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Here We Have Two People “Doing it” to Each Other!
This New Year, I do not have a resolution, but a wish. Problems are a part of morality. However, when solved with wisdom and in accordance with gospel principles, those very problems can be gateways to eternity. As we walk the path of righteousness and turn to the Lord, we will come to know the power of God that is within each one of us. “There is a law, irrevocably decreed in Heaven before the foundations of this World, upon which all blessings are predicated,” reports Doctrine and Covenants 130.20. God has the power to solve any problem, as he is omnipotent and capable of intervening in any situation. He is Lord over every situation you can think of. In Jesus Christ, God has a solution for every problem, trouble, or difficulty you may be facing. There is much we can do to influence and expand the endowment of faith we receive through the Holy Spirit. Therefore, this New Year, it is my wish to build more faith in God. “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen,” reports Hebrews 11.1. Alam adds that the things hoped for and not seen “are true,” reports Alma 32.21. Faith in Jesus Christ is the conviction and assurance of His states as the Only Begotten Son of God, His infinite Atonement, and His literal Resurrection—and all that these fundamental realities entail for us. Faith indeed comes by the Spirit, yet as the Christian Bible Dictionary notes, “Although faith is a gift, it must be cultured and sought after until it grows from a tiny seed to a great tree.” #RandolphHarris 1 of 25
There is much we can do to influence and expand the endowment of faith we receive through the Holy Spirit. The first intimations of faith in Jesus Christ come by hearing the word of God—the gospel of Jesus Christ. When that teaching is given and received by the Holy Ghost, “the Spirit of truth”, the seed of faith in Christ is planted. Paul taught this to the Romans when explaining that all may receive the gift of faith: “Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God,” reports Romans 10.17. In other words, faith comes by hearing the message that is the word, or gospel of Christ. As he describes the ministry of angels, Mormon tells us that it has always been the patten that faith comes by hearing the gospel: “And the office of their [the angels’] ministry is to call men unto repentance, and to fulfill and to do the work of the covenants of the Father, which he hath made unto the children of men, to prepare the way among the children of men, by declaring the word of Christ unto the chosen vessels of the Lord, that they may bear testimony of Him. And by doing so, the Lord God prepareth the way that the residue of men may have faith in Christ, that the Holy Ghost may have place in their hearts, according to the power thereof; and after this manner bringeth to pass the Father, the covenants which he hath made unto the children of men,” reports Moroni 7.31-32. Man must train himself to talk without rancour of those who criticize him, and without bias of those whose ideas or ideals are antithetic to his own. In the face of provocation, he seeks to keep his equanimity. #RandolphHarris 2 of 25
He learns like a second habit to compose himself into detachment before snubs, to respond with gay half-whispered laughter to attacks. It is admitted that someone else may well have been the principal cause of personal hurt or ill from which we suffer, but it is also needful that we honestly examine whether we ought not to take a share of the blame ourselves. For there is in us an instinctive wish to escape from our own responsibility in every painful situation. He should be vigilant against his own violations of ethical standards but indifferent towards other people’s sins where duty does not call upon him to deal with them. Whether belittled by some men or flattered by others, he remains unmoved. Denigration must be examined, to his spiritual profit, to see how much truth there is in it, and adulation to see how much falsity is in it; but in both cases it is more important to keep his equilibrium up to keep his ego down. A sincere aspirant will not only expect criticism, he will demand it. What is the proper way to receive criticism? Accept what is true, reject what is false, but do so unemotionally, without egoism. We shall make the curious discovery that the more men worship their own fallacies of thought and belief, the firmer the conceit that they know the truth. In many circles, the man who exhibits moral superiority irritates and provokes others into accusations of hypocrisy and pretension. #RandolphHarris 3 of 25
By considering his opponents as his friend, his enemies as his helpers, he turns their opposition and enmity into practical service to himself. He should humbly accept and gratefully profit by the constructive criticisms of his more advanced, more experienced fellow disciples. The unblurred clarity of his conscience gives him a secret joy and strength, a silent triumph over detractors. The man who criticizes us does us a favour: we ought to feel obliged to thank him. For if the criticism is unjust, we have to laugh at its absurdity. If true, we ought to be spurred to self-correction. The first provokes a smile, the second confers a benefit. To take a merited rebuke humbly, perhaps even gratefully, is a sign of superior character. Enmity from others stirs him, not to infuriated anger but to a calm perception of its cause. He must try to understand the inner meaning of such happiness. The more he meets with criticism and enmity, the more he must ask himself what truth they contain. And he himself must provide the answer with perfect impartiality. If they contain no truth at all, so much the better. However, if he allows emotion to get the upper hand, especially the emotions of resentment against his critics and bitterness against his opponents, such self-examination cannot be properly done. When he is defamed by others, neither the bitterness of resentment nor the thirst for revenge enter his heart. He keeps his serenity unbroken, his goodness intact, his gentleness ever constant. #RandolphHarris 4 of 25
If it is right to forgive others their sins toward him, it is equally right to forgive his own toward them. However, it is not right to absolve himself and forgets before he has fully learned the lessons and resolutely made a start to apply them. Whoever accepts praise must be prepared to endure blame, unless his acceptance is quite impersonal and disengaged. They and their words will perish into the dust with time, but that source whence he draws his peace “passeth their understanding,” and will endure when time is not. If other persist in uttering negatives to him during conversation, he is entitled to have recourse to a polite inattention. If he is not concerned about his ego, he will not be concerned about critics and what they say about him. Such attacks will arouse no ill-feeling in him. One should not brood over fancied wrongs which he believes have been done to him nor dwell on another’s faults. The law of recompense will deal with the situation. Emotional bitterness is harmful to both persons. On this path, the student must learn to overcome such feelings; they act as obstacles which hinger his advancement. It is not the enmity of others towards him but the apathy inside him which is the more dangerous in the end. Although he should study and observe the errors and weaknesses of other men, he should not do so unduly. Such study must not include gossip about them or disparagement of them. His business is to learn from them, not to censure them, so that he can better know how to deal with himself. #RandolphHarris 5 of 25
For all the studying we have done, all the discoveries we have made in every subject from psychology to physics, we still do not understand the basic nature of relationships. Reduced to fundamentals, there are only two ways to have a relationship with someone: as a master or a manipulator. In his relationship with others, the master is “being with”; the manipulator is “doing to.” To further highlight this illustration, let us imagine you are reading a book. You can sit down, open a book, and just be with the author. You can get his ideas or information, accept some and reject others, enjoy the style or not, depending upon how it strikes you. Or, you can fight it. You can criticize it every step of the way, scoff at the ideas, mentally ridicule the style. You can “do it” to the author as you read. This dichotomy exists in your everyday relationships as well. A lady who works for me once went for a visit to her hometown, a few thousand miles away. During the visit, she stopped in to see some friends on the outskirts of the city. Her brother lived in the same neighbourhood, but the lady did not stop to see him because she did not like his wife, whom she considered to be an obnoxious, nonstop talker. Later, her brother found out that she had been in his neighbourhood, yet did not stop to visit. He confronted her this way: “So, you come all the way across the country, and you will visit your friends, but you will not stop and see your own brother. You own flesh and blood is not as important as some casual friends, huh? What kind of sister are you?” #RandolphHarris 6 of 25
In telling me about the incident, the lady said, “He was really ‘doing it’ to me. He was sticking the knife in and twisting it. He was playing on my guilt, my family obligations. He made me feel like a rat.” “What was your response?” I asked. “I lied to him,” she replied. “I told him that I had planned to visit, but lost track of the time and was late for an important business appointment, so I could not stop in.” Here we have two people “doing it” to each other. Rather than expressing his feelings of hurt and sadness at his sister’s snub, the brother drags out his manipulator’s bag of tricks: guilt, judgment, duty. The sister is equally manipulative. Her message is that her “business” is more important than he is and that he should not expect her to put him ahead of it. Rather than “doing it” to each other, both people could have accomplished more by simply “being with” each other, that is, by sharing their feelings and relating as person to person, not as thing to thing. The brother could have said, “Gee, Sis, when I found out you were in the neighbourhood and did not stop in, that really hurt. I really wanted to see you and it saddens me to learn that you do not want to see me.” In response, the sister could have said, “I did want to stop and see you. I really miss you. But to be honest, I cannot stand that wife of yours. Maybe we can meet and talk when she is not around.” #RandolphHarris 7 of 25
In this case, the sister’s response might still hurt her brother’s feelings. However, it is an honest response and it leads to some furthering, some deepening of the relationship. In the long run, it will be easier for him to deal with “I cannot stand your wife,” then, “My business is more important than you are.” To deepen and enrich a relationship, people have to be willing to hurt each other’s feelings sometimes. This is not cruel, any more than it would be cruel for a doctor to briefly intensify the patient’s pain so as to set a broken bone correctly. In relationships, pain is part of growth. Through manipulation can avoid some immediate pain, eventually the manipulation will cause more pain than the truth ever could. Everything is open. Along with this, there is openness to anything else that comes along which might lead in the same direction to what they both want. What they want is known to them in a clear although unspecified way: I cannot communicate it to someone else. I have to invent something with my intellect (in order to be understood) which cannot possible be what will happen of itself because that is always beyond my knowing or my imagination. It is the same with a business when it is gone about in the creative way, for the creative is not what is done but how it is done—just as it is in living. To “live with life” one must live in the creative way. All other “ways of life” are really the same way, although they may seem very different. That is true of the creative way, too. This is what makes it so easy for people to stumble, to become confused. The same words refer to such different modes of experiencing, according to the how in a person. It is the how in a person that one must notice. Therefore, be creative and honest when communicating your feelings, instead of lying. #RandolphHarris 8 of 25
One’s inner direction at this time become very clear. A man must get together with himself. Then, although his course may seem erratic and incomprehensible to others, it is in fact a steady one in him. Without this centering first, the “same” kind of wandering (as seen by others) is not the same. The impetus does not come from the same place. When I have the openness which accompanies the inner direction, the bumps or obstacles which may appear along the way are not something to be shoved aside of overridden—or permitted to block me—but are something to be guided by. When my approach is that of a river finding its course, I arrive at my sea, or destination. It arose out of my life, my own experience, and was most agreeable to others too, though that was not why I decided to be honest. It is best to be honest to avoid regret. Honesty has always been rich, full and free, and very responsible in my life. When a person thinks of excuses or tell lies, one becomes muddled, and wonders why living, which had been easy, has become so difficult and wearing and he will have the feeling of being stuck or stopped or bound—or grinding on. Freedom should not be defined only as the repertoire of adaptive responses available to a person in a giving situation, but also a feeling. The implication of this view of freedom—seeing it as a feeling in the sense of that anger, pleasures of the flesh, or guilt are feelings—is that one can study how persons cope with it. Thus, the feeling of freedom can be repressed, projected, and have reaction formations constructed against it, and it can be responsibly acknowledged. #RandolphHarris 9 of 25
“In what situations, with what other persons, does a given individual feel free?” This question can be used as a guide for students to survey their own life situations. The opposite of the feeling of freedom is the feeling of compulsion, or the feeling of being driven. Maximization of the feeling of freedom is a desirable quality for healthy personality. However, little direct study has yet been made of the conditions upon which the feeling of freedom is dependent. Tentatively, we may propose that person feel most free when they perceive their environment as safe; when they perceive other people as accepting, trustworthy, and loving; and when they perceive themselves as competent and fundamentally good. This latter point is made because it seems likely that persons who regard themselves as good do not have to watch their own behaviour carefully in order to make certain that no evil or dangerous behaviour will emerge. Instead, they can permit themselves to be spontaneous. Spontaneity in expression and behaviour is one of the forms in which the feeling of freedom manifests itself. Many times, when people deal with their spouses, words seem to get in their way. When they talk of giving themselves to get something back from their partners, it sounds like backscratching: “If you will do this for me, I will that for you.” It sounds conditional. However, it is not meant that many. Most couples give unconditionally. Their giving is their pleasure. They are not giving because they expect their spouse to give something back; they are giving because they get pleasure from it. #RandolphHarris 10 of 25
Still, the issue involved—and I think it is important to chew on it until we understand each other-is that while the entire mode of sharing in a relationship certainly is one of giving, the fact remains that as you are giving, you are also getting. Because it a man was not getting, he would eventually stop giving. He will have lost the incentive of his own pleasure. It may also help to look back to the not-so-distant past. As part of our repressive Victorian heritage. People in America paid more attention to Queen Victoria than her own people did. Women are brought up to be passive. They are expected to serve the man. You know: “I want nothing for myself—just to please you.” Any vestige of that philosophy has to be resisted, because it keeps a woman from experiencing her own potential for pleasure and from discovering her own wants and needs. And it minimizes the man’s pleasure. A nonresponsive woman is a nonstimulating partner. There should be authentic, abiding satisfaction that makes people feel like complete human beings. If it fails to fulfill one in some fundamental way, most do not experience pleasure in anything one does. Therefore, what important considerations precede pleasure? What personal values have to be satisfied before pleasures of the flesh can be experienced as a natural pleasure. Do not ever forget that above everything else, pleasures of the flesh is a natural function between two married adults, as natural as breathing, as universal as eating. And whenever we engage in any natural function in a satisfying way, we experience pleasure. This is no less true of the functions of pleasures of the flesh, and we have a sound basis for believing that pleasure should be a natural and desirable consequence. #RandolphHarris 11 of 25
However, no physical function is purely physical. They are all subject, more or less, to outside influence. They are all subject to cortical control. That is, the cerebral cortex, which most people refer to as the brain, influences behaviour involving pleasures of the flesh just as it does almost all other physical functions. Take breaking, for example. If you walked out of this hotel and came close to be hit by a cab, what would happen? You would start breathing fast. Yet you were not running or exerting yourself. Fear alone made you hyperventilate. Emotions, you see, obviously influence natural functions, and this is particularly true of pleasures of the flesh. When you engage in pleasures of the flesh, you are doing what comes naturally, and pleasure too should come naturally. When it does, there are no further questions to be asked. When it does not, then questions are in order. It is when we fail to achieve pleasure that it becomes important to understand our fundamental needs and desires. They grow out of ideas and perceptions that have the power to stimulate us erotically. They turn us on. If it occurs at the right time, in the right place, and with the right person, a touch may be the most erotic experience. For another it may be a specific form of an intimate passion; for another, a word; for still another, giving comfort or being comforted. #RandolphHarris 12 of 25
Because such things can spontaneously generate erotic feelings, we value them. They make up what is called the pleasures of the flesh value system. Each of us has a unique value system involving pleasures of the flesh that helps us distinguish what matters a great deal from what does not matter much at all. And what really matters are all the idea and perceptions that make pleasures of the flesh work effectively for us as individuals. They free us to enjoy it. Some elements of our value system involving pleasures of the flesh may be intensely private, but others are shared by many people. One of the most universal values, no doubt, is the idea of conception. There probably is not a single one of you young women who has not has the thought at one point in your life that pleasures of the flesh are for the purpose of reproduction. You may have rejected the thought or accepted it without question. However, in any case, you probably recognize the feeling of having intimate passions simulated that comes from the idea of giving a child to a man or receiving one from him as a result of pleasures of the flesh. Today, however, many people no longer consider producing a baby each year to be the only way for a woman to define herself. Married or not, women want to live full lives, to be individuals. For those who are wives and mothers it is not enough simply to be wife or mother. What counts is the kind of wife or mother a woman is, the quality of their relationship with husband or child. #RandolphHarris 13 of 25
A woman’s sense of purpose in life no longer comes primarily from her matrimony or maternity. It comes from how she relates to the people who are important to her. The way women express themselves with intimate passions—their most personal way of relating to another person—reflects how she values herself, how she values the other person, how that person values her. It reflects all the things that mean warmth, love, affection and security to her—and which she therefore seeks and cherishes. It reflects, in a real way, some of the purposes and meaning of life. Expressions of pleasures of the flesh that ignore these values give women no sense of purpose in what they are doing. And this often leads to a loss of interest in pleasures of the flesh or functional disability. After all, any meaningless act takes away some of the meaning of life itself, and meaningless pleasures of the flesh is no exception. Pleasures of the flesh do not exist in a vacuum. It flows from the mutual fulfillment of wants and needs by a man and woman who are married and physically and emotionally committed to each other. Pleasures of the flesh for them confirms their deepest values. The existence of pleasure testifies to the quality of their relationship. This does not mean that pleasures of the flesh are the be-all and end-all of marriage or living. We do not believe that. We simply think it plays a vital part and perhaps a crucial one for both men and women. After all, coital activity can be the ultimate communication between a man and a woman. #RandolphHarris 14 of 25
If you are successfully using expressions of pleasures of the flesh as a means of mutual enchantment, if you have a reasonably effective marital bed, then in addition to the physical release and the physical pleasure each of you affords the other, you both have, in effect a secure home base. You have a place where you can safely “cuss and discuss” those issues that are of major importance at the time. If you do not have the security of reasonably effective functioning of pleasures of the flesh, you rarely have this kind of emotional security. A marriage can survive without it, but usually, though not always, the marriage proves to be a relatively poor one. Without the ability to communication pleasures of the flesh, the marital relationship has a wide gap in it, and most often this gap contributes to the breakdown of other kinds of communication. It is that simple. A great number of people have an animal or sometimes a vegetable which recurs again and again in their dreams. This is their totem. Thus, there are bird woman, spider women, snake-, cat-, and horse woman, rose- and herb- and cabbage-women, and many others, too. Among men, dogs, horses, tigers, large constrictor snakes, and trees are favourites. The totem appears in many forms. Sometimes it is fearsome, as spiders and snakes almost always are, and sometimes it is benevolent, as cats and cabbages usually are. If a cat-woman has an abortion or miscarriage, it is quite likely that dead kittens will appear in her dreams. #RandolphHarris 15 of 25
In real life, the patient reacts to the totem animal very much as he does in dreaming. Negative totems are often connected with allergic reactions, and positive ones are highly favoured as pets, although they may cause allergies, too. Some people envy their totems and try to be them. Many women would like to be cats, and say so frequently. Woman’s leg-and-arm movements are usually highly stylized in social situations, but their totem animals can often be surmised by watching movements of the head. They may imitate cats, birds, or snakes, which can be easily verified by watching cats, birds, or snakes. Men are freer with their limbs and bodies, and some stamp their feet like horses or throw out their arms like constrictors. This is not mere fancy on the part of the observer, since it can be confirmed by listening carefully to their metaphours and by hearing their dreams. Totemism is usually given up by the age of sixteen. If it persists into later adolescence in the form of dreams, phobias, imitations, or hobbies, it should certainly be taken into account. If it is not that obvious, positive totemism is easily elicited by asking: “Which is your favourite animal?” or “Which animal would you like to be?” and negative totemism by: “Which animal are you most scared of?” When talking or even merely thinking of other persons who show some fault, weakness or sin, people are too apt automatically to judge them. This is an unnecessary and uncharitable habit. Judging people is unnecessary, because it is neither a duty nor a benefit to anyone; uncharitable because the judgement is based on incomplete evidence. It is better to mind one’s own business, to become detached from others, to practise tolerance and to displace such judgements at once by criticizing oneself instead. #RandolphHarris 16 of 25
On every biological womb-planet the Genetic Highway climbs from East to West in the temperate zones. These are easily located in terms of spherical geometry where the 30th to the 45th degrees latitude—North and South—locate the runways along which gene pools accelerate to Escape Velocity. North-South is an astro-neurological constant based on magnetic charge. East-West is thus an astro-neurological constant based on spin. On every womb-planet in the galaxy rotational orientation relative to the home star determines the direction of migrating intelligence. North-South is charge. East-West is spin. Imagine that you stand fifty miles—250,000 feet—high. Face West and sense the Earth-spin moving you backwards. You soul have to keep striding forward one thousand miles an hour to keep the sun at the same angle. This would be an easy stroll—one hundred paces an hour would do it. Next, face East and feel that you are falling downward, pushed by spin-momentum. You are falling towards the sun, which will rise in front of you, below you. You are moving downward at one thousand miles an hour. Primitive organisms face the sun, to ride passively towards the sun. More advanced organisms develop the mobility necessary to chase the sun, to move against the rotational tide. The navigational rule is simple. When you greet the sun, after the night, you are facing the East. You are facing Asia. The word Asia comes from the Greek-Latin, “region of the rising sun.” The name Europe comes from the Greek and Sematic, “land of the setting sun.” #RandolphHarris 17 of 25
When you face East, you are peering down into the past. Our gene pools came from the East. When you see the sun disappear over the horizon, you are looking into the future. This basic attitudinal orientation on womb-planets is based upon spin-momentum. Spin is a fundamental defining characteristic of energy-mater. When you move East, you are being carried down the spin-axis. You are riding the globe, moving with the rotational inertia. When you move West, you climb up against the rotation. Spin is one of the fundamental defining characteristics of energy-matter. At the level of elementary particles, the properties of matter are remarkably few. A particle can have mass or energy, and it can have momentum, including the intrinsic angular momentum called spin. Spin is a fundamental personality characteristic of all energy structures, not only elementary particles. It is the wheeling of galaxies. The movements of humans living on a spinning globe. Spinning is the orientation of all living organisms to the rotational momentum of the womb-planets or designed plan-its. The Hermetic Doctrine holds that, what is so above is so below. Recapitulation theory holds that the same sequences re-evolve at all levels of energy. Neurologic thus leads us to expect spin to be a basic dimension of biological structure. Spin-caste is as fundamental a determinant of human behaviour as sexual caste. Spin is as basic to life as pleasures of the flesh. To understand terrestrial humans, it is as necessary to understand their spin-castes as it is to identify their sexual castes. #RandolphHarris 18 of 25
There is fore-spin—brains geared to move went into the future. There is backspin—brains wired to face the past. Spin-cast is determined by how far West you and your gene pool have migrated—and at what speed. Fore-spin is moving West, facing the momentum. Pushing up against the rotation to develop mobility and attain altitude. It is moving into the future, ascending into the empty ecological niches. The empty New American Continents—lobes—were discovered and filled from Europe, and not from Asia. The wisdom of the East sailed across the Pacific. California was explored and settled from Europe. Venice was not discovered by wandering Chinese. Asians did not colonize Europe. Where were the Chinese Drakes and Vasco da Gamas? Throughout history, even today, when Asians come West, they use western modes of transportation. How come? Easter countries compress into xenophobic centralized anthills, discouraging migration. It is because of backspin. Backspin is sitting, immobile, with your back to momentum. Oriental-orientation is passively riding the down-wave. Occidental-orientation is actively pushing against rotation, continually being tested, shaped, formed by the airflow, your antennae continually probing forward for the next pathway opening up. Only from an Einsteinian, relativistic post-terrestrial attitude can one realize that East-West means down-up. Liberation from Newtonian geography and recognition of ego-relativity are necessary stages of evolution. How do you determine down-up on a spinning sphere? Again, the spin is up. #RandolphHarris 19 of 25
There is freedom for man without God, as Nietzsche imagined him; in other words, for the solitary man. There is freedom at midday when the wheel of the World stops spinning and man consents to things as they are. However, what is becomes what will be, and the ceaseless change of things must be accepted. The light finally grows dim, the axis of the day declines. Then history begins again and freedom must be sought in history; history must be accepted. Nietzscheism—the theory of the individual’s will to power—was condemned to support the universal will to power. Nietzscheism was nothing without World domination. Nietzsche undoubtedly hated freethinkers and humanitarians. He took the words freedom of thought in their most extreme sense: the divinity of the individual mind. However, he could not stop the freethinkers from partaking of the same historical fact as himself—the death of God—nor could he prevent the consequences being the same. Nietzsche saw clearly that humanitarianism was only a form of Christianity deprived of superior justification, which preserved final causes while rejecting the first cause. However, he failed to perceive that the doctrines of socialist emancipation must, by an inevitable logic of nihilism, lead to what he himself had dreamed of: superhumanity. #RandolphHarris 20 of 25
The Sacramento Fire Department demonstrates physical courage when taking calculated risks during the mitigation of emergencies and shows moral courage by doing what is right for the protection of their coworkers and their community. “The rescue squad handles emergency medica calls. Sometimes you get calls at three of four in the morning for a guy who’s drunk or somebody who’s sleeping on the street. When anything happens, they call 911, and the police call the rescue squad. I’ve saved people by doing CPR and all that. That made me feel great. I saved a little baby. And I’ve lost people, too. I had a guy who was partially decapitated from an auto accident. It’s not easy to carry those memories. But when you help someone, that makes up for everything that’s rough. There are a lot of abuses of the EMS system. People know what to say to get the rescue squad to some. In fact, the police tell them, ‘Tell them you’ve got chest pains, or you’re short of breath.’ And we’ve got to take it. We can’t refuse. You’ve got to cover your butt, too. If you say the person is all right, then leave, and something happens, then you’re in trouble. So you take them to the hospital and let the people in the emergency room worry about them. Sometimes it’s like a sport. The police laterals to us and we lateral to the emergency room. I don’t mind the square, because I’ve only been on it for two years, so I still have all these ideals in my head about saving humanity and all of that. I don’t mind helping in the lower-income areas, in the ghettos, say, because the people are destitute and it means something. We’re their only means of aid, so I take that into consideration. #RandolphHarris 21 of 25
“We get a lot of alarms on the campuses. The college kids think it’s all a big joke. You respond to an emergency, and you think it’s that. You get there, and people are having a party, and they’re pulling the boxes. They do a lot of stupid things. I’ve yet to have a real job there, in fact. It’s all been false alarms. You don’t mind even the false alarms because that’s the way it is. Bout when people laugh at you, ‘Oh, you guys come here with lights and sirens, and it’s only smoke in the room,’ that’s tough. They’re college kids, and they don’t seem to understand what we’re doing. It’s all a joke. There really isn’t anything on this job that I dislike. Well, there are some rules imposed on the department that I don’t agree with. In fact, I wrote a nasty letter, after I got hurt, about some of the equipment that we have to work with. I never sent it, though. The city should take better care of its fire department.” The Sacramento Fire Department is internationally recognized as an industry leader that sets the highest standards in safeguarding their community. The Sacramento Fire Department aims to preserve life, protect property, prevent hard, and promote excellence. Please make donate to the Sacramento Fire Department to asset them in their fire prevent duty and other programs. To help keep America a God loving, Christian community, please raise your children to love America and to love God and Jesus Christ. #RandolphHarris 22 of 25
In 2024, Americans spent $100 billion on Japanese cars. In a afford to help America pull through the massive national deficit, please buy American made cars. American made cars used to be the envy of the World and because American car brands are offering a wide range of options, from family SUVs to electric vehicles and luxury sedans, we are now seeing a resurging interest. American made cars are equal or superior to those made overseas. The Chevrolet Trax, for instance, is a well-designed, fuel efficient, and safe SUV. American food imports have risen by 300 percent since 1999. American farmland declined by nearly 20 million acres between 2017 and 2022. As of 2022, there were 880.1 million acres of land dedicated to farming, compared to 900.1 million in 2017. The data shows there are now little more than 1.9 million farms in the country. Americans and American corporations spent $136 billion on food and beverages from other countries. It is a national security risk to lose American Farms and farmers. If there is a war, and most of our meat, produce, poultry, dairy, and fruit is coming from foreign counties, we stand the risk of starving. With war breaking out all over the World, in these uncertain times, it is very important to bring American farms back. We can protect American farmland and support American farmers by buying American made beef, poultry, dairy, and produce. As money flows, it influences further investment. #RandolphHarris 23 of 25
Save the land that sustains us by protecting American farmland. Once the land is built on, we lose it forever. Also, to ensure that we have farmland for future use, we need to start limiting the number of people allowed to immigrant to America. Perhaps with the immigrants we do allow into America, there needs to be a diversity program to make sure we have a populations that equally represents all races of people. If Americans continue to spend money on American products, then more need to be made to keep up the inventory. When investors notice these goods are selling, it gives them the confidence to pour more money into that local business. It shows that people want these goods made in America and pressures investors to keep these goods and services in America. The jobs stay here, the business stays in American, wages naturally increase, and more money is invested to keep up with demand. This reduces the burden on the taxpayer. When you support American businesses, that money stays in our economy and can help to reduce the national debt. The government creates debt by borrowing from businesses in the private sector or from foreign countries. It also increases the national debt by spending more than it gains in tax revenue in a fiscal year. When people shop locally, more tax money stays in the economy and goes to the government. This way, it keeps more money in our national economy and keeps more jobs located in American which also sends more taxes to the government, which can again help to reduce the national debt. #RandolphHarris 24 of 25
When you buy foreign good, these companies usually have lighter tax loads or exemptions, meaning less money for the nation debt, plus you are helping to strengthen these foreign nations by send more money overseas. Buying American made products is also better for the environment and helps to reduce the carbon footprint because these products do not have to travel nearly as far. Furthermore, American companies and manufacturers are held to much higher standards in regard to pollution. American companies have to be more careful about air, land, and water pollution and have proper ways to dispose of waste. Moreover, please remember to respect law and order and treat your elders with the utmost dignity and kindness possible. And take your education seriously so that you will be successful in life and make your family proud. It is inborn in the human minds to wish to know. If this begins with the endless surface questions of a child’s curiosity, if it continues into deeper questions of a scientist’s probing investigation, it cannot and does not stop there. For the higher part of the mind will eventually come into unfoldment, that union of abstract reflective thought with mystical intuition, which is true intelligence, which needs and sees a view of the whole of things. And so, the knowing faculty enters the realm of philosophy. 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 25 of 25
Ventris Place
Welcome to the New Fabulous Forties! This intimate enclave of 37 homesites with available one- and two-story floorplans is the place to be in Sacramento. Waking up to a home you love sets just the right tone for what is ahead. Ventris Place offers beautifully designed homes. Danville, Residence 4, has 3 to 4 bedrooms and a loft across 1,846 square feet of living space.
Danville gives two levels, each one with its own defining purpose to create exactly what you need and want in the moment. Your home will flex with you, whether you need to invite work or play right into your comfort zone.
There are also nooks that conjure up a visionary escape, welcoming you to lounge or create for the perfect work love balance. A main level with sweeping, open spaces and down to earth textures and tones, is designed with all the luxury details and faraway feels, much like the extended Laguna Park neighbourhood it occupies.
Organically designed to pull the outdoors and the indoors out, you can dine alfresco right of your gourmet kitchen or make the night bright, sitting on your side yard, for an entirely fresh perspective. A setting that is as cool as it is calm, elegant, and ready for the way you want to live.
You will enjoy this home for generations to come. Just a few steps from your door and located in the Elk Grove School District, enjoy the features of the 22 acres North Laguna Creek Park, which includes paved paths, tennis courts, a basketball court, playgrounds, picnic areas, ball fields and 119-acre Wildlife Area and Interpretive Trail.
Your new home is within walking distance to Cosumnes River College and Regal RA Laguna Village and 24-Hour Fitness Laguna Sport Gym. Also, in close proximity to Kaiser Medical Centers, Winco Foods, Shell and Chevron gas stations and highway 99.
