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Freedom to be King of the Supermarket
The struggle for existence is in a sort of hopeful fatalism, of which current literature is full. The injustice of society, not the stinginess of nature, is the cause of the want and misery which we attribute to overpopulation. The new mouths which an increasing population calls into existence require no more food than the old ones, while the hands they bring with them can in the natural order of things produce more. The process is the results of forces which work slowly, steadily and remorselessly, for the elevation of man. War, slavery, tyranny, superstition, famine, and pestilence, the want and misery which fester in modern civilization, are the impelling cases which drive men on by eliminating poorer types and extending the higher; and hereditary transmission is the power by which advances are fixed, and past advances made the footing for new advances. The individual is the result of changes thus impressed upon and perpetuated through a long series of individuals, and the social organization takes its form from the individuals of which it is composed. Radical to a degree beyond anything which current radicalism conceives, since it anticipates a change in human nature itself, civilization holds that no change can avail, save these slow changes in men’s natures. #RandolphHarris 1 of 20
The prevailing view of civilization accounts neither for the failure of some peoples to progress, nor for the failure of others to maintain a level of civilization once achieved. History suggests that civilizations rise and fall in a wavelike rhythm. It is possible that each national or race of life has a stock of energy which it expends as the energy is dissipated the nation declines. America, many believe, is currently in a decline because of the immigration crisis, overpopulation, destruction of gender roles, the church, the nuclear family, inflation, low wages, high cost of housing and corruption. That obstacles which finally bring progress to a halt are raised by the course of progress are association and equality, and society is not threatened by the division and inequality it breeds. The seeds of the destruction of the existing order can be found in its own poverty; in its squalid cities which are breeding and welcoming in the barbarian hordes which might overwhelm it. As Artificial Intelligence puts a major strain on electric grids, civilization must either prepare itself for a new forward leap or plunge downward into a new barbarism. Each man must swim for himself in a crossing river, ignoring the fact that some have been artificially provided with corks and others artificially loaded with lead. #RandolphHarris 2 of 20
Human nature itself must have changed very much. Not all, but the conditions of human life have changed, and with them the motives of human action. As wonders of the cooperative order have unfolded, it has become clear that this change of conditions is centered about the abolition of strife. Selfishness was their only science, and in industrial production selfishness is suicide. The elimination of strife, by automating jobs and tasks, has only produced more strife. Competition, which is the instinct of selfishness, is another word for dissipation of energy, while combination is the secret of efficient production. The principle of the Brotherhood of Humanity is one of the eternal truths that govern the World’s progress on lines which distinguish huma nature from brute nature. The principle of competition is simply the application of the brutal law of the survival of the strongest and most cunning. Therefore, so long as competition continues to be the ruling factor in our technological system, the highest development of the individual cannot be reached, the loftiest aims of humanity cannot be realized. The final pleas for any form of brutality in these days is that it tends to the survival of the fittest; and very properly this plea has been advanced in favour of the system which is the sum of all brutalities. #RandolphHarris 3 of 20
If the richest were in fact the best, there would have been no social question, and disparities of condition would have been willingly endured; but the competitive system apparently causes the unfittest to survive, not in the sense that the rich are worse than the poor, but that the system encourages the worst in character of all classes. The difference between the animal and human economy will bear study as furnishing the best of ammunition for replying to the “survival of the fittest” against the argument of nationalism. Evolutionary biology does not provide a justification for competitive individualism. There is a healthy emulation that will go on in a cooperative commonwealth and the unhealthy competition of capitalism. The organic character of social life demands increasing centralization and management. Through capitalism, some American corporations and the government, through costs and fees, are gauging citizens, underpaying workers, and each year, redistributing billions of dollars of American wealth and tax money to other countries, instead of reinvesting in the American people and America. Conscious evolution is a far different thing from the unmodified natural evolution of the past, and human intervention must play an increasingly important role in development. #RandolphHarris 4 of 20
The rise of trusts is paving the way for socialism, and the continuing “trustification” of industry is a proof of the superiority of combination over competition. The combination is the inevitable next step in social evolution, leaving them a choice between monopolized capitalism and a collectivized social order. If you wish to enjoy art, you must be an artistically cultivated person; if you wish to influence other people, you must be a person who really has a stimulating and encouraging effect upon others. Every one of your relations to man and to nature must be specific expressions, corresponding to the object of your will, of your real individual life. If you love without evoking love in return, id est, if you are not able, by the manifestation of yourself as a loving person, to make yourself a beloved person, then your love is impotent and a misfortune. The aim of the activation of man in the technological society requires another step as important and as difficult as replacement of the alienated bureaucratic structure by methods of humanist management. Again, I wanted to ask the reader to take the following proposals only as illustrations of desirable possibilities, not as definite aims and methods. Up to the present, our industrial system has followed the principle that anything man wants or desires is to be accepted indiscriminately, and that is possible society should satisfy all of man’s desires. #RandolphHarris 5 of 20
We make a few exceptions to this principle; for instance, certain laws which restrict or even forbid the use of liquor regardless of a person’s desire to drink as much as he likes; stronger ones against the taking of drugs, where even the possession of drugs like marijuana (the degree of whose harmfulness is still under debate) is penalized severely; we also restrict the sale and exhibition of so-called pornography. Furthermore, our laws forbid the sale of harmful food under the Food and Drug Act. In these areas, there is consensus, crystallized in state and federal laws, that there are desires which are harmful to man, and which should not be fulfilled although a person craves for the satisfaction of these desires. While one can argue that so-called pornography does not constitute a real threat and, furthermore, the hidden lasciviousness of our advertisements are at least as effective in arousing cupidity of pleasures of the flesh as straight pornography would be, the principle is recognized that there are limits to the freedom of the satisfaction of subjective desires. Yet these restrictions are essentially based on only two principles: the concern for bodily harm, and the vestigial remnants of the Puritan morality. It is time we began to examine the whole problem of subjective needs and whether their existence is a sufficiently valid reason for their fulfillment; to question and examine the generally accepted principle of satisfying all needs—while never asking about their origins or effects. #RandolphHarris 6 of 20
In trying to find adequate solutions, we meet with two powerful obstacles. First, the interests of industry, whose imagination is fired by too many alienated men who cannot think of products which would help to make a human being more active rather than more passive. Besides this, industry knows that by advertising it can create needs and cravings which can be calculated in advance, so that there is little risk in losing profit if one continues the safe method of creating needs and selling the products which satisfy them. The other difficulty lies in a certain concept of freedom which gains ever-increasing importance. The most important freedom in the twenty-first century is the freedom to use and invest property in any form which promised profit. Since managers of enterprises were at the same time the owners, their own acquisitive motivations made them emphasize this freedom of the use and investment in capital. Because of inflation, many Americans do not own property—even though there are a relatively large number of people who own large fortunes. The average American is employed, and he is satisfied with relatively small savings, either in cash, stocks, bonds, or life insurance. For him, the freedom of investment of capital is a relatively minor issue; and even for most people who are able to buy stocks, this is a form of gambling in which they are counseled by investment funds. #RandolphHarris 7 of 20
