powers of darkness only by the spirit. This is a spiritual warfare, and can only be understood by the spiritual man—that is, a man who lives by and is governed by his spirit. Evil spirits attack, wrestle with, and resist the believer. Therefore he must fight them, wrestle with them, and resist them. This wrestling is not by means of soul or body, but by means of the spirit; for the lesser cannot wrestle with the higher. Body wrestles with body in the physical realm; in the intellectual realm, soul with soul; and in the spiritual, spirit with spirit. #RandolphHarris 14 of 18
However, the powers of darkness attack the three-fold nature of man, and through body or soul seek to reach the spirit of man. If the fight is a mental one, the will should be used in decisive action, quietly and steadily. If it is a spirit fight, all the forces of the spirit should be brought to join the mind. If the spirit is pressed down and unable to resist, however, then there should be a steady mental fight—when the mind, as it were, stretches out its hand to lift up the spirit. The objective of evil spirits is to get the spirit down, and thus render the believer powerless to take aggressive action against them. Or they may seek to push the spirit beyond its due poise and measure, into an effervescence which carries the believer beyond the control of his volition and mind, and hence off guard against the subtle foe—incapable of exercising proper balance of speech, action, thought, and discrimination—so that under cover they may gain some advantage for themselves. And remember, a great victory means a great danger, because when the believer is occupied with it, the ultimate negative is scheming how to rob him of it. The hour of victory therefore calls for soberness of mind, and watching unto prayer—for a little over-elation may mean its loss and a long, sore fight back to full victory. When the spirit triumphs in the wrestling and gains the victory, there breaks out, as it were, a stream from the spirit—an overflow of triumph and resistance against the invisible, but very real, foe. However, sometimes in the conflict the enemy succeeds in blocking the spirit through their attack on body or soul. #RandolphHarris 15 of 18
The spirit needs soul and body for expression; hence the enemy’s attacks to close the spirit up, so as to render the man unable actively to resist. When this takes place, the believer thinks that he is “reserved,” because he feels “shut up.” He has “no voice to refuse.” In audible prayer “the words seem empty”; he “feels no effect,” and they seem mere “mockery.” However, the fact is that the spirit is closing up as a result of the wrestling enemy gripping, holding and binding it. The believer must now insist on expressing himself vocally, until the spirit breaks through into liberty. This is the word of testimony” which Revelation 12.11 mentions as part of the tactic for overcoming the dragon. The wrestling believer stands on the ground of the blood of the Lamb, which includes all that the finished work of Calvary means in victory over conduct disorder and psychopathological offenders; he gives the word of his testimony in affirming his attitude to conduct disorder and psychopathological offenders, and the sure, certain victory thought Christ; and he lives in the Calvary spirit, with his life surrendered to the will of God, even unto death. The lordship of Christ is supreme, and the World must be subjected to it. Consequently, nature is suspect, culture is sinful, and one must be guided by the Spirit those presence is guaranteed only by puritanical moral conduct. The Christ-against-culture people tend to band together in a rigidly exclusive community to shun the World. They are exemplified in history by Tertullian, Sr. Benedict, the Mennonites, and Tolstoy. #RandolphHarris 16 of 18
The movement of withdrawal and renunciation is a necessary element in every Christian life, even though it be followed by an equally necessary movement of responsible engagement in cultural tasks. When this is lacking, Christian faith quickly degenerates into a utilitarian device for the attainment of personal prosperity or public peace. And some imagined idol called by his name takes the place of Jesus as the Christ, the Lord. An immediate awareness of God does not depend upon any one necessary intermediary, from the negative side which protests the demonic exaltation of any being over the ground of being. The Protestant principle in this negative sense stands against culture whenever a cultural form usurps for itself the dignity of ultimacy. Thus, the Cross, the symbol of the Protestant principle, never judges culture as such, but only its demonic distortions. What is truth? Inertia; the hypothesis that produces satisfaction; the least expenditure of mental strength, et cetera. First proposition. The easier mode of thought triumphs over the harder; as dogma; simplex sigillum veri. Dico: the idea that clarity demonstrates something about the truth is perfectly childish. Second proposition. The doctrine of being, of thing, of hard and fast unities, is a hundred times easier than the doctrine of becoming, of development. Third proposition. Logic was intended as facilitation: as a means of expression—not as truth…later it came to function as truth. #RandolphHarris 17 of 18
One cannot think what is not; we are at the other end and say, “Whatever can be thought must surely be a fiction.” There are many kinds of eyes. Even the Sphinx has eyes—and consequently there are many kinds of “truths,” and consequently there is no truth. Feel no great tension between church and World, the social laws and the Gospel, the workings of divine grace and human effort, the ethics of salvation and the ethics of social conservation or progress. We interpret culture through Christ and Christ through culture, and establish this harmony by selecting the best elements of civilization and matching them with the eternally true, rational principles exemplified in Christianity. The conflict in the World is not between man and God, but between nature and the human spirit, and Jesus as the Christ is the spearhead of the struggle to master and nature and incorporate it within culture. The merit of the Christ-of-culture type s that as a perennial movement the acculturation of Christ is both inevitable and profoundly significant in the extension of his reign. It stives to make Christianity all things to all men to gain them for Christ. Consider and see that the Lord is good; happy is the man that takes refuge in Him. 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. Happy is the man unto whom the Lord counts not iniquity, and in whose spirit, there is no guile. Happy is the man that has made the Lord his trust, and had not turned unto the arrogant. Part of being a good Christian is possessing charity. Please help the Sacramento Fire Department save lives by donating to their organization for they are not receiving all of their resources. Any donation could make a difference. #RandolphHarris 18 of 18
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Randolph Harris II International Institute 