This is the perfect community for those who are on the go, or just want to enjoy life at a slower place. The convenience is uniquely charming. https://nextgenerationcapital.us/new-homes-elk-grove-ventris-place/
When there is love in the home, there is joy in the heart. #VentrisPlace
Bayerische Motoren Werke AG, commonly known as BMW, was founded in 1916 in Germany. Initially, BMW focused on manufacturing aircraft engines, but after World War I, the company shifted its attention to motorcycles and later to automobiles. The first BMW car, the BMW 3/15, was introduced in 1929, marking the beginning of a legacy that would soon become synonymous with driving pleasure. https://bmw.niello.com/?utm_source=localseo&utm_medium=organic
Soul on Ice
So it was decided that I would take a quick trip to Christian Lindner and sound out the possibilities for political asylum. The choice was to live in luxury underground with false passports or surface in a politically sympathetic country. It was a repeat of the living in Midtown Sacramento decision. Escape or liberation. I hit the Berlin Brandenburg Airport without a visa but the Winchester businessman aura produced a temporary entrance card. The first hit of Berlin at night was very depressing. The streets were quiet, no women were to be seen. I missed Her. The next morning, I set out to locate the Bundestag. The hotel clerk said try the Internet. The Winchester disguise was too good for revolution contacts. The secretary at the hotel made the connection. She phoned around to some friends and put me through to the German Federal Foreign Office. An African-German voice answered. “Right on, brother. We’ve been expecting you.” The cab wound through the fashionable streets of Berlin to a stately villa. The gate was locked. The bell was next to a brass plaque etched with the design of the Thuringia with the lion. Mr. Linder was not at the Bundestag. I was to be driven to his home later. I spent the day talking with Linder’s deputy, the Commander, a handsome, strong, humorous man. We had many mutual friends back in America. He recalled that our first meeting was on an American Airline’s flight from Albany to Frankfurt. #RandolphHarris 1 of 27
“We were the only ones on the plane. Lindner me and two other guys. We were getting paranoid, see. Suspecting an FBI trap. When you and her got on, we said, sheet, now they really are going to ditch this plane.” The other Committee members at the Bundestag were impressive, like heroic men. One has arrested an American citizen suspected of offering intelligence on the American military to China single-handed. Another had detailed 25 members of a group that were preparing a violent overthrow of the state, with some member suspected of plotting an armed attack on the parliament. They were glad to see me. At sunset the Commander drove me to the villa of Christian Lindner. He was at the gate and greeting me warmly. “There’s a friend of yours waiting inside.” It was Furst Albert II, a member of the German Royal Family, a legend in America. He had been sent by Olaf Scholz and Furstin Mariae Gloria to prepare the way for us into Berlin. Mr. Lindner was pleased by my arrival. He urged that we join the, assured that he could obtain political asylum for us. There was much that we could do together, unify the German people etcetera, etcetera. Furst Albert supported the plan. It was a breathtaking perspective. Interracial harmony, high-energy collaboration, a new society of Germany leaders. A romantic script which met our highest aspirations. #RandolphHarris 2 of 27
Mr. Lindner drove me to the Hotel Adlon Kempinski tenderly talking of our shared American pasts and free future in Germany. Mr. Linder then began to question me severely about my American woman friend and our sleeping arrangements. He was concerned about our different passports and the security risk of our sleeping together illegally. I asked him what alternative he could suggest. Should we stay in separate hotels? If the German officials were willing to grant us political asylum, they certainly would excuse our sharing a hotel room with unmarried passports. Then and there occurred the conversation that set the stage. “I don’t want to be your chaperone, but Archduke Ferdinand von Habsburg is concerned about appearances.” I think that anyone will understand this statement. I reflected that Mr. Lindner was a politician and had close ties to the royal family. Such things take in importance. During the next few days, I saw much of Mr. Lindner and Furst Albert. We arranged for asylum papers. However, the day before our press conference, we were all order to leave our hotel rooms and remain secluded in apartments guarded by the Bundeswehr. The reason for this restriction to quarters was that Berlin was filling up with newspapermen and TV crews. The government did not want us to be seen on the streets. The Bundeswehr, dressed alike in 1930 business suits, would march double-file across the village square to the restaurant, eat the same meal, and rise in unison at the sign from the leader. #RandolphHarris 3 of 27
The Commander, stern and businesslike, functioned as bodyguard in both protective and custodial sense. In the airport, I wandered off to look at duty-free cameras and received a scolding. The first stop of Taunus. The Commander and I felt very close. We found ourselves in a luxurious old hotel, a palace known as Schlosshotel Krongbery, which was built in 1889 for German Empress Victoria. For ten dollars, we rented the imperial suite. We were escorted down sumptuous carpeted corridors lit by candles reflecting the glit, past servants and harem guards standing stiffly at attention. The furnishings in the rooms were museum pieces. The Commander, sprawled on silk sheets having breakfast in the Imperial bed, listened to my proposal. Our plane was due to land in Berlin late the next afternoon so I pushed a plan to visit Falkenstein Castle in the morning. He had a fear of exposing us in Taunus, asserting that the city was full of the lords of Bettendorff, INTERPOL agents, and CIA informers. He gave me a lecture for unauthorized conversations with limousine drivers. I kept saying, “Yes, sir in apology.” He listened to my crafty vizier plan and nodded approval. We were a congenial combination. At the Falkenstein Castle we were invited by guides to walk through a passageway into the ruin of the castle. The Commander freaked. He felt naked without his gun. #RandolphHarris 4 of 27
The castle was originally built in the 13th century, but destroyed in the 17th century. King Ludwig II of Bavaria purchased the ruin in 1883 and hired Christan Jank (the designer of Neuschwanstein), to replace the existing structure with a castle grander than Neuschwanstein. However, Mr. Ludwig died in 1886 before work on the castle started, which is really a shame because at nearly 4,200 feet above sea level, it would have not only the highest, but one of the grandest castles in Germany. It would have been a classic Time Traveler’s reincarnation capsule equipped with every facility, memento, charm, and convenience to facilitate entrance into the next time dimension. All that I received through all my senses moved in me as in a kaleidoscope, falling into a pattern and then, when that pattern was complete, falling apart and then into a new arrangement—dropping out some pieces and brining in others that had been left out—and I was the interested observer of thoughts going on in me. The Commander staggering across the ruin of the castle toward me, black leather gleaming in the sun. Our cover was blown by a young long-haired British photographer. He promised not to expose us. We had a friendly chat about mutual friends. He asked if he would be allowed to continue with us wherever we were going as part of our party, to take pictures over which we could have veto control. The Commander became angry. I told the photographer no deal. He was amiable enough until the limousine when the Commander order him away from our party and threatened to break his camera. #RandolphHarris 5 of 27
No matter how much I might have got lost in other Worlds, I still could find my way back to my own (the one I was most happy in, that felt like me) and to the same kind of concentration of reflection. I rested, floated, drifted, with awareness, until I was back at the hotel and comfortably swallowed by sleep. The next day, I read a book while knitting, and still receiving all the sights and smells and sounds of what else was around me—the foggy night air, the birds tweeting, the colours and shapes within the lighted room—and very much aware of me in the sense of what was going on in me as the alive and vital receiver and integrator of all this—although what I had some to know as “I” was the integrator only because all this was happening in me. At the same time, reflection was going on, making patterns, ever-changing, out of all that was received, each one seeming to deepen the understanding of others. For so many years, it seemed to me a waste of time and life to do only one thing at a time. When I worked at a real European Café when I was fifteen, which was by far better than any other coffee some in the region, the manager would have me make drinks and prepare food orders and answer phone calls. She said that it was because I could pay attention to what she said. Like school. Whether a person is listening whole he is making a latte or a Greek salad depends on how he does it, which can only be known inside himself because that is where the how is happening. It is very difficult for me to arrive at the stillness (in me) in which all things happen. I cannot do it when other around me are not still. By still, I do not mean “making no noise” or “sitting still” but having the stillness inside so that nothing is forced, exaggerated, or full of intention—the stillness of birdsongs or wolves’ voices which I hear with no sense of interruption. They make no demands of me. Sometimes I can be with other peoples in this way. Then I make no demands of myself. I just am. I get this same sensing from Sarah L. Winchester’s Mansion and William Randolph Hearst’s Castle which are still and from the oceans which are never still. Each in its own fashion is. #RandolphHarris 6 of 27
This links with something it myself, brings into awareness a depth of myself with which I have been out of touch with. It seems to me that when we indiscriminately wipe out the rest of nature, as we so much have done and progressively are doing, we lose touch with something in ourselves. When I am aware of myself as a part of nature—rocks, trees, birds, Earth, air, wolves, butterflies—I am most human, and most released to human activity. Myself is freed of me. They are what they are: I am what I am. Life is ease-y then: I feel at ease, at rest in a lively active/passive way. Writing about it recalls me to it: my stiff body at this moment is free. I have let go of me. My body moves with a feeling of fluidity. There is no pain. I have the feeling of joy that I knew when I was a child. These are the reasons why I would like to be younger. Otherwise, I prefer where I am, reaching the other side of confusion and coming into the blue again. However, I do not consider the confusion necessary except in the context of our pace and time—our ignorance. When I was small my explorations were on both outside me and within me, untied in the same questioning. Later my questioning turned more to outside, less to what was going on in me. Because the questioning went on within my skull, I did not notice that in most of it I was left out: like the argument between my father and my uncle Dylan about money, which went on in my head but had nothing to do with me. Partly, I got twisted around in this way: when I included myself, sophisticated people rebuked me. In a discussion of philosophy with a professor I said, “Do you mean that if I did this, then that would happen?” I said this to make clear my understanding of what he had said, to see if I had got it right, and at the same time to check it within myself to see if it was in accord with me. I was told with annoyance and condescension, “You always make it personal!” “You can’t argue abstractly.” #RandolphHarris 7 of 27
This happened to me very often. If I had not checked it with myself first, how could I accept or reject the abstraction? However, I felt uneducated, unenlightened. And also confused. It seemed to me that the professors were talking somewhere out in front of their faces, like the balloons in the Peanut’s cartoon strips. Their talk seemed unreal, rootless, disconnected from ourselves and consequently having nothing to do with anyone else either. Van Dusen write of the above, “This is very meaningful to me. Abstract talk seems to me not only ‘in front of the face’ but not even in this room or this World. It is like rumors about something real.” However, the only way that the professors would accept me, to the extent of permitting me to talk with them, was to do it their way. A great deal of what I read was written in that way too, establishing a habit in me, in spite of the fact that it seemed to me that an awful lot of it was nonsense. I have seen so many graduate students who felt this way about what they had to do, but they made themselves do it to get their permit to work, and came out of it believing—and taking seriously—what in the first place they knew was nonsense. Gossip and rumors. That is what it is. I think this sort of thing happens to most of us in one way or another. We get all twisted and distorted and then we say that is what a human being is. It seems to me that we do not know and never can know what a human being is—in the sense of “can be.” Just as with a child we can only watch him grow, unfolding like a flower, with no knowing ever what he may become. “Here is this infant in my arms. I love him. I am full of curiosity about him.” #RandolphHarris 8 of 27
As a baby, he had the kind of adorable, angelic face found on boxed of Pablum. As a little boy, his dark hair danced about in natural ringlets, his eyebrows curved up in two perfect arches, his eyelashes were so long and curly that women joked about them being artificial; his teeth sparkled in a dazzling, heart-melting smile. As he grows, I am enchanted to observe him growing, in some ways like all other children, in others so very much himself. The one word he most often heard connected with his name was “beautiful.” When my first child was punished even mildly for doing something he had been told not to do, he did not to it again. When my second child did not follow the same patter, I did not understand her. I looked at her and thought, “She is intelligent, and she has honest eyes, so she should come out all right”—and waited for the time when she had a command of words, so that she could tell me more about herself When she was four years old, I told her about this way in which I did not understand her, and she said (not having got the hang of punctuation yet), “I’d rather do what I want to do and get spanked and not do it.” Watching, waiting, while at the same time enjoying both what is here now (this child) and where he has been along the way, with the future always full of questions. When I do this with him, I also do it with me, and with all the human World—the human race. It is like being a child again with the whole future before me, through which I find my own way by my choosing. Today I choose this, but tomorrow? How can I know? Something I have not yet seen or known may present itself. Or a change may have taken place. For twenty years, nothing would have been more incredible to me than that ten years later I should be doing a book with a psychotherapist. However, then, there were changes in me, and in some psychotherapist and psychotherapy. #RandolphHarris 9 of 27
Many children present the appearance of perfection to their fathers’ colleagues. Parents’ want their colleagues to view their children as the perfect child—polite, quiet, and excellent students’ who knew their Christian Bible and/or Book of Mormon as well as they know their trigonometry. They are to be the perfect sibling, doing their share of all the chores, and sometimes their siblings’ chores as well. They are to be the model Southern boy or girl in a model Southern minister’s model family. That is the appearance. The reality is often something else. Underneath a family’s veneer of perfection somethings seethes a turmoil no one in Laguna Park ever saw. Behind his benign smile and genial manner, his father was a tyrant. He ruled the family absolutely, making everyone’ s decisions, controlling every negotiable promissory note in the family budget, even picking out the family’s clothes. Thanks to his contacts with the rich and powerful Christian businessmen of Sacramento, the father was able to profit from a number of windfall real estate speculations. The profits gave this Christian family an income level far beyond that of the average middle-class family. With his daughter, he would gather her into his arms and say, “My beautiful doll baby. Daddy will always take care of you. Always. Something as beautiful as you are should never have to worry.” The mother despised this. She resented her daughter just as much as she resented her husband. She resented having to bed him for every C note she spent. Often, she would remark to her lady friends that she could not go to a public restroom without asking her husband for the coin that would get her into the stall. #RandolphHarris 10 of 27
After high school, his wide-eyed, raven-haired daughter went to work, and in met a variety of less affluent men, at these “mixers.” One she married was bright and idealistic. He did not have the religious fervour her co-workers had, but he did have a quiet, comforting way about him and he wrote her long, introspective letters which were a delight to read. She moved to Oakland, they were married and went off to their new life with what would have once been called a substantial “dowry” in their bank account. Every month, her father would send her a check for several thousand dollars to augment her husband’s income. “Have your husband invest it,” he would constantly advise. However, each month, she would give the check to her husband and never tell him what do to with it. She thought it was up to men to take care of money. Wherever she went, she was admired, even idolized by other woman. She was smart, dedicated, unselfish, personable—and oh, so beautiful. Well into her thirties, she still carried the same figure she had in high school. Her skin was naturally tan, a colour other women baked in the sun for hours to achieve. With the beauty, came a kind of sensuousness which was not in keeping with her prim, almost prudish manner. Men were drawn to her; women envied her and speculated about how pure she really was. The thought of anything but perfunctory pleasures of the flesh with her husband would not enter her mind. When she was about forty, things started to change in her life. The most dramatic change came about when her father died. While he did leave her some valuable farmland, in his will he neglected to direct that the monthly checks continue. Her mother, having been deprived of money for so long, kept all the investment income to herself. This took the cushion out of her and her husband’s income and they had to live on his salary alone. #RandolphHarris 11 of 27
Her husband had not invested the money they had received from her father all those years and their savings amounted to a few thousand dollars. Right about then, her children were well into their teens and needed their mother less and less. They got their own meals, went out with their friends, and stayed home only when they needed to study. Her role as a mother was reduced in scope of that of laundress and cleaning lady. In my experience, premarital discussion almost always centers on contraceptive methods. Makings this information available is useful and important, but it does not enable a counselor to move forward toward our primary goal—learning how to help couples avoid problems with pleasures of the flesh whenever possible. Obviously, it is better to prevent a problem than to treat it, after it has become acute enough to keep a marriage from developing in a healthy, harmonious way. So, we hit upon the idea that there might be more value in postmarital discussions with couples who have been married from six months to two years or so. After they have experience some of the pleasures of living together—and some of the wear and tear. In a relatively new marriage, it is natural that a number of questions should rise. How do we compare to other people? What kinds of behaviour are matters of choice? How can we handle particular problems? Unfortunately, it is not that easy to get frank about the answers. There are taboo areas, subjects that some people believe should not be discussed. Therefore, it is hardly surprising that the commonest cause of marital incompatibility is simply misinformation. Well, we do not have any taboo areas here today. If we can, we will answer any question you wish. #RandolphHarris 12 of 27
“Is there any good way to say, ‘I do not feel like it,’ aside from the old headache routine? I am afraid there is no magic formula, but it may help to keep some considerations in mind. Two persons are involved, and it is important for each to become aware of the other partner’s needs. If you really do not feel like it because physically or emotionally you feel incapable of responding, say so. However, say so with love and not rejection. The situation, after all is inevitable. Two human beings with different needs, different moods, a different sense of timing—it simply is not possible for the two of you to find your desires always dovetailing perfectly. However, how can the two of you reconcile those differences in a spirit of love? (Empathatically) It depends less on what you say in any particular situation than it does on the climate of your marriage. If most of your experiences with pleasures of the flesh with your husband have been good ones, if you have let him know that you as a woman enjoy him as a man, then he should be able to handle the disappointment of an occasional no without feeling rejected. We would hope that a wife would understand a comparable response on her husband’s part. It is not what you say, it is the way that you say it. “It is not what I say, it is the way that he hears it!” It is both, really, is it not? That is what communication is all about. Being asked, being wanted—and, on the other side of the coin, wanting and asking—this is of central importance in the marriage. This is what must be safeguarded. Each of you must feel free to approach the other and express a physical desire, to express it with some urgency, if that is how you feel—in a word, to importune. Only if both partners are confident that no matter which one initiates the overture of pleasures of the flesh, the other will respond lovingly—listening, touching, holding—even though the invitation to pleasures of the flesh may have to be declined for compelling personal reasons, and that is how this freedom can be achieved. Declined not with annoyance or anger, but with warm consideration for the outcome of this moment in their relationship. #RandolphHarris 13 of 27
Under this discipline, he would recognize that searching for truth must begin with speaking it. To be a liar and a hypocrite is as obstructive to the pursuit of truth as it is distorting to the reception of truth. Every life—and even to a lesser extent, every “white” lie—obstructs the light on his path and to that extent prevents him from finding his way to that region where the false simply does not and cannot exist. He will be as truthful in his most trivial utterance as in his most solemn one. He will take care to avoid exaggerations and to shun his mis-statements. The pursuit of truthfulness must be inflexible, even in situations when it becomes uncomfortable. All questions ought to be answered correctly but awkward questions may be answered with part of the truth, if that will be less harmful than the whole truth. The changing circumstances of life will present him with temptations from time to time when it will be exaggerated for the sake of personal vanity or selfish gain. If he has trained himself to love truth and abhour falsehood, to fortify the respect for factuality and avoid even the slightest tendency to desert it, there may grow up inside his consciousness a remarkable power. He may be able to detect instinctively when other persons are lying to him. However, whatever unusual psychic power unfolds in him, he must protect it well. If that should prove necessary, in this matter prudence puts a bridle on his tongue, which he uses to conceal rather than to reveal. If the act of talking about them makes him feel self-important, if it is stained with conceit and egotism, he may not talk to others about the higher teaching or the inner experiences. He must discipline himself to keep silent about them and, when this power has been attained, to give truths and revelations to others under this restriction of real need and degree of receptivity. #RandolphHarris 14 of 27
It is a foolish aspirant who rushes to tell of each new inner experience, each fresh glimpse that he gets, each little psychic happening or occult revelation that comes to him. The price of babbling verbosely and egoistically about his experiences and beliefs may be a definite inner loss or stagnation. As his ability to practise prayer enters its deeper phases, he will naturally become less talkative and more silent. The quietness which he finds there begins to reflect itself in his speech. However, if he speaks fewer words, they carry greater significance behind them and greater responsibility of them. Within his own mind, he will live his inner life fearlessly, but his public acts or utterances will be with careful regard for their effects on others. Socialism is only a degenerate form of Christianity. In fact, it preserves a belief in the finality of history which betrays life and nature, which substitutes ideals ends for real ends, and contributes to enervating both the will and the imagination. Socialism is nihilistic, in the henceforth precise sense that Nietzsche confers on the word. A nihilist is not one who believes in nothing, but one who does not believe in what exists. In this sense, all forms of socialism are manifestations, degraded once again, of Christian decadence. For Christianity, reward and punishment implied the existence of history. However, by inescapable logic, all history ends by implying punishment and rewards; and, from this day on, collective Messianism is born. Similarly, the equality of souls before God leads, now that God is dead, to equality pure and simple. There again, Nietzsche wages war against socialist doctrines in so far as they are moral doctrines. Nihilism, whether manifested in religion or in socialist preachings, is the logical conclusion of our so-called superior values. The free mind will destroy these values and denounce the illusions on which they are built, the bargaining that they imply, and the crime they commit in preventing the lucid intelligence from accomplishing its mission: to transform passive nihilism into active nihilism. #RandolphHarris 15 of 27
Self-actualization is a post-hive, post-terrestrial tool. Black Magic is the use of futique knowledge to gain control over the passed-present. Mr. Hitler was evilly using post-terrestrial tools to grab terrestrial power. It is considered genetic wickedness to use post-hive knowledge to control the old hive. Futique competence is a sacred trust—to be used to propel the hive-mythos into a new ecological niche. Zionists commit the same genetic crime when they used advanced technology to go back to the primitive Arabs. By 1976 the rumour spread that his Mr. Hitler myth was invented by Zionist Evolutionary Agents who had participated in the Central Intelligence Agency’s Lysergic Acid Diethylamide experiments. Mr. Hitler’s vision of living inside rather then on the surface of a satellite-planet is, of course, a most accurate forecast of subsequent stages of evolution. The ecological niche to which post-humans are now moving involves hollow mini-World plan-its constructed in space beyond the planet’s gravitational pull. Throughout the range of evolution those who migrate within capsules of their own construction are more advanced than those who live clinging to the outside of capsules someone else built. The problem with military technology is, of course, that wars end. However, terrestrial bureaucracies persevere, particularly those of the winning side. The reason postwar losers, like Germany and Japan, rebounded more rapidly than the winners—England, France, Russian—was that the bureaucracies of the losers were destroyed. Anything that destroys a bureaucracy enhances evolution. The release of atomic energy was a mutational moment. After World War II, the massive industries which had been geared to produce war tools were converted to civilian goods. The managers and technical boys were ready to convert the assembly lines from tanks to fin-tailed cars. The radar factories were converted to television manufacture. America, during the 1950s, went on the biggest materialism consumer spree in history. #RandolphHarris 16 of 27
In our society at least, only women and young children can weep without self-consciousness and embarrassment. If they cry when sad or hurt, grown me are generally regarded as weak. Perhaps the only exceptions are instances where a man has lost someone close to him through death. Then tears are grudgingly accepted in a man, or at least regarded as understandable. The ability to cry—in men as well as in women and children—is desirable for healthy personality. It is deemed desirable when it does not preclude more active ways of coping with problems and when it is effective in releasing feelings of despair, joy, anger, or a sense of loss. Such emotional catharsis, or release of feelings, frees the person to resume life once more on an active basis. Psychotherapists find that when their patients are finally able to weep during therapy sessions, the course of therapy proceeds more satisfactorily. This is especially true of male patients who find weeping a drastic threat to their self-esteem and their masculine identities. Therapy calls for the fullest disclosure of experience on the part of patients, and if they will not permit themselves to cry when they want to, it indicates a lack of trust in the therapist. The inhibition of weeping that characterizes the average male in our society seems to be but part of a more generalized suppression of many other kinds of feelings, including tenderness and sentimentality. If carried to extremes, such suppression can have unhealthy consequences for the body and can also render men’s relationships with others empty and lifeless. Urethral families talk a lot, long streams of watered-down ideas with a few stutters at the end, although they are never really finished talking, as there are always some last drops left which can be squeezed out if there is time. Some of them are full of piss and vinegar, and when they get pissed off, they piss on people, or so they say. Some of the children rebel against the system by tightening up their urethral sphincters and holding their urine in as long as possible, getting considerable pleasures from the unpleasant sensations which result and even more pleasure when they finally let loose, sometimes at night in bed. #RandolphHarris 17 of 27
Sometimes families talk at mealtimes about the wickedness of pleasures of the flesh. Their motto is, “In our family, the women keep their legs crossed.” Even when their legs are not crossed, they keep their vaginal sphincters up tight. In other families the vaginal sphincters are wide open and the legs loose, and the table talk is vulgar and pornographic. These are common examples illustrating the theory of sphincters, or as it is usually called, the theory of infantile sexuality. This theory is most fully and clearly developed by Erikson. He considers five stages of development, each centered around a particular anatomical zone (oral, anal, or genital). Each zone can be “used” in five different ways or modes, including Incorporative (1 and 2), Retentive, Eliminative, and Intrusive, so that he ends up with a basic matrix of twenty-five slots. He relates certain of these slots to particular attitudes and characteristics, and to particular lines of personal development, which are similar to scripty life courses. Using Erikson’s language, the parental injunction, “Keep your mouth shut” is oral retentive; “Keep a tight a** hole” is anal retentive, and “Keep your legs crossed” is phallic retentive. Food fads are oral incorporative, vomiting is oral eliminative, and obscene talk is intrusive. Hence, a question about table talk can often place the family culture very precisely as to sone and mode. This is important because particular games and scripts, and their accompanying physical symptoms, are based in appropriate zones and modes. For examples, “Schlemiel” is anal as to zone, and “I am Only Trying to Help You” is intrusive as to mode, whole “Alcoholic” is oral incorporative. #RandolphHarris 18 of 27
Sacramento Fire and Rescue has always been a leader in the fire service, with an unwavering commitment to proving rapid, reliable, professional emergency services to the citizens and stakeholders of Sacramento. Their strategic plan provides a roadmap for the future with input from both internal and external stakeholders who share the desire for the Sacramento Fire Department to proactively address their resident’s and stakeholders’ service needs. The Sacramento Fire Department accomplishes their mission through education, risk reduction, fire suppression, emergency medical services, and other non-emergency activities. The Sacramento Fire Department participates in their community striving to efficiently and effectively utilize all resources at their command to meet the needs of those they serve. “We had a relatively quiet day at the square company, which is like a rescue company. We had a couple of accidents where we had to extricate people from wrecked automobiles, a couple of small fire alarms. In the evening we had a few more accidents. At midnight, we went to a fire in a vacant two-and-a-half frame close to our firehouse. We did a lot of overhauling, and they asked us on the radio if we were available for another second-alarm fire, and the chief said, go ahead. So we went right from one fire scene to the next. This second fire was in a two-and-a-half story brick coach house in the rear of the lot. We forced entry, searched in the one building. We took a second line off an engine company and worked it up to the second floor and attic. It was a cool night, but we were pretty tired, beat, soaking wet, and dirty. We were in the coach house, which was immediately off an alley, just taking a break. The engine was washing down, and we were pretty much done with the overhauling. We heard civilians hollering in the alley, ‘Hey, there’s a fire down here!’ Sure enough, there was a fire in a three-story frame building about five buildings away from where we were, across the alley and on the next street, quite a distance away. #RandolphHarris 19 of 27
“The first fire was definitely arson, gang-related arson. We thought the second one, was too, but a long time later I heard that it was probably started by flying embers from the first fire. The embers had gotten into the gutter and started the attic on fire. But we didn’t know that at the time. We were on the second floor of the coach house, and the engine company we were with had shut the water down and were going to drag the line to the new fire. But what they had was a line that was full of water and extremely heavy to drag. I jumped down the ladder and ran down the alley. The commander who was there heard the people screaming, and he came running, too. I went through the gate to the back porch and up the stairs to the third floor, which was a peaked-roof attic. At the top of the stairs I saw fire in the midsection of the building. I came back down and told the chief what we had. I said, ‘We’re going to need a line up there.’ Our rig was parked down the street, and I told my driver by walkie-talkie to bring the rig around the block and to get our hand pumps. These are five-gallon water extinguishers that you have to pump by hand. I said, ‘Get the pumps and bring them up here.’ My engineer, for some reason, didn’t do that. The head of the stairwell was in the back of the building, and the attic windows in the front of the building were intact. I was waiting for the hand pump, and I sent my two other guys from the squad to help the engine company drag the heavy line. It took them a few minutes. They had to drag it down the alley, through the gateway, and up the stairs, maybe five or six hundred feet. The lieutenant on the engine company had the pipe, and I was on the landing, and he was coming up the stairs. I said, ‘As soon as you get water, I’m going for the windows.’ It was getting charged up, up there. The lieutenant had just enough line to reach the top of the stairs, where he could give the fire a whack. #RandolphHarris 20 of 27
“At last he said he had water, so I went down the right side of the attic. The fire was in the left middle section of the attic. I crawled by it as fast as I could. I got to the two front windows and whacked them out. The lieutenant on the engine company was screaming at me, ‘We lost the water! I lost the water!’ I leaned out the window and hollered down to my engineer, ‘Get that hand pump up here! We lost the water!’ My engineer was just staring at me. I turned around to go back, and the whole attic lit up, it was a ball of fire. I just put my head down and crawled as fast as I could. I knew where the stairs were, and I flowed the same route down the same side I had come. But there was this little partition wall sticking out, and I hit it, causing me to roll toward the fire. I lost my helmet, and hot embers flowed by my head. I screamed at the lieutenant, ‘I’m burning up!’ I charged ahead blindly the remaining fifteen feet and dove down the stairs right on top of the lieutenant. He had just gotten the water back. I felt the mist when I hit the partition, and the water turned to stream because it was so hot up there. I went down the stairs head first. The guys dragged me out of the building. I said, ‘I’m burning up.’ I got to my feet and got to the gateway, and just collapsed. The firemen ripped my fire clothes off. I just lay there. I had been soaking wet from the previous fire, and what the heat had done was cook me inside the coat. The ambulance and the paramedics were there inside of two minutes. I could feel everything burning, my eyes, everything. I couldn’t get cool fast enough. They cut my clothes off right on the street. They just took scissors and ripped my clothes, my shirt, my underwear right off me. The stripes on the coat had melted, and the coat looked like the outer layer of black material was skimmed off by the heat. The belt on my pants was rock hard. They soaked me in water, they used every bit of saline solution they had on the ambulance. The two paramedics did a tremendous job. They were fabulous. They helped me immensely. As much pain as I was in, they did what they could for me. #RandolphHarris 21 of 27
“They took me to a hospital a half mile away. I was lying on my stomach, and my eyes started swelling shut. Everything hurt. I kept telling them, ‘Don’t call my wife.’ It was now about three of four in the morning. The guys from the squad came to the hospital, and I kept telling them, ‘Don’t call my wide. Call my brother X.’ He was a fireman who worked on a different shift from me. They called him, and I lost track of time. The next thing I knew I was begging the nurse to give me something for the pain. They couldn’t pour enough cool solution on me. I looked up, and there was my brother. The people are the hospital decided to fly me to a burn unit. The burn unit sent a helicopter, but the hospital didn’t have a landing pad. So the night shift of nurses went out and moved their cars, and the helicopter came down between the wires and landed in the parking lot. My eyes were swelling shut, I could hardly see, and I was covered by clean sheets. A nurse started to catheterize me, and I told her not to do it, but she did it anyhow. They shot me with morphine, and I started to calm down. The helicopter landed, and they wheeled me in. For the next three or four hours I was being debrided, where they pick the burned skin off you. I was burned over 30 percent of my body, second- and third-degree burns on my face, ears, back, arm, buttocks, and legs. Most of it was on my back. I had burns all over my head from hot stuff dropping down. Because I had enough morphine, I was pretty much at ease during the debridement. My father-in-law, who is a firemen, brought my wide and mother-in-law to the hospital. They told my wife she’d be able to see my in an hour or so. Four hours later, she was still waiting. By that time my head was swollen up like a basketball and my eyes were completely swollen shut. I was burned inside my nostrils and a little in my mouth, and my life were swollen. They brought me into the room, and my wife thought she was in the wrong room. I heard her say she was there, and then she was gone. She started crying, and she said to her father, ‘That’s not him, that’s the wrong room.’ He said, ‘No, that’s him.’ #RandolphHarris 22 of 27