However, the real feeling of freedom today lies in another sphere, in that of consumption. In this sphere, everybody except those who live a substandard existence experiences the freedom of the consumer. Here is an individual who is powerless to have any influence—beyond a marginal one—on the affairs of the state or the enterprise in which he is employed. He has a boss, and his boss has a boss, and the boss of his boss has a boss, and there are very few individuals left who do not have a boss and do not obey the program of the managerial machine—of which they are a part. However, what power does he have as a consumer? There are dozens of brands of cigarettes, toothpastes, soaps, deodorants, radios, social media networks, cellular phones, Smart TVs, movie and television stream services, etcetera, etcetera. And they all woo his favor. They are all there “for his pleasure.” He is free to favour the one against the other and he forgets that essentially there are no differences. This freedom to give his favours to his favourite commodity creates a sense of potency. The man who is impotent humanely becomes potent as a buyer and consumer. Can one make any attempt to restrict this sense of potency by restricting the freedom of choice in consumption? It seems reasonable to assume one can do so only under one condition and that is that the whole climate of society changes and permits man to become more active and interest in his individual social affairs, and hence less in need of that fake freedom to be king of the supermarket. #RandolphHarris 8 of 20
We are determined by forces outside of our conscious selves, and by passions and interests which direct us behind our backs. Inasmuch as this is the case, we are not free. However, we can emerge from this bondage and enlarge the realm of freedom by becoming fully aware of reality, and hence of necessity, by giving up illusions, and by transforming ourselves from somnambulistic, unfree, determined, dependent, passive persons into awakened, aware, active, independent ones. The aim of life is liberation from bondage, and the way to this aim is the overcoming of illusions and the full use of our active powers. Dr. Freud’s position is essentially the same; he spoke less of freedom versus bondage than of mental health versus mental sickness. He, too, saw that man is determined by objective factors (the libido and its fate) but he thought that man can overcome this determination by overcoming his illusions, by waking up to reality, and by becoming aware of what is real but unconscious. Dr. Freud’s principle as a therapist was that awareness of the unconscious is the way to the cure of mental illness. As a social philosopher he believed in the same principle: only if we become aware of reality and overcome our illusions can we attain the optimal strength to cope with life. Perhaps those who do not suffer from the neurosis will need no intoxicant to deaden it. They will, it is true, find themselves in a difficult situation. #RandolphHarris 9 of 20
They will have to admit to themselves the full extent of their helplessness and their insignificance in the machinery of the universe; they can no longer be the center of creation, no longer the object of tender care on the part of a beneficent providence. They will be in the same position as a child who has left the parental house where he was so warm and comfortable. However, surely infantilism is destined to be surmounted. Men cannot remain children forever; they must in the end go out into “hostile life.” We may call this “education to reality.” Our God, Logos, is perhaps not a very almighty one, and he may only be able to fulfill a small part of what his predecessors have promised. If we must acknowledge this, we shall accept it with resignation. We shall not on that account lose our interest in the World and in life…no, our science is no illusion. However, it would be to suppose that what science cannot give us we can get elsewhere. When I study my own, I discover that while many things can be quite well known in a general way, they cannot be accurately or permanently pinned down. I become less dogmatic, and at the same time more free, living with the uncertainty that is a reality of life. Through reading authors of many different periods, I notice how each has been conditioned by his times, and this leads me to seek out in which ways my own view is affected by times. #RandolphHarris 10 of 20
I notice where this is freeing and where it binds me, and then I can begin to cut the bonds, which are, I discover, not contemporary but a hangover from the past, prevalent but dying. I move, then, with what is truly contemporary, with what is appearing now—the living change, not the dying. I find authors whose views have changed in successive books, which tends to keep my mind more open about both of us. I discover that when I re-read a book out of my own interest, what is says to me the second time may be quite different from what it said the first time. This brings me closer to reality about myself and books. All this in itself has an effect on my interpersonal relations, apart from the fact that when I am ranging freely I am happy—not happy about, just happy—and that affects my interpersonal relations too. These facts to me are significant learning. They are basic, universal, applicable to any people, place and time. When I am aware of them, I am in touch with the unchanging reality of change. With this awareness first, then what I do in the ephemeral World of my own lifetime is more intelligent, including my relations with other people. At the same time, I am a more autonomous person, able to find out for myself, and with trust in my ability to find my way. That my way includes the help of others in no way diminishes my independence because I do the choosing for myself. #RandolphHarris 11 of 20
I accept what I can use at the time, what is meaningful to me. Even if I spent a lifetime doing it, then, all that I learn is linked together, inside me, with more connections than could be written down because new ones are constantly being made while I am writing. All of these connections are available to me through my inner computer, as I need them. One part of me is such a fantastic machine, contained in such a littler space and so easy to take with me, that it is idiotic to get excited about the feats of machines that are made by men. If we use them properly, they are convenient, and that is all. I must use my own machine properly too, by not interfering with it, because when it is interfered with it goes haywire. It does not seem to me that a problem is necessary for this kind of learning, although a problem certainly can stimulate me. However, perhaps I am using the word “problem” in a too limited way. Philosophy will create within him a disgust for evil, a disdain for what is ignoble, a taste for what is refined and beautiful, a yearning for what is true and real. It is not in the process of dying to self he is to become a man without feelings, but that he is to die to the lower phases of feeling. Indeed, such a victory can only be achieved by drawing the needed forces from the higher phases of feeling. In the World of values, the truth is the synthesis of opposites, as for instance the synthesis of optimism and pessimism. #RandolphHarris 12 of 20
One more word as to the technique of free association: it is essential to abstain from reasoning while associating. Reason has its place in analysis, and there is ample opportunity to use it—afterward. However, as already stressed, the very essence of free association is spontaneity. Hence the person who is attempting it should not try to arrive at a solution by figuring out. Assume, for instance, that you feel so fatigued and so limp that you would like to crawl into bed and pronounce yourself ill. You look out of a second story window and detect yourself thinking miserably that if you fell you would at most break an arm. This startles you. You had not known that you were desperate, even so desperate to want to die. Then you hear a podcast turned on above you, and you think with moderate irritation that you would like to shoot the fellow operating it. You conclude that there must be rage as well as despair behind your feeling ill. So far you have done a good job. You already feel less paralyzed, because if you are furious at something you may be able to find the reasons for it. However, now you start a frantic conscious search for what might have infuriated you. You go over all the incidents that occurred before you felt so tired. #RandolphHarris 13 of 20
It is possible that you will hit upon the provocation, but the probability is that all your conscious digging comes to nought—and that the real source will occur to you half an hour later, after you have become discouraged by the futility of your attempts and have given up the conscious search. As unproductive as such attempts to force a solution is the procedure of a person who, even while he lets his mind run freely, tries to get at the meaning of his associations by putting two and two together. Whatever prompts him to do so, whether it is impatience or a need to be brilliant or a fear of giving way to uncontrolled thoughts and feelings, this intrusion of reason is bound to disturb the relaxed condition necessary for free association. It is true that the meaning of an association may dawn upon him spontaneously. Clare’s series of associations ending with the text of religious song is a good example of this: here her associations showed an increasing degree of lucidity although no conscious effort had been made to understand them. The two processes—self-expression and understanding—may sometimes coincide. However, as far as conscious efforts are concerned, they should be kept strictly separate. The quest remains unfinished and unsuccessful so long as it lacks this element of rich feeling, so long as it has not become a warm devotion. The Quest is not all a matter of psychological readjustment, of severe self-improvement. Man is not just a character to be remolded. Deep reverential feelings have also to be cultivated. #RandolphHarris 14 of 20