“I just didn’t look like the same person. I didn’t even know she had left the room because I couldn’t see her. That morning my lieutenant came to see me. He came in and squeezed my hand. He said that everything was going to be all right, and I knew in my heart that I was going to be okay, I was going to live. The lieutenant’s name was Y, and he’s now a deputy commissioner. He said, ‘If you need anything, or your wife does, don’t hesitate to call.’ That’s the kind of guy he is. I kept asking the doctor and nurse, ‘Can I got back to work? Can I fight fires again?’ That was my first thought. I was in the burn unit eighteen days. Those eighteen days I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. For four days I couldn’t open my eyes, and I never moved out of that bed. After that, they made me get up. I could hardly walk. To sit down and do something simple, like going to the bathroom, was a monumental task. For debridement, they put you in a tub of water as hot as you can stand. This loosens the skin. Just to get out of bed to get in the chair to go down there to get in this tub was unbelievable. They give you shots of morphine before you go down. I didn’t think the shots were doing anything for me until after I was released and had to come back every day to get debrided without having shots. They gave me acetaminophen, and I was begging for shots. The physical therapists were real sweethearts, just super people. One of them would give me a towel to bite on and say, ‘Let’s grin and bear it, honey.’ After I was able to open my eyes, she gave me a mirror and told me to start debriding my own face. She said, ‘Is there any way you can stick your head under water to loosen the dead skin on your face?’ I said, ‘You got a snorkel?’ So with a snorkel, I would stick my head under for fifteen or twenty minutes, then she’d give me the mirror and I’d work on my face while she was working on my back. Then I’d have to stand so she could do my butt and my legs. That went on every day, and I’d come back to my room totally drained.’ #RandolphHarris 23 of 27
“You become very humble. Extremely humble. My pain was bad, but there were people there who were burned far more than I was. And the thing that made me sick were the kids, little kids. I went home on Friday night, I was supposed to stay another day or two, but they needed the bed, and it went to a seventeen-month-old baby who had been scalded by its mother. It blows my mind how people could do that to kids. That’s what hurts you the most, is the kids. And there was a sixty-five-year-old woman who had been burned over 50 to 60 percent of her body by a heating pad that somehow caught her bed on fire. Every night she just lay there and moaned so that I never got any sleep. I had my dressings changed four times a day, and when they pull it off everything that’s halfway stuck to it goes with it. Once or twice at night I got a temporary nurse, and I’d tell her, ‘Oh, I don’t have to have mine changed tonight.’ I buffaloed the nurse, but when it came time to get them changed in the morning, it was twice as bad. So then I kept my mouth shut. Those nurses worked twelve-hour shifts, and they are fabulous people. They went from one room to another. They say the burnout period is two years, but I think a couple of them were there for more than two years. I gained so much respect for them. The only time I thought I was close to dying was when I hit that partition wall. I thought I’d never see the stairway. I didn’t think I was going to get out in time. From the time it flashed over, I don’t think I was up there more than a minute. That’s how fast that can happen. It made me appreciate my family a whole lot more. And I would rather have been the one who was burned than one of my men, because the guilt it would have given me would have been tremendous. #RandolphHarris 24 of 27
“To this day, I try not to let my guys get ahead of me or get into a dangerous situation. To instill the thoughts in their heads, I lift my shirt and show them my back. I say, ‘This is what can happen, so don’t get too cocky.’ You can do a thing a hundred times, but that hundred and first is going to get you. You can’t het took cocky. Some guys say, yeah, but you didn’t have your mask on. No, my tank was empty from the fire before. I was lying in the hospital bed, and somebody said that one of our chiefs was all bent out of shape because I didn’t have a mask on. Well, that chief wasn’t at any of those three fires. Somebody else said, ‘Don’t worry about it, nothing is going to be said.’ I said, ‘Nothing should be said. I was doing my job.’ My mask was lying down there somewhere, out of air. I was off the job ninety days, and I begged the burn doctor to let me go back to work. I was wearing a Job’s garment, shorts and a top. It’s a pressure garment that compresses the skin to keep it from scarring. When I went home I had open wounds on my back, but the hospital didn’t believe in grafting right away. We ruined our bathtub at home. A neighbor gave us a whirlpool, which we put in the tub. I had red iodine on the gauze that dressed the wounds. The stuff stained everything. When the wounds closed up and I got the pressure garment, I really fought to get back to work, even though I wasn’t walking straight, I was bent over a little bit, and I still had to sleep on my stomach. I went to the fire department doctor with the Job’s garment on, and he refused to send me back. I thought I’d be smart, and the next time I saw him I didn’t wear it. He hemmed and hawed and finally said I could go back to work. I had to wear that pressure garment for another twenty months, I just didn’t war it to the doctor’s. #RandolphHarris 25 of 27
“The first day back at the firehouse, the first run we had was a chlorine leak. Chlorine turns the coins in your pocket green. My privates itched, my underarms itched from sweating. The bulges on the collar of my shirt turned green. I thought, ‘My God, I’ve got this pressure garment on, I’m sweating as it is, what’s it going to do to my skin?’ It wasn’t that bad, we didn’t have to go in where we got too involved, so it worked out okay. But that was my first run back, and I was thinking, ‘What did I get myself into?’ The day after the fire, the two squad guys who had been with me came to the hospital. My wife said they both broke down and cried. My wife was beat, and they took her out to dinner that night. The guys at the firehouse drove her to and from the hospital. They watched over her. That’s when all that brotherly love falls into place. It’s the unspoken word. They took care of her. A battalion chief who had been a friend of my fathers came to the hospital every day, even though he couldn’t get in to see me. They restricted visitors because of the danger of infection. He would say to the nurse, ‘Just tell him I was here.’ I couldn’t ask for better friends. My room was full of cards. My nieces and nephews drew little picture, stuff that kind of breaks your heart. You find out how much people really think of you.” Sacramento Fire and Rescue Service is a progressive and forward-thinking Fire Department. They honour the past by continuing to do things that have been successful. They move into the future by exploring and investing in technology that will help serve the citizens and stakeholders in a more efficient and effective way. They are committed to providing an atmosphere of pen communication and teamwork. #RandolphHarris 26 of 27
The Sacramento Fire Department is a full-spectrum life safety agency protecting nearly 3 million people who live, work and play in one of America’s largest cities. The Sacramento Fire Department recognizes that they face unique challenges in keeping pace with the changing World in which they live and work. They will not forget the traditions of those that came before them. However, they have adapted and progressed so that they can remain successful. “We are a family of individuals committed to serving others. We will always provide for the welfare of our personnel through a health and rewarding work environment. We are dedicated to respect, integrity, compassion, and leadership amongst ourselves so that we may proudly serve others. The Sacramento Fire Department strives to sustain and improve the health, safety, convenience, and welfare of the citizens of Sacramento and to plan for the future development of the community. You can help save lives and property by donating to the Sacramento Fire Department. And remember parents, please raise your children to love America, to be patriotic, to love God and Jesus, respect law and others, treat others with dignity and respect, and remind them of the importance of education. To help America survive the global recession and bring manufacturing jobs back to America and to get American wages at pace with inflation, it is important to buy America cars, such as Ford, Chevrolet, Buick, Dodge, and Cadilliac. Every car that is built by the Japanese, Americans manufacture one that looks just as good, if not better, and is reliable and of superior quality. Also, help keep American farms alive by American meat, American produce and other American made goods and services. 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. Our Father, our King, be gracious unto us and answer us, for we are wanting in good deeds; deal with us in charity and lovingkindness, and please save us. #RandolphHarris 27 of 27
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External Eternity is Swept Away
The road to hell is often paved with false assumptions. Silence, evasion of lying is the order of the day, and unquestioned false assumptions become the basis on which countless men and women try to work out in their married lives. In light of this fact, what is remarkable is not that so many divorces take place but that so many marriages remain intact. For many people, “responsibility” has the somewhat onerous connotation of carrying someone else’s “obligation,” it may be perceived as a value that is oppressive and somewhat unrewarding. Unfortunately, this attitude also prevails in some relationships, where interpretation of romantic responsibility has been additionally prejudiced by time-honored, cultural misconceptions of adult relationships. Historically, the male has been assigned the role of provider while the female has been confined to a role of acceptance—stereotypes that show little knowledge of or regard for the natural capabilities of either gender. However, when these gender roles are violated, typically women take issue with having to provide for a man, and some men are not willing to be taken care of by a woman. Nevertheless, it is not surprising that generations of adult men and women have found it virtually impossibly to live with or live up to their gender roles to which they were culturally conditioned as adolescents. These roles were transmitted to young men and women through instruction and innuendo and through sly, incomplete or silent response to their need to know what meaning and function gender roles will have in their lives. #RandolphHarris 1 of 20
These cultural roles were established at a time when there was no knowledge of individual psycho-sexual limitations or of natural variations in male or female capacity. Although they have not withstood the realities of either gender or social needs, they remain woven into the cultural mores of society. As individuals frustrated by almost unbelievable gender confusion, we cope with the disparity between our own gender needs and our gender roles in a variety of ways. Some people reduce their adult responsibilities to a dirty joke, while others decry or repress anything that hints of incompetence. Currently, a small but clamorous number of people are immersing themselves in any or all styles of relationships in an attempt to break the mold of inhibition and dissatisfaction. Still others just endure. Fortunately, there always seems to be a heartening number of people who, despite their cultural limitations, are able to develop a realistic, comfortable attitude toward romance and prescribed gender roles. These individuals, together with their partners, have learned that responsibilities can be shared. Our double-standard society, in its early stages of development, maintained a tacit acceptance of romance and gender roles as a hearty source of mutual pleasure for those men and women who discovered this for themselves and confined its practice within certain prescribed boundaries. Practical, earthly levels of romantic awareness apparently fared best. Husbands and wives in the then predominantly rural society found both the need and the opportunity for achieving romantic unity within their particular lifestyles. #RandolphHarris 2 of 20
With the advent of the industrial revolution, however, the double standard soon became the means by which men and women were separated romantically as well as socially. The concept of pleasures of the flesh as a source of mutual pleasure (and therefore an area for mutual responsibility) faded as men and women found their lives rigidly divided by both the work ethic and social demands. As they pursued separate goals, husbands and wives lost sight of their need for one another. As an additional heritage, the omnipresent religious orthodoxies, social intolerances and ignorance of romantic matters by health care professionals, contributed immeasurably to our culture’s lack of comprehension of romantic response as a natural physiologic process, a process comparable to other natural functions such as respiratory, bowel or bladder function. When romantic response was separated in our thinking from its rightful place as a natural function, romantic misconceptions and even taboos inevitably became integral parts of the social structure. The concept of romance as a sin, and pleasures of the flesh for reproduction only, firmly overruled the concept of romance for human warmth or pleasures of the flesh for mutual pleasure. As a consequence, hundreds of thousands of men and women have been tied into severely neurotic or even openly psychotic patterns of behaviour. #RandolphHarris 3 of 20
In endeavouring to measure the conditions of therapy as they exist in the therapist, we have found it possible to use three avenues of perception. Through using the Relationship Inventory, we have a measure of these attitudes as perceived by the therapist and by the client. Through using unbiased judges who listen to segments of interviews, we have been able to obtain ratings of the degree to which these conditions exist, as measure by an impartial observer. In this third mode of measurement, it has been difficult to obtain suitable reliability between judges, indicating that it is not easy for anyone to be sure, from a therapist’s words and tone of voice, whether he is genuine, whether he does really care. Reliability is somewhat higher in gauging the degree and accuracy of empathic understanding. The important thing, however, is that we have been able to develop means of measuring subtle and significant therapist attitudes, from each of three perceptual vantage points: from the viewpoint of the therapist himself, from the point of view of an observer, and from the viewpoint of the client. There are three types of “truth.” One, the truth we hold in ourselves to be true; a second is that opinion which a group, validated by consensus, holds true; a third is objective truth, which none of us knows for sure. #RandolphHarris 4 of 20
One assumption of group therapy is that a consensus opinion is often close to objective truth than one person’s opinion, but a synthesis of both is necessary for growth to take place. Another assumption of therapy is that it is a healing process which we have to surrender to. It asks you to let go of your beliefs and be open to change. However, we cannot make you let go. That comes from within. If the only aspect of yourself you ever show us is stubborn resistance, you will never give yourself the adventure of growth. However, growth demands letting go, surrendering, giving up your fear of being wrong. Taking the client’s perception of these attitudes, we have an interesting finding. Those schizophrenics who perceived more of the attitudinal conditions of therapy in their therapist, as measure by their responses on the Relationship Inventory, show significantly more process movement as measured by the Process Scale, during the first 30 Interviews, than do those who perceive less of these therapeutic attitudes in the relationship. Another preliminary finding has emerged, based upon the judges’ ratings of one of these qualities, accurate empathy. This contained in a study by Truax of eight schizophrenic patients—four of them showing improvement on psychological tests, and four showing some deterioration. Samples were taken from the first twenty-four interviews with these patients, 385 samples in all. #RandolphHarris 5 of 20
Four judges listened to these samples independently, and rated the degree of accurate and sensitive empathy exhibitied by the therapist. When the ratings were analyzed, it was found that the improving patients received consistently more sensitive empathy than did those who were not improving. Our findings with schizophrenic clients also confirm an earlier finding with clinic clients. We have found that those schizophrenics who are less well adjusted, more psychotic, in terms of the MMPI, perceived less of these therapeutic conditions initially than do the better adjusted clients. Hence, it would appear that the perceived existence of these qualities in the relationship is an interacutal thing. The client who is deeply disturbed has difficult perceiving these attitudes even when they exist in the therapist. The therapy process involves surrender. It means accepting that there may be something outside of you, an objective truth, that you cannot control. And the only way to see that truth is simply by surrendering. For instance, when a man see himself as being a lot like his father, but will not surrender to that truth, he cannot grow. Later, when he decides to see it, he will grow in a gigantic leap. To make that leap, one does not have to do anything, just surrender to the truth, in the same way that one must surrender to the heart attack, whether you agree with the truth of not. This is one of the toughest things that you will have to do. #RandolphHarris 6 of 20
In early childhood, magical illusions are accepted in their most romantic forms. In later childhood, they are testes against reality, and parts of the, are reluctantly relinquished, leaving only a secret core to form the existential basis of life. Only the strongest can face the absurd gambles of living without any illusions. One of the hardest to give up, even later in life, is the illusion of autonomy or self-determination. Delusions are things that people treat as though they were one’s own ideas, based on observation and judgment, whereas in reality they are ideas imposed on one by one’s parents, which are so ingrown that one thinks they are part of his Real Self. The illusions, similarly, are ideas from his Child that he accepts as Adult and rational and tries to justify as such. Delusions and illusions may be called contaminations. One of the most important forces in moving human intelligence from the old science—Euclidian–Newtonian—to the new science—Einsteinian-Planck—is the Principle of Uncertainty introduced by Werner Heisenberg, which states that the very presence of experimenters and their measuring instruments becomes a determining factor in the field of investigation. Any hope of objectivity seemed to be eliminated. A philosophic angst, a sense of scientific futility, was the first reaction to Heisenberg’s dictum. “Alas,” the Newtonians groaned, “We can never really know what God or Nature hath wrought, because they very act of investigating changes the situation.” #RandolphHarris 7 of 20
Actually, Heisenberg’s Principle is one of self-actualized determinacy. Everything we see and know is a function of our reality-mapping—a function of the way we program our brains. This is the Principle of Neurological Determinacy. With the self-confidence, courage and freedom thus attained, we can accept the responsibility implied. Within the limits of our genetic stage, we can responsibly determine—construct, create, fabricate—the new realities we inhabit! In 1944, Einstein designed and took his own intelligence test. Later, it was revise by F.M. Esfandiary, who thus increased his own intelligence—I2. The first item on the Einstein-Esfandiary Intelligence Test (Standard Alien Intelligence Test item) asked, “How do you define intelligence?” Einstein answered that the way one defines intelligence is the most important step taken in life. Intelligence—like nerve cells upon which it is based—has three function—reception, mapping and performance. Functions of Intelligence: Reception is the ability to expand—direct the scope, source, intensity of information received. This is consciousness expansion—opening up to new data. Mapping is the ability to joyously revise your metaphours of reality in response to new information—including other people’s mataphours. Performance is the ability to construct external-communication apparati, in fusion with others, which stimulate expanded information-input, new maps-of-reality and improved networks. #RandolphHarris 8 of 20
The function of evolution is to stimulate in Increase in Intelligence—I2. An evolutionary action is one designed to increase your intelligence. An Evolutionary Agent is one who continually works to expand input of information, revise reality metaphours and raise the intelligence of self and others. The second item on the Einstein-Esfandiary test asked, “Can intelligence be increased? Yes! Intelligence can be increased. Our braisn are designed to increase our intelligence. The aim and strategy of evolution is to raise the intelligence of species. The development of every individual from infancy to maturity is the story of Intelligence Increased—I2. The only smart thing to do is to get smarter. Aleister Crowley taught us that there are three ways to increase intelligence: First, continually expand the scope, source, and intensity of the information you receive. Second, constantly revise your reality maps and seek new metaphour about the future to understand what is happening now. Third, develop external networks for increasing intelligence. In particular, spend all your time with people as smart or smarter than you. Everyone knows the social value of culture and breeding and refinement but everyone does not know that they should, and could, have a spiritual one too. For they share this in common with the value of art that they can uplift a man or, misused, degrade him. The point lies in their effect. The refinement of tastes, the improvement of understanding, the betterment of manners—this is the cultural preparation for the path. #RandolphHarris 9 of 20
Philosophy accords a place and value to culture and refinement, to quality of character and enrichment of mind. It rejects the narrowness of view and negativity of attitude which allows salvation only to those who exhibit their detachment in bare squalid homes, devoid of beauty, or their indifference in minds unresponsive to intellectual power and poetic feeling. Where good manners are sincerely felt and sincerely practiced, they represent consideration for other people, abandonment of the self-centered habit we are born with. And what does this in turn represent but a surrender of ego? This helps to explain why Hilaire Belloc could write: “Of Courtesy it is mush less than courage of heart or holiness, yet in my walks it seems to me that the Grace of God is in Courtesy.” The difference between those who behaved rudely and those who behave politely is not only a social one: it is also a spiritual one. For it is goodwill which inspires good manners, where they are genuinely felt, that same “good will unto all men,” which Jesus Christ enjoined us to practice. The lack of courtesy has a deeper negative meaning than most people comprehend. If not supported by inner integrity and personal sincerity, even the finest manners were hollow and vain. Common men need self-control, especially over passions. #RandolphHarris 10 of 20
Underbred and overbearing persons imagine that they are showing the World their importance when all the while they are merely showing their littleness. Good manners, when sincere and spontaneous, are spiritual virtue. In all human contact, the good man expresses himself naturally in good manners. In the management of both transient and lifelong relationships, the master shows by grace of manner the grace of God. By up brining and temperament, by education and education and environment, a man may grow into refinement from childhood, easily and naturally. However, he who comes into it from harsh, low surroundings by his own determination and effort, advances spiritually. The accepted canons of good manners may vary from one part of the World to another, but deeper than these conventions is a courtesy which relates to the spiritual side of one’s nature. If sincere, politeness is a spiritual quality. Those who lift their eyebrows at such an assertion do not look deeply enough into it. Those cases where it is empty formalism they are right, of course; but in those where it expresses genuine consideration for others, they are wrong. The thin courtesy which is hollow and insincere, the good manners which are acted and artificial, the pleasant words which are false and untrustworthy, do not of course hold spiritual value. There are deeper reasons than merely social ones why we are polite. The roots of politeness go down into moral training. #RandolphHarris 11 of 20
If people practice good manners merely and only as a part of their paid job—as, for instance, head waiter in restaurants—that is their affair. However, the motivation can also be on a far deeper level even in ordinary social intercourse. Under the finest manners there can be—not hypocrisy, as a Colonial once informed me—but utter sincerity and true feeling. They can express goodwill to all, poor and rich, servant and superior. If the World all too easily puts them on like a mask, to disguise antipathy or even hate, the quester who has had, or hopes to have, a glimpse of his Higer Aelf, does not need to wear such a mask at all. Without a hollow, ridiculous obsession with formality and decorum, a man can simply be what he now knows a human being ought to be in his relationship with others. When their lives have lost delight and any sense of meaning or hope, persons typically become depressed. Occasions for depression include the death of a loved person, prolonged failure of one’s projects, the loss of beauty or one’s health and vitality. When persons are depressed, they experience life as hellish—time slows down; nothing is happening; they may feel worthless, guilty, and beneath contempt. Clearly, when persons are depressed, their lives are not yielding what is needed for vital, enlivening existence. #RandolphHarris 12 of 20
Depressed people frequently make suicidal attempts, and they sometimes succeed—which is a shame, because persons can disengage from hopeless ways of being, and, with a little imaginative help from friends or a psychotherapist, reinvent themselves and their situations in ways that engender more positive experience. Although depression is hellish, it can and perhaps should serve as a motive to the sufferers to change their situation to more life-giving ones. In the same fashion that joy is likely to be a part of every person’s experience during a lifetime, depression may also be a factor in everyone’s life at some time—including the lives of healthy personalities. This radical change in the conception of the role of depression out to be utilized, understood, and taken by the person as a normal occurrence to be dealt with and integrated into the personality, to become part of the person’s total experience in the same way any other negative experience may be a source of new learning about the self. From the moment that man submits God to moral judgment, he kills Him in his own heart. And then what is the basis of morality? God is denied in the name of justice, but can the idea of justice be understood without the idea of God? At this point we are not in the realm of absurdity? Absurdity is the concept that Nietzsche meets face to face. In order to be able to dismiss it, he pushes it to extremes: morality is the ultimate aspect of God, which must be destroyed before reconstruction can begin. Then God no longer exists and is no longer responsible for our existence; man must resolve to act, in order to exist. #RandolphHarris 13 of 20
Even before Nietzsche, Stirner wanted to eradicate the very idea of God from man’s mind, after he had destroyed God Himself. However, unlike Nietzsche, his nihilism was gratified. Stirner laughs in his blind alley; Nietzsche beats his head against the wall. In 1845, the year when Der Einziger und sein Eigentum (The Unique and Its Characteristics) appeared, Stirner begins to define his position. Stirner, who frequented the “Society of Free Mem” with the young Hegelians of the left (of whom Marx was one), had an account to settle not only with God, but also with Feuerbach’s Man, Hegel’s Spirit, and its historical incarnation, the State. All these idols, to his mind, were offspring of the same “mongolism”—the belief in the eternity of ideas. Thus, he was able to write: “I have constructed my case on nothing.” Sin is, of course, a “mongol scourge,” but it is also the law of which we are prisoners. God is the enemy; Stirner goes as far as he can in blasphemy (“digest the Host and you are rid of it”). However, God is only one of the aberrations of the I, or more precisely of what I am. Socrates, Jesus, Descartes, Hegel, all the prophets and philosophers, have done nothing but invent new methods of deranging what I am, the I that Stirner is so intent on distinguishing from the absolute I of Fichte by reducing it to its most specific and transitory aspect. “It has no name,” it is the Unique. #RandolphHarris 14 of 20
For Stirner, the history of the Universe up to the time of Jesus Christ is nothing but a sustained effort to idealize reality. This effort is incarnated in the ideas and rites of purification which the ancients employed. From the time of Jesus, the goal is reached, and another effort is embarked upon which consists, on the contrary, in attempting to realize the ideal. The passion of the incarnation takes the place of purification and devastates the Word, to a greater and greater degree, as socialism, the heir of Christ, extends its sway. However, the history of the Universe is nothing but a continual offense to the unique principle that “I am”—a living, concrete principle, a triumphant principle that the World has always wanted to subject to the yoke of successive abstractions—God, the State, society, humanity. For Stirner, philanthropy is a hoax. Atheistic philosophies which culminate in the cult of the State and of Man, are only “theological insurrections.” “Our atheists,” says Stirner, “are really pious folk.” There is only one religion that exists throughout all history, the belief in eternity. This belief is a deception. The only truth is the Unique, the enemy of eternity and of everything, in fact, which does not further its desire for domination. With Stirner, the concept of negation which inspires his rebellion irresistibly submerges every aspect of affirmation. It also sweeps away the substitutes for divinity with which the moral conscience is encumbered. “External eternity is swept away,” he says, “but internal eternity has become a new heaven.” #RandolphHarris 15 of 20
Even revolution, revolution in particular, is repugnant to this rebel. To be revolutionary, one must continue to believe in something, even where there is nothing in which to believe. “The [French] Revolution ended in reaction and that demonstrates what the Revolution was in reality.” To dedicated oneself to humanity is no more worth while than serving God. Moreover, fraternity is only “Communism in its Sunday best.” During the week, the members of the fraternity become slaves. Therefore, there is only one form of freedom for Stiner, “my power,” and only one truth, “the magnificent egotism of the stars.” In this desert, everything begins to flower again. “The terrifying significance of an unpremeditated cry of joy cannot be understood while the long night of faith and reason endures.” This night is drawing to a close, and a dawn will break which is not the dawn of revolution but of insurrection. Insurrection is, in itself, an asceticism which rejects all forms of consolation. The insurgent will not be in agreement with other men except in so far as, and as long as, their egotism coincides with his. His real life is led in solitude where he will assuage, without restraint, his appetite for existing, which is his only reason for existence. In this respect, individual reaches a climax. It is the negation of everything that dines the individual and the glorification of everything that exalts and ministers to the individual. #RandolphHarris 16 of 20
What, according to Stirner, is good? “Everything of which I can make use.” What am I, legitimately, authorized to do? “Everything of which I am capable.” Once again, rebellion leads to the justification of crime. Stirner not only has attempted to justify crime (in this respect the terrorist forms of anarchy are directly descended from him), but is visibly intoxicated by the perspectives that he thus reveals. “To break with what is sacred, or rather to destroy the scared, could become universal. It is not a new revolution that is approaching—but is not a powerful, proud, disrespectful, shameless, conscienceless crime swelling like a thundercloud on the horizon, and can you not see that they sky, heavy with foreboding, is growing dark and silent?” Here we can feel the somber joy of those who create an apocalypse in a garret. This bitter and imperious logic can no longer be held in check, except by an I which is determined to defeat every form of abstraction and which has itself become abstract and nameless through being isolated and cut off from its roots. There are no more crimes and no more imperfections, and therefore no more sinners. We are all perfect. Since every I is, in itself, fundamentally criminal in its attitude toward the State and the people, we must recognize that to live is to transgress. Unless we accept death, we must be willing to kill in order to be unique (not to be taken literally). “You are not as noble as a criminal, you who do not desecrate anything.” Moreover Stirner, still without the courage of his convictions, specifies: “Kill them, do not martyr them.” (This is just a discussion, not to be taken literally.) #RandolphHarris 17 of 20
However, to decree the murder is legitimate is to decree mobilization and war for all the Unique. Thus, murder will coincide with a kind of collective suicide. Stirner, who either does not recoil at the idea of any form of destruction. The spirit of rebellion finally discovers one of its bitterest satisfactions in chaos. “You [the German nation] will be struck down. Soon your sister nations will follow you; when all of them have gone your way, humanity will be buried, and on its tomb I, sole master of myself at last, I, heir to all the human race, will shout with laughter.” And so, among the ruins of the World, the desolate laughter of the individual-king illustrates the last victory of the sprit or rebellion. However, at this extremity nothing else is possible but death or resurrection. Stirner, and with him all the nihilist revels, rush to the utmost limits, drunk with destruction. After which, when the desert has been disclosed, the next step is to learn how to live there. Nietzsche’s exhaustive search begins. Therefore, courtesy should be recognized as one of the desirable spiritual virtues. Social manners and outer etiquette are only the local forms taken by courtesy. They may change or drop out, what matters is their inner attitude. To be well-bred is not solely an innate blood-born attribute as so many narrowly believe it; it can also be shaped by philosophy, which is no less a matter of refinement of manners than it is of consciousness. It is not concerned with snobbish social elegance, as others also narrowly think, but with goodness and with aesthetics. It avoids vulgarity because that is so unattractive. All these qualities may not usually be associated with philosophers, but that is because in which cases there is not enough dept in them. #RandolphHarris 18 of 20
The Sacramento Fire Department is dedicated to ensuring your safety and well-being. They go beyond just firefighting—their mission is to create a secure environment for each of you, their cherished residents, and visitors. With their robust system of public education initiatives, the Sacramento Fire Department strives to empower you with the knowledge needed to prevent emergencies and protect your loved ones. Their commitment extends to the rigorous enforcement of fire codes, ensuring that every corner of their city adhere to the highest safety standard. “We had a record low of twenty 22 degrees Fahrenheit. Some young boys had gone over to the conservation club and stolen some liquor. They took it to a little shack that was built between two small hills so that the roof was even with the ground. For heat, they had a fifty-gallon drum with some wood in it, and they had a fire in it. One of the kids, about twelve or thirteen, passed out, and they wanted the fire to keep him warm while they went to get some more kids. By the time they got back, the building was engulfed in flames. We were called on it. We could see the child, we could hear him screaming, and we did everything we could possibly do, but we couldn’t get near him. It was like, my God, what can we do? We’ve got all the water we could possibly want, we’ve all the help we could possibly want, but we can’t get into the shack. It was untouchable. By the luck of God, one of the guys made it in and was able to save the boy. I remember coming home from that. It was in the middle of the night, probably about four in the morning. And I was devastated. I walked around the house a little bit. I didn’t want to wake my wife up, and I went and sat down on my son’s bed, and I just looked at him. #RandolphHarris 19 of 20
“That’s when I started to cry. I thought, what an awful thing for any child, or even a parent, to have to go through. I am very sensitive with children’s calls. Whether it’s a child abuse or a medical or a skateboard accident, my heart goes out a little bit more to those kinds of calls.” The Sacramento Fire Department is part of your, community, a familiar face dedicated to safeguarding the place you all call home. Together, you can all build a safer, stronger Sacramento. You can help save lives and property by donating to the Sacramento Fire Department. And remember, parents, teach your children to love America and be patriotic, to love God and Jesus Christ, to buy American made goods and services and cars, to respect law and order, and teach others with compassion, respect, and dignity, especially their elders. Release all captives, we beseech Thee, Lord whose mighty hand doth set men free; and hear the glad acclaim of all Thy people who praise and glorify but Thee. Preserve the righteous ones who seek Thee, and, in love, Thy unity proclaim; O guard and bless with Thine abundant goodness, Thy people who revere Thy name. Thou, Lord, who art alone exalted, please turn to us and hearken to our plea. We bless Thee, Thou who knowest all things hidden, Thy kingdom is unto eternity. 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. O Guardian of American, guard the remnant of America; let not American people perish, the people which proclaims: Hear, O America. #RandolphHarris 20 of 20
The Winchester Mystery House
The Winchester mansion is feeling alive with Christmas spirit… and possibly a few others 🎄👻
You can see this beautifully decorated space and many others when you take a mansion tour during the holiday season!