The quest for health and happiness has existed as long as people have been able to reflect upon the human condition. American philosophers concerned themselves many centuries ago with the problem of how human beings could liberate themselves from cramping habits to attain a happier, freer existence. Some of those who attained “liberation and enlightenment” became teachers, seeking to help others attain the same degree of emancipation from stifling life. There is a parallel between the state of enlightenment and the state of healthy personality. Neurotic suffering is a result of separating oneself too radially from nature, from other humans, and from one’s own organism. Most people equate their very identity with a concept of themselves instead of with their whole being. In the process of separating self, one loses contact with the flow or process of life, which is essentially spontaneous. People replace spontaneity in their experience, thinking, and behaviour with efforts to make them happen. Liberation (and, by implication, healthy personality) occurs when a person can adopt the attitude of “letting be,” or “letting happen.” That is, one “lets go” the conscious, controlling ego, or self, and experiences life in somewhat the following fashion: instead of a person’s “trying” to swim, “liberated” swimming is experiences as “swimming is permitted to happen” or “swimming is going on.” #RandolphHarris 15 of 20
When a person stops trying to make things happen, when one stops truing to make oneself behave in some desired way, it is argued that the desired events or behaviours will spontaneously happen. Learning theorists, surprisingly, offer a similar argument for some skill learning. Healthy personality entails liberation from effortful constraint on, and control over spontaneous thinking, feeling, and action; it entails attainment of an attitude of “letting oneself be” and letting other and nature “be.” His life will be extraordinarily enriched, and not bleakly impoverished, by discovering the higher relationship that is possible between men and women that which begins and ends with the flesh. Intense concentrated feeling may fill a man with self-destructive or murderous antagonism but lead another into self-realization—depending upon the thoughts and acts which flow from him at its bidding. First comes the capacity to recognize these higher feelings; then to understand them for what they are; next to appreciate their intrinsic worth; and finally, to give oneself up to them entirely. The real philosopher feels what he knows: it is not a dry intellectual experience alone but a living one. Why become resentful and bitter at the loss? Why not be grateful at having had the good fortune at all, and for possessing memory of it that cannot be lost? Why not regard it as enough to have experienced such happiness, even for a little time, when in the chances of life, it could have passed you by altogether? Why not receive the gifts of destiny humbly without trying to own them with a tight vampire-like grip? #RandolphHarris 16 of 20
The higher human feelings such as kindness and sympathy, patience and tolerance must nurtured. This species called Man has shown its finer possibilities in the kindness of Jesus as the Christ, the compassion of Dr. Freud, the love of Saint Aldric Bishop of Le Mans, the leadership of King Rudolf I of Germany, the skill of Michelangelo, and the design of William Randolph Hearst, and the craftmanship of Sarah L. Winchester. Man will not lose the capacity to feel; in this he will still be like other men: but it will be free from false sentimentality and debased animality. He who enters upon this quest will have to revise his scale of values. Experiences which he formerly thought bad, because they were unpleasant, may now be thought good, because they are educative or because they reveal hitherto obscured weaknesses. The Sacramento Fire Department has invested millions of dollars into research and development. They have years of hard work dedicated to their success. Also, they have proven themselves to save the lives of those individuals who place their lives in the hands of the skilled heroes who use the concept. Their purpose is to save your life, and the lives of their fellow firefighters, and the community they serve and who trusts them wholly. #RandolphHarris 17 of 20
“We trained on the job over the course of one summer, in the mountains of Santa Clara County. We walked at least eight hundred miles, mostly at a forty-five-degree angle, fighting brush fires. We did an hour of calisthenics every day, including a twenty-foot rope climb without using your feet. It’s very hot there in the summer. We were always learning things, always sweating. The first forest fire we had was real hard and lasted a few days. We ran out of water and had to pace ourselves. The mountains have a lot of tall trees, mostly coast redwoods, various kinds of brush, and dry grass. A fire will burn sixteen and a half times faster uphill than down. It preheats, spreads, and has a convection column that will carry embers clear across a canyon and start a fire on the other side. It darkens the sky, and it’s just a big hellstorm that can cover hundreds of thousands of acres. When we get trapped by the fire, we have aluminum shields we use. They fold into a packet about eighteen inches long, three inches thick, and about eight inches wide that we wear around our waist. Unfolded, it looks like a big baked potato about six feet long and comes to a triangular top like a tent. You lie inside it, and in each corner there’s a strap. You hold the straps down with your feet and your hands, and you dig a hole where your face will go and fill it with water, if you have any, and put a wet cloth over your face. #RandolphHarris 18 of 20
“You usually face the fire, as it’s making headway toward you, because the wind is going to be blowing from the fire toward you. That way, you can put your head down and hold the thing down with your hands more securely. Facing the other way, you have more of a chance of taking heated gases into the tent. In my first forest fire, there were about three hundred of us in a big field that formed a natural firebreak. We expected a wind change that would change the direction of the fire, and we couldn’t run away from it. So we gathered there and waited for the fire to pass over. We didn’t have to use the shields on that occasion, but when the fire passed over it involved some big electric towers and there were lots of explosions. It was a pretty awakening experience. I didn’t know what was going to happen, because it was the first time I had ever been in that situation. That time, we were protected by the clearing. But when you use the aluminum shield, the heat from outside isn’t usually the main problem. The shield will sustain a pretty good temperature, but you could have a burning tree fall on you. In the Sacramento Fire Department, I’ve taken a lot of classes and furthered my education as much as I can. I’m an emergency medical technician, and most of our calls are medical, having to do with accidents and heart attacks. #RandolphHarris 19 of 20
“We deal with human emotions. It’s given me an opportunity to pursue my medical education. In our drills we learn a lot about hazardous materials, different aspects of fighting fire, ventilation. I have an AA from San Jouse City College, and they equate our first year in the fire department to about twelve units of college. We have to know all 1,500 miles of streets in town, learn our rules and regulations, how to use our equipment safely. We have ongoing classes and can sign up for classes ordered by the state. For instance, I recently came back from a heavy rope rescue class, bring people up cliffs and across rivers, dealing with earthquake type emergencies, how to shore up a building that’s falling down. It’s a real concentrated time for us.” Aesthetic appreciation, the feeling of delight in art, is not enough by itself to bring humanity into the perception of reality, that is, into truth. Artistic feeling, even poetic emotion, is not less exempt from the need of being equilibrated by reason than other functions of man’s nature. Please raise your children to love America, love God and Jesus Christ, to respect law and order, and practice the art of forgiveness. You can help save lives by dontating to the Sacramento Fire Department. 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
Mrs. Winchester’s daughter died six weeks after she was born. In 1888, Mrs. Winchester was awakened, and she saw the apparition of a little girl between her curtain and her pillow, who told her she was her daughter, and that she was happy. The next day, Mrs. Winchester desired that the chaplain might be called to read prayers, and when prayers were ended, she played a song on the piano so melodiously that her music-master, who was then there, admired at it.
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/
Take Care of this Baby as though it Were You Own
The really mature person is an optimistic person. He prefers goodwill to hate, peace to aggression, and self-control to unloosed passions. During the war, in southern California, my daughter wanted to take a course in aircraft production illustration. The man in charge said he could not accept her because she would not be eighteen by the time she was through with the course. That was the rule. I went to see him, and he was really a swell person, but he would not budge even when I said, “Look. Here is a girl who is very good at drawing and she loves planes. She has come from a war zone and wants to do something that does not seem futile to her. She is just what you need, so why not admit her?” He said, “Oh, I couldn’t do that! I’d have to go over several dead bodies.” I thought of the bodies dumped into trenches in Honolulu, and the bodies left rotting in ships in Pearl Harbour because there was not time to do anything about them. His remark in this context was too much for me. I said, “In war, what is a few more dead bodies” That was too much for him, too. He got her in. When my husband was in charge of the pediatric service at a hospital in New York in the twenties, there was an infant whom none of the doctors could find anything wrong with, but all of them agreed that the baby was dying. My father spoke privately to a young nurse who loved babies. He swore her to secrecy before telling her what he wanted her to do. #RandolphHarris 1 of 20
The awful secret was, “Take care of this baby as though it were your own. Just love it.” At that time, “love” was nonsense even to psychologist; to doctors and nurses, it still seems to be what you must have for a patient. The baby took hold. All the doctors agreed on that. However, if someone had told the my father how this happened, he would have ceased to be medical man (trustworthy) and would have become a mystic (unreliable). Even if some of his colleagues might have become a mystic (unreliable). Even if some of his colleagues might have agreed with him, they would not have dared to speak in support of him because then they would have lost caste too. Love was not “scientific” because it could not be measured. So let the baby die? Two quite well-known scientists have told me, separately of things they had observed about life, their own knowing, and when they were leaving said, in identical words, “Don’t tell anyone I said that!” A psychologist said one thing at school and another within his own home. When asked about the discrepancy he said, “That was my professional opinion (at school). This is my personal opinion.” If schizophrenic means “split mind,” then who is not? No wonder that when William Menninger was asked how many of us suffer from emotional illness he asked “One out of one of us.” It hurts deeply to be told that I am irresponsible—like a knife thrust into my chest and given a twist. So I know somewhat how it must feel to other professional people, and why they do not speak out more than they do. When I do and say what everyone says and does, then no one calls me irresponsible. However, sometimes I am. #RandolphHarris 2 of 20
I am inconsistent, not congruent, (sometimes called a hypocrite) if I complain about bribery and deceit in politics, government, business, the police, when I myself do and say, at the expense of my own integrity, what I will be rewarded for smiles, friendship, acceptance, position, a nice house and all the other things which are supposed to be our good and proper goals. The wickedness is not in what I have accepted, but in what I have given up, which is myself, my own authority based on my own knowing. This process begins so early in our lives even under relatively good conditions that I cannot blame anyone else or me for becoming confused, but no matter who got me into what I got into, I am the only person who can get me out of it. Others can certainly help—and they have—by letting me think what I think, choose what I choose, and feel what I feel, However, still, I have to be willing to let this surge into me and become the basis for my actions. This can be ridiculously difficult and frightening. It may be about something that does not seem in the least important when looked at from the outside, but the inside scene is altogether different. As part of the age I lived in and my profession, was contemptuous of “mysticism.” This was the same man who cured a baby by assigning it to a loving nurse. His feeling about swamis and ochre robes—of which he had not direct experience whatever—was so strong that when Aldous Huxley, who he had admired, joined the Vedantists my husband said bitterly, “Get along, little yogi.” I had got infected by his shudders. #RandolphHarris 3 of 20
When I was on the mainland with the children for a year and started out in search of my own values, I went to the Vedanta temple in Hollywood to find out for myself what I thought of swamis and ochre robes. That is true, and yet the way that is stated is misleading. It expresses a clarity which was not present at the time. A more accurate way of saying it is, “I did not know what I was doing, but I knew that I had to do it”—the wisdom of the organism making its own corrections. I sat through the service with ants running up my back. I felt that I must have gone out of my mind to be there, because I did not know anyone who would not disapprove of me. Something made me stay, not run away. Afterward, although I had been a devotee of the non-handshaking cult for many years, I went to the swam and shook hands with him. I did not know why: it was just something that I had to do. As I looked at him, suddenly I felt very shaky and by voice cracked as I said, with deep and genuine feeling, “Thank you!” I felt a fool for my shakiness and my emotion, but it made no difference to the swami: there was no change in him. His acceptance of me was the same before, during, and after. I did not know what I was thanking him for until I realized that I respected the guy. He was real. His being real, not phoney, had helped me to break through what had blocked me, which was such a battle taking place in me that it felt like exorcising the devil, like breaking out of a strait-jacket. However, somehow I got out. #RandolphHarris 4 of 20
I am sure there are phoney swamis just as there are phoney everything else—ministers, lawyers, doctors, teachers, scientists—but this one was not, and I could never have that awful block against a whole group—swamis—again. That was my only face-to-face encounter with a swami and almost my total experience of him. I had lunch once with a swami recently arrived from India—a very sincere young man who was also very nervous. Another swami, I listened for an hour at a lecture and kept looking at my watch. I have not since been able to think of “swamis” as anything, but only of individual swamis, and this I like because it is real. I have never yet known anyone who fit a category or who was only the category in which he was placed. Some were worse, some better, but the category itself was misleading. At the same time, I was left open to “mysticism.” I did not accept it, but neither did I block it out. I was free to explore it or not, but I knew that I could not say anything about it until I had explored it—until I could speak from my own experience and know what I was talking about. This seems to be part of the built-in pathfinder, that it fins its own way regardless of what anyone else says or thinks. It acts on the information that it has, but tentatively—open to change as further information comes in. Irrational as it seems to my rational mind, it is—in terms of my own life—more scientific. #RandolphHarris 5 of 20
It explores, discovers, tests, is forever open to re-evaluation and perpetual learning. It does not get fuddled or irritated by mistakes: it is interested in what happens, learns, moves on. It is not “coldly scientific” any more than Nobel prize-winning scientists like Linus Pauling and Albert Szent-Gyorgyi are “cold”—they are warm, human, enthusiastic, do not take themselves too seriously and are very much alive. One needs only to watch a healthy infant or small child, forever testing and exploring and enjoying this, to know what I have rediscovered in myself. When I was small, one of the things that puzzled me was that when I saw something that I wanted to try, and did it, sometimes the grownups said that I was bright, sometimes that I was silly. A little later, with people outside the family who did not love me as my family did, it was sometimes I was “bright” and sometimes I was “stupid.” I could not understand at first what made the difference. As I went into doing things, they looked the same to me. Gradually I learned that “bright” or “silly” depended not on how it looked to me when I went into it, but on how it came out. That was puzzling to me, because how it came out was something that I never knew until after I had done it. I did things to see what would happen. So how could I be “bright” when it came out one way and “silly” when it came out another? I was the same both ways, it seemed to me. #RandolphHarris 6 of 20