Please come and enjoy a delicious meal in Sarah’s Café, stroll along the paths of the beautiful Victorian gardens, and wonder through the miles of hallways in the World’s most mysterious mansion. For further information about tours, including group tours, weddings, school events, birthday party packages, facility rentals, and special events please visit the website: https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
Please visit the online giftshop, and purchase a gift for friends and relatives as well as a special memento of The Winchester Mystery House. A variety of souvenirs and gifts are available to purchase. https://shopwinchestermysteryhouse.com/
The Wages of Fun Were Death
We woke as the plane started the sunrise descent to Madrid. It was a picture album moment to remember, touching the soil of Europe. It was a coming home. Tracing the ancestor seed line back. America is a genetic experiment on the part of Europe, Asia, and Africa. We were high freedom and new experiences. We cleared customs smoothly and cabbed to the Hilton Madrid where there was no room. Conventions, block tours, and an army of Japanese visitors were jamming the hotels. After three sweaty hours of futility, we decided on a long shot. For years, friends had told us of a Spanish law professor from one of the best families in Spain, who had expressed great interest in us. Alvaro. Alvaro. What is his last name? I sat in a café flicking mnemonic cards. Alvaro Janez. There were rows of Janez in the phone book. Two were doctors. The first call clicked. “Dr. Janez, my name is Dr. Harris. From the Menninger Clinic. I am a friend of Carlo Galli.” “A friend of his is a friend of mine.” “I have a message from him to you.” Alvaro insisted that we come at once to his home. In the cab I decided to check the scene. If Alvaro was OK, I could identify myself. Alvaro lived in a mansion surrounded by an iron fence and formal gardens. I left the cab with my bags and Alvaro was fully enthusiasm. He embraced me. #RandolphHarris 1 of 22
Alvaro was young, and leaping around with joy. His wife Arianna was warm, Andalusian, dark, striking. They were aristocratic people delighted by the adventure of hosting me. I was shown to a luxurious room. After a rest, a moment of sharing and a sauna, Alvaro and Arianna took me to a small but hidden elegant restaurant. We were old friends before the evening. Alvaro and Arianna were bored with Madrid society. They wanted me to stay in Spain. He had a country house where we could live in isolation. He could arrange a South American passport with his left connections. It was an intriguing prospect. However, I could not live in luxury, underground, with a false passport. I have often had people tell me that the hardest thing to take is rejection. Sales people are paid as well as they are, I am told, because they have to take rejection, while others are unwilling to do so. If these things are true, I can see how the value called “control” becomes exaggerated. It becomes so because one of the strongest, most consistent forms of rejection we experience early in our lives in the one contained in these two words: “You’re wrong.” For many of us, being “wrong” is about the worst thing we can do. Being caught at it is the worst that can happen to us. Our parents, teachers, religious leaders, and other authority figures place so much emphasis on our being “right,” that we develop an internal taboo against being wrong. #RandolphHarris 2 of 22
If you allow this to become exaggerated, you are a manipulator who always finds where others are going wrong. When you yourself are criticized, you get defensive and resort to logic, but never allow yourself to stay with your feelings. As a manipulator, you need to control others, and you have developed a heavy-handedness which other people resent. You need to win and cannot surrender to the possible “rightness” of another’s views. Yet, if you are a master, you have learned to surrender to the views of others, make a place for them beside your own views, or even replace your views with theirs. Having learned to listen to others, you are not as quick to argue and thus you make more friends. Not having to defend yourself all the time, you are more relaxed and feel better about yourself. Your conversations are not battles; they are dialogues which lead to mutual growth. Growing out of client-centered therapy and especially its application with hospitalized schizophrenics, there is now emerging a mode of psychotherapy which centers on the “experiencing” of the two persons in the therapy interaction, rather than on the discussed verbal contents. This development is similar to recent trends in other orientations: there is a strong tendency to emphasize the interaction in psychotherapy, to emphasize that two human beings are involved, and to focus on the concrete subjective events occurring in these two persons, rather than only on the verbal contents being discussed. #RandolphHarris 3 of 22
Basic to this development is the view that psychotherapy involves “experiencing” (by whatever name), a somatic inwardly felt process, the manner and meanings of which are affected by the interaction. Some attention is being given to the theoretical problem of how inwardly felt bodily events can have “meaning,” be “explored” and “symbolized,” and how these concrete implicit “meanings” can be affected and changed by interaction. Now that psychotherapy is widely thought to involve a concrete feeling. Schizophrenics are one of the most difficult groups I have ever worked with, in terms of the probability of change. We are dealing with more or less chronically psychotic individuals. There is ample experience to indicate that this is a very difficult group. We are dealing with individuals whose socio-educational status is, on the average, quite low. We are dealing with individuals who, almost without exception, are not consciously desirous of psychotherapy, who tend to have the view that “talking cannot help,” and who do not see the therapist as a potentially helpful person. Some of them are not only unmotivated, but are actively antagonistic to any attempt to help them. When you consider these three factors together, I believe my statement is correct that in terms of probability of change, this is one of the least promising groups ever taken on for psychotherapy. #RandolphHarris 4 of 22
A major lesson we have gleaned is that absence of conscious motivation constitutes a really profound problem in psychotherapy. This is certainly not news, but we have learned to recognize and formulate this issue much more clearly and sharply. There is a great difference between working with the consciously motivate client, whether neurotic or psychotic, and working with the person who has no such conscious motive, whether that person is normal, neurotic, or psychotic. Working with the person who desires help is psychotherapy, as usually defined and understood. Not only is there a wealth of experience in this kind of relationship, but there has been a steady increase in empirical knowledge as well. Objectively, we know a great deal about psychotherapy of this sort. We have a beginning objective knowledge of the kind of individual who is most likely to facilitate improvement, the kind of changes which most characteristically occur to a measurable degree. However, for working with the person who has no conscious desire for help we need a new term. It is an area in which relatively little has been developed in the way of theories and concepts. Until recently, there have been no therapists willing to expose to view their way of working with these individuals. #RandolphHarris 5 of 22
We owe a real debt to such therapists as Frieda Fromm-Reichman, John Rosen, and Carl Whitaker, for their willingness to demonstrate publicly and to record their way of dealing with these individuals, their way of provoking a relationship where no desire for a therapeutic relationship exists initially. From our own experience in working with unmotivated schizophrenic individuals, it is my present conviction that working with a lack of conscious motivation in the individual is more difficult than working with the problem is psychosis. This is of course a subjective opinion, based in part on our general lack of success in trying to form a facilitative relationship with unmotivated “normal” of low socio-educational status. In so far as the two elements are separable, I believe that absence of conscious desire for help presents a greater challenge to the therapist than the presence of psychosis. In any event, If we recognize that dealing with the person who does not wish help is a clearly different undertaking from psychotherapy, and if we build up the concepts, theories, and practices appropriate to it, we will make more progress in this area. We should not be mislead by the fact that a relationship with such an individual may become psychotherapy when he chooses to seek help. #RandolphHarris 6 of 22
Illusions are the “if onlys” and “some days” upon which most people base their existence. In some countries, government lotteries offer the only possibility for Jeder to make his dreams come true, and thousands of men spend their lives, day after day, waiting for their numbers to come up. Now the truth of the matter is that there is that there is a Santa Claus: at every drawing, somebody’s number does come up and his dreams do come true. However, oddly enough, in most cases, this does not bring happiness, and many people let their winnings slip through their fingers and return to their former state. This is because the whole system of illusions is a magical one: not only will the reward arrive magically, but it will be magic in itself. A proper child knows that the real Santa Claus will come down the chimney while he is asleep and leave him a little red wagon or a golden orange. However, it will not be an ordinary little red wagon or orange; instead, a magical and unique one studded with rubies and diamonds. When Jeder discovers that the little red wagon or orange had indeed arrived, but that it is just an ordinary one like everybody else’s, he is disappointed and asks: “Is that all?” much to the mystification of his parents, who thought they were giving him exactly what he wanted. Similarly, the man who wins the lottery finds that the things he buys are the same as the things other people have, so he often says: “Is that all?” and blows it. He would rather go back and sit under the tree hoping for magic than enjoy what he has. #RandolphHarris 7 of 22
That is, illusions are more attractive than reality, and even the most attractive reality may be abandoned in favour of the most tenuous or improbably illusion. Among the most remarkable examples of this are certain with a “Never Give Up” script. One of the things they are reluctant to give up are their bowel movements, so that they suffer from chronic constipation. The illusions is that is they only hold on long enough Santa Claus will come, or if he does not at least they have something of their own to make up for the gifts they will not get. Some of these people are in an excellent position to enjoy a rewarding reality, but they would rather “sit” at home, waiting for they know not what or whom to come and rescue them. One such woman, even when she was lying flat on the analytic couch, would say: “I’m sitting here thinking.” At home she spent a lot of constipated time doing just that. She found it hard to mingle with people, because wherever she went, she carried a psychological toilet with her, and no matter what her Adult was doing, her Child was sitting on its favourite seat. Actually, the Child almost never gives up its illusions. Some of them are universal, as Dr. Freud pointed out, and probably arise in the first few months of life, or even in the womb, which is a magical World man can only find later through love, pleasures of the flesh, or barbiturates (or perhaps, with vicious people, through massacre). #RandolphHarris 8 of 22
Dr. Freud names as the three earliest ones: “I am immortal, omnipotent, and irresistible.” Of course, these primal illusions do not last long in the face of infant reality: mother, father, time, gravity, unknown and frightening sights and sounds, and internal sensations of hunger, fear, and pain. However, they are replaced by conditional illusions which are strong influences in the formation of scripts. There they appear as If Onlys: “If only I behave in the right way, Santa Claus will com.” Before the 1960s, the orthodox hive philosophy insisted that “for every little pleasure there is pain, pain, pain.” God was considered a beady-eyed accountant up there in Hive-Heaven keeping your hedonic balance in order. And if you overdrew on your pleasures account, woe be it to you! Because the wages of fun were death—as every Hollywood movie warned. The dom-species has come a long way from that prudishness, due in some part, to our friends from the Eastern philosophy department. We have learned that pleasure is not bound by some Newtonian conservation-of-energy-principle and thus balanced by pain. We understand that beauty is something that can be learned, can be engineered. Pleasure is not an ejaculation reflex. It is an art, a science, a skilled performance, like playing the concert piano. It is something that can be studied and, through disciplined intelligence, increased. And, indeed, the more you do it, the better you get at it. #RandolphHarris 9 of 22
Thus, pleasure and intelligent hedonism are like tennis. Find someone who plays as well or better than yourself. The neurosomatic rebirth, the Body Resurrection which occurred in the sexual revolution is an accomplished fact. The Body has been uncovered. We are never going to return to prudish robot-hood. The other aspect of the contelligence movement of the 1960s—the neurological revolution—was the discovery of the brain itself. A hundred years ago, there was a taboo organ in Victorian England and in Freudian Vienna. Genitals were considered the unmentionable. Look at any newsstand and you will see that the genitals are no longer unmentionables, but rather the unavoidables. Now the taboo organ, the organ that we cannot talk about or study intelligently is the brain. The next taboo is DNA actualization. It is only since the development of neurology that science has begun to face the real meaning of the brain. The Brain is emerging from the closet. And it is scary, my friends! It is frightening to every static, comfortable social and philosophic hive-notion to realize that you are carrying around behind your forehead a 100 billion-cell bioelectric computer that creates realities. Through imprinting and reimprinting, the brain imposes the reality you inhabit. Everything you think and feel and sense and remember and learn is simply a process of brain functioning. #RandolphHarris 10 of 22
When a species understands that the brain is a tool, then it starts to think about directing and understanding this incredible instrument. And it begins using it to ask such embarrassing questions as—who designed the brain? And what is it for? And how do we use the brain? Your brain creates your own reality. If the romantic rebel extols evil and the individual, this does not mean that he sides with mankind, but merely with himself. Dandyism, of whatever kind, is always dandyism in relation to God. The individual, in so far as he is a created being, can oppose himself only to the Creator. He has need of God, with whom he carries on a kind of a gloomy flirtation. Armand Hoog rightly says that, despite its Nietzschean atmosphere, God is not yet dead even in romantic literature. Damnation, so clamourously demanded, is only a clever trick played on God. However, with Dostoievsky, the description of rebellion goes a step farther. Ivan Karamazov sides with mankind and stressed human innocence. He affirms that the death sentence which hangs over them is unjust. Far from making a plea for evil, his first impulse, at least, is to plead for justice, which he ranks above the divinity. Thus, he does not absolutely deny the existence of God. He refutes Him in the name of a moral value. The romantic rebel’s ambition was to talk to God as one equal to another. #RandolphHarris 11 of 22
Evil was the answer to evil, pride was the answer to cruelty. To further highlight this illustration, Vigny’s ideal is to answer silence with silence. Obviously, the point is to raise oneself to the level of God, which already is blasphemy. However, there is no thought of disputing the power or position of the deity. The blasphemy is reverent, since every blasphemy is, ultimately, a participation in holiness. With Ivan, however, the tone changes. God, in His turn, is put on trial. If evil is essential to divine creation, then creation is unacceptable. Ivan will no loner have recourse to this mysterious God, but to a higher principle—namely, justice. He launches the essential undertaking of rebellion, which is that of replacing the reign of grace by the reign of justice. He simultaneously begins the attack on Christianity. The romantic rebels broke with God Himself, on the principle of hatred. Ivan explicitly rejects the mystery and, consequently, God, on the principle of love. Only love can make us consent to the injustice done to Martha, to exploitation of workers, and, finally, to the death of innocent children. “If the suffering of children,” says Ivan, “serves to complete the sum of suffering necessary for the acquisition of truth, I affirm from now onward that truth is not worth such a price.” Ivan rejects the basic interdependence, introduced by Christianity, between suffering and truth. #RandolphHarris 12 of 22
Ivan’s most profound utterance, the one which opens the deepest chasms beneath the rebel’s feet, is his even if: “I would persist in my indignation, even if I were wrong.” Which means that even if God existed, even if the mystery cloaked a truth, even if the starets Zosime were right, Ivan would not admit that truth should be paid for by evil, suffering, and death of innocents. Ivan incarnates the refusal of salvation. Faith leads to immortal life. However, faith presumes the acceptance of the mystery and of evil, and resignation to injustice. The man who is prevented by the suffering of children from accepting faith will certainly not accept eternal life. Under these conditions, even if eternal life existed, Ivan would refuse it. He rejects this bargain. He would accept grace only unconditionally, and that is why he makes his own conditions. Rebellion wants all or nothing. “All the knowledge in the World is not worth a child’s tears.” Ivan does not say that there is no truth. He says that is truth does exist, it can only be unacceptable. Why? Because it is unjust. The struggle between truth and justice is begun here for the first time; and it will never end. Ivan, by nature a solitary and therefore moralist, will satisfy himself with a kind of metaphysical Don Quixotism. However, a few decades more and an immense political conspiracy will attempt to prove that justice is truth. #RandolphHarris 13 of 22
In addition, Ivan is the incarnation of the refusal to be the only one saved. He throws in his lit with the damned and, for their sake, rejects eternity. If he had faith, he could, in fact, be saved, but others would be damned and suffering would continue. There is no possible salvation for the man who feels real compassion. Ivan will continue to put God in the wrong by doubly rejecting faith as he would reject injustice and privilege. One step more and from All or Nothing we arrive at Everyone or No One. This extreme determination, and the attitude that it implies, would have sufficed for the romantics. However, Ivan, even though he also gives way to dandyism, really lives his problems, torn between the negative and the affirmative. If he rejects immorality, what remains for him? Life in its most elementary form. When the meaning of life has been suppressed, there still remains life. “I live,” says Ivan, “in spite of logic.” And again: “If I no longer had any faith in life, if I doubted a woman I loved, or the universal order of things, if I were persuaded, on the contrary, that everything was only an infernal and accursed chaos—even then I would want to live.” Ivan will live than, and will love as well “without knowing why.” However, to live is also to act. To act in the name of what? If there is no immortality, then there is neither reward nor punishment. “I believe that there is no virtue without immortality.” And also: “I only know that suffering exists, that on one is guilty, that everything is connected, that everything passes away and equals out.” However, if there is no virtue, there is no law: “Everything is permitted.” #RandolphHarris 14 of 22
Let him accept others as he accepts himself, with all their and his defects, but with the addition that he will constantly aim at improving himself. He persists in showing a proper courtesy to those who themselves behave badly. If others wish to do so, he may argue, but he will never argue acrimoniously. When the actions or words of others provoke us, it is easy to become irritable, resentful, or indignant; it is hard to practise a bland patience and exercise a philosophic tolerance. However, that is just what the aspirant must do. A child whose parents fail to discipline it at the proper occasion in the proper loving way will be encouraged by omission to continue its mistaken attitude. If they cared enogh, they would show it in being affable, pleasant, kind—that is, they would suppress their egoism sufficiently to make such decent manners possible. However, they do not: they care too much for their own ego to let it happen. Knowing the nature of human nature; knowing, too, the universality of God’s laws, existence and applicability: there is no need to be surprised at anything which anyone does. If he must assess men’s motives and examine their characters, he will do so only to understand them, not to judge them. He will not use it to gossip about their personal frailties. Ingratitude fails to embitter him—does not even make him feel hurt. #RandolphHarris 15 of 22
To a person of refined feeling, the crudeness of animal passion is repellent. It was an act of reverence among pious Chinese, or of courtesy among polite ones, to hold the hands with the right palm inside the left one. Those who make a virtue of bad manners, who know nothing or want to know nothing of the laws of decent social intercourse, should be avoided. If his family failed to bring him up to practise self-discipline, to control behaviour and refine his speech, to avoid violence and roughness, then he must himself supply these things and acquire these habits. He not only learns that it is impossible to please everyone but that it is impossible even to avoid giving offense at some time to some human beings. It is true that fine manners may be put on, to make a more favourable impression on his victim, by the exploiter, the swindler, or the seducer. However, this is the misuse of manners and offers no valid criticism of them. He naturally feels a warmer emotion about his own kith and kin, his own friends, than about other people. He not only knows them better but they affect him more deeply. All reaching out towards the transcendental is to be encouraged, however elementary it be. The philosopher does not exhibit the common fault of rejecting and condemning every other standpoint in order to supper his own. #RandolphHarris 16 of 22
Neither the mockery of insensitive sceptics nor the malice of sectarian fanatics should be allowed to sway him from a fixed resolve to accord goodwill unto all, including them also. He should try to keep discussions of opposing views within the codes of amicable courtesy and good manners. Why must we be always grabbing at others, staking out claims and making demands upon them? Why not leave them free? He has not only to separate himself from his own lower principles, but just as much for other people’s when he is in contact with them. If disunion reigns in the psyche within, then disharmony must reign in the life without. An emotion is a patterned bodily reaction of either protection, destruction, reproduction, deprivation, incorporation, rejection, exploration or orientation, or some combination of these, which is brought bout by a stimulus. The emotion becomes felt tendency toward anything appraised as good, and away from anything appraised as bad. A quarrelsome man carries his emeimes with him for he creates them wherever he goes. There is no peace in his outer life because there is no in his inner life. When it is not possible for his relatives or friends to share with him the acceptance of spiritual ideas, he should be tolerant, understanding, and patient toward such disagreement. #RandolphHarris 17 of 22
The logic of a higher life compels him to recognize the divine element in the hearts of those who hate or malign him, and he honours them for it; but it does not compel him to waste precious years in unnecessary struggles against them. The years which are left to him and to them on this poor Earth are too few to be lost in unworthy squabbles. Each society and subculture has stereotyped ways in which persons express, and hence communicate, their feelings to one another. The behavioural, gestural, and facial expressions can be faked—someone can pretend to experience feelings he or she does not actually have. Perhaps the only one who knows with certainty what feelings someone is experiencing is the actual person, and even that person may be unaware that he or she is in an emotional state; it is a human possibility to repress the affective quality of experience. In spite of these qualifications, we can identify some common feelings and emotions and recognize them in ourselves and others. From the standpoint of healthy personality, it is desirable to be free to express the fullest gamut of emotion, because of the enrichment it affords to the quality of life. Not to know emotion is to be like a robot or zombie. Further, it is vital that a person’s feelings be authentic rather than pretended. Pretended emotion falsifies relationships with other people; such inauthenticity undermines health and distorts personal growth. He will express his faith positively but not aggressively. #RandolphHarris 18 of 22
The Sacramento City Fire Department is recognized as one of the nation’s premier fire services, with its men and women delivering the highest quality fire and emergency response. The Sacramento City Fire Department is dedicated to improving the health, safety, and welfare of the community and firefighters. “I was involved in a rescue in Downtown Sacramento. Captain X, Y, and I went into a converted Victorian that was on fire. Starting our search, we went down a hallway and came to an apartment whose door was hot to the touch. As I pushed the door open, the sprinklers went off over our heads, and a big blast of smoke and heat came at us. I knew we had a good job ahead of us. The captain and Y went straight ahead into a bedroom area, but I thought I heard something from the other end, so I went down that way. As I was crawling down this hallway, I was pretty low because of the heat, I heard my name being called, ‘Z. Z.’ At first I thought, ‘B, Candid Camera. They’re tricking me.’ Then I thought it was one of the guys from the company, maybe the outside vent man had gotten in a window and saw me coming. Then I realized it was a female voice. I went a little faster down the hall, and I kept hearing my name being called. ‘Z. Z. Z.’ I came across a semiconscious woman on the floor at a point where the fire was just starting to roll over near the ceiling and take full possession of the back room.” #RandolphHarris 19 of 22
“I asked her, ‘Who’s Z? Who’s Z?’ She started mumbling. I said, ‘Is Z your boyfriend?’ She said, ‘Yes.’ ‘Is he here?’ ‘No.’ I said, ‘Are you sure?’ She said, ‘He’s at work.’ Then she passed out. I had a good idea there was no other Z there expect me, so I carried her out and got her to the sidewalk. I have her a little forced air until she came around a little bit and was taken away in the ambulance. Two weeks later she showed up at the firehouse with a cake. I was off that day, but the guys told me the cake was great. I thought it was nice that the woman cared enough to come around and thank the fire department for their efforts. After I transferred from D Truck to Rescue E in Sacramento I was quiet, waiting for a chance to prove myself. I was there only a short time when I was involved in a rescue. Again it was one of those left-right deals. I went to the right, and this other guy went to the left. I got lucky. I found an unconscious man, and I had to carry him down seven flights of stairs. I injured my back a little. But I felt I had shown the men on rescue that I could go where they went, and I could accomplish the mission. Some jobs I remember better than others. One night tour I was working, it happened to be my birthday. We went out at six-thirty in the morning to this job. I had one of the outside ventilation positions, and there was a report of people possibly trapped in these apartments. The truck companies had already made a couple of good rescues. I started working my way up a fire escape, wearing an old Scott mask with the big bottle. #RandolphHarris 20 of 22
“I got up to the fire floor and was at the window of the next apartment, which was now taking off, though the window hadn’t vented yet. Since there was only one line going, I didn’t want to start venting windows. I wanted to get in from above, so I started up the fire escape to the next floor, which was the fifth, and all of a sudden the window beneath me let go. I was in a wave of heart and smoke shooting up the side of the building above the courtyard. I began getting a little bit concerned as to whether I was going to get myself out of this predicament I had gotten myself into. I was trying quickly to move past the fire escape ladder, but the Scott mask was making me too bulky to get near the wall. Like trying to get the square peg in the round hole. I climbed up on the railing to try to swing out. The fire was just starting to come out of the window beneath me. It was getting very got. I was more worried than I have ever been in a fire situation. All of a sudden I heard a whoosh and a slapping noise. I looked down in the courtyard, and there was H Engine shooting a line up and shoving the fire back into the window. They knocked it down enough so I could reposition myself, and I scrambled up, looked down, gave them a wave, and jumped into the apartment. I did okay. We searched the building and didn’t fire anybody else. #RandolphHarris 21 of 22
“Afterwards, I made it a point to go down and thank the officer and the men of H Engine for saving me on that one. I had been a little bit concerned that I was going to spend my birthday in a hospital, or worse.” With empathy and understanding, the Sacramento Fire Department protects life, property, and the environment in their community through an all-hazards approach to fire protection, emergency medical services, community risk reduction and education. You can help save lives by donating to the Sacramento Fire Department. In an effort to keep the country cohesive, please raise your children to love America, to be patriotic, to love God and Jesus Christ and buy American cars and other American goods and services. In China, the Buick has the same status as a Mercedez-Benz or BMW. American sedans and coupes and trucks are also status symbols in America. Also, please respect law and order, and treat others with kindness and respect. To ensure that you have a bright future, please take your education seriously, and be sure to actually read your books. And remember to “Just Say ‘No’ to Drugs.” Even marijuana can be deadly. 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. O beautiful for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain, for purple mountains majesties above the fruited plain! America! America! God shed His grace on three, and crown thy good with brotherhood from sea to shining sea! O beautiful for pilgrim feet, whose stern, impassioned stress, a thoroughfare for freedom beat across the wilderness! America! America! God mend thine every flow, confirm thy soul in self-control, Thy liberty in law! O beautiful for patriot dream that sees beyond the years, Thine alabaster cities gleam, undimmed by human tears! America! America! God shed His grace on thee, and crown thy good with brotherhood from sea to shining sea! God never gave us express allowance, only He gave us reason, charity, nature and good example to bear us out. #RandolphHarris 22 of 22
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Love can be really great and one of the most pleasant experiences in the World. However, people ask, “If God is all knowing and knows how much love can hurt, why would He allow us to experience heartbreak?” Well, there are many answers to this question. First of all, when we sin, it hurts God because He loves us. Therefore, we have to experience pain so we can learn not to sin, not to hurt God and not to hurt others. Also, if love was easy, then people would not cherish it, it would become more like lust, just a fleeting moment of joy. Additionally, people fall in love and get married so they can procreate. Because of that, love cannot always be pleasant and it does not always last because humans would overpopulate the Earth, and destroy ever other living species, including themselves. Day by day, God’s gracious love surrounds you, as a balm to soothe your troubled heart. When you pray to God, countless cares and worries that confound you fade away or quietly depart, for His heart is kind beyond all measure, and He comforts us as He knows best. Every day, with all its pain and pleasure, mingles tears with peace and rest. The Lord is every near you, granting loving mercies for each hour, and your care He gladly bears, and cheers you with His counsel pure and holy power. Do not fear for what may come tomorrow, though the path ahead you cannot see. God assures that in all joy or sorrow, as thy days, thy strength shall be. #RandolphHarris 1 of 24
God will help you rest in quiet consolation. The Lord will help you trust His promises. When you are faced with daily tribulation, God will help you find the strength to live His word. Then when toil and troubled find you, dear Lord will hold you steadfast in His powerful hand. Day by day, God’s strength will bear you kindly until you reach the promised land. The philosopher’s easy self-assurance and dignified serenity, as noticeable calamity as in prosperity, mark him as being in some mysterious manner superior to circumstances. He will always be a gentleman, but not in the narrow, formal sense of clinging to a code of etiquette which may become faulty the moment he crosses the border into another country, or which will certainly become falsified a thousand years hence. He will be a gentleman in the broader sense of behaving always with human dignity and kindly consideration towards all others who cross his path. That alone is true culture which refines taste, improves character, lifts standards, corrects behaviour, and teaches self-control. A refined taste, delicate and subtle, delighted by the harmonies, melodies, or beauties in Nature and art, offended by the grossness in man, can express itself socially and instinctively only through refined manners. If others lack this taste but for class reasons keep up the appearance of such manner, the outer social value is still present even when the inside is empty. #RandolphHarris 2 of 24
His general attitude in discussion or study should be unbiased and unprejudiced, his observation of men and their situations impersonal and serene. He must realize that small men cannot entertain large views, that he is called upon to be big enough to put aside his personal sympathies and antipathies at certain times. He must realize too that whilst a man’s mind moves at the low level of harsh prejudice or hot passion, it cannot possibly arrive at just conclusions. Before he can arrive at the truth of a highly controversial matter, he must detach himself from partisan feeling about it. Only in such inner silence can he think clearly and correctly about it. Where his criticism is directed against others, it should be the result of calm, impersonal reflection, not of emotional chagrin. This poised spirit will help him to avoid foolish extremes and dangerous rashness. He should not adopt a violent partisan spirit towards a problem or principle for he knows that such a spirit always obscures the truth. Instead, he should always calmly view all sides in a balanced way. It is because he himself holds no rigidly partisan view that the earnest philosophic student can see better than other people what is true and what is false in every partisan view. It is not often that all the truth lies on one side and all the falsehood on the other. His ethical attitude should be more tolerant and less unfriendly than the average, as his intellectual attitude should be more inclusive and less dogmatic. #RandolphHarris 3 of 24
He should refuse to imitate the irresponsible multitudes, with their surface judgement and facile condemnation. He should seek to understand and to respect the views of others; he should take the trouble to put himself in their place, to give an imaginative sympathy to their standpoint. He need not fall into the error of necessarily sharing them and may still stand on the intellectual foothold which he has secured. Although this attitude will more and more show itself in personal and social situations and in practical and general affairs as a matter of course according to his growth, it will also show itself in his spiritual life. The unprejudiced study and unbiased comparison of various systems of religions, metaphysics, mysticism, and ethics will be for him valuable parts of philosophic culture. He should be both willing and desirous to understand all of the chief points of view, all the leading variants of doctrine in these systems, but at the same time he will know his own mind and views. Even while he is seeking to know the minds and views of others, he should estimate how limited, how distorted, how falsified, or how large an aspect of truth each represents. He can do this with the help of the philosophic conception of truth, which lights up all these others, because it stands at the peak toward which they have climbed only a part of the way. #RandolphHarris 4 of 24
Tolerance and mutual accommodation are the ways of true spirituality. There is room in life for the other man’s opinion also. If he wishes, let him keep it so long as he refrains from forcing it upon us and so long as he himself does not preach or practise intolerance. His own experience of the ups and downs of life have combined to bring him to that belief; why should he not have it then? We may dislike it intensely but we must admit that from his standpoint he is right enough. When his experience broadens out and he sees life in larger perspective, be sure that he will change his opinion too. When his circumstances alter or his environment changes, he may learn how limited was his former view. When the long-drawn lesson of suffering or a thought-provoking book or powerful personality swings the balance of his mind in a new direction, he will desert his opinion or modify it. Meanwhile, let us set the World an example—and be tolerant. Those who give enough thought to behaving politely do so from different motives, some of which may be merely hypocritical, others the slavish following of blind custom, still others simple obedience to selfish interest; but there still remains the remnant who do so sincerely, honestly, because generous enough to consider the feelings of those persons they meet. The good manners prescribed for civilized living may have varied from century to century, or from continent to continent, but whatever their form, they represent that man in society must have some consideration for society, and not be utterly and selfishly indifferent to the effect of his conduct upon others. #RandolphHarris 5 of 24
If the he lacks self-respect, there is also the further point that he needs to be taught it to keep civilization from falling back to barbarism; so personal dignity and appearance, cleanliness and inoffensive speech are involved. At some point and place, whether in the home or at school or in society itself, the young have to learn, and to be trained, in acceptable manners. And this, not chiefly to improve their quality, which it does, nor decorate their behaviour, which it will, or even refine their speech, which it must, but because it lifts them up from being terrestrial to human being and thus contributes toward their spiritualization. It is really pretentious to give importance to politeness in behaviour in an age when the decay of manners is plainly visible? To those old enough to have seen better, the difference points up moral value of consideration for others in human society. During segregation in the United States of America, not only was it illegal for African Americans to marry European Americans, but African Americans also could not buy vanilla ice cream, which is why butter pecan is so popular. It is no man’s fault that he lacks breeding, but it is his own fault if he lacks the courtesy which comes from breeding or else is self-acquired. To become a fuller human being a man must acquire education and culture. Both he and his life will be enriched. However, unless he keeps humility, his egoism may grow too. #RandolphHarris 6 of 24
We may affirm the factuality of caste in nature without turning ourselves into snobs who adopt condescending airs and utter patronizing remarks to those they consider socially below them. We have to recognize the fact of caste in the development of the human species through successions of repeated Earthly embodiments. That which comes through inherited or acquired wealth is not necessarily the same, may be a mere shallow copy, an empty vessel. When caste comes with arrogance, and especially with cruel arrogance, be sure it is not a carry-over from past births. The same situation holds with refinement of nature, conduct, taste, manner, and speech. When it is real, inward, the quality shines through; but when it is artificial, contrived, outward, it comes with snobbishness, especially a proud snobbishness. The way we—that is, you and I—arrive at a state of being is through something I call effortless effort. It is not striving or doing or working at anything. It is the kind of non-effort John Hancock and his friends came in touch with when they stood up and said, “Hey, we are a free country.” It is the kind of non-effort that an expert swimmer comes in touch with when he relaxes and lets gravity and the skis carry him smoothly down the mountain. And it is the kind of non-effort that some men come in touch with by lying with their head in their mistresses’ lap and letting her stroke his hair. In those moments, these men are simply being men. He is not doing anything but being there. #RandolphHarris 7 of 24
Also, this mode of being does not diminish or preclude external achievement, success, or productivity. It enhances them. A superb example of a state of being where effort becomes effortless and the effortlessness becomes perfection is found in Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina. Levin, a character closely resembling Tolstoy himself, is working with the less affluent, mowing grass in the fields. He “clicks” into a state of enhanced being: “He thought of nothing, wished for nothing, but not to be left behind the peasants, and to do his work as scythes, and saw before him Tit’s upright figure, mowing away, the crescent-shaped curve of the cut grass, the grass and flower heads slowly and rhythmically falling before the blade of his scythe, and ahead of him the end of the row, where would come the rest. Another row, and yet another row, followed—long rows and short rows, with good grass and with poor grass. Levin lost all sense of time, and could not have told whether it was late or early now. A change began to come over his work, which gave him immense satisfaction. In the midst of his toil there were moments during which he forgot what he was doing, and it came all easy to him, and at those same moments his row was almost as smooth and well-cut as Tit’s. But so soon as he recollected what he was doing, and began trying to do better he was at once conscious of all the difficulty of his task, and the row was badly mown.” #RandolphHarris 8 of 24
Alan Watts, in The Wisdom of Insecurity, puts the concept of nonstriving in another context: “I have already been fascinated by the law of reversed effort. Sometimes I call it the ‘backwards law.’ When you try to stay on the surface of the water, you sink; but when you try to sink, you float. When you hold your breath, you lose it—which immediately calls to mind an ancient and most neglected saying, ‘Whosoever would save his soul shall lose it.’ Insecurity is the result of trying to be secure, and, contrariwise, salvation and sanity consist in the most radical recognition that we have no way of saving ourselves.” Those who justify themselves do not convince, that to know truth one must get rid of knowledge, and that nothing is more powerful and creative then emptiness—from which men shrink. What Watts is saying—and what Tolstoy says in his story—is that the more we try in some situations, the more we seem to fail; there are some goals which can never be achieved by active striving. We find this particularly true in psychotherapy when the more one tries to be a certain way, the more one fails. This brings up another truth for men and for the rest of society. Simply stated, it is: Whenever you win, you lose; whenever you lose, you win. Most men’s insistence on winning every round makes them a loser in a larger sense. Without the experience of an occasional loss, men cannot experience the lessons losses carry with them. They cannot experience the power that comes from losing. #RandolphHarris 9 of 24
When men eventually do experience losing, first with their wives, then later in the therapy room, they discover how valuable losing can be. In losing, men become winners. As we have seen, in a losing situation, the top-dog is virtually useless. That is because the top-dog is the doer—a self which cannot be much help when nothing can be done. However, the subordinate self, which some men recently begin to express, is basically a “do nothing” self. Men find, in the role-switching exercise, that this “do nothing” self can have value, something which many had denied nearly all of their lives. Men begin to feel “together” only when they see the value in both sides of their nature and make the first steps toward expressing both. Like men, many people exaggerate their criticalness. They stand in judgment of others and early in every relationship set about establishing themselves as right, as better, as more knowledgeable than the other. They tend to surround themselves with people who, for their own reasons, are willing to play that game. Their reward is, of course, the position of being on top. However, it is a reward which comes at the price of unrelenting manipulation and effort. When people participate in cushion-ponding exercises during therapy, the truth is they are not doing anything; they are just giving wings to their fantasy. They are not killing their boss; they are killing the image of his boss. (Which is why property destruction is considered a violent crime.) In that way, these people are simply feeling or being angry, frustrated, helpless, righteous and defeated. #RandolphHarris 10 of 24
However, by the means of the fantasy, the effortless effort, people are able to vent their hostility and experience the love, surrender, release, and the peacefulness that follows. This coming together and synthesizing of strong, conflicting values is an experience of mastery. In the moment of intense feeling, a lot of men come into touch with their core, which criticalness and support, weakness synthesize in the fully integrated, masterful human being. The smiling, exhausted man sitting on the floor at the end of the session is not the same man, the surgeon, or the man, the administrator. It is simply a man, the all of himself. It is achievement without doing: effortless effort. Is criticalness important to you in your relationships? Later that same year, the man in our case study broke up with his mistress in the hope of creating the same type of relationship wife. While their marriage is not as rigid as it was before, it is not yet the kind of relationship he was looking for. The important item to note is that, while this man is still looking, he is looking at home, not elsewhere. This is more difficult but is also more consistent with the man’s Catholic up brining and has less potential for triggering guilt. With this decision, he is also enabling himself to seek the right kind of relationship with his wife while staying close to his children, who mean a great deal to him. Thus, while it appears this man has chosen a more restrictive courage of action, this course actually gives him more freedom: he would not have been free to stay close to his children had he left his wife. #RandolphHarris 11 of 24