Later on, I learned, especially in school, to value success” and to hide “failure” so that I would not be scolded or ridiculed. That was not the way that I started out, when both were interesting, and failure was sometimes more stimulating than success because it raised more questions When I turned my mine to concealing failure—being clever about it—I did not notice the questions any more. In our past case study of Clare, during the period in which she tried to solve her dependence on her friend Peter, she dreamed that another man put his arm around her and said he loved her. He was attractive to her, and she felt happy. Peter was in the room, looking out of a window. The dream might suggest offhand that Clare was turning from Peter to another man, and thus be an expression of conflicting feelings. Or it might express a wish that Peter would be as demonstrative as this other man. Or it might represent a belief that turning to another attachment would solve the problem of her morbid dependency; in this case it would constitute an attempt to evade a real solution of the problem. Or it might express a wish to have a choice about remining with Peter, a choice that she actually did not have because of her ties to him. If some progress has been made toward understanding, then a dream may provide confirmation for an assumption; it may fill a gap in one’s knowledge; or it may open up a new and unexpected lead. #RandolphHarris 7 of 20
However, if the picture is befogged by a resistance a dream is not likely to clarify matters. It may do so, but also it may be so intricately interwoven with unrecognized attitudes that it defined interpretation and merely adds to the confusion. These warnings should certainly not deter anyone from attempts to analyze his dreams. In another case study we did on John in the past, his dream about bedbugs, for instance, was a definite help to him in understanding his feeling. The pitfall to be avoided is merely a one-sided concentration on dreams to the exclusion of other observations equally valuable. And a warning of an opposite character is equally important: we frequently have a compelling interest not to take a dream seriously, and by its very grotesqueness or exaggeration a dream may lend itself to such an ignoring of its message. In reference to Clare’s self-analysis, she spoke in a distinct enough language as to a serious turmoil in her relationship with her lover, yet she managed to take it lightly. The reason was that she had stringent reasons for not letting herself be moved by its implications. And this is not an exceptional situation. Thus dreams are an important source of information, but only one among several. #RandolphHarris 8 of 20
However, keep in my that dreams do not give a photographic, static picture of feelings or opinions but are primarily an expression of tendencies. It is true that a dream may reveal to us more clearly than our waking life what our true feelings are: love, hatred, suspicion, or sadness otherwise repressed may be felt in dreams without constraint. However, the more important characteristic of dreams is, as Dr. Freud expressed it, that they are governed by wishful thinking. This does not necessarily mean that they represent a conscious wish, or that they directly symbolize something we regard as desirable. The “wishful thinking” is likely to lie in the purport rather than in the explicit content. Dreams, in other words, give voice to our strivings, our needs, and often represents attempts at a solution of conflicts bothering us at the time. They are a play of emotional forces rather than a statement of facts. If two powerful contradictory strivings clash, an anxiety dream may result. Thus if we dream of a person whom we consciously like or respect as a revolting or ridiculous creature we should look for a need that compels us to deflate that person rather than jumping to the conclusion that the dream reveals our hidden opinion of him. If a patient dreams of himself as a dilapidated house that it beyond repairs, this may, to be sure, be an expression of his hopelessness, but the main question is what interest he has in presenting himself in this way? #RandolphHarris 9 of 20
Is this defeatist attituded desirable for him as the lesser evil? Is it the expression of a vindictive reproach, at his own expense, revealing his feeling that something should have been done for him earlier but that now is too late? The second principle to be mentioned here is that a dream is not understood until we can connect it with the actual provocation that stimulated it. It is not enough, for instance, to recognize in a dream derogatory tendencies or vindictive impulses in general. The question must always be raised as to the provocation to which this dream was a response. If this connection can be discovered we can learn a good deal as to the exact type of experience that represents us to a threat or an offense, and the unconscious reactions it elicits. There are various possible answers to the question that human existence raises. They are centered around two problems: one, the need for a frame of orientation, and the other the need for a frame of devotion. What are the answers to the need for a frame or orientation? The overriding answers which man has found so far is one which can also be observed among animals—to submit to a strong leader who is supposed to know what is best for the group, who plans and orders and who promises to everyone that by following him he acts in the best interest of all. In order to enforce allegiance to the leader, or, to put it differently, to give the individual enough faith to believe in the leader, the leader is assumed to have qualities transcending those of any of his subjects. #RandolphHarris 10 of 20
The leader is supposed to be omnipotent, omniscient, sacred; he is a god himself or a god’s viceroy or a high priest, knowing the secrets of the cosmos and performing the rituals necessary for its continuity. To be sure, the leaders, have usually used promises and threats to manipulate submission. However, this is by no means the whole story. Man, as long as he has not arrived at a higher form of his own evolution, has needed the leader and was only too eager to believe the fantastic stories proving the legitimacy of the king, god, father, monarch, priest etcetera. This need for the leader still exists in the most enlightened societies of our day. Even in countries like the United States of America or Russia, decision affecting the life and death of everyone are left to a small group of leaders or to one man who is acting under the formal mandate of the constitution—whether it is called “democratic” or “socialist.” In their wish for security, men love their own dependence, especially if it is made easy for them by the relative comfort of material life and by ideologies which call brainwashing “education” and submission “freedom.” There is no need to seek for the roots of this submissiveness in the phenomenon of dominance-submission among animals. In fact, in quite a few animals it is not as extreme or widespread as it is in man, and the very conditions of human existence would require submission even if we disregarded our animal past completely. However, there is one decisive difference. Man is not bound to be sheep. #RandolphHarris 11 of 20
In fact, inasmuch as h is not an animal, man has an interest in being related to and conscious of reality, to touch the Earth with his feet, as in the Greek legend of Antaeus; man is stronger the more fully he is in touch with reality. As long as he is only sheep and his reality is essentially nothing but the fiction built up by his society for more convenient manipulation of men and things, he is weak as man. Any change in the social pattern threatens him with intense insecurity and even madness because his whole relationship with reality is mediated by the fictitious reality which is presented to him as real. The more he can grasp reality on his own, and not only as a datum with which society provides him, the more secure he feels because the less completely dependent he is on consensus and hence the less threatened by social change. Man qua man has an inherent tendency to enlarge his knowledge of reality and that means to approximate the truth. We are not dealing here with a metaphysical concept of truth but with a concept of increasing approximation, which means decreasing fiction and delusion. In comparison with the importance of this increase or decrease of one’s grasp of reality, the question whether there is a final truth about anything remains entirely abstract and irrelevant. The process of increasing awareness is nothing but the process of awakening, of opening one’s eyes and seeing what is in front of one. Awareness means doing away with illusions and, to the degree that his is accomplished, it is a process of liberation. #RandolphHarris 12 of 20
In spite of the fact that there is a tragic disproportion between intellect and emotion at the present moment in industrial society, there is no denying the fact that the history of man is a history of growing awareness. This awareness refers to the facts of nature outside of himself as well as to his own nature. While man still wears blinders, in many respects his critical reason has discovered a great deal about the nature of the Universe and the nature of man. He is still very much at the beginning of this process of discovery, and the crucial question is whether the destructive power which his present knowledge has given him will permit him to go on extending this knowledge to an extent which is unimaginable today, or whether he will destroy himself before he can build an ever-fuller picture of reality in the present foundations. Looking back over history it may appear that there has been more change in the perception and explanation of mental illness than there has been in the basic forms of treatment. It is notable, however, that there have been significant changes in the identity of the persons who have assumed major responsibility for the care of management of the emotionally ill. #RandolphHarris 13 of 20
The earliest approach to management of disordered behaviour deserving to be called treatment was the responsibility of priests and religious healers. In the enlightened period of the Greco-Roman culture there evolved a special group of therapists who combined the role of religious functionary with the ministrations of early medicine. These were the priest-physicians and their sanitaria combined the functions of temple and hospital. Because of their dual roles and orientations it is possible that these priest-physicians may have achieved an unusually integrated (and possibly never replicated), truly psychosomatic approach to psychosomatic ailment. With the growth of medical science and with the final acceptance of naturalistic explanation of mental phenomena (including disorders of adaptive behaviour), the mentally ill became the charge of the physician. The institutional history of medical psychology begins with the establishment of asylums for the insane under the direction of medics. The medical superintendents of these early asylums steeped themselves in the clinical material of their wards and whenever possible made intensive study of associated nervous system pathology. Then the hospital clinic came into existence as a place where less severe symptoms were presented for treatment and from study of this outpatient material came gradual recognized. #RandolphHarris 14 of 20
Johann Weyer (1515-1588) is credited as being the first psychiatrist: He was the first physician whose major interest turned toward mental diseases and thereby foreshadowed the formation of psychiatry as a medial specialty…Dr. Wayer more than anyone else completed, or at least brought close to completion the process of divorcing medical psychology from theology. However, the roots of modern psychiatry are seen most clearly in the writings and teachings of the neurologist, the “neuropsychiatrists” led by Charcot, Janet, Liebeault, and Bernheim, who first demonstrated the power of the mind both to cause and to alleviate symptoms, physical and mental. With Dr. Freud’s discovery of the critical mechanism of the psychoneuroses and with his establishment of psychoanalysis, we have what has become for many a new religion, a current philosophy for modern man—and with it we have a new “priest.” We have come full circle in assignment of authority in the treatment of mental illness: from priest-physician to psychiatrist and, finally to the analyst-priest (who frequently is not a physician). And there are signs that we may increasingly recognize the potential therapeutic powers of the spiritual authority. In ancient times the deranged person’s wildness was believed due to a possession by evil spirits; today, there is a distinct trend to see that emotional suffering of many persons as stemming from a defect of faith, a lack of meaning. #RandolphHarris 15 of 20
As the definition of neurosis has been gradually broadened so as to encompass symptoms ranging from actual failure of performance to a lack of basic zest for living, and as the optimal treatment of such disorders has increasingly assigned a critical role to therapeutic conversation, it becomes less and less clear that there is any one group of experts in our culture whose background and professional training uniquely equips them to function in the role of psychotherapist—as emotional tutor, as intimate counsel, as master philosopher, or as guide in the quest for self-realization. Hegal, taking God as the subject of history, has seen God in man, in a state of self-alienation and in the process of history God’s return to himself. Feuerbach turned Hegel upside down; God, so he thought, represented man’s own powers transferred from man, the owner of these powers, to a being outside of him, so that man is in touch with his own powers only by his worship of God; the stronger and richer God is, the weaker and poorer becomes man. Marx was deeply stirred and influenced by Feuerbach’s thought. Marx wrote, “The worker becomes poorer, the more wealth he produces and the more his production increases in power and extent.” It may not be too farfetched to speculate the Marx was influenced in his erroneous theory of the increasing impoverishment of the work in the process of capitalistic evolution by this analogy between religious and economic alienation even though his economic assumption seems to be nothing but the logical outcome of his economic theory of labour, value, and other factors. #RandolphHarris 16 of 20
Marx also wrote: “All these consequences follow from the fact that the worker is related to the product of his labour as to an alien object. For it is clear on this presupposition that the more the worker expends himself in work, the more powerful becomes the World of objects he creates in face of himself, the poorer he becomes in his inner life and the less he belongs to himself; it is just the same as in religion. The more of himself man attributes to God the less he has left in himself. The worker puts his life into the object and his life then belongs to himself but to be object. The greater his activity, therefore, the less he posses…The alienation of the worker in his product means not only that his labour becomes an object, assumes an external existence, but that it exists independently, outside himself that is stands opposed to him as an autonomous power. The life which he has given to the object sets itself against him as an alien and hostile force. However, so Marx goes on to say, the worker is not only alienated from the products which he creates; “alienation appears not only in the result, but also in the process, of production, within productivity itself.” And again he returns to the analogy of alienation in labour with alienation in religion, “Just as in religion the spontaneous activity ‘Selbsttaetigkeit’ of human fantasy, of the human brain and heart, reacts independently as an alien activity of gods and devil upon the individual, so the activity of the worker is not his own spontaneous activity.” #RandolphHarris 17 of 20
Temperament and circumstance, happening and universal law will combine to decide whether he lets go the bad tendency or habit suddenly or whether he will need a period to adjust and settle down anew. When a person does not want to talk about something, especially something you think is important, they can give too little detail to the story to hide the things they do not want you to know about. When someone is going to lie, premediating the lie, they might make up a lavish story. This story will have endless details that are meant to make the story sound believable, but it only serves to make the listener sure the story is made up. The lair has rehearsed this story over and over again in their minds. In their opinion, it is the details that make it so believable. Saying way too much shows the listener that the speaker has rehearsed the story many times. Again, the use of details most people would not bother with shows us the lair believes throwing them in makes them sound believable. We Westerners have to bring two polar opposites into harmony, for we have to adjust our temperamental inclination towards the partial, the actual, the visible, and concrete with rising other-Worldly needs of the transcendental, the real, the silent, the invisible, and abstract. It is from this deeper part of our being that there arise our noblest ethics and our loftiest ideals. Philosophy creates and maintains the highest standards of conduct. However, they are not necessarily conventional ones. It is time preachers began to realize that giving naïve admonitions to the weak and sinful is not enough. The latter must not only be told to be good but, not less important, taught how to be good! #RandolphHarris 18 of 20