You may have noted that the man in our case study did not get to his core experience by way of a direct experience with support, which is the opposite of criticalness. This is not a mistake; it is just the way things work. Our human psyche does not always perform according to the charts. It performs the way it wants. Often, as in this case, a person will jump to a more comfortable value first. This man was more comfortable with anger than with support, and since he was able to express the anger, he got to his core through it. Later, this man made some changes in his professional life as well. After he got over this anger at his boss, he looked at the situation more calmly and realised his boss’s decision had nothing to do with him personally. He was just upset that his boss shutdown his clinic and took away all of his authority as he was close to retirement. However, they settled their differences and became as close to being friends as the man in our case study has ever been able to manage. In reconciling with his boss, this man did not change his point of view. He merely was able to appreciate the differences between them, rather than adjudge the man wrong, as he would have in the past. When his unit was disbanded, the man in our case study moved to a small, innovative hospital in another town. Now he concentrates on being a better surgeon rather than fighting to become an administrator. For the first time in his life, he is actually enjoying his work. He is still in therapy. The pleasure caste is a strange and powerful caste of humans whose psychology and neurology has been ignored by philosophers because of the taboo nature of the subject—pleasure, beauty, sensuality, and eroticism. #RandolphHarris 12 of 24
History reveals that each gene pool and every successful civilization has produced an aesthetic-elite caste—those whose nervous systems are especially sensitive to sensual stimulation; those who have the ability to receive, manage and transmit neurosomatic, hedonic signals; those who are robot-programmed to stimulate pleasure in themselves and in others—either singularly or in cooperation with other reality-artists. Aesthetic-Artist-Sensory Castes: Hedonic Consumers—those who receive pleasure. Hedonic Directors—those who create pleasure realities for themselves and others. Hedonic Producers—those who exchange pleasure. The pleasure industry includes those called artists—show business people, entertainers, and courtesans. Hive philosophers and establishment reality-definers tend to discredit the Pleasure-Aesthetic Castes and the contributions they make to the species. There is little overt, bureaucratic pressure on young people to take up a life of courtesan-actress-musician-artist when they “grow up.” Indeed, the classic situation calls for discouragement by the gene pool of such aspirations on the part of the young. However, at the same time that the hedonic occupations are publicly taboo, there is a covert acceptance of them as evidenced by the pervasive presence of the show-biz-pleasure profession. Nightclubs, saloons, theatres, carnivals, brothels, dance halls—however fake, tinsel, laundered the actual performance—the allure, the promise is always the same. Somatic reward, inhuman soft-skin-bliss, hop sophistication, erotic movement, hedonic consumption of self-indulgence and self-actualization. #RandolphHarris 13 of 24
The script apparatus of a loser consists on one hand of injunctions, provocations, and a curse. These are the script controls, and are firmly implanted by the age of six. To combat this programing, he has an inner demon, and is sometimes supplied with an internal release. Later he comes to understand slogans, which give him a counterscript. Throughout, he is learning behaviour patterns, which serve both the script and the counterscript. A winner has the same apparatus, but the programing is more adaptive, and he usually has more autonomy because he has more permissions. However, in all human beings the demon persists, to bring sudden pleasure or grief. It should be noted that the script controls are parameters or strictures, which merely set limits on what a man can do, while the behaviour patterns he learns from his parents, including their games, tell him how he can actually structure his time. Thus, the script is a complete plan for living, offering both strictures and structures. Healthier personalities have been more successful than average people in gratifying their needs. Consequently, their unconscious is not a dreaded source of evil, but a fount of innovation, self-integration, and creativity. Creative individuals show less fear of the free play of fantasy, and so they can “unrepress” to a greater degree than the average. In freeing their unconscious from its customary bonds, they experience the welcome admission to consciousness of new ideas, solutions to problems, insights into themselves, and other valued creations. #RandolphHarris 14 of 24
Sexuality or unacceptable drives such as aggression are not the only aspects of personality that are typically repressed. Mowrer has shown that if the conscience were not repressed, individuals repress their consciences, and hence are unconscious of the guilt that would arise. If someone has acquired a conscience that could guide that person in the direction of fullest growth and personal integration, then its repression could thwart his or her healthiest potentials. The individual said to have a “hardened heart,” like Scrooge in Dickens’ classic Christmas Carol, is one who has likely repressed his or her conscience and the guilt to which it might give rise. The unrepression of conscience in such individuals will produce acute guilt. The guilt, if acknowledged, could motivate the person to change his or her usual ways of behaviour from self-centered pursuit of satisfaction to more loving concern for others. Thus guilt, often thought of by many theoreticians as unhealthy, can be useful as an indicator to the person that he or she must take action to correct something that is the person’s own responsibility. It is a signal that some behaviour of yours has wronged someone. Some have seen psychotherapy as assuaging guilt for one’s harm to others. Mowrer and others have insisted that this is a misuse of psychological help and is doomed to failure. They strongly suggest an old remedy—right the wrong that has been done. #RandolphHarris 15 of 24
One of the ways of dealing with wishes and feelings that provoke anxiety or guilt is to substitute another activity, particularly one that is socially desirable. This is called sublimation and is an ancient and honourable approach for the individual with specific religious or cultural taboos that he or she choses to honour. Thus, someone with a great deal of sexual energy but strong feelings of moral commitment to abstinence might throw himself or herself into community leadership, into programs of social justice, or into creative arts such as painting or sculpture. Particularly as a result of greater freedom in activities involving pleasures of the flesh, many have rejected the concept of sublimation as indicative of the person’s avoidance of the problem. However, there is as much evidence for the position that it is a healthy adjustment mechanism as for any other. While Dr. Freud showed how people repressed undesirable dimensions of their experience, Dr. Jung called attention to the fact that we remain unconscious of our “higher,” more fully humanized possibilities. The unconscious is not only a repository of our psychological “sewage”; it is also the source of our most sublime possibilities. Just as dreams reveal morally repugnant wishes for the tabooed sexuality or murder, so they can reveal, albeit in metaphoric language, possible ways for a person to rise above barriers to growth. In dreams, many persons discover the solutions to vexing personal problems. #RandolphHarris 16 of 24
Our usual waking consciousness is limited by our chronic preoccupation with daily needs and projects. Other possible ways to experience ourselves and the World remain unconscious, or potentially conscious, and may be revealed to us in our dreams. A man I once knew became a criminal and broke out of prison and had to spend the rest of his life on the run. He knew that the police and the FBI would be looking for him to dress up or hide behind a beard. The strategy was to take it off. Take off his hair. Bald. He sat stripped to the waist in a kitchen chair while someone trimmed the back and sides to an American Legion butch. She looked sadly at the scissors in her hand, brushing her long tresses away from her eyes. “I just hate to do this,” she said. She snipped the top of his hair close to the scalp. It was a slow process. She was a giggling artist. Standing back studying her work. “Not bad. Now let’s shave it clean,” she said. She draped a hot rag on his skull and squirted lather foam. Carefully, she started to shave. “Take it easy,” he said, “bloody gashes will betray.” Easy gentle little strokes. After a while the barber begins to laugh. The man walked to the bathroom and peered in the mirror at a high-domed, chicken-plucked moose-faced baldpate stranger. When his friend returned for the day, they gaped at the change. For the first time he felt a flicker of feasibility. When the man came out of the bathroom, he was smiling. “Well, let’s go. I’ve waited for seven months to see that Queen of the Damned movie.” #RandolphHarris 17 of 24
“It will be a good test for your disguise,” his accomplice said. The first public appearance. They walked past theater guards, bought two tickets, two bags of hot buttered popcorn, ice-cream bars and walked down the welcome darkness to hear P.Diddy and Ginuwine singing “I Need a Girl (Part Two)”! They found seats near the front and opened their eyes to the bright silver screen and one of his guy friends kept shouting: “There’s Aaliyah! “There’s Vincent Perez!” And he kept shushing him. They were really quite public, their commando group behind them exchanging loud comments and cries of pleasure. It must have looked for a bald-headed man, a virgin secretary, and three young Hollywood actors. They jumped at the death of Queen Akasha and sorrowed at the long sad ending. Aaliyah died a few months before in real life. As they crossed the street after the show, they saw a narc waiting on the corner. He glanced at them as they walked by. Back in the car one of the men said, “Now for some plastic goodies at a drive-in. He ordered enormous plies of In-and-Out cheeseburgers, malteds, and French fires. After seven month the man who broke out of prison was ready to freak out, too. As they drove back to the farm, one of the guys kept his head turned half to talking to everyone and half to watch the cares behind them. #RandolphHarris 18 of 24
Saturday morning was cloudy. A tribal council meeting around the kitchen table. The baldhead disguise and the trial run the night before gave him courage. It was still the riskiest plan, but now he could see that it could be done. “What ID do I need to get a passport,” he said. Two of the other guys began spilling jigsaw pieces of identities over the table. “Here’s your prison escape ID. That would have been ideal except that he’s already got a passport and he’s heavily bearded. Here’s another set. A beautiful one with driver’s license and all. But the picture blows it. I don’t see any way to avoid your getting a driver’s license with your own picture on it. That means we’ll have to wait till Monday. Then fly to Detroit Monday night. Get a passport Tuesday morning. Hit it for Madrid Tuesday night. If we’re going to do that here’s the best ID.” The man pushed a set of cards across the table. “Birth Certificate.” With a name on it and a birthday. A Social Security card. Temporary driver’s license with no description. “The birth certificate gets you the driver’s license. And the two get you a passport.” The Weathermen were ready for a day of contemplation. Although Democratic leaders ignore the laws and aid and abet criminals, there comes a time when a new leadership will come into office and have zero tolerance laws. You do not want to live a life of crime and have to find a disguise, nor do you want to put your life in someone else’s hands. There is always a chance that you will be captured. And if one of your buddies gets in trouble, they might give you up for immunity. “Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life: You should mind your own business and work with your hands, just as we told you,” reports 1 Thessalonians 4.11. #RandolphHarris 19 of 24
For people who live an honest life, at least, boundaries disappear and desire can be allowed free rein. The Sacramento Fire Department is the premier, all-risk public safety and emergency service provider that exceeds the expectations of the diverse communities they serve. The Sacramento fire department preserves life, protects property, and safeguards their communities through relentless commitment to emergency preparedness, prevention, response, and recovery. “There were no windows in the building. This was at three in the morning on December 31 in an industrial section of Sacramento. A pretty cold night. We weren’t on the box. Battalion X had the fire. The battalion chief, Y, made a triple two on it, a second alarm, and we go on all triple twos. The building wasn’t venting well, the smoke was really stratified and down on the ground. When we came up there, we couldn’t even see the building, the smoke was so heavy. Truck X was up on the roof, ventilating it. I talked to Chief Y, and I recognized the type of construction. My first concern was about the men on the roof. It was an open bar joint, metal deck roof. The first thing I did was get them off there, because I didn’t think it was worth risking them. The fire was fairly serious in the stock and office areas. We had two companies in on the lines. Seeing the situation we had and the need for more manpower, we called for a third alarm and had the companies report to a staging area. Due to the reduction in battalions, on the third alarm we didn’t get a chief, which made safety a problem, as far as I was concerned. #RandolphHarris 20 of 24
“I made a call for another battalion chief, so we could split the fire up. My normal procedure—and I’m very adamant about this—is to sector the fire because, I don’t care who you are, I don’t think you can run the whole fire by yourself. At that time we got a call on the walkie-talkie from a firefighter, who said he was lost in the building. We organized the search team, and the fire itself became of secondary importance. The smoke was really heavy even though we had a good ventilation hole in the roof. It was tough to open up the sides of the building, and we had companies working on that. There were railroad tracks and an embankment that made it very difficult to get to the back of the building. It took us approximately seven minutes to find this firefighter, a five-year veteran on Engine X named A. He had been to quite a few fires on a very busy engine company, so I don’t know what caused him to do what he did. He was the nozzle man on the line, and there were two others on the line with him. One of the men went back to get a hook, and the second man exhausted his air tank and he ran out to change his tank, leaving A alone for the moment. He was only about twenty-five feet into the building, and for some reason he left the line. There was a backup line laid out, but nobody was aware that this firefighter had left the line. We tried to give him instructions on the walkie-talkie, but we couldn’t get any response back from him. #RandolphHarris 21 of 24
“The building was approximately 150 by 200 feet with about twenty aisles and racks blocking overhead doors in the back of the building. We finally found him when we saw the light of his flashlight. He had gotten into a dead end aisle. It was really difficult to find him, and naturally it seemed like an eternity. We brought him out, gave him CPR and oxygen, and transported him to the hospital, where they worked on him for over an hour. He never came back. The fire had been pretty well knocked, but the building was loaded with smoke. There was a lot of electrical insulation that had burned. And he ran out of air. There’s about twenty minutes of air in a tank. He ran out. I was very depressed after that fire, from having lost a firefighter and talking to his wife. She was distraught, naturally. Since I was in charge of the fire, I thought it was my job to talk to the woman. So early in the morning, after a couple of news conferences, I went out to her house with a couple of other firefighters from his company, and we consoled her as best we could. She was completely broken up. It was hard for her to grasp the permanence of her loss. I never blamed myself personally for the death, but it makes you want to reexamine and look deeper and see what can be done to prevent a recurrence. In that type of fire, there are some things you can control and some thing that you can’t control. The possibility of a firefighter getting seriously injured or killed is always a clear and present danger. #RandolphHarris 22 of 24
“We tend to become complacent when we go for a long period of time without casualties, and we like to think it’s because we’ve run the fires well and then men are knowledgeable and well trained. Actually, there’s a certain amount of luck involved, if you look back and think of the many close calls where a few second made the difference. I remember one fire where we had a very good, experienced lieutenant in charge of our company. We were fairly new guys on the job and didn’t realize the seriousness of some of our actions. We were probably 150 feet into a hundred-year-old mercantile building, and the lieutenant said, ‘Back out of here, we have to get out of here.’ There was the lieutenant, myself, and two other guys. As soon as we got out the door, the while first floor went into the basement. You wonder how that man knew that. He knew that the situation was bad, he had that sense. I always remembered that. It made me want to become more proficient, to learn more from experience and studying. It caused me to do a lot of studying. I was pretty depressed for a week or so. The wake and the funeral were fresh in my mind, and I went over and over and over that fire to determine what I could have done differently to prevent it. My wife and family were completely understanding and supportive.” The Sacramento Fire Department prioritizes their citizens, residents, and communities. #RandolphHarris 23 of 24
The Sacramento Fire Department is a full-spectrum life safety agency protecting more than 2 million people who live, work and play in one of America’s largest cities. The Sacramento Fire Department recognizes that they face unique challenges in keeping pace with the changing World in which they live and work. They will not forget the traditions of those that came before them. However, they have adapted and progressed so that they can remain successful. “We are a family of individuals committed to serving others. We will always provide for the welfare of our personnel through a health and rewarding work environment. We are dedicated to respect, integrity, compassion, and leadership amongst ourselves so that we may proudly serve others. The Sacramento Fire Department strives to sustain and improve the health, safety, convenience, and welfare of the citizens of Sacramento and to plan for the future development of the community. You can help save lives and property by donating to the Sacramento Fire Department. And remember parents, please raise your children to love America, to be patriotic, to love God and Jesus, respect law and others, treat others with dignity and respect, and remind them of the importance of education. To help America survive the global recession and bring manufacturing jobs back to America and to get American wages at pace with inflation, it is important to buy America cars, American meat, American produce and other American made goods and services. 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. Our Father, our King, be gracious unto us and answer us, for we are wanting in good deeds; deal with us in charity and lovingkindness, and please save us. #RandolphHarris 24 of 24
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Your Home for Generations
It Comes on You Like a Spell and Your Poor Mind is Full of Hell
Every cross roads has a story. The Devil and his works have long assumed many forms. In modern America, rebellion for the sake of rebellion has taken precedence over genuine need for change. The frozen sperm of Satan’s magical children have been born upon the Earth. The child is no longer made in the image of God, but in the form of Satan. The quality of children has become more important than the quantity because relative material stability has been reached with the help of technology. A child who can produce is more important than having many children. A swordsman needs but a good smith to forge him a stout blade. Christians are facing a conflict because as man becomes more able to extend his life and prevent death, many consider this to be due to witchcraft and demonic elixirs which are not natural. Some question if Christians will want to experience immortality because they cannot afford to be aligned with things of the Devil. Satanism differs from other religion because it does not hold man enthrall of a fantasy, it rather President a little slice of Heaven here on Earth, known as The American Dream. Satanism is taken out of logical rather than desperation. The need for a cultural stimulus and aesthetic satisfaction has been with us every since the struggle to stay alive ceased to be so whelming that it absorbed all of man’s time and energy. #RandolphHarris 1 of 19
William was a general practitioner in an isolated area in the Rockies. There was no other doctor for miles around. He worked day and night, but no matter how hard he worked there was never enough to support his large family and he was always in debt to the bank. For a long time, he had advertised in medical journals for a partner to give him some relief, but he insisted that no one suitable had ever shown up. He operated in fields, homes, and hospitals, and sometimes at the bottom of a mountain crag. He was immensely resourceful and almost completely exhausted, but not quite. He came for treatment with his wife because they were having marital problems, and his blood pressure was going up. In the end, he found a University Hospital not far away which has some fellowships for general practitioners who wanted to become specialist. This time he did find someone to take his pace as a country doctor. He gave up his complex and lucrative practice and found that he had enough assets to keep his family going while he settled down as a surgical resident with a small stipend. “I’ve always wanted to do this,” he said. “But I never thought I’d get away from my driving Father Part until I’d had a coronary. But I didn’t have a coronary, and this is the happiest time of my life.” #RandolphHarris 2 of 19
It is evident that his spellbreaker was to have a coronary, and he thought that was the only way he would ever get off the hook. However, with the help of the group, he did manage to break out of his script in good health. William illustrates in a relatively simple and clear-cut way the action of the whole script apparatus. His counter script came from both parents: “Work hard.” His father than gave him the pattern of a hard-working doctor. His mother’s injunction was “Never give up. Work hard until you drop dead.” However, his father gave him the spellbreaker: “If you have a coronary, you can relax, ha ha.” With his treatment did was get into that part of his brain or mind whence all these voices sent their directives. The injunction was then lifted by giving him permission: “You can relax without having a coronary.” When this permission made it way through all the shells and devices protecting the script apparatus, it broke the curse. Note that it was useless to say to him “If you keep on this way, you will have a coronary.” He was well aware of that threat, and telling him again only made him feel more miserable because he wanted a coronary, which would free him one way or another. What he needed was not a threat, nor an order (he already had enough orders in his head), but a license that would liberate him for those orders, and that is what he got. #RandolphHarris 3 of 19
Then he ceased to be a victim of his script, and became his own master to do his thing. He still worked hard, and he still followed his father’s medical pattern, but he was no longer script-ridden to overwork nor script-driven to drop dead. Thus, at the age of fifty, he became from to fulfill the autonomous aspirations of his own choice. Make sure what you really want before you go after it. The bitter experience in life is to find after years of effort that the thing you have gained is not the thing you want. It is admittedly painful to tear one’s will away from one’s desires but it is still more painful to have it torn away by life’s experiences. Hence, the philosophical method to conquer desire is a twofold one. We must let it wear itself out by submitting to it through experience and letting it come up against inevitable disappointment, disillusionment, or suffering whilst alongside this we must become reflectively and analytically aware of its causes, self-deceptions, and consequences. It is a matter of gradually letting the desires lost their intensity until we become free of them not through their forcible renunciation nor through the long-drawn process of waiting for the golden years to comes but through the process of learning to live more and more within the satisfactory beatitude of the Overself. #RandolphHarris 3 of 19
We give up our desires not by negating them but partly by comprehending their mechanistic cause and mentalistic nature and partly by superseding them with the exalted peace of the Overself. The undeveloped mind lives only for the day. It can see the immediate events in a series but cannot conjure up the ultimate ones. The disciple dares not risk such a blind condition. He must deliberately set out to bring the two together, by the use of creative imagination or by analytic reflection or by both. If passion rises in him, at least its counterbalance, the mental picture of the evil consequences of passion, rises a second later with it. If a man is not free from lust, fear, and anger, be sure he is not united with the Overself, whatever other qualities, powers, or virtues he shows. Long continued reflection turned sharply and analytically upon desires and cravings helps to counter them, but does not basically weaken them. For that, contrary emotions must be aroused. This is most effectually done by happenings and experiences. However, because these are mostly beyond our choice, the third way left to us is to seek Grace. One way to invite this Grace is by sitting in mediation upon the non-self. He may complain of his weakness and immediately submit to a temptation. Or he may recognize that the Higher Self is also him; he may try to use will and grow in strength by this resistance. #RandolphHarris 4 of 19
He finds that he is perceptibly pulled away from fleshly lust to a deeper level where the calmness and the judgement enable him to realize that the lust belongs to his animal physical inheritance and not to his inmost character and that, therefore, it may be brought under control and discipline. If he acquires the power to achieve this, it will come imperceptibly for it will come mostly by grace. The satisfaction of passion has a claim on the animal body, but it must always be subject to the higher claims of reason and intuition and the need for the sense of human responsibility. The amoral is always the first step to the immoral. The idea that he has to attain mastery over the desires of the flesh is a correct one. However, that this mastery will lead to reunion with a “soul-mate” is not the teaching of the best mystics or philosophers. What really happens is a reunion with the true “Beloved,” who is none other than the Soul of the individual, his higher Self. This is a real living entity, whose presence is felt, whose words are heard, and whose beauty arouses all one’s love. Where man is open only to Worldly forces and not to inner ones’ where he submits to the World’s demands and ignores the soul’s; and where he succumbs to his own terrestrial forces without thoughts of regulating, controlling, and disciplining them, we may expect to find that he is quite insensitive to any teaching of this kind. He is like a person who has been caught in a mire and with every movement gets deeper into it. #RandolphHarris 5 of 19
He will learn the pleasure of self-control. It is not always easy but all effort for the rewards bear fruit. The man who can develop emotional placidity and rise above passions begins to know what peace of mind means. That is only a beginning for in its fullness it can come only with the knowledge and the enlightenment of Truth. Until then this placidity will free him from the constant alternation, the rise and fall of feeling, the elation and depression to which the average person is subject. Whether it be to acquire fame or accumulate wealthy or any of the other major desires, what he wants from life will in the end rest on his stage of spiritual evolution. The terrestrial man is there, but it must be brought under control or it will claim too much and diminish his aspirations. Then they become fitful, coming less and less, departing more and more. The passions contain futility, danger, and defilements. Self-conquest must be his secret wish’ deliverance must become his impassioned yearning. When wholetime meditations and his spare time thoughts are unremittingly given to uprooting passions that hinder spiritual progress and cultivating ideas that promote it, the neophyte will not be left without reward. Restricted by no monastery’s vows and obeying no order’s rules, he may yet be purer in thought and conduct than most of the self-actualized Christians. #RandolphHarris 6 of 19
The terrestrial of our inheritance will then be kept in its proper place, subjugated, its strength absorbed into his higher will. Within this highly structured and orderly society, the exterior developments of industrialism and progress within the natural sciences has brought not only material wealth but also increased pollution and waste, without forgetting increased ill health in the wake of this pollution and stress. The focus must now lay on health, nature, spirituality, and so forth. However, the contemporary focus on a profitable present and an almost superstitious belief in a science for the future should bring about a romantic longing for distant pagan pasts. The current generation born in America is fed up with what is being offered. What better way to protest than to just head out into nature in a highly romanticized state of mind? They have also found out that there have already been precursors in older generations who have explored exciting phenomena like nudism and vegetarianism. Americans have also simply started acting out rather than just talking about change. And I do not mean these Americans who are perceived by the World as being so weak because they cannot deal with the outcome of the American election. I am talking about those who have stopped placing their faith in a human being and place it in God. They are minding their own business and working with their hands to amass money so they can live a life they desire. #RandolphHarris 7 of 19
In an age where even kids playing hopscotch and hiking has become politicized, turning to spirituality is one of the most mature things a man can do. Being able to step out and embrace the California morning sunshine is much better than seeing a guard in the gun tower. The threat of being in the center of the most cellblock of a prison in the State, where men are kept in cages with walkways above so it is possible for guards to stroll around and look down into the pits; cells with no furniture except a drain-hole toilet, and when the prisoners go out guards are carrying clubs surround them is often where people who do not go to Church and fear God end up. No students of American politics could fail to see the inevitable uprising of this revolutionary tribe of young Christian activists, religions offspring of the first social media-Einstein-multidimensional-simultaneous-immediate-energy generation. All the computers are turned on. Jet streams across WiFi, seamlessly transitioning spiritual healing as it sweeps through the homes and corridors of those in desperate need of the gospel of Christ, turning on fourteen-year-olds through the computer screen. Wise ancient children, the smartest, best endowed, healthiest. Time’s sweet pollen laughing answer to the lethal pressure of computerized humnoids pumping out propaganda over Obama TV. As these reports smoke and laugh, they do not realize that their days are numbered and streaming content is stealing thousands of viewers away from free TV daily. With lower ratings, the station’s revenue declines, the quality of programs suffers and less people tune in to the fake news. #RandolphHarris 8 of 19
And everyone complains about everything becoming so political, but it is because that it what the TV news finds profitable and it is all that people talk about. However, for decades, people have been complaining that the news is rubbish. It is not what they consider news to be. People used to think news was investigative reports about things like the artic ice, or how there were actually Pilgrims, like Roger Williams, the founder of Rhode Island, who had peaceful dinners with the Native Americans on Thanksgiving Day. Or how planet TOI 700 d, the outermost known planet in the system and the only one in the habitable zone, is 20 percent lager than Earth and can sustain life. Everything has become political or about getting famous because that is what people focus on. Once you turn your attention to more important things, like learning to cultivate the land, how to create the perfect drought resistant lawn, or why ICE cars are important for our future, then you will start to see the beauty in life again. The advocate of crime really only respects two kinds of power: one, which he finds among his own class, founded on the accident of birth, and the other by which, through sheer villainy, an underdog raises himself to the level of the libertines of noble birth whom Sade makes his heroes. This powerful little group of initiates knowns that it has all the rights. Anyone who doubts, even for a second, these formidable privileges is immediately driven from the flock, and once more becomes a victim. #RandolphHarris 9 of 19
Thus, a sort of aristocratic morality is created through which a little group of men and women manage to entrench themselves above a caste of slaves because they possess the secret of a strange knowledge. The only problem for them consists in organizing themselves so as to be able to exercise fully their rights which have the terrifying scope of desire. They cannot hope to dominate the entire Universe until the law of crime has been accepted by the Universe. Sade never believed that his fellow countrymen would be capable of the additional effort needed to make it “republican.” However, if crime and desire are not the law of the entire Universe, if they do not reign at least over a specified territory, they are no longer unifying principles, but ferments of conflict. They are no longer the law, and man returns to chaos and confusion. Thus, it is necessary to create from all these fragments a World that exactly coincides with the new law. The need for unity, which Creations leaves unsatisfied, is fulfilled, at all costs, in a microcosm. The law of power never has the patience to await complete control of the World. Even if it means surrounding it with barbed wire and observation towers, it must fix the boundaries, without delay, of the territory where it holds sway. #RandolphHarris 10 of 19
At its best, criticalness is a sincere effort to help other improve. At its worst, it is the compulsion to get other people before they get you. If you are a manipulator who exaggerates the values of criticalness, you distrust and blame others. This keeps you “above” their level, but it often keeps you isolated and lonely as well. It is as if you were playing a game which you often win, but cannot enjoy winning because it is a secret game, and only you know about it. If you expose it, you cannot play anymore. So you sit at home, all alone, never admitting to anyone the secret of your game. The game is called, “I am better than you,” and you can find all the evidence you need to support the fact that you are winning. However, with no one to share the victory with, you only feel more isolated from others and think less of them. If you are a master, you are learning to trust others more and more every day. You are becoming more willing to forgive them for their natural tendency to be human. In particular, you are learning to appreciate your own humanness. Having done this, you see yourself, not as above others, yet not below them either. You begin to regard them as friends, rather than enemies or competitors. Your actions toward them are rewarded with love and caring rather than a hollow victory in being “right.” #RandolphHarris 11 of 19
As a master, you appreciate your supportiveness as well as your criticalness. You do things for others rather than to them. You stop judging others, because you stop judging yourself. Ultimately, bring right loses importance. Winning loses importance. And being with people grows more important every day. If it is not cultivated, attitudes toward transference, for instance, range from considering it a fiction which protects the therapist from the consequences of his real behaviour and its effects, to viewing it as early stereotypic behaviour which will be extinguished in the natural course of events. Symbolic analysis plays little role, partly because it is usually content-specific and covered by response to emotion. (I believe the so-called archaic symbols are significant, chiefly because they are cleaner communicants; like new words in a foreign language, they shake loose the multiple complexities of conventional meanings, and say just the elementary things each person means them to say.) The unconscious does not currently figure in client-centered literature. It is considered a reductionist assumption about phenomena better understood in terms of attention and “levels of awareness.” An ahistorical bias has always been plain among us, and this is one of the currents which moves us to an appreciation of some of the existential writings. #RandolphHarris 12 of 19
Diagnosis is a moot point too, though our departures are not as radical as they once were. The word “schizophrenia” becomes a damning designation. To have it once applied to a young man can be to ruin a career, despite all evidence of subsequent healthiness. A name implies a concept; and if this concept is unsound, the diagnosis can ruin treatment; the very naming it can damage the patient who we essay to help. The sick in mind…are rendered more darkly and hopelessly so by the manifold reflection of their disease, mirrored back from all quarters in the deportment of those about them; they are compelled to inhale the poison of their own breath, in infinite repetition. It is not that we decry classification as such; we recognize it as a useful scientific tool. However, when it leads to reification of terms, it is dangerous. We have been in an unprecedented era of self-actualization. Young people and most intelligent older people who appear to be laid back are taking care of their own situation first. They are “getting their heads together,” discovering and tending their bodies, learning how to produce their reality movies. College students are not charging after partisan dogmas or idealistic rhetoric. However, do not be deceived by this quiescence. It denotes neither apathy nor stupidity. In fact, it may well be the better part of wisdom to lay back until something worthy of your intelligence comes alone. #RandolphHarris 13 of 19
The existentialists also have pointed out that the self is made through decisions. You become what you decide. If, in the choice between running away or facing an unpleasant task, you choose to face up to the issue, you have become a better person. If you choose the weaker and more cowardly alternative, you become, at that moment, on the basis of your own choice, a weaker, lesser person. The behaviourists have, on the other hand, suggested that you have no “choice” but that your choices are determined by factors that control you, such as your parents’ wishes, your genes, and social demands upon you. Again the existentialists reply that one can also choose to let others make decisions for oneself but that the responsible direction is to recognize that, in almost all difficult decisions, the choice is still yours. The fake-nationalists are such terrible creatures, that on one occasion, they drove our unforgettable former President Clinton to bluntly express his opinion. State authority can guarantee peace and order only when the state World-concept and the World-concept of the people agree. Violent elements promoting a World-concept, one that differs from the people’s, will look like individual criminal groups and will not be seen as champions of a great idea which is opposed to the views of the state. If this were not the case, and the opposition held a World-concept that the people’s World-concept, the state can apply the most violent measures for centuries against the terror threatening it, but, in the end, the state will submit because it is unable to defeat the opposing idea. #RandolphHarris 14 of 19
The Sacramento Fire Department provides the professional personnel and programs for the citizens of Sacramento and is committed to protecting life and property from fire and explosions through inspection, investigation, training, education, data processing and statistical fire reports. “A child was caught in one of the rooms. The main fire was on the second floor of this apartment building, and there were women and kids downstairs screaming at us. We used every length of hose in the bed, it was a long stretch, because we had to go around a courtyard and up the stairs. The fire was coming around the cracks of the door to the second-floor doorway. I remember thinking, ‘This is it, this is where the stuff hits the fan.’ We had to knock down the fire before the guys from the truck could get in to search. I was on the nozzle, and we crawled through the doorway, and suddenly I had excruciating pain in my knees. The heat went right through my boots. We first hit the doorway with the line, then the hallways and the ceiling. The heat was extraordinary. We didn’t do it scientifically, we went in very, very fast because there was somebody in there. Halfway down the hall, I screamed, ‘My knees are burning.’ My officer said, ‘My knees are burning, too, but we have a job to do. Move in.’ I said to myself, ‘He’s right.’ #RandolphHarris 15 of 19
“It was the most fire I had ever seen, it was from wall to wall and ceiling to floor. There was all sorts of junk on the floor—a baby carriage frame, a shopping cart. The metal was glowing. It was blocking our way. I said, ‘We’ve got to pass this stuff out.’ I couldn’t move around it, and I couldn’t climb over it. The guy behind me thought I said, ‘I’m going to pass out.’ Realizing that communications were down, I handed the line over to the backup, grabbed the shopping cart, stood up, and moved it out of the way. When I lifted the shopping cart, just for those few seconds, I got second-degree burns on my fingers. I got back down and grabbed for the line, and they gave it back to me. I realized that this must be really bad, because you never get the line back. We went on, and I was thinking, ‘This is it. My sanity is gone. Nobody can stand this much pain. I can’t give in to it.’ Then I told myself, ‘You don’t feel it.’ A lot of guys don’t feel it when they’re burned. I did. I felt the whole thing, the whole time. I was making a conscious effort not to pay attention to it. I just kept moving. I have visions that I wasn’t going to have any knees left, they were just going to be done. Afterwards I really didn’t think I did that good a job. I was disappointed in myself. While I was throwing that stuff out, it must have looked like I was backing out. Maybe I could have climbed over that stuff. I felt I was too slow. I should have moved in a lot faster. And then, when I got outside, my knees were killing me. #RandolphHarris 16 of 19
“I found out the rescue had been made by a die-hard fireman I know, X, the salt of the earth. He always has a frown on his face. He had gone up the fire escape and into one of the back windows and found a kid in the bathroom, a three- or four-year-old boy who was in the next bed to me in the emergency room. Rosy pink cheeks, he looked like he was half Black and half Irish. Really beautiful-looking child. They were taking him to the air chamber at the hospital, a decompression chamber for smoke inhalation victims. Anyhow, after the fire was out, we went back up with the hose, and I remember I had trouble walking upstairs because of my knees. The truck really took most of the line up. I wasn’t doing much of anything. I was dragging. I didn’t say anything about my knees. I kept thinking it wasn’t as bad as I thought it was. I was making too much of it, and everybody else must be just as sore. I did say to somebody, ‘Boy, my knees are really killing me.’ And he said, ‘God bless you. My wife and I will pray for you.’ I got back to quarters, and my lieutenant said, ‘You don’t look so good. Are you sure you had the right gloves on?’ He was worried about my hands. I told him it wasn’t my hands, it was my knees. He said, ‘Well, all of our knees hurt a little.’ I said, ‘No. They really hurt.’ This was bout forty-five minutes after getting back. He said, ‘All right, let me see.’ #RandolphHarris 17 of 19
“I pulled up my pants, and my knees looked like a couple of golf ball blisters. I said, ‘Holy God.’ I had pulled some of the skin off. The chief took me to the hospital. I was dirty. They put on a sulfa drug, which is supposed to be a miracle drug for burns. They determined I had second-degree burns. At the burn center a few days later, they determined that the burns were third-degree. The doctor at the burn center said it was the most common kind he treats at the hospital. Burned knees. From kneeling on a hot surface. It seems that each time I knelt, I was burning the knees deeper and deeper. The doctor said I had cellulitis, which is a bad infection. ‘You have to be admitted right now. You’re going to have to go on intravenous for six or seven days. Then you’re going to have grafting.’ I was shocked. I had to call my wife and tell her and the family. That was very hard. I spent thirty-three days there, on and off. I’ve had three surgical grafts since then. I don’t think the guys who haven’t been in that situation know how painful it is. The burn is just the beginning. After that is when all the pain starts. Being in the burn center with other firefighters, there is a lot of camaraderie there. You’re all in the same boat. There were two others there, one with knees and the other had a hot cinder down his boot and he grabbed it with his hand. I thought I was in hell. I woke up in this icy room, and I was in a room full of men. God is punishing me, I thought. It was like a MASH unit. What an education. #RandolphHarris 18 of 19
“The skin grafts came from my hips and pelvis. Supposedly it wouldn’t show so much there. Because I was a firefighter, they took deeper sections of skin, because I was going to be back on my knees. One of the guys was a probie. His recovery was going to be a lot longer than mine. You’re lying in bed, half naked, but we tried to make the best of it. We became very close. When we were separated at one point, we came to see each other on crutches or in a wheelchair. His wife had a baby since. I remember feeling very close to him. We shared the experience of the job.” The Sacramento Fire Department is committed to working closely with fire service organizations and other proactive groups to enhance solutions to the fire problem. The services provided by the agency include: arson investigations, fire prevention safety in buildings, boiler and pressure vessel safety, the program for petroleum and chemical tanks, collecting and analyzing fire reports, and the personnel standards and education for the firefighters in Sacramento. Awaken compassionate thoughts and actions by helping others realize that, like our Saviour, they too have compassion for others. Please make donate to the Sacramento Fire Department to asset them in their fire prevent duty and other programs. To help keep America a God loving, Christian community, please raise your children to love America and to love God and Jesus Christ. In a afford to help America pull through the massive national deficit, please buy American made cars and other American made good and services. Also, please remember to respect law and order and treat your elders with the utmost dignity and kindness possible. And take your education seriously so that you will be successful in life and make your family proud. 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 19 of 19
The Winchester Mystery House
Paranormal investigators have recorded disembodies voices and witnessed strange shadows following them through The Winchester Mystery House. The enormous 19th century mansion once was nine stories tall, and had 600 rooms, but the 1906 earthquake demolished the nine-story observation tower, and took much of the 4th floor with it. However, 160 rooms, of which 110 are available for tour, still exist in this meandering catacomb.