Many firefighters have tragic stories. One firefighter we will call Blake had to come to terms with a tragedy at the age of seven. His father was killed in a fire. He was a battalion chief at the time. Everybody respected him, and Blake is so proud of that fact. He aims to be as honourable and dedicated as his father. Blake and his brother, whom we will call Brad, used to go to the firehouse with their father. Brad is now a captain in the fire department. Blake is a third-generation fireman. His grandfather was a captain, and died on the job of a stomach ailment. He also had his hand crushed at a fire in the stockyards, but he was able to go back to work. Blake’s uncle was a battalion chief in the same house as Blake’s brother. He is retired now, but his three sons, Blake’s cousins, are firemen. Blake’s father-in law is deputy district chief, and his two sons, Blake’s brothers-in-law, are firemen. Blake’s sister’s husband, another brother-in-law, is a fireman. From the age of seven on, Blake would be at the firehouse. Fire fans were not allowed to go into the building, but he was sort of accepted as one of the firemen. Blake was able to go in and go to work. He was injured a few times, but he covered it up by saying he had done it at home. The firehouse is essentially where he got his background. This went on for several years until a fire fan fell off a truck and was killed. The Fire Commissioner stopped all unauthorized people from riding fire apparatus, and Blake had to go down and get a special letter from him, which gave Blake permission to have special privileges. #RandolphHarris 19 of 20
When Blake was in grammar school and high school, he was not looking forward to college or anything. His goal was to be a fireman. And the first test that came along, he took it. He had to wait a few years before he would be called. He took his Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) courses, and applied to get on the city ambulances, which are part of the Sacramento Fire Department. If he was not going to be a fireman, Blake figured this would be the next best thing. So Blake was an EMT, and he was assigned to the firehouse where his father had been a lieutenant. The ambulance in that house was the busiest in the city, and he went there because he wanted to get experience. He was there about nine months before he got called to become a firefighter. If I am not for myself, who will be for me? Yet if I am for myself alone, of what good am I? Please show your love to the Sacramento Fire Department and make a donation. Although some calls they receive may not be emergencies, they all are dangerous because they have to race to get to the scene and they never know what to expect. 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. Who is strong? He who is master over his impulses. Who is rich? He who rejoices in whatever is his portion. Who is honoured? He who honours his fellowmen. Let not your learning exceed your deeds, least you be like a tree with many branches and few roots. Knowledge of God avails much, yet the chief purpose of its study is the doing of God’s will. The more understanding one has, the more righteousness; the more righteousness, the more peace. #RandolphHarris 20 of 20
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They Have Everything a Man Could Want
Twenty-first century man is living in one of the World’s most challenging periods, unprecedented in history. People are hollering about enforcing gun control, but then have allowed 14 million people illegal immigrant into this country without background checks. One cannot even say that they are “undocumented” because some do have fake identity documents or stolen identities. These days people can rent or buy guns on the underground market. While allowing states to legalize marijuana, and considering it federally, Americans seem to be unaware that in 2021, approximately 107,000 people died from drug overdose. In 2023, approximately 46,000 people died from gun shot wounds. How can we restrict the rights of Americans to bear arms, which they may need to protect themselves, but allow people into this country that we know nothing about? Already, county, city, state, and federal budgets are insufficient, the country is running a historic deficit, record numbers of people are homeless, people are underpaid, there is soaring inflation, record high home prices and rents, and these refugees are costing taxpayers $20 billion. As anyone can see, the country is in a state of crisis. Furthermore, if a group of people carried out 911, think about the risk we are putting the nation in by allowing 14 million people to invade the county without knowing anything about them. Whatever it is, White Guilt, greed, racism, or malicious intentions, America need come to their senses and understand we are facing a greater risk than we ever have in the past. This is a dynamic period when man has almost unlimited choices for good and evil. #RandolphHarris 1 of 19
In all civilizations of the World our modern epoch, in both socialistic and capitalistic societies, we are face with the compelling need to understand more clearly the forces that dominate our World and to modify our attitudes and behaviour accordingly. If our best minds are persuaded and assembled to concentrate on the nature of this new epoch in evolutionary and moral history, this it the only way it will happen. For we are confronted with a very basic change. Man has intervened in the evolutionary process, and he must better appreciate this fact with its influence on his life and work, and then try to develop the wisdom to direct the process, to recognize the mutable and the immutable elements in his moral nature and the relationship between freedom and order. Science now permits us to say that “objective” nature, the World which alone is “real” to us as the one in which we all, scientists included, are born, love, hate, work, reproduce and die, is the World given us by our senses and our minds—a World in which the Sun crosses the Sky from East to West, a World of three-dimensional space, a World of values which we, and we alone, must make. It is true that scientific knowledge about macroscopic or subatomic events may enable us to perform many acts we were unable to perform before. However, it is as inhabitants of this human World that we perform them and must finally recognize that there is a certain kind of scientific “objectivity” that can lead us to know everything but to understand nothing. #RandolphHarris 2 of 19
Man sees in two ways: with his physical eyes, in an empirical sensing or seeing by direct observation, and also by an indirect envisaging. He possesses in addition to his two sensing eyes a single, image-making, spiritual and intellectual Eye. And it is the in-sight of this inner Eye that purifies and makes sacred our understanding of the nature of things; for that which was shut fast has been opened by the command of the inner Eye. And we become aware that to believe is to see. The creator in any realm must surrender himself to a passionate pursuit of his labours, guided by deep personal intimations of an as yet undiscovered reality. We must learn to unlock a consciousness that at first sight may seem to be remote but is proved on acquaintance to be surprisingly immediate, since it stems from the need to reconcile the life of action with the life of contemplation, of practice with principle, of thought with feeling, of knowing with being. For the whole meaning of self lies within the observer, and its shadow is cast naturally on the object observer. The divorce of man from his work, the division of man into an eternal and temporal half, results in an estrangement of man from his creative source, and ultimately from his fellows and from himself. If it does not converge in the person, the Universe itself is a vast entity where man will be lost; for material forces or energies, or impersonal ideals, or scientifically objectified learning are meaningless without their relevance for human life and their power to disclose, even in the dark tendencies of man’s nature, a low of transcending man’s arbitrariness. #RandolphHarris 3 of 19