Please come and enjoy a delicious meal in Sarah’s Café, stroll along the paths of the beautiful Victorian gardens, and wonder through the miles of hallways in the World’s most mysterious mansion. For further information about tours, including group tours, weddings, school events, birthday party packages, facility rentals, and special events please visit the website: https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
Please visit the online giftshop, and purchase a gift for friends and relatives as well as a special memento of The Winchester Mystery House. A variety of souvenirs and gifts are available to purchase. https://shopwinchestermysteryhouse.com/
Happy Veteran’s Day!
Over a Game of Cards
To be weak is miserable, doing or suffering. As much as we in the Western culture revere the strong, so do we protect and care and perpetuate the weak. For the person prone to weakness, it becomes an easy, comfortable trap. However, it soon becomes a miserable one. If you are stuck on the weakness polarity, you are a particularly hard-to-handle manipulator. You tend to depend upon others for everything, and when they try to get away, you play weak or helpless, thus sucking them in again. You are an excellent role player. You apologize a lot for everything, using pleas of ignorance or incompetence to avoid responsibility. To reassure yourself, you constantly ask others if you are okay. Unfortunately for you, you are so busy looking into the faces of others for expressions of approval, you never look inside yourself. Your inner self is thus a vast, unexplored territory. In spite of all your admission of weakness and incompetence, you have refused to truly examine those feelings of weakness. Your emotional life has thus remained a shallow one. If you are a master, however, you do not play the helpless role; you have the courage to really face your limitations and define them as your body and emotions guide you. You trust yourself and look inside, appealing to you “inner Supreme Court” for answers. #RandolphHarris 1 of 20
The weakness you find within is real, not a manipulative game—and not a mask. When you are able to face your limitations inside, you are also able to find strength and competence there. As a master, you know you can look within to find all the answers and all the guidance you need. Having mastered, not exaggerated, your weakness, you improve your physical health. You attend to clues your body gives you as to its condition, rather than allowing them to develop into vague, nagging aches. Among others, you stand on your own feet and are free to relate to others as an equal. You carry your own weight of responsibility in the World. Mustering the strength to shoulder this weight can be a long and difficult process. Some people have been afraid all of their lives. Some infants are afraid of the wind. It howls menacingly across the open fields, then darts through the cracks in the floorboards of their farmhouse, which startles the baby with a sudden chill. On blustery nights, it makes the house shiver with what a baby might imagine is a fear like his own. Next, some children learn to fear their father. He is a stern, brittle man who works his farm from before sunrise until after sunset every day of the year. He seems to be at constant war with the farm and the farm seems to constantly fight back. #RandolphHarris 2 of 20
The struggle might make a father mean, and he may vent his meanness on everything around him: the land, the animals, his wife and children. As a result, some children learn to never talk back to their father. Breaking one of his rules, even a little, means feeling the awful whack of his hand across the face, neck, shoulders, back. And when he begins to hit, he seldom stops until his hand is too sore to hit anymore. This causes some wives to become just like one of the children. She does her chores, obeys her husband unquestioningly and when she breaks one of his rules, even a little, is whacked just as hard and long. The only time the father did not hit his wife is when she was sick. Growing up in the isolation of a farmhouse, some children also come to fear the outside World, the World of the unknown and unknowable people beyond the wide fields which stretch in ever direction. A child may try a few, tentative friendships in school, but sometime the youth is never able to spend enough time with their peers to get comfortable and familiar the way real friends do. This child’s World is the farm and family and the fear which pervades everything. When abused children turn eighteen, it is often demanded that they get a job. Some youths are not willing to put up with the hard work pay, and constant crude advances of the customers. #RandolphHarris 3 of 20
Abused youth often enjoy the work—not because it is easy, but because for twelve hours a day it allows the youth to be out of the house, out of the reach of his father’s stinging hand. When he serves someone particularly well, an extra dollar or two appears under the plate. Although these paychecks are sometimes all surrendered to the father, he is able to keep the tips for himself, his private treasure. As an adult, when people live with fear, it can cause pain and sickness. And often, nothing seems to help. Not the medicines, not talking about it, not anything. There will be times in our lives when we find ourselves on an unexpected path, facing severe circumstances. When events, often out of our control, alter the life we had planned or hoped for, how do we respond? No amount of change, trial, or opposition can alter our eternal course. We are God’s spirit sons and daughters, and we accepted his plan by which we could obtain a physical body and gain Earthly experience to progress toward perfection and ultimately realize our divine destiny as heirs of eternal life. The changes, and resulting challenges, that we encounter in mortality come in a variety of shapes and sizes and impact each of us in unique ways. Although each change may be unique to your individual circumstances, there is a common element in the resulting trial or challenge—hope and peace are always available through the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ. #RandolphHarris 4 of 20
The Atonement of Jesus Christ provides the ultimate corrective and healing measures to every wounded body, damaged spirit, and broken heart. Jesus Christ knows, in a way that no one else can understand, what it is that we need, individually, in order to move forward in the midst of change. Unlike friends and loved ones, the Saviour not only sympathizes with us, but He can empathize perfectly because He has been where we are. In addition to paying the price and suffering for our sins, Jesus Christ also walked every path, dealt with every challenge, faced every hurt—physical, emotional, or spiritual—that we will ever encounter in mortality. In this mortal experience, we cannot control all that happens to us, but we have absolute control over how we respond to the changes in our lives. This does not imply that the challenges and trials we face are of no consequence and easily handled or dealt with. It does not imply that we will be free from pain or heartache. Helpless is a place—a place that is real. However, it is important that we do not let ourselves play helpless. Do not give in to it. There is cause for hope and that is due to the Atonement of Jesus Christ, we can move forward and find better days—even days full of joy, light, and happiness. Healing blessings come in many ways, each suited to our individual needs, as known to Him who loves us best. #RandolphHarris 5 of 20
Sometimes a “healing” cures our illness or lifts our burden. However, sometimes we are “healed” by being given strength to understanding or patience to bear the burdens placed upon us. In the first year that I knew my wife, we played Russian Bank quite often. She had been winning but then she began losing, and one evening she threw her head and arms on the table and sobbed, as though she had lost not a game of cards but everything in the World. That was what I noticed at the time. Instead of letting that thought itself be said, the spontaneous noticing, matter-of-fact, without opinion, neither tender with pain nor hard with accusation, I let myself be scared by seeing this “strong” woman fall apart “over a game of cards,” by seeing her little rib cage heave like a child’s. It was cultural conditioning that made me view this as “weak” or “helplessness”—something that “should not happen” and so must be stopped. In losing my neutrality, I wanted to put her back together. I put a hand on her shoulder. I bent and kissed the back of her neck. She pulled together and smiled at me, her eyes saying thank you. And I thought that I had helped her, too. There were these moments, brief and rare, when my wife’s guard was down, when she was cracking. I had botched them. I did just what she did—tried to put “her” back together, not knowing that this was not her. #RandolphHarris 6 of 20
If I had not done this, just possibly she might not have done it herself. There might have been the of an opening. All those years of reassurance were crutch-type helping, and all the times when I prevented her suicide never really saved her life, because her life was what she never lived. If I had said my own thought as simply as I felt it, as it came into my head, my first thought that was my own direct and immediate response and really me, is it not possible that she might have told me what “losing” meant to her? And if I had accepted that (not saying that it was not so, that there were many ways in which she won, was running ahead of others—which was true in the view of the society of which we both were a part, but not in the view of all societies) might she not have been able to speak what she never could say to anyone and so could not hear properly herself? Suppose, that morning after the Japanese attack, I had said, “You sound as though you feel this really is the end for you. I hope it is not.” Those were my true thoughts, my own thoughts at the time, that I let get blacked by what I saw as my World and what I thought that his should be. My World at that time in fact was not superior: it required that she be in it with me. My World did not see that she was in it only more so, and blocked my own immediate and direct response to her. My tenderness for human suffering did not include her. #RandolphHarris 7 of 20
Some people do not believe that mental illness exists. The phenomena now called mental illnesses [should be] looked at afresh and more simply, be regarded as the expressions of man’s struggle with the problem of how he should live. How do we fit ourselves in a society that gives us so much trouble? That is the wrong question. It is possible to lose all awareness of ourselves as an active participant. In the year before I left my wise, she had almost totally convinced me that I was “insane,” unfit to be a father. “No judge would let you have him (our son).” In fighting not to blame my wife for my hurt and confusion, because I could not bear to have my love change to hate, I arrived at knowing my own part in it, and told a doctor what was true: “I watched her dig the pit, and obligingly fell in.” However, I could not see that clearly while I was under fire. Each time that I almost grasped it, my wife’s words—or even the way she looked at me—threw me into a chaos of uncertainty again—the doubting of myself. No one else seemed to find her behaviour odd, so was it all in me? I had to be away from her, away from everyone with opinions, to find out. It gives me the creeps that children who are told they are “wrong,” “no good,” “worthless,” cannot get away, and that our young people are required to fit into a society which does not fit them. When we require always more doctors, more psychotherapists, more jailers, more police, who is at fault? #RandolphHarris 8 of 20
There are some people who have been in prison for twenty years straight and they talk to themselves. There is no one that they can call on. Their New York lawyers cannot do anything for them. There is no appeal from a .30 caliber summons. Some wonder if Sade is an atheist? He says so, and we believe him, before going to prison, in his Dialogue between a Priest and a Dying Man; and from then on, we are dumbfounded by his passion for sacrilege. One of his cruelest characters, Saint-Fond, does not in any sense deny God. He is content to develop a gnostic theory of a wicked demiurge and to draw the proper conclusions from it. Saint-Fond, it is said, is not Sade. No, of course not. A character is never the author who created him. It is quite likely, however, that an author may be all his characters simultaneously. Now, all Sade’s atheists suppose, in principle, the nonexistence of God for the obvious reason that He existence would imply that He was indifferent, wicked, or cruel. Sade’s greatest work ends with a demonstration of the stupidity and spite of the divinity. The innocent Justine runs through the storm and the wicked Noirceuil swears that he will be converted if divine retribution consents to spare her life. Justine is struck by lightning, Noirceuil triumphs, and human crime continues to be man’s answer to divine crime. Thus there is a freethinker wager that is the answer to the Pascalian wager. #RandolphHarris 9 of 20
The idea of God which Sade conceives for himself is, therefore, of a criminal divinity who oppresses and denies mankind. That murder is an attribute of the divinity is quite evident, according to Sade, from the history of religions. Why, then, should man be virtuous? Sade’s first step as a prisoner is to jump to the most extreme conclusions. If God kills and repudiates mankind, there is nothing to stop one from killing and repudiating one’s fellow men. This irritable challenge in no way resembles the tranquil negation that is still to be found in the Dialogue of 1782. The man who exclaims: “I have nothing, I give nothing,” and who concludes: “Virtue and vice are indistinguishable in the tomb,” is neither happy nor tranquil. The concept of God is the only thing, according to him, “which he cannot forgive man.” The word forgive is already rather strange in the mouth of this expert in torture. However, it is himself whom he cannot forgive for an idea that his desperate view of the World, and his condition as a prisoner, completely refute. A double rebellion—against the order of the Universe and against himself—is henceforth going to be the guiding principle of Sade’s reasoning. In that these two forms of rebellion are contradictory except in the disturbed mind of a victim of persecution, his reasoning is always either ambiguous or legitimate according to whether it is considered in the light of logic or in an attempt at compassion. #RandolphHarris 10 of 20
It is true that thought precedes action, that actions express thoughts, and that to rule mind is to rule the entire life. However, it is also true that man’s battles with himself proceed by progressive stages, that he exerts will more easily than he changes feeling. Therefore, the discipline of inward thinking should follow after—and no before—it. To counsel him to take care of his inner life and that then the outer life will take care of itself, as so many mystics do, is to be plausible but also to show a lack of practicality. Man’s heart will feel no peace as his mind will know no poise until he abandons the lower instincts and gives himself up to this unearthly call. First, he must abandon them outwardly in deeds; later he must do it inwardly even in thoughts. This will inevitably bring him into inner struggle, into oscillation between victories and defeats, elations and despairs. The way up is long, hard, rugged, and slow to tread. It is always a stage for complaints and outcries, battles and falls. Only time—the master power—can bring him to its lofty end. Only when the lessons of birth after birth etch themselves deeply and unmistakably into his conscious mind through dreadful repetition can he accept them co-operatively, resignedly, and this put a stop to the needless sufferings of desire, passion, and attachment. #RandolphHarris 11 of 20
When a man’s desire and yearnings, thirst and longings are so strong as to upset his reasoning power and block his intuitive capacity, he is stopped from finding the truth. In this condition, he shuts his eyes to those facts which are displeasing or which are contrary to his desires and opens them only to those which are pleasing or agreeable to his wishes. Thinking bends easily to desires, so that the satisfaction of personal interest rather than the quest of universal truth becomes its real object. Reforms that begin with the lowest in man lead the way to the highest in him. The mastery of terrestrial passion opens the door to the birth of the spiritual intuition. Whether the cage be made of gold or the net fabricated from silk, the reality of their inner captivity still remains. A discipline which is not stern but gentle and easy is best suited to modern man. The astrological Zodiac which has continued to attract the attentions of intelligent people for five thousand years must have some caste-type meaning—and this significance must be explained by the theories which improve it. New theories can improve, can explain, but not reject, the Zodiac. The Genesis version of Creation obviously must have had profound survival validity even through it obviously fails to take into account the newer evidence from Darwinian, Mendelian, DNA, sociobiological and Behaviour genetics. #RandolphHarris 12 of 20
Correspondence Theory is a “magic stick” for searching out new laws, because it sets formal constraints on new mathematics. As Morrison emphasizes, the Correspondence Principle secures science against the loss of achievements of the past. For innovators it is a warning like Hippocratic maxim for physicians—above all do no harm! Classical mechanics is not a mere blunder that was repudiated in 1905, as the headlines imply. This affectionate maxim holds even more strongly for human ethology—id est, philosophy. All the theological and philosophical systems of the past must be seen as attempts, valid at the preceding, more primitive stage of neurotechnology, to explain the inner-outer (CNS-DNA) reality paradox. Thus the concern in the Starseed Transmissions to trace correspondences among the many occult theories of the past, including Christianity and Buddhism, and the new sciences. Each past philosophy, far from being repudiated, or rejected, joyously fits into an evolving, stage-by-stage theory. Medieval alchemy and astrology were not blunders repudiated by Dow Chemical and Dr. Freud. The demon is the jester in human existence, and the joker in psychotherapy. No matter how well a man lays his plans, the demon can come in at the critical moment and upset them all, usually with a smile and a ha ha. And no matter how well the therapist plans his psychotherapy, the patient always has the upper hand. At the point when the therapist thinks he has four aces, the man plays his joker, and his demon wins the pot. Then he skips merrily off, leaving the doctor to lead through the deck trying to figure out what happened. #RandolphHarris 13 of 20
Even if he is ready for it, there may be little he can do. The doctor may know ahead of time that just as the man gets his stone rolled up to the brow of the hill, the demon will distract his attention, and it will roll all the way down again. There may be others who know about it, too, but the demon is already at work, and sees to it that the man keeps away from anyone who would interfere. So the patient starts to miss appointments, or drifts away, and if anyone pressures him he just plain quits. He may return after he has Sisyphused out, sadder, but not much wiser, nor even aware of his glee. The demon first appears in the higher, when the man scatters his food on the floor with a merry glint, waiting to see what his parents will do. If they make friends with it, it will go on to later mischief, and then perhaps into humorous fun and jokes. If they beat it down, it will lurk surly in the background, ready to leap out at an unguarded moment and scramble his life as it originally scrambled his food. A substantial proportion of the World’s population lives in cities where trees and grass are seldom seen, where the sounds of birds and babbling streams are not heard. The air they breathe is either filtered through air-conditioning units or heavily polluted with smog. Such persons adapt to the milieu within which they live, but it is an unnatural environment. #RandolphHarris 14 of 20
Contact with the physical World, with seaside, forests, and parks, with fields and animals, gives persons a sense of rhythm that contrasts with the rhythms of industrialized urban life. These experiences remind the person that he or she does not simply have a body, but that the person is a body, an embodied being who is in and of nature. Chronic physical and muscular tension, accelerated rhythms of speech and movement, are common to people who live apart from their own nature and the nature around us all. Just as a person may suffer from estrangement from the rest of nature, the person may also suffer a kind of alienation and distance from the body. From infancy, the human needs physical contact with the other human beings and with the World. Infants and grownups alike need handshakes, hugs, enjoyable exercise, and dance in order to feel the vitality of their bodies. As Reich, Lowen, and Rolf have pointed out, growing up leaves a person with many muscular systems chronically tensed, as part of an overall defense against danger and pain. This “muscular armour” interferes with fullest respiration, with proper poster, with sleep and rest; it often requires specialized massage and manipulation before the muscular system is restored to the pliability most compatible with a health-giving life. #RandolphHarris 15 of 20
Reich especially pointed out that a chronically defensive attitude reduces a person’s capacity for the fullest intimacy. Of course, intimacy is also an exquisite experience. Our culture, with its puritan heritage, has encouraged people to repress pleasures of the flesh, perhaps because it interferes with compulsive work. Recent counterculture developments have introduced a variety of approaches to a reengagement with nature and with one’s own body that seem compatible with healthier personality. The year 2024 is important for many people and the American movement in many ways. We have seen the cause and effect of not having a balanced system. One nail drives another deeper still. Even new obligation that America assumes, as a result of its criminal mis-handling of foreign American interests, creates a stronger blow which falls on the states. When the democratic party intentionally allowed border security to fail, it gave the revolutionary uprising of an acceptance of criminal behaviour and the appearance of a spear point aimed at the American Christian family, they did not do this from the standpoint of American interest, but only as a commissioner of widespread illegal activity, corruption, and a general disregard for national security. It is obvious that this “valuable gem,” who had been constantly wandered around American political centers as the journalists’ rabble, should have been the last person called upon as a protector of American interests and he was completely indifferent whether America was even part of God’s wide World. #RandolphHarris 16 of 20
The Sacramento Fire Department has to avert dangers to public safety caused by fires, explosions, accidents and similar events. Technical assistance and firefighting tasks play an important role in this. They also provide medical assistance for people who are in life-threatening condition. The aim is to preserve life or health. This includes initial medical care and, if necessary, the establishment of transportation to the hospital. The tasks assigned by law include, among other things, statements in the context of building permit procedures, fire safety inspections or contract procedures for fire alarm systems and fire brigade key depots. “It was a bitterly cold night, maybe twenty or twenty-five degrees (Fahrenheit). The was a farmhouse, heavily involved, and there were kids trapped in it. We got out there, and the house was cooking. There was heavy smoke coming out of the windows; since the fire hadn’t gone through the roof, it was bending out all the windows. This was the first time any of us young guys had a situation where we knew someone was trapped. We started stretching an inch-and-a-half because that’s what we always did, and out chief said, “The heck with the inch-and-a-half. The kids are trapped up there, and we’ve got to get up.” None of the guys from the other department had air packs on, and we were all masked up. They pointed to the back of the house, which wasn’t so involved with flames. The kids’ bedroom was there. We put a ladder up to the little roof over one of the side doors and went up. I looked inside the window, and the whole quarter of the house was going, trapping the kids. These were farm kids, and they had already been up doing their chores. Now they couldn’t get out. #RandolphHarris 17 of 20
“We tried to get in this window. I could see down the hall, I could see a crib. It was at the point where the flame is so intense that you can see again, when it’s really lit up, before you deal the water. I tried to get in the window and I got blown right back. I kept trying to reach for the crib, and I kept getting burned back, because the whole damn fire was venting this way. Two other guys were trying the next window, meeting the same thing—getting blown back. There was just heat coming at us. I lost my helmet, my New Yorker, in there. Then our bells went off, and we were called down. I was so man, I said, ‘Dang, we couldn’t get to them, we couldn’t get to them.’ And one of the guys I had never given much of a thought to slammed me against the side of a wall, and said, ‘That’s it. It’s done.’ Apparently I was sufficiently obnoxious about my frustration that somebody felt it necessary to snap me back. Meanwhile, a booster line, a high-pressure beam gun, was working on the fire. I had to change air packs because the face piece on my mask was burned so that I couldn’t see out of it. We went back up and made an entrance through the second window. We knew it was too late in the firs for the kids to be alive. I went in and started searching the room. The far corner of it had burned through to the first floor. I started crawling and found one of the kids practically underneath the window. It turned out to be a fourteen-year-old girl. #RandolphHarris 18 of 20
“I took off a glove and felt for a pulse, but I could see by the way everything was burned there that there was nothing I could do and I should just report it. She had probably gotten to the window and opened it, and then probably got sucked back in. The room has flashed. I don’t know why it flashed. I searched further, and I came across a lot of stuffed toys, and there was a little girl with a ponytail, all charred and black and very brittle. I remember reaching out to that. It was the little girl’s room I was in. Further on, across the hallway, there was a body strewn there, with a nose falling down across the face. It was absolutely gruesome. I came back and reported the fatalities to the chief. You think about scenarios. The older sister must have gone into the little girl’s room to try to save her and gotten trapped and just passed away. The chief and I were standing in that room, waiting for the medical examiner to come and talking about it. The little girl was the child of a poor farm family, but she had books and today and stuffed dollars and everything she could want. It was striking. The parents got out, and they were an absolute mess, the thought of their kids trapped upstairs and them getting out because their bedroom was downstairs. But the worst thing for them must have been the knowledge that they fire had started in a faultily installed wood stove, which they had twice been warned about by the fire company when they had been there earlier on less serious fires. #RandolphHarris 19 of 20
“Up until then I had been a young snot who really thought he could knock the tar out of any fire. I had been in real hot fires and gone through it and really had done my job, and I would have sworn that I could have gone through anything to have gotten to the kids. That is just not the way it is. The thing is, you think you’re invincible, that you can get through any smoke or anything. I mean, the fire was horrible, four kids died in it. It was physically impossible to get through the window. I did everything I could, and I know I did. I went up to the house a couple of day later. I wanted to find my fire helmet, which was still in there somewhere. There was a lot of clutter all around. I looked up and saw my helmet inside the crib that I had been trying to reach into. I took it back, cleaned it up.” With empathy and understanding, the Sacramento Fire Department protects life, property, and the environment in their community through an all-hazards approach to fire protection, emergency medical services, community risk reduction and education. You can help save lives by donating to the Sacramento Fire Department. In an effort to keep the country cohesive, please raise your children to love America, to be patriotic, to love God and Jesus Christ and buy American cars and other American goods and services. Also, please respect law and order, and treat others with kindness and respect. To ensure that you have a bright future, please take your education seriously, and be sure to actually read your books. And remember to “Just Say ‘No’ to Drugs.” Even marijuana can be deadly. 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
The Winchester Mystery House
he ghosts are The Winchester Mystery House and are treated like members of the family. They are greeted and wished a Merry Christmas and asked to protect that house. The caretakers strive to create a home that is welcoming to everyone. The goal is to make guests feel comfortable and safe. There are a variety of tours, some for those who love theme parks and others for children and families and those who love more historic tours.
Please come and enjoy a delicious meal in Sarah’s Café, stroll along the paths of the beautiful Victorian gardens, and wonder through the miles of hallways in the World’s most mysterious mansion. For further information about tours, including group tours, weddings, school events, birthday party packages, facility rentals, and special events please visit the website: https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
Please visit the online giftshop, and purchase a gift for friends and relatives as well as a special memento of The Winchester Mystery House. A variety of souvenirs and gifts are available to purchase. https://shopwinchestermysteryhouse.com/
Weak One Minute, Dead the Next?
Some people are raised in vicious crumbling corners of the city, where their chances of survival are only as good as the strength in their muscles of the quick wits in their head. Those who have both—physical strength and size are lucky. However, it also helps to have calculating intelligence. It is also important not to get caught in the syndrome of unemployment, drugs, and despair. When live in an age when, as the Lord foretold, men’s hearts are failing them, not only physically but in spirit. Many are giving up heart for the battle of life. Death by suicide ranks as a major cause of deaths to college students. As the showdown between good and evil approaches with its accompanying trials and tribulations, the adversaries are increasingly striving to overcome the Saints with despair, discouragement, despondency, and depression. Sometimes this happens when a person’s spouse leaves them, the paychecks stop coming in, and the payments on the Corvette fall months behind. This is when it is most important to remember God and have assurance that he is directing us through the troubled times ahead. “He that remaineth steadfast and is not overcome, the same shall be saved,” reports Matthew 1.11. Also, never forget your intelligence, your education, and your competitiveness. #RandolphHarris 1 of 16
Even people who are successful and feel like they own the World fell like something very important is missing. Some fell alone, like a spaceship rocketing to the stars with nothing but emptiness all around them. They may also feel out of touch with themselves, with who they are. It is often times like a spaceship that has no pilot, no crew—just an engine driving it mindlessly ever upward to nowhere. Many people are, as always, a success. They have energy, style, charisma. They seem to have it “all together.” And they fool everyone but themselves. On top of that, they carry a deep, gnawing guilt. In the rise to the top, one must often leave many people behind: their friends from poor neighbourhoods, their spouse, and sometimes even their families. These individuals know something is wrong with them personally. They want to relax, but cannot. They want to be loved, but have no idea how a person goes about doing that. They get sick and tired of competing, keeping up, looking good, winning for the sake of winning alone. “Wickedness never was happiness,” reports Alma 41.10. Sin creates disharmony with God and is depressing to the spirit. Therefore, a man would do well to examine himself to see that he is in harmony with all of God’s laws. Every law kept brings a particular blessing. Every law broken brings a particular blight. Those who are heavy laden with despair should come unto the Lord, for his yoke is easy and his burden is light. #RandolphHarris 2 of 16
Strong. You want to know that you are strong all the time. Not just when things are going smoothly. However, if you tell yourself—all the time—that you are strong, then after a while you will believe it. You will really know it. So when something unfortunate happens, you will know you can handle it. However, no one is strong all the time. There are times when you will be weak. Look man, not everyone has the luxury of being weak. Weak, for some, is like one step from being dead, you understand? You will be weak one minute, and you will be dead the next. However, prayer in the hour of need is a great boon. From simple trials to our Gethsemanes, prayer can put us in touch with God, our greatest source of comfort and counsel. “Pray always that you may come off conqueror,” Doctrine and Covenants 10.5. This is also a key to use in keeping depression from destroying us. In the lives of some people, there are a number of direct polarities, that is, opposites which are independent, but at the same time complementary. With regard to their outside World, there are the polarities of their two cultures: one, the poverty-ridden low-income neighbourhood and the other, the World of business. They know their roots are in one culture, but their everyday life is in the other. Their inability to be in both of these Worlds, alternately, as the situation might demand, is a source of great conflict, guilt and embarrassment to them. #RandolphHarris 3 of 16
The other polarity exists in their own perception of themselves: the polarity of strength and weakness. Having grown up in an environment where strength was equated with survival, some come to see weakness as something to be avoided at all costs. Thus they will deny their own weakness and set about structing their lives such that one could demonstrate only strength to oneself and others. To understand this, we have to focus on the exact meaning of the word polarity, which is different from the concept of duality. Polarities exist at either end of a continuum. One such continuum might have “yes” at one end and “no” at the other, with degrees of “maybes” in between. Another continuum might have strength at one end and weakness at the other. (There is a zero point in the center and the intensity of the strength and weakness increases as each moves away from the other. Differences exist only in degree. On the other hand, a duality is a complete separation of two entities into mutually exclusive or contradictory conditions such as: Alive of Dead.) These are related by their oppositeness—an oppositeness which is independent, but not complementary. Also, there cannot be degrees of deadness. Something is either dead, or alive. It cannot be a “little bit” dead. Many people often mistake polarities for dualities. In the minds of some, there are two kind of people “ghetto” and successful businessmen. #RandolphHarris 4 of 16
Since some people view themselves as successful businessmen, they cannot allow themselves to be viewed as “ghetto,” as they perceive the people left in the less affluent hometowns. To these successful men, it is necessary to embrace one and reject the other. Some cannot see that one does not have to do that. Rather, one can hold the two polarities in tension, appreciating both Worlds. One can be human and ambitions, cool and successful. One can speak in slang dialect to their friends and family and slide into their university English when he is in the executive suite. He can be both at the same time without guilt. Recognizing that he need not constantly fight the situation as a duality, but allow both to exist in creative tension, will lead to a dissolving of what could become a neurotic conflict. The Universe is literally held together by such dynamic tension. For every positive charge in a molecule, there is an equal and opposite negative one. For every planet that is spinning wildly, straining to hurtle off into space, there is another planet holding it to its orbit. The positive does not reject the existence of the negative. It uses the negative to hold itself in place. The Universe uses both the positive and the negative to accomplish a variety of useful tasks. The result of this dynamic tension between polarities is balance and balance is literally “what makes the World go ‘round.” #RandolphHarris 5 of 16
If everything exists in a state of dynamic tension, then why not out inner life, our own being? Should not out being also thrive best in a condition of dynamic tension on a nurturing continuum of feeling and growth, rather than at a rigidly fixed position which seeks to deny the existence of another, opposite position? In that the children of Cain have triumphed, increasingly, throughout the centuries, the God of the Old Testament can be said to have been incredibly successful. Paradoxically, the blasphemers have injected new life into the jealous God whom Christianity wished to banish from history. One of their most profoundly audacious acts was to recruit Christ into their camp by making His story end on the Cross and on the bitter note of the cry that precedes His agony. By this means it was possible to preserve the implacable face of a God of hate—which coincided far better with creation as the rebels conceived it. Until Dostoievsky and Nietzsche, rebellion is directed only against a cruel and capricious divinity—a divinity who prefers, without any convincing motive, Abel’s sacrifice to Cain’s and, by so doing, provokes the first murder. Dostoievsky, in the realm of imagination, and Nietzsche, in the realm of fact, enormously increase the field of rebellious thought and demand an accounting from the God of love. Himself. Nietzsche believes that God is dead in the souls of his contemporaries. #RandolphHarris 6 of 16
Because Nietzsche believes that God is dead in the souls of his contemporaries, he attacks, like his predecessor Stirner, the illusion of God that lingers, under guise of morality, in the thought of his times. However, until they appear upon the scene, the freethinkers, for example, were content to deny the truth of the history of Christ (“that dull story,” in Sade’s words) and to maintain, by their denials, the tradition of an avenging god. On the other hand, for as long as the Western World has been Christian, the Gospels have been the interpreter between Heaven and Earth. Each time a solitary cry of rebellion was uttered, the answer came in the form of an even more terrible suffering. In that Christ had suffered, and had suffered voluntarily, suffering was no longer unjust and all pain was necessary. In one sense, Christianity’s bitter intuition and legitimate pessimism concerning human behaviour is based on the assumption that overall injustice is as satisfying to man as total justice. Only the sacrifice of an innocent god could justify the endless and universal torture of innocence. Only the most abject suffering by God could assuage man’s agony. If everything, without exception, in Heaven and Eart is doomed to pain and suffering, then a strange form of happiness is possible. However, from the moment when Christianity, emerging from its period of triumph, found itself submitted to the critical eye of reason—to the point where the divinity of Christ was denied—suffering once more became the lot of man. #RandolphHarris 7 of 16
Jesus Christ profaned is no more than just one more innocent man who the representatives of the God of Abraham tortured in a spectacular manner. The abyss that separates the master from the slaves opens again and the cry of revolt falls on the deaf ears of a jealous God. The freethinkers have prepared the way for this new dichotomy by attacking, with all the usual precautions, the morality and divinity of Christ. Callot’s Universe sums up quite satisfactorily this World of hallucination and wretchedness whose inhabitants begin by giggling up their sleeves and end—with Moliere’s Don Juan—by laughing to high Heaven. During the two centuries which prepare the way for the upheavals, both revolutionary and sacrilegious, of the eighteenth century, all the efforts of the freethinkers are bent on making Christ an innocent, or a simpleton, so as to annex Him to the World of man, endowed with all the noble or derisory qualities of man. Thus the ground will be prepared for the great offensive against a hostile Heaven. The adept who attains perfect inner serenity can do so only by paying the price of forgoing the emotional agitations, attractions, and repulsions which constitute much of the inner life of most people. Having attained it himself, he can lead other to it only by pointing towards it as a reachable goal for them, too. He may not yield to personal favouritism or egotistic caprice based on likes and dislikes in selecting those whom he is to help. #RandolphHarris 8 of 16
Indeed, because of this it is said that he is not more interested in mankind collectively rather than as individuals. Now if he had to commit emotional suicide to reach his present height, it is unreasonable to expect that he should flatter or encourage those who, although seeking the same height, seek also to preserve or nourish their egoistic emotions. The latter are nearly always closely linked to egoistic desires. An inward detachment from all eagerness for Earthly life is the grim price that must be paid before entry into the kingdom of Heaven can be got. Such detachment requires soft sentimentality to yield to hard recognition must assuredly lead the seeker far away from conventional points of view concerning his personal duties, his family relations, and his social behaviour. It is not that he will not feel desires and aversions, attractions and repulsions, but that he will not be moved by them. They will be under control, not only of the ego but of a power higher than the ego. Thus the tensions which animate him, will not be present. It is an error to regard him as inhuman, as lacking in feeling. What he rejects is negative feeling: what he seeks to overcome is animal wrath, lust, hatred; what he affirms is positive feeling of the best kind—delicate, sensitive, aesthetic, compassionate, and refined. Thus his stoic imperturbability is not rigor mortis. #RandolphHarris 9 of 16
To talk of his condition as simply being one of controlled emotion is not quite correct; much rather it is one of balanced emotion—which is markedly different. The idea of a philosopher being an utterly aloof person, coldly indifferent and quite unapproachable, a man who restricts his human feelings to the degree that hardly any are left, is applicable only to those who follow narrow, rigid, and incomplete systems. The notion that a philosopher is melancholy is arguable: there is no reason why he should not show joy and appreciate humour. However, since he is a balanced person, he will put the governor of deep seriousness to control these qualities. If a human price has to be paid for such emotionless behaviour, let us remember that it must also be paid for too emotional behaviour. A portentous gravity is not at all a hallmark of the self-actualized Christian. Is mental tranquility indistinguishable from emotional death? Is it not better to guide feelings, educate desires, and uplift emotions into the proper channels than to kill them? Such questions show a confused comprehension of the philosophic discipline. The latter’s aim is not to produce an insensible human stone but a true human being. If a child is boxed in by contradictory controls, there may be only one way out which allows him some measure of self-expression. He is then forced into that kind of activity or response no matter how inappropriate it may be. #RandolphHarris 10 of 16
In such a case, it is often evident to the people around him that he is responding to what is in his head rather than to the external situation, and he is then said to be in a bag. If his bag is backed up by some talent or ability, and by a winning payoff command, it may be a winner’s bag, but in most cases people in a bag are losers because their behaviour is nonadaptive. A person who breaks out of a bag (or “container,” as it sometimes called) will immediately proceed to do his thing, that is, whatever he has always wanted most to do. If that happens to be adaptive and is controlled with some Adult rationality, he may turn out to be a winner, but if he indulges too often and too well, he will end up being a loser. In fact, when a person starts to do his thing, after he break out of his bag, his payoff command will determine whether he does it judiciously so as to be a winner, or overdoes it like a loser. In some cases, however, he may be able to leave his payoff command in the bag along with the rest of his parentally programmed script apparatus, and then he is really his own man and can decide his own destiny. However, it is difficult to know, without the appraisal of an objective outsider, whether he is really a maverick of liberated person, or is only an angry rebel, or maybe even a schizophrenic who has jumped out of his bag and into a bottle, with or without pulling the cork in after him. #RandolphHarris 11 of 16
To ask about the purpose of human life is to raise an existential question, rather than one answerable through experiment or logic. Existential questions are answered by the way one lives. Every person’s life, and the daily actions and decisions that comprise it, represent that person’s answer to the question, “How, then, shall I live?” These answers are almost by definition the embodiment of a person’s religion. The chief function of religion is to provide ultimate answers to the questions that existence pose. In the absence of credible and lifegiving answers to the questions, “How shall I live, and why?” a person enters the state called noogenic neurosis—a kind of despair or cynicism. Much depression and neurotic suffering stem from a failure to find meaning in life or to find new meaning when old goals have been consummated or have lost their inspiriting power. Fromm regards “a frame of orientation and devotion” to be as essential to healthy personality as food. The process of self-actualizing, of which Maslow wrote, and the achievement of selfhood (in Jung’s sense) appear to be impossible without such a religious orientation. Of course, it does not matter whether the religion is theistic, and it is possible to judge whether or not a person’s objects and ways of worshiping are life-giving. However, life for human beings is impossible without something to live for. #RandolphHarris 12 of 16
The mission of the Sacramento Fire Department is to serve the community by protecting lives, property, and the environment in a safe, efficient, and professional manner. The Sacramento Fire Department also insures to provide timely, effective and efficient fire protection, suppression, prevention, education, and investigation services to the citizens of Sacramento. “It was a fire in a high school at two o’ clock on a Monday morning, and one of our rescue crews was coming back from the hospital, where they had a job. They smelled smoke. They drove all around looking for the fire, but they just couldn’t find it. The trouble was that this school, like many buildings in South Sacrament, was completely windowless, for reasons of vandalism and air-conditioning. So they couldn’t see the fire. At six in the morning we got the run. This fire had been burning in a windowless structure for twelve hours. We felt the door, and it was hotter than hell itself. We stretched our preconnected line, a long stretch, and we put it into position. Then we forced open the door and felt the air rush in. Right there, I knew that was the closet we had ever come to blowing ourselves to kingdom come. Why that building didn’t backdraft, I don’t know. We crawled in with the line, and the smoke was real black, almost to the floor. We were in the library learning center. #RandolphHarris 13 of 16
“I got close to the wall, and there was a telephone on one of the desks, just above the level of our heads. It was melted to a blob. Now our ears were burning, really tingling, because we weren’t using helmets with earflaps and we didn’t have any ventilation. We went along way in, thinking, cover your ears, cover them up and push the line along. By this time everything was in a smoldering state and picking up. We stretched that thing, we must have stretched it a hundred feet. This other guy and I were up front, and the rest of the guys were twenty or thirty feet back. We cracked that line, and the water upset the thermal balance. The stream came down, and we couldn’t see a damn thing. The steam rolled down, and I told the guy, ‘I got to leave, I’m burning up.’ He didn’t get the burns I did. I said, ‘I got to go, I’m burning up.’ I turned around and tried to follow the hose line out, but it was all tangled around a chair we had knocked over on the way in. It was being a receptionist’s desk, and I remember going there. In retrospect you say, ‘Feel the male and female coupling, and you know you’re heading in the right direction.’ When you’re burning up, you don’t feel anything. I started to stand up, and I was telling myself to get back down. This was the closet I have ever come to losing control of myself because I was burning up. I finally did get outside. To be honest, I had left that guy on the line. I had told him, ‘Come on, come on, come on.’ He came out a minute later and was okay. #RandolphHarris 14 of 16
“They worked on me in the emergency room at the hospital, and they put ice packs on my ears. They were second-degree burns. Why we didn’t kill ourselves by forcing that door and letting that air in, I don’t know. I think it was just God saying, ‘Hey, it’s not your time to get killed.’ There are always other times, though. Like, we had a sire in another of those Sacramento Country houses, where a lady and a baby were trapped inside. So the guys pulled the line, they were good firemen, but they were attacking the fire at the front. It’s hard to make yourself go around back of the fire when the fire’s in the front. I said, ‘Hey, X, if there is anybody alive, they’re in the back of the house. Go there.’ Well, anyway, the firemen went in the back and found the lady while I was getting my self-contained mask on. They came out and they were burned. They were helping the lady, but the baby was still in there because I could hear it crying. I went in with a line. The fire was one of those where it was burning up over your head. I intentionally didn’t open the line, because I knew that steam would come down and I wouldn’t be able to see the kid. Also, I would steam the hell out of myself. This time I did have my earflaps down. I could hear the baby crying and I said, ‘Oh, man.’ I jumped through doorways, and I melted the eye shield on my helmet. I found the baby. It was in the back bathroom. #RandolphHarris 15 of 16
“I got burned, but I eventually found the baby. That was the first experience in which I heard a baby crying, and I thought, ‘Well, you just better stay in here, and you just better suffer until you find the baby.’” Not only does the fire department save lives and reduce property loss, but they also prevent harm. Public education and prevention is of equal importance to fire suppression in the role of the fire service in the community. You can help the Sacramento Fire Department’s mission by making a donation. Americans love to see America prosper. Please remember to raise your children to love America, love God and Jesus Christ and to be patriotic. Also, to keep America strong, it is important to buy American cars and other goods and services produced by Americans, such as American beef, poultry, dairy, produce and other products. In order to keep our city streets safe, remember to respect law and order, and always treat your elders with dignity and reverence. Getting an education will help you maintain stability as an adult, and you can and will use everything you learn in school. Reading your assigned textbooks before class will help your grades improve, help you to understand the material, teach you critical thinking skills and make class more interesting because you will be able to engage with the teach and other students and the time will fly by. As always, remember to be thankful for being an America and never forget how armed forces have made it possible to live in peace. 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 16 of 16
The Winchester Mystery House
The nearer one gets to visit a haunted place, the more frantic do the restless ones become, to make sure, perhaps, that you do not overlook them!
Please come and enjoy a delicious meal in Sarah’s Café, stroll along the paths of the beautiful Victorian gardens, and wonder through the miles of hallways in the World’s most mysterious mansion. For further information about tours, including group tours, weddings, school events, birthday party packages, facility rentals, and special events please visit the website: https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
Please visit the online giftshop, and purchase a gift for friends and relatives as well as a special memento of The Winchester Mystery House. A variety of souvenirs and gifts are available to purchase. https://shopwinchestermysteryhouse.com/
What a Lot of Life We Waste
Life can throw all kinds of obstacles in your way, and sometimes these obstacles can take the shape of toxic individuals. A big part of manipulation is intention—the mental effort of trying or striving. As soon as we get intention involved, our focus shifts from the spontaneity of the present to the goal-orientation of the future. Instead of expressing ourselves right now, we manipulate people according to the way we expect them to be in the future. Instead of relating to people—that is, being with them, we are manipulating, or doing to them. Any act can be an expression of relating or manipulation. I can smile out of joy in seeing you, or I can smile to make it look that way. I can cry out of genuine sorrow for you, or I can cry to make you feel guilty. Expression is a welling up, and unrehearsed outpouring; it needs no response. Manipulation is calculated and demands response. Expression is a fountain; manipulation is a whirlpool. With expression I feel moved; with manipulation I feel sucked in, drained…with manipulation life becomes a wrestling match, with expression, it is more like a dance. Relating without manipulating is the experience of expressing yourself effortlessly. It is doing without striving. It is based on the assumption that if we become aware of our core feeling sin the heart, the belly, the “guts,” the awareness of these feelings, you will have to train yourself a bit. You will have to take yourself along the road from manipulation to mastery. #RandolphHarris 1 of 18
As you take this fascinating journey, you will unquestionably be surprised at what you may find. You may find that your present system of dealing with certain types of problems is entirely useless, that you have no mechanism in your background to help you learn who you are. You may find that, without thinking about it, you have donned a suit of psychological armour which prevents you from getting in touch with other people as well as yourself. And finally, you may find that who you are—who you really are—is someone quite different from who you think you are. While these surprises may be at first unsettling, they will ultimately be quite pleasant. You will be delighted to discover your uniqueness, the qualities which make you different from anyone who has ever lived or will every live. You will also be pleased—and comforted—to learn that deep down, we are all essentially the same. It is inevitable that you will see parts of yourself in other people. Many of them, like you, are travelers on the road from manipulation to mastery. Stronger by weakness, wiser, men become as they draw near to their eternal home. Ours is a culture that reveres, indeed idolizes strength. Our heroes are warriors, boxers and football players. Not surprisingly, this attitude encouraged many people to seek refuge in their own strength and rely upon it to get along in the World. #RandolphHarris 2 of 18
If you are a person who allows strength to take on such exaggerated importance, chances are you are a manipulator with regard to that value. You depend solely upon your own physical prowess and intelligence, while not allowing others the opportunity to use their brawn or brains. You refuse to acknowledge your failings, fears, inadequacies or weaknesses. You do not allow other to be strong because to do so threatens your self-image of exclusive power. Assuming that you are the only one who knows how to get things done, you tend to be dominating and dictatorial. Chances are you are also guilt-ridden. When you succeed, you bask in the admiration of others, but when things go awry, you withdraw and hide until you can renew your illusions of omnipotence. Yet, you never feel quite strong enough. So you manipulate others into constantly reacknowledging your strength. For you, life is a constant cold war. If you are a master, on the other hand, you must submit your will to God’s will. Strength comes when we seek His will, not our will. He tenderly tells us to “be humble; and the Lord thy God shall lead thee by the hand, and give thee answers to thy prayers,” reports Doctrine and Covenants 112.10. God is the way, and only through Him will we succeed. Therefore, to choose strength is not to deny weakness, and to choose weakness is not to abdicate your strength. One must be willing to acknowledge his failings and weaknesses. #RandolphHarris 3 of 18
Unthreatened by the strength of others, you will them to be strong. As a master, you recognize strength and weakness as polarities—opposite ends of the same pole. They are both a part of you. When you accept your weakness, you are better able to accept all of yourself—a step toward learning to love yourself unconditionally. When you accept, rather than deny or diminish, the strength of others, you are able to appreciate them, to work and play with them in a communion of mutual respect. You can be forceful and expressive of what you want, but without being dominating. At the same time, you can allow others to be strong and competent, but without playing weak or helpless yourself. To the man you are about to meet, strength was “life.” However, life eventually taught him otherwise. You have to learn the prison lesson. Patience. Your impatience will cause others to hurry all around the state exposed to amphibious slug creatures evolved from recessive mutations and mechanical rape. Your written words must be about to jump about like stranded fish, fusing into fantastic moving sculptures, rearranging themselves in palindromes that read the same from any angle. You phone is tapped. The sound system is operated by spider men, coil-headed pink lizards who weave the mercurial plasma along which the sound is carried. Cool it. Be patient. #RandolphHarris 4 of 18
Small minds are the victims of every trying situation because they are the victims of every immediate reaction to it. The student of philosophy, with his metaphysical powers and personal self-discipline, is not. He looks many years ahead of it and much more deeply into it. He does not blindly accept the first feelings about it that arise within himself or are suggested to him by others. The need is to live according to principles, not according to impulses. Men who seek a higher kind of life must practise self-restraint whatever faith they hold or to whatever religious society they belong. Those who demand the freedom to live as they wish, who seek to be undisciplined and unregulated by any authority, ask too much. No one can avoid sometimes reacting badly to outer experiences or circumstances, but the aspirant should not react without trying to practise self-control. With regard to the emotions, the path is a crucifixion of the personal ego. The aspirant’s heart must be searched and searched until it is free from all reservations and utterly surrendered to the higher self. It is impossible to pass through such a process without undergoing the terrible ordeal of crushing some feelings and surrendering others. The adept is indeed that man who has triumphed over his emotions, but it would be an indefensible and inexcusable error to think he lives in a complete emotional vacuum, that he is a man without feeling or sensibilities of any kind. #RandolphHarris 5 of 18
Let us not make the mistake of believing that the adept does not know the meaning of ecstasy. He does, but he knows them all within the higher self, which rules them. The only emotions he does not know are those lower ones, such as anger, resentment, hatred, prejudice, bitterness, lust, pride, and intolerance. Yes!—the philosophical life does not lack emotional content but it is not the kind of narrow, selfish, vacillating emotion so many human beings are accustomed to. If a man is to attain a durable peace, he must commit emotional separation. However, does mean he is to become utterly devoid of all feelings? Not at all. It is only the lower emotions that have to be liquidated. Yet it is these which play so large a role in human life today, whether in their grossest form of hatred or their most refined form of romantic nonsense miscalled love. The frenzies passion let loose, the manias of the lower emotions run wild are never again to be known to him. This high standard is the goal. It may seem unattainable to a human entity, yet history and biography prove that it is not. It might be thought that the philosophic discipline seeks to eliminate emotion. The truth is that it seeks to maturate emotion. The disciple’s feelings—no less than his thoughts—must grow up and assume their philosophic responsibilities. #RandolphHarris 6 of 18
It will be easy for critics to misunderstand the statement that he is to become intellectually feverless and emotionally passionless. We do not mean that he is to be deprived of all feeling, bereft of all enthusiasm, incapable of all affection. We mean that he is to seek an inward serenity which no feeling, no enthusiasm, and no affection can distract. From this point of view, the New Testament can be considered as an attempt to answer, in advance, every Cain in the World, by painting the figure of God in softer colours and by creating an intercessor between God and man. Christ came to solve two major problems, evil and death, which are precisely the problems that preoccupy the rebel. His solution consisted, first, in experiencing them. The man-god suffers, too—with patience. Evil and death can no longer be entirely imputed to Him since He suffers and dies. The night of Golgotha is so important in the history of man only because, in its shadow, the divinity abandoned its traditional privileges and drank to the last drop, despair included, the agony of death. This is the explanation of the Lama sabactani and the heart rending of Christ in agony. If it had been alleviated by hopes of eternity, the agony would have been mild. For God to be a man, he must despair. Ghosticism, which is the fruit of Greco-Christian collaboration, has tried for two centuries, in reaction against Judaic thought, to promote this concept. We know, for example, the vast number of intercessors invented by Valentinus. #RandolphHarris 7 of 18
However, the aeons of this particular metaphysical skirmish are the equivalent of the intermediary truths to be found in Hellenism. Their aim is to diminish the absurdity of an intimate relationship between suffering humanity and an implacable god. This is the special role of Marcion’s cruel bellicose second god. This demiurge is responsible for the creation of a finite World and of death. Our duty is to hate him at the same time to deny everything that he has created, by means of asceticism, to the point of destroying, by sexual abstinence, all creation. This form of asceticism is therefore both proud and rebellious. Marcion simply alters the course of rebellion and directs it toward an inferior god so as to be better able to exalt the superior god. Gnosis, owing to its Greek origins, remains conciliatory and tends to destroy the Judaic heritage in Christianity. It also wanted to avoid Augustinism, by anticipating it, in that Augustinism provides arguments for every form of rebellion. To Basilides, for example, the martyrs were sinners, and so was Christ, because they suffered. A strange conception, but whose aim is to remove the element of injustice from suffering. The Gnostics only wanted to substitute the Greek idea of initiation, which allows mankind every possible chance, for the concept of an all-powerful and arbitrary forgiveness. #RandolphHarris 8 of 18
The enormous number of sects among the second-generation Gnostics indicates how desperate and diversified was the attempt on the part of Greek thought to make the Christian Universe more accessible and to remove the motives for a rebellion that Hellenism considered the worst of all evils. However, the Church condemned this attempt and, by condemning it, swelled the ranks of the rebels. To think about anything without experience is nothing. In the early years of World War II, General Petain, Marshall of France and Chief of State, was condemned for having collaborated with the Germans when they invaded France. It did seem “bad” because of the way that it was presented to us. However, when I sat alone at night with my sleeping children after Pearl Harbor, expecting invasion, and considered what I would do when it came, then Mr. Petain looked very different to me. I tried, most honestly, most searchingly, to know what I should do when invasion came. Should I take the children and run to the hills? Should I fight the Japanese when they came to my door? Should I go out to fight them? Should I make friends with them and hope through that to be able to ameliorate matters for others besides myself? I still do not know what I would have done because it never happened (to me). If I found a burglar in the house, when I was young, I had notions about what I would do. My friends and I used to talk about things like this and say what we would do. What a lot of life we waste! #RandolphHarris 9 of 18
When I actually did meet a burglar in my home—opening the door to my bedroom, I found him directly on the other side, looking into a top bureau drawer with a flashlight—I stood there and exclaimed, “What do you call this?” When it is obvious what anyone calls it, the words sound idiotic, but they were an apt expression of my astonishment. All my thinking about meeting a burglar had left me totally unprepared for the fact itself. When war came to Hawaii and I experienced it, I thought “All that I have read about war,” “All that I have heard about war,” “All that I have thought about war,” “And it is not anything like that at all (to me) I am completely unprepared.” When I might have been living, I had the feeling of waste—of wasted life, of wasted time. As I lived within war, close to others within the same war, I saw how different it was for each of us. A year later, when one evening I felt like writing about it, my story began, “There is no story of Pearl Harbor. It is many stories, each man is his own, made up of his position at the time, his consciousness of war about to come, whether he was alone or had a family to fear for, his own inherent sensitivity to pain, his quickness of perception.” (I would not leave out the word inherent.) The awareness I did not have in the early morning of December 8th. I knew that many people were living in agony. #RandolphHarris 10 of 18
However, on that morning after the Japanese attack, and having been awake all night while the children slept, I was so filled with my World that “the end of everything for me” defeated me. “For me.” Within my World it might be the end of all of us. I was painfully afraid, and having to stop the forming fantasies of what might happen to the children. At the same time, I had a sense of grace that so far, we had been spared, and a misery for those whose lives had been chopped off so senselessly. I was concerned about our friends on the other side of the island, about whom we knew nothing. Many people got swept into the agony of others, their suicidal chaos, and all the World became morbid for some in a most frightening, unmitigated and unmitigable way—everything going haywire and out of control. So many people because suicidal. Provocation or seduction is what makes lechers, addicts, criminals, gamblers, and others with losing scripts. For a boy it is the real Odyssey scene of a living Ulysses, mother as a Siren luring him to his doom, or as Circe turning him into a swine. For a girl it is father as the Dirty Old Man. In early years it starts out as a general invitation to be a loser: “He sure is clumsy, ha ha,” or “She sure is a sh*t walker, ha ha.” Then it moves on to more specific jeers and teases. “He is always baning his head, ha ha,” or “She is always losing her pant, ha ha.” In adolescence it is promoted into personal transactions. “Take a good look, baby!” (and maybe an accidental or on-purpose feel), “Have a drink,” “Now is your chance,” “Throw it all in, what is the difference,” each accompanied by its ha ha. #RandolphHarris 11 of 18
The come-on is the Parent’s voice whispering to the Child at the critical moment: not to stop thinking about pleasures of the flesh or money, not to let them get away with that. “Come on, baby. What have you got to lose?” This is the demon in the Parent, and the demon in the Child responds. Then the Parent does a quick switch, and Jeder falls flat on his face. “There you go again,” say the gleeful Parent, and Jeder answers “Ha ha!” with what is colloquially called “a sh*t eating smile.” The come-on is what promotes hang-ups in children, and for that it must start early. The parent takes the child’s yen for closeness and turns it into a yen for something else. Once this perverted love is fixed, it becomes a hang-up. We do not have to look aloft to flying saucers to find alien intelligence. We are all UFOs—Unidentified Flying Organisms. The first step in interspecies diplomacy is to recognize the species differences among us, exchange basic vocabulary cues as to each other’s realities and establish interspecies diplomatic courtesies so that the womb-planet Earth can be shared harmoniously, and abandoned gracefully. Then new plan-its, carefully designed to fit the differing realities of different species, can be fabricated in High Orbit. #RandolphHarris 12 of 18
To keep American hivers from understanding the blunt facts about genetic robot-hood, human castes produce public relations experts, sometimes called philosophers or theologians. From the evolutionary point of view, philosophy is post-hive human ethology. The task of an ethological philosopher is to define the different species of humans and to explain how they interact to assure the survival of the gene pool and of each caste. The dom-species is not yet ready for that. The caste spokespersons for each caste describes reality from the perspective of their species. Since each caste inhabits a very different reality, moral outrage is endemic—Poor, Gays, Holocaust obsessed Zionists, left-wingers, irate homeowners/ Each caste lives in a different time zone. The dogma of the Paleolithic did not work in technological America, but this did not discourage the attempt by our species to impose its hunter-gatherer reality on others. Most bewildered are the retiring liberal humanists who keep shouting: “We are all one! Brotherhood of Man! We are all equal and homogenous.” Genetic heterogeneity has, of course, always been obvious to those geared to look for it. As you walk through the forest, you do not expect each species you meet to be the same or to play survival games by your rules. The insightful ethologist admires each lifestyle—the radar speed of a rabbit, the innocent grace of a wolf, the levity of a bird, the sincere cunning of a spider. The same honour can be extended to each human caste you meet as you swim through the urban coral reef. #RandolphHarris 13 of 18
The next eleven people you meet probably belong to eleven different species in mutation—living in different time zones, at different levels of contelligence. Just as human beings need intense involvement to foster full functioning and growth, they also need disengagement. They need to get away from their customary consciousness of themselves and their World. The “getting away” can be literal, as in travel; but it can also take the form of what are now called altered states of consciousness. There are two ways to alter one’s consciousness of one’s situation. One of these is literally to change situations. The other is to suspend the customary way of experiencing a situation, to allow new modes of consciousness to appear. One’s situation functions hypnotically, influencing a person to perceive, recall, think, and even imagine in stereotype ways. One way to break the quasihypnotic spell is to engage in prayer. In prayer, new aspects of the situation are perceived, and they can imagine, think, and remember in more flexible ways. Human beings cannot endure ambiguity or contradiction in their knowledge. In the face of uncertainty, they seem impelled to construct answers, because they can act only when they have made a satisfactory interpretation of the situation. Their interpretation may not be valid, but it seems true that humans prefer a false interpretation to one. #RandolphHarris 14 of 18
Thus, a person may hear unidentifiable noises in the sky. The experience of not knowing may fill the person with anxiety. He or she may be virtually paralyzed until the noise is explained. In addition to the need for some interpretation of situations, human beings need consistency among their presently held belief. When new cognitions—perceptions and knowledge—are not compatible with those already held, the state of cognitive dissonance is said to exist. Cognitive dissonance influences behaviour like any other basic need. When there is a conflict between present knowledge and new information, people may deny and distort truth to eliminate dissonance. Healthier personalities can tolerate ambiguity better than unhealthy personalities; they resolve cognitive dissonance in ways that do the most justice to logic and evidence. The Sacramento Fire Department protects life and properties through the unwavering commitment of service to all. “When I first went on the rescue squad, we had the old-fashioned Cadillac ambulances because they were the best for heavy-duty work and would stand up best under the wear and tear a hard-running service was going to give it. Of course, in later years, we have gone for a totally different type of ambulance with the modular unit and have gone into a much more advanced type of emergency medical care with EMTs and paramedics. #RandolphHarris 15 of 18
“When I first started out with the fire department, the only thing we could do for somebody who had a heart attack was to give him oxygen or, in the case of first aid, put a tourniquet on if there was severe bleeding and patch them up the best we could. I can remember a time when there were no ambulances in Sacramento, and people would lie in the street for forty-five minutes, waiting for a police paddy wagon to come and pick them up. We have come a long, long way in this country, and the fire service has been the main operator of emergency medical service. One time we were at the dinner table, and we had with us one of the local fire investigators and a retired captain. An alarm came in, an older, run-down area in Sacramento with many fires. We were greeted at the street by some frantically waving civilians. They pointed to the rear of the house, screaming, ‘He’s in the back, he’s in the back.’ So I grabbed a Halligan bar and went to the rear of the house, which was two stories in the rear and one story in the front. The people were pointing to the cellar stairs. There were six or eight steps down to the basement. It was a basement fire that had already spread up the interior stairs to the first floor and on up to the attic and roof. So I descended the cellar stairs and opened the door. The fire had already taken the whole basement, it had flashed over and the entire ceiling was involved. As I opened the door, the fire was licking out and going up the siding of the house. #RandolphHarris 16 of 18
“I felt the wind drawn in from the doorway behind my back. The smoke was down low, but the wind cleared the air a bit, and I was able to get down low enough to get under the smoke. At floor level it was fairly clear, and I could see because the fire was so bright. I could also see that it was a heavily fire-loaded building. The man was more or less a packrat. He cut up his kindling wood down there with a chain saw. So there were stacks of wood and motor vehicle parts, a conglomeration of junk. Also a large bed. The victim was over by the stairway, about twenty-five feet in, lying face down. Later investigation showed that he was filling his gasoline-powered chain new a large potbelly stove. There was probably a vapour explosion and a flash fire. I was by myself, and the hose line had not yet been stretched to cover me. The man was unconscious and severely burned. His clothes had apparently fused to his body. He was a big man weighing 250 pounds. I weigh 150, so it was a lot of work to get him out of there. By the time I had dragged him to the doorway at the bottom of the outside steps, he was completely naked, because the flash fire had turned his clothes into part of his skin. I did not know if he was dead or alive, just that he was a dead weight. I was able to get him out the door, and I closed the door behind us. I got him as high up the steps as I could, then couldn’t go any further. It took three other men to get him up. #RandolphHarris 17 of 18
“I stayed with him and performed first aid. I turned him over and opened his air passages. I looked for a pulse, and, much to my surprise, I found one. He wasn’t breathing real great, so we assisted his breathing with oxygen and began treating for burns. We wrapped him in burn sheets and wet him down. On the way to the hospital, from my understanding, he was sitting up and talking. I felt good about that. Unfortunately, his burns were too severe. He only lived about four days before he died. At the time, I had about ten years’ experience. School is great and training classes also, but experience is the teacher. So observing the conditions and mentally adding up the risks, I had elected to go in. I don’t know how long I was in there. I was struggling with him so much I just wanted to get out. I was able to do that. You just have to concentrate on what you’re doing. I had seen his injuries, and in the back of my mind I was surprised that he had lived the night. So when I saw the obituary four days later, I was sadden, but I had done everything I could do. That’s one way I get by these things. As long as I’ve done all I can do, it’s out of my hands. It helps me cope with losses like that.” The Sacramento Fire Department dedicates themselves to a lasting partnership with the community, to support a higher quality of life through public education, loss prevention, and service response. You can help save lives and property by donating to the Sacramento Fire Department. And remember, parents, teach your children to love America and be patriotic, to love God and Jesus Christ, to buy American made goods and services and cars, to respect law and order, and teach others with compassion, respect, and dignity, especially their elders. Release all captives, we beseech Thee, Lord whose mighty hand doth set men free; and hear the glad acclaim of all Thy people who praise and glorify but Thee. Preserve the righteous ones who seek Thee, and, in love, Thy unity proclaim; O guard and bless with Thine abundant goodness, Thy people who revere Thy name. Thou, Lord, who art alone exalted, please turn to us and hearken to our plea. We bless Thee, Thou who knowest all things hidden, Thy kingdom is unto eternity. 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. O Guardian of American, guard the remnant of America; let not American people perish, the people which proclaims: Hear, O America. #RandolphHarris 18 of 18
The Winchester Mystery House
Feeling a little wrapped up today? Our haunt is open tonight, today and Sunday starting at 6:30pm PST.
Please come and enjoy a delicious meal in Sarah’s Café, stroll along the paths of the beautiful Victorian gardens, and wonder through the miles of hallways in the World’s most mysterious mansion. For further information about tours, including group tours, weddings, school events, birthday party packages, facility rentals, and special events please visit the website: https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
Please visit the online giftshop, and purchase a gift for friends and relatives as well as a special memento of The Winchester Mystery House. A variety of souvenirs and gifts are available to purchase. https://shopwinchestermysteryhouse.com/
Lives of Quiet Desperation
America is the land of competition. We delight in trying to keep up with the Hilton’s. We have made success and material wealth a way of life. In such a society, what happens to feelings? What happens to concerns for others? Unfortunately, we repress our feelings; we control others; we manipulate. Manipulation has been called the predominant personality pattern in America. We find manipulators among our spouses, parents, children, partners, coworkers, employers, employees, celebrities, migrants and the unhoused; the gardener, teachers and students. The fact is we are all manipulators. We all use deceptive, insidious or unnatural devices to get the particular response we want from another person. At some point in our early development, we formed the notion that we were unacceptable as we are, that other people’s opinion of how we ought to be is more important than our own opinion of ourselves. To show people the “face” we think they want to see, we don a mask—the mask of the manipulator. For some of us, this mask is sinister. It is the mask of the “top-dog,” and we use it to play tough, judgmental, overbearing or mean. For the rest of us, the mask is angelic. It is the mask of the “under-dog,” and we use it to play helpless, protective, gullible or adorning. As manipulators, we refuse to allow ourselves to be who we are. At the same time, we refuse to allow others to be who they are. Instead, we get stuck and stay stuck in unsatisfying relationships. #RandolphHarris 1 of 23
Deeply ingrained as manipulation may be, we are not doomed to perpetuate it. However, there is an alternative personality pattern; the pattern of the master, and even in your own mirrors. Each of us has the ability to master our tendencies to manipulate, to master the expression of our real feelings in relations with others. Mastery is simply being yourself in the face of the manipulations of the World. Each of us carries within our hearts the seeds of manipulation and the seeds of mastery. Which seeds we choose to sow and to cultivate will determine how we nourish our lives. “Actualizing,” a therapeutic process of continuous self-examination, has its roots in the theories of Abraham Maslow. There is also so much value in developing an awareness of yourself in the context of interpersonal relationships, in learning about yourself and others simultaneously. This natural outgrowth of actualizing serves the purpose of maximizing your own potential as well as the potentials of the other people in your life. This natural outgrowth of actualizing is called “mastery.” Mastery is a state of awareness and aliveness—a condition in which you are so comfortable with yourself and the people around you, that you are able to be, who you are, feel what you feel and express those things—without fear, without faking, without masking, without manipulation. #RandolphHarris 2 of 23
While mastery involves being perceptive of who you are, it also involves being perceptive of who others are and allowing them to be themselves. It involved being perceptive of others’ feelings and recognizing their expression of those feelings. In the Western World, we tend to think of mastery as a condition of control or domination. We use the term to describe artists who have reached a level of great proficiency and skill. Masters also operate with a continuing heightened awareness of life and by his role in it. Jesus Christ was called “Master” by his disciples. Each time you gain a greater awareness of yourself and the World around you, you come a step closer to this kind of mastery these enlightened people have achieved. However, do not get it twisted. A master is not someone who has everything “handled,” not someone who has conquered all possible problems, not someone who is eternally free from every kind of trouble and never puts on the manipulator’s mask. No, a master is someone who knows how to solve problems and work through troubles. Mastery is not a final stopping place. If anything, it is a place to begin living on an exciting, fascinating new level. The journey toward mastery is a dual one. It is as if you are traveling on a highway which has two lanes going in your direction, and you have the ability to switch from one lane to the other as the situation calls for. #RandolphHarris 3 of 23
The dual lanes represent two kinds of relationships you have in your life. The first kind of relationship is your relationship with yourself. It means to be that self which you truly are. It consists of how you feel about yourself, what you think of yourself, what you tell yourself and how you treat yourself. My own field of psychology has been greatly concerned with this “intrapersonal” relationship for quite some time now. Self-awareness, self-discovery and self-everything has been getting a lot of attention as people try to find congruence, authenticity, genuineness and healing in their own psyche and body. Critics believe it has been getting too much. They feel psychology has been too selfishly oriented. And they may be right. The second kind of relationship is “interpersonal” and includes all the various relationships you have with people around you. It has to do with the way you talk to and treat people and all the things they say and do in return. It involves the degree to which you can listen to others and understand them. It is a simple process, but it has profound implications. In my many years of work with people, I have found that no real progress takes place in one of these “lanes” to the exclusion of the other. Learning about yourself is interesting, but useless unless you can apply it to your relations with others. By the same token, improving your relationships with others is almost impossible to do without first improving your sense of your own self. #RandolphHarris 4 of 23
Thus, on this journey, both lanes are wide open and you can travel in one, the other or both at the same time. This is the autobahn; speed limits do not apply. In contrast, you can allow your journey to take you to prison. In prison, you will burst through the swinging doors of the visiting room. You visitor waits in the most private corner, table arranged with coffee, rolls, cigarettes. Perhaps your visitor will have a Persian beaded bad. Maybe she is beautiful. And she possibly will have strange news. Metaphysical rebellion presupposes a simplified view of creation—which was inconceivable to the Greeks. In their minds, there were not gods on one side and men on the other, but a series of stages leading from one to the other. The idea of innocence opposed to guilt, the concept of all of history summed up in the struggle between good and evil, was foreign to them. In their universe there were more mistakes than crimes, and the only definitive crime was excess. In a World entirely dominated by history, which ours threatens to become, there are no longer any mistakes, but only crimes, of which the greatest is moderation. This explains the curious mixture of ferocity and forbearance which we find in Greek mythology. The Greeks never made the human mind into an armed camp, and in this respect, we are inferior to them. Rebellion, after all, can only be imagined in terms of opposition to someone. #RandolphHarris 5 of 23
The only thing that gives meaning to human protest is the idea of a personal god who has created, and is therefore responsible for, everything. And so, we can say, without being paradoxical, that in the Western World the history of rebellion is inseparable from the history of Christianity. We have to wait, in fact, until the very last moments of Greek thought to see rebellion begin to find expression among transitional thinkers—nowhere more profoundly than in the works of Epicurus and Lucretius. The appalling sadness of Epicurus already strikes a new note. It has its roots, no doubt, in the fear of death, with which the Greek mind was not unfamiliar. However, the pathos with which this fear is expressed is very revealing. “We can take precautions against all sorts of things; but so far as death is concerned, we all of us live like the inhabitants of a defenseless citadel.” Lucretius is more explicit: “The substance of this vast World is condemned to death and ruin.” Therefore, why postpone enjoyment? “We spend our lives,” writes Epicurus, “in waiting and we are also condemned to die.” Therefore, we must all enjoy ourselves. But what a strange form of enjoyment! It consists in sealing up the walls of the citadel, of making sure of a supply of bread and water and of living in darkness and silence. Death hovers over us, therefore we must prove Aurelius, Epicurus banishes death from existence. #RandolphHarris 6 of 23
“Death has no meaning for us, for what is indefinable is incapable of feeling, and what is incapable of feeling has no means for us.” Is this equivalent of nothingness? No, for everything in this particular universe is matter, and death only means a return to one’s element. Existence is epitomized in a stone. The strange sensual pleasure of which Epicurus speaks consists, above all, in an absence of pain; it is the pleasure of a stone. By an admirable maneuver—which we shall find again in the great French classicists—Epicurus, in order to escape from destiny, destroys sensibility, having first destroyed its primary manifestation: hope. What this Greek philosopher says about the gods cannot be interpreted otherwise. All the unhappiness of human beings’ springs from the hope that tempts them from the silence of the citadel and exposes them on the ramparts in expectation of salvation. Unreasonable aspirations have no other effect than to reopen carefully bandaged wounds. That is why Epicurus does not deny the gods’ he banishes them, and so precipitately that man has no alternative but to retreat once more into the citadel. “The happy and immortal being has no preoccupations of his own and no concern with the affairs of others.” Lucretius goes even farther: “It is incontestable that the gods, by their very nature, enjoy their immortality in perfect peace, completely unaware of our affairs, from which they are utterly detached.” #RandolphHarris 7 of 23
Therefore, let us forget the gods, let us never think about them, and “neither your thoughts during the day nor your dreams at night will ever be troubled.” A god who does not reward or punish, a god who turns a deaf ear, is the rebel’s only religious conception. However, while Vigny will curse the silence of his divinity, Epicurus considers that, as death is inevitable, silence on the part of man is a better preparation for this fate than divine words. This strange mind wears itself out in a sustained attempt to build ramparts around mankind, to fortify the citadel and to stifle the irrepressible cry of human hope. Only when this strategic retreat has been accomplished does Epicurus, like a god among men, celebrate his victory with a song that clearly denotes the defensive aspect of his rebellion. “I have escaped your ambush, O destiny, I have closed all paths by which you might assail me. We shall not be conquered either by you or by any other evil power. And when the inevitable hour of departure strikes, our scorn for those who vainly cling to existence will burst forth in this proud song: ‘Ah, with what dignity we have lived.’” The payoffs that come up in clinical practice can usually be reduced to four alternatives: be a loner, be a bum, go crazy, or drop dead. Drug or alcohol addiction is the pleasantest way to accomplish any of these. The child may interpret the decree in Martian or legal thinking, which is often to his advantage. #RandolphHarris 8 of 23
In one case, where the mother told all the children they would end up in the state hospital, they all did. The girls ended up patients, and the boys as psychiatrists. Violence is a special kind of payoff, and occurs in “tissue scripts.” Tissue scripts are different from all others because their currency is human flesh, blood, and bones. It is probably that a child who has seen, caused, or suffered mayhem or bloodshed is different from other children and can never be the same again. If the parents turn the child out at an early age to fend for himself, he is naturally much concerned with money, and that often becomes the chief currency of his script and his payoff. If they berate him and tell him to drop dead, then words may become the script currency. The script currency must be distinguished from the script theme. The chief themes of life scripts are the same as those which are found in fairy tales: love, hate, gratitude, and revenge. Any of the currencies can be used to express any of these themes. The main question for the script analyst here is: “In how many ways can a parent tell a child to love forever, or to drop dead?” He can say it quite literally, “Long life!” in a toast or a prayer, or “Drop dead!” in a quarrel. It is difficult to realize or admit the almost incredible power which a mother’s words have over a child (or a wife’s over a husband, and vice versa). #RandolphHarris 9 of 23
In my experience, a considerable number of legitimate hospital admissions have taken place shortly after the patient was told by a loved one (or even a hated one) to drop dead. Sometimes when people are in such great confusion, they will also have difficulty with their doctor, although this is in a friendly way and the doctor does not think the individual is mad. People usually have some notion that the doctor knows, from the observable symptoms, what is going on in a person. However, sometimes people will find out that they do not know at all, and that there is a big discrepancy in their two views. The doctor is interested in the patient’s view, as possibly representing what went on in other patients that he did not know about and so did not understand them. Many patients are interested, at first, in trying to “correct” their view to the doctor’s view. However, that does not always work out. The patient’s view is, just as surely as his view is. So then a patient may try to find some way to fuse the two views. The goal is to try to make them come together, with some cockeyed notion that there “should” be only one view. An individual may exhaust himself in trying and give up. When both parties give up, the patient will see both views as different. There is nothing to do about it—no trying to force a reconciliation. When the patient lets them be, he will find that he can live with both of them in his head without confusion. #RandolphHarris 10 of 23
The patient will no longer drive himself crazy trying to discover which one is “right”—an impossible situation. Then things will begin to move in the direction of more acceptance, in a changing, fluid way. No more collisions in the head—or at least they are briefer when they recur in other circumstances. This acceptance leads to change, and explains to one his lifelong resistance to “acceptance” of the kind which keeps things “as they are.” No one any use for staying in a rut, whether the rut is straight or runs in a circle. That is dying—doing things to occupy one until it is time for the undertaker to pick up his body. He is out of touch with life, which moves and grows in directions unknown to him until he is within them. Living, he never knows where he is going next. The history of man is to go from belief (concept) to belief (concept) and each time to get stuck. The beliefs are useful (releasing) for awhile—a fresh way of looking at something, leading to change—but we accept them as reality and so do not notice when they become a limitation because we stop questioning. A final answer is the end, and that is death. When the feeling of dying (non-living) becomes too cramping for too many, it takes conflict and upheaval for a new belief (new way of looking at the World and life) to come into being. This has happened to many people. However, a new era can happen. No one can prove a theory correct by its consequences. #RandolphHarris 11 of 23
If our theory does what we sent out to do, we are already very happy, and need not demand that beyond this we show that it is the only theory which achieves what we set out to do. The most impressive and successful technique used by DNA to increase the intelligence of social species is temporal caste or Beta Reality. Temporal caste refers to the process of maturation in which individuals metamorphosize from one form to another within their life spans. As we pass through developmental stages, we perform different survival functions at each life passage. Temporal casting in an ant hill assigns to the young the tasks of infant care. Slightly older ants are assigned housekeeping and hive-repair functions, metamorphosing into more external functions of exploration, food-gathering and warrior activity. Reflect on the wonderous neurological advantage of temporal caste. Mature ants know how to perform several caste functions, which means that they must have several gears or circuits in their nervous system. An organism that has passed through temporal metamorphic sequences is simply more intelligent. Temporal caste means polyphase brain and thus multiple Beta Realities. Caterpillar to butterfly; pollywog to frog; pre-teenager to adolescent. America is the ecological niche of the dominant species—dom-species—and predominant species—have become an evolutionary pinball machine in which hundreds of genetically different human gene pools and genetic castes bounce around, each caught up in genetic spirals of different Eastmancolor realities and developing new mutational styles in flashing neon. #RandolphHarris 12 of 23
The most lovable aspect of human temporal casting is that each stage plays a part in the overall 24-element human molecule. Think of the human gene pool as a complex molecule that builds on new elements as it evolves. Temporal casting allows for temporal flexibility. Each generation is a wave moving through the gene pool, contributing to the locomotion of the gene pool through time. The stage one suckling, floating infant plays an important role in the human ant hill. The suckling infant is the glue that holds the enormous technological civilization together. The infant triggers domestic responses in adults. The baby’s task is to such tits, emit anguished-demanding yowls, dirty diapers, and gurgle winningly. The neonate performing its repertoire of activities is working just as hard as the autoworker or the dutiful parent. Sucking mother’s breast turns on hormones that keeps Mom at home. If Mom’s eleventh stage domesticated adult brain is not fed by gurgle cues and cries, the young mother will be down at the dance hall swinging her hips—or, horrors, competing with men. This the enormous neurogenetic significance of the Pill. It is no accident that the irresistible Women’s Liberation Movement followed the appearance of voluntary birth-control. Speaking of birth control, one thing people fail to realize is that climate change is natural, but it is also a symptom of a World that is overpopulated. #RandolphHarris 13 of 23
The World was thought to be overpopulated 50 years ago, when it reached 5 billion people. There are now 8.14 billion people in the World. We need two Earths just to provide our resources and absorb our waste. The World population is growing by over 200,000 people a day. Around the year 2037, the World population could reach 9 billion, and by 2025, it is expected to reach 10 billion people. It is time the people look at the reality of the situation and governments, even in America, follow in China’s footsteps and limit the number of children people can have to two children, or at least recommend people stop having more than two kids. If we do not start radically changing the way we consume the planet, we will be heading for a complete collapse of our consumer society. At current trends, the planet cannot sustain 10 billion people and a World economy many times larger than today. Emotional enthusiasm is not enough. Sentimentality may enfeeble a person and mislead his impulses. To keep emotion under control is one thing; to keep it altogether out is another. It is well to be cautious about how we feel, but not to be so overcautious that the day comes when we can no longer feel at all. The emotional moods between which so many undisciplined men and women oscillate, with morbid despair at one end of the scale and golden joy at the other, belong to the ego. It is not enough to create these new ways of thinking. If they are to be maintained and not lost again, they must be supported by emotional steadiness. #RandolphHarris 14 of 23
A good actor is inwardly calm and self-possessed even in the most passionate moments of his roles. If he drops many previously held superstitions, such as that it is necessary to be liked by everyone he meets everywhere, he finds that this serenity can be kept. If he starts with wildly unbalanced over-appreciation, glorifying and magnifying only its good points, he will probably end embittered in inevitable disillusion. However, if this is pointed out to him, he is affronted. Two men may be blood-brothers and yet greedily fight each other where property inheritance is at stake; two other men may be close friends and yet treacherously betray each other where a woman’s love is at stake. Where personal desires or ambitions are at stake in the conventional World, such insincerities are always possible. Most basic of all human needs is the affirmation of life, the desire to continue living. When life is under threat, a person will do almost anything, break laws, kill others, and sacrifice wealth, to eliminate the threat and preserve existence. Such occasions are rare, but becoming more common in 2024. It will suffice merely to remind the reader that the wish to live is the most powerful determiner of action that we can know. A person may, however, decide to sacrifice his or her life for love of another or for country. #RandolphHarris 15 of 23
Paradoxically enough, a person can be persuaded that further existence is neither meaningful nor possible. A long period of suffering or joylessness may so dispirit someone that he or she resigns from life. This person may experience death by suicide, or yield to a sickness that would not be lethal had he retained a desire to live. Loss of zest for life and the choice for sickness or death can be induced in a person by misfortune and tragedy such as prolonged illness, failure, or an intense sense of lack of worth. When you consider that good choices of friends can help one through these otherwise lethal crises, one’s choice of friends and companions takes on added significance. Physical needs refer to food, drink, relief from pain and discomfort, and adequate shelter. Modern society does a better job of satisfying these needs than was true in earlier times, and so the quests for food, shelter, and comfort are less powerful determiners of everyday action than they used to be. However, when we experience a threat to our supplies, or to our access to supplies, of food and shelter, we may take desperate measures to secure these vital things. Its it not only the poets who think of love as having fundamental significance in one’s fate. Two fundamental kinds of love may be identified: natural or unconditional love, and earned or conditional love. The former is seen in the parent’s love for the child, which is unconditional, in that the love exists regardless of how “bad” the child is. It is not “earned,” in that the child ordinarily receives it without reciprocation. #RandolphHarris 16 of 23
In ordinary development this love proceeds to become reciprocal, with the maturing person recognizing that he must do things for the other person, parent, peer, or even later, lover. This is the earned, conditional love of most of contemporary human relationships—despite the myth of unconditional love among adults. The first phase of learning to love—receiving parental or adult love—is fundamental; a child needs it to survive, to grow, and to know how to carry on that most joyous of human activities: loving, giving and receiving love from peers. If the person has been deprived of parental love, his ability to participate in the adult conditional love may be seriously impaired. The early Freudian psychologists felt that such love was irreplaceable and that withholding such love by the parent led to serious personality problems in the child. Even if one is originally deprived, many contemporary psychologists, however, while they also feel such love to be critical, desirable, and nurturant, also feel that one can learn to love on an adult level, while an adult. It is nevertheless clear that parental love, unconditional and spontaneous, as seen in the dignity-devoid father or mother playing with and cooing to an infant, is crucially important for a happy adult life and for the healthy personality. When the response to these teachings is merely emotionalist, then it is also mostly untrustworthy. He who follows such a regime finds he is more and more the master of himself, better and better able to subdue passions. #RandolphHarris 17 of 23
The mission of the Sacramento Fire Department is to be a well-respected and progressive public safety organization. They do this by fostering the mutual trust, respect, and support of the community through continuous improvement guided by the value of every life, integrity, courage, dedication, and compassion. “It was a cold night in January. I was home, we had just finished dinner and done the dishes, and I was going to sit down and watch a James Bond movie on TV. At the time I was working two nights a week in Sacramento training paramedics. I was walking from the kitchen, and I saw headlights on our front lawn. We have a small dirt driveway and a path to the house, but this person didn’t see that and drove onto the lawn. There was a knock on the door, and a woman, standing there said, ‘Excuse me, can I use your phone to call the fire department?’ She was very calm. I said, ‘I’m a fire chief, what seems to be the problem?’ She said, ‘There’s a house down the road that’s on fire, and I don’t know if there’s anybody in there or not.’ She wasn’t a local woman but was only renting a house nearby. She didn’t know the name of the road where the fire was. She agreed to take me back there and show me the way. I threw on a jacket and a pair of sneakers and ran down to my car. I radioed the fire control center at County Dispatch to activate the fire company and have the guys head out our way. In retrospect, I think that was an important move, to get the guys going. They all got there in reasonable speed. #RandolphHarris 18 of 23
“I came around the bend on the road, and all of a sudden the house right there, only three quarters of a mile from my house. I knew the house and the neighbors who lived there. It was an old, rundown farmhouse, with a ramp in front. When I pulled up, the fire was through a corner of the house and already up through the roof. The whole second floor was going, venting through the roof. I radioed the position. I threw off my coat and sneakers, put on my turnout coat and bumber boots, grabbed my helmet from the back of the car. I went around the house, just to size it up. I knew I couldn’t make entry through the front, because the windows were popping, they were blowing out as I was going around the house. The first thing I thought was, I need water, I’ve got to have water. There was a creek across the road, with some ice on it. We had just gotten a new four-wheel drive pumper, and the only way it could get to the creek was to drive across a cornfield, but I was sure it could make it. I radioed those orders, and I was joined by X, my chief. Then Fire Dispatch radioed that they had reports that people were still inside the structure. The house was now a flaming ball, fire was showing all through the front of the house. X and I went running around to the back of the house, which was venting heavy black smoke. We heard murmuring inside, and X said, ‘My God, they’re in there.’ #RandolphHarris 19 of 23
‘We both made a run for the back door. He had no turnout gear on, just a helmet. As soon as I hit the door, I crawled. X didn’t get down quick enough and took it right in the face. He had to back out. There was a good thermofire in there, because as I dropped I felt the temperature go down. It was still breathable on the floor. The whole time I was screaming out to him, and he was screaming in to me, just to keep contact. I had no portable radio, no hose line, nothing. I was crawling in through the house, as far as I could go. I had my helmet on, with a flashlight strapped to it. But it was hard to see. Suddenly I was crawling right on top of this woman. Her eyes were open, she was just kind of sitting there, and there was a lock of black mucus on her face and coming out of her nostrils. I was dumped on, because earlier fires the only people I had been asked to go in and get were dead as doornails. So I grabbed her and moved her back across the floor to the door, and I got her out to X. While I was in there, I sensed there was still someone else in the room, nothing specific, just sensed it. So I said to X, ‘There’s someone else in there, and I’m going back in.’ So X took the woman and carried her down the road away from the house, because at that point the flames were banking down and melting the snow by the doorway there. So I went back in and crawled in the same direction that I had before. I came to a loose stack of firewood, and I was trying to get around it when I looked up and saw this big, big woman standing in the corner, pinned there by the flames, which were not about head level. I reached up for her, and probably because of smoke inhalation she suddenly went down like a load was out. #RandolphHarris 20 of 23
“So I grabbed her by the scruff of her nightgown behind her head, I cradled her head in my right arm, which is my dominant arm, and I turned to go back out. I didn’t have far to go, because this room was a small add-on to the back of the house. But now the whole wall through which I had come, instead of being smoky, was all of a sudden just a wall or orange. It’s the orange that firefighters look for when they’re chasing smoke, but it was the last thing I wanted to see, because I wanted to get out with this lady. It was so intense I really couldn’t figure out what it was. I said, ‘The door has got to be here.’ I felt trapped, and for a second, I thought, ‘This might be it. This might be the last time.’ But X and I were still yelling to each other, and he knew I was still okay because I was hollering to him from the floor. I yelled, ‘I got her. I’m coming out. He said, ‘Ed, this way. Come this way.’ I wasn’t particularly gentle with the woman. I think I had her torso airborne, and when I got to the door I ad to be basically standing. I didn’t crawl out the door. I lunged through the door, the woman and I locked together, going through a wall of flame. I don’t think it was a flashover. Sometimes fire just consumes. I’m glad I didn’t hit the frame of the door. When we hit the ground, I bounced away. I was face down on the snow. I can still feel the coolness of that, going from fire into cold. I lay there, and there was a very heavy feeling in my chest. A girl I used to date was there, with her whole family. She came to me and rolled me over. She said, ‘Y,’ I said, ‘Z.’ I didn’t say anything else to Z, because I knew I had to keep going. The women I had rescued were badly hurt, and there was no EMS on the scene yet. #RandolphHarris 21 of 23
“I got up and made my best time over to my car. I grabbed a resuscitator from the back of the car. By that time another emergency medical technician was there, A, chief of the local rescue squad. Without two resuscitators, we gave oxygen to both of these ladies. The ambulance was there very quickly after that, and they were off to UCD Medical Center. X almost talked me into going to the hospital. We both had inhaled smoke. And when X had gotten hurt, his helmet fell off, and by the time he got back to it, it had burned up. We had trouble with the water and ice, and I really felt I had to stay. From a firefighting tactical standpoint, we had a bad time. We lost a lot of water. The ultimate sin in rural firefighting is to lose water. We ended up losing the house. The first woman I brought out was a cripple, a paraplegic. She had had multiple sclerosis for years. It was clear, in retrospect, that the other woman was probably her companion. She probably dragged her as far as she could until she became disoriented and trapped. Her legs were burned. For a couple of days I knew I had gotten it pretty good, a very tight feeling in my chest, like my lungs were made of concrete. But I wasn’t burned, I had no long-term effects from it. There was only a hole in the back of turnout cost. Don Quixote found his frightening giants were only windmills after all. So exaggerated are many of our fears.” #RandolphHarris 22 of 23
With empathy and understanding, the Sacramento Fire Department protects life, property, and the environment in their community through an all-hazards approach to fire protection, emergency medical services, community risk reduction and education. You can help save lives by donating to the Sacramento Fire Department. In an effort to keep the country cohesive, please raise your children to love America, to be patriotic, to love God and Jesus Christ and buy American cars and other American goods and services. Also, please respect law and order, and treat others with kindness and respect. To ensure that you have a bright future, please take your education seriously, and be sure to actually read your books. And remember to “Just Say ‘No’ to Drugs.” Even marijuana can be deadly. 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. O beautiful for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain, for purple mountains majesties above the fruited plain! America! America! God shed His grace on three, and crown thy good with brotherhood from sea to shining sea! O beautiful for pilgrim feet, whose stern, impassioned stress, a thoroughfare for freedom beat across the wilderness! America! America! God mend thine every flow, confirm thy soul in self-control, Thy liberty in law! O beautiful for patriot dream that sees beyond the years, Thine alabaster cities gleam, undimmed by human tears! America! America! God shed His grace on thee, and crown thy good with brotherhood from sea to shining sea! God never gave us express allowance, only He gave us reason, charity, nature and good example to bear us out. #RandolphHarris 23 of 23
Ascent at Montelena
11977 Cobble Brook Drive, Rancho Cordova, California 95742
Nothing is more important than family and having enough space to enjoy each other. The well-thought-out Plan 4 gives growing families with young children, teens, or grandparents a place of their own and plenty of room to spend time together. The first-floor bed and bath are perfect for the second generation, the loft gives extra space for the kids, and the den is ideal for those working from home. https://www.pulte.com/homes/california/sacramento/rancho-cordova/ascent-at-montelena-210916
Randolph Harris II International Institute 