For the personal is a far higher category than the abstract universal. Personality itself is an emotional, not an intellectual, experience; and the greatest achievement of knowledge is to combine the personal within a larger unity, just as in the higher stages of development the parts that make up the whole acquire greater and greater independence and individuality within the context of the whole. Reality itself is the harmony which gives to the component particulars of a thing the equilibrium of the whole. And whole physical observations are ordered with direct references to the experimental conditions, we have in sensate experience to do with separate observations whose correlation can only be indicated by their belonging to the wholeness of mind. Man’s relationship with his creativity demands a clarification that can widen and deepen his understanding of the nature of reality. Work is made for man, not man for work. There is a sacramenta character of work, which is more easily achieved when the principal objects of our attention have taken on a symbolic form that is generally recognized and accepted; and this suggests a law in the relationship of a person and his chosen discipline: that only when the spiritual, the creative, life is strong enough to insist on some expression through symbols is it valuable. For no work can be based on material, technological, historical, or physical aspirations alone. The human race is not entering upon a new phase of evolutionary consciousness and progress, a phase in which, impelled by the forces of evolution itself, it must converge upon itself and convert itself into one single human organism infused by a reconciliation of knowing and being in their inner unity and destined to make a qualitative leap into a higher form of consciousness as we know it, or otherwise destroy itself. #RandolphHarris 4 of 19
For the entire Universe is one vast field, potential for incarnation and achieving incandescence here and there of reason and spirit. And in the whole World of quality with which by the nature of our minds we necessarily make contact, we here and there apprehend pre-eminent value. If we recognize that we are unable to focus our attention on the particulars of a whole without diminishing our comprehension of the whole, and of course, conversely, we can focus on the whole only by diminishing our comprehension of the particulars which constitute the whole, only then can this be achieved. The kind of knowledge afforded by mathematical physics ever since the seventeenth century has come more and more to furnish mankind with an ideal for all knowledge. This error about the nature of knowledge needs to be exposed. For knowledge is a process, not a product and the results of scientific investigation do not carry with them self-evident implications. There are now, however, signs of new centers of resistance among men everywhere in almost all realms of knowledge. Many share the conviction that a deep-seated moral and philosophical reform is needed concerning our understanding of the nature of man and the nature of knowledge in relation to the work man is performing, in relation to his credo and his life. #RandolphHarris 5 of 19
We are at a crossroads: one road leads to a completely mechanized society with man as a helpless cog in the machine—if not to destruction by a thermonuclear war; the other to a renaissance of humanism and hope—to a society that puts technique in the service of man’s well-being. We can find the necessary new solutions with the help of reason and passionate love for life, and not through irrationality and hate. For many of the young generation who belittle the value of traditional thought, keep in mind the most radical development must have its continuity with the past; we cannot progress by throwing away the best achievements of the human mind—and to be young is not enough. “For him that is joined to all the living, there is hope,” reports Ecclesiastes 9.4. A specter is stalking in our midst whom only a few see with clarity. It is not the old ghost of communism or fascism. It is a new specter: a completely mechanized society, devoted to maximal material output and consumption, directed by computers; and in this social process, man himself is being transformed into a pater of the total machine, well fed and entertained, yet passive, unalive, and with little feeling. With the victory of the new society, individualism and privacy will have disappeared; feelings toward others will be engineered by psychological conditioning and other devices, or drugs, which also serve a new kind of introspective experience. In the technetronic society, the trend seems to be towards the aggregation of the individual support of millions of uncoordinated citizens, easily within the reach of magnetic an attractive personality effectively exploiting the latest communication techniques to manipulate emotions and control reason. #RandolphHarris 6 of 19
Perhaps its most ominous aspect at present is that we seem to lose control over our own system. We execute the decisions which our computer calculations make for us. We as human beings have no aims except producing and consuming more and more. We will nothing, nor do we not-will anything. We are threatened with extinction by nuclear weapons and drugs and with inner deadness by the passiveness which our exclusion from responsible decision making engenders. How did it happen? How did man, at the very height of this victory over nature, become the prisoner of his own creation and in serious danger of destroying himself? In the search for scientific truth, man came across knowledge that he could use for the domination of nature. He had tremendous success. However, in the one-sided emphasis on technique and material consumption, man lost touch with himself, with life. Having lost religious faith and the humanistic values bound up with it, he concentrated on technical and material values and lost the capacity for deep emotional experiences, for the joy of sadness that accompany them. The machine he built became so powerful that it developed its own program, which now determines man’s own thinking. At the moment, one of the gravest symptoms of our system is the fact that our economy rests upon drugs and on the principle of maximal consumption. We have a well-functioning economic system under the condition that we are producing goods which threaten us with physical destruction, that we transform the individual into a total passive consumer and thus deaden him, and that we have created a bureaucracy which makes the individual feel impotent. #RandolphHarris 7 of 19
Are we confronted with a tragic, insolvable dilemma? Must we produce sick people in order to have a healthy economy, or can we use our material resources, our inventions, our computers to serve the ends of man? Must individuals be passive and dependent in order to have strong and well-functioning organizations? Among those who recognize the revolutionary and drastic change in human life which the “megamachine” could bring about are the writers who say that the new society is unavoidable, and hence that there is no point in arguing about its merits. At the same time, they are sympathetic to the new society, although they express slight misgivings about what it might do to man as we know him. There is a dreadful lack of humanness. If an increasing number of people become fully aware of the threat the technological World poses to man’s personal and spiritual life, if they determine to asset their freedom by upsetting the course of this evolution, the dehumanized society may not be the victor. The “megamachine” started with its first manifestations in Egyptian and Babylonian societies. If technology is permitted to follow its own logic, it will become a cancerlike growth, eventually threatening the structured system of individual and social life. There is also a greater possibility of the restoring of the social system to man’s control. If one connects the system “Man” with the whole system, the present social system can be understood a great deal better. Human nature is not an abstraction nor an infinitely malleable and hence dynamically negligible system. It has its own specific qualities, laws, and alternatives. #RandolphHarris 8 of 19
The study of the system Man permits us to see what certain factors in the socioeconomic system do to man, how disturbances in the system of man produce imbalances in the whole social system. By introducing the human factor into the analysis of the whole system, we are better prepared to understand its dysfunctioning and to define norms which relate the healthy economic functioning of the social system to the optimal well-being of the people who participate in it. All this is valid, of course, only if there is agreement that maximal development of the human system in terms of its own structure—that is to say, human well-being—is the overriding goal. The increasing dissatisfaction with our present way of life, its passiveness and silent boredom, its lack of privacy and its depersonalization, and the longing for a joyful, meaningful existence, which answers those specific needs of man which he has developed in the last few thousand years of his history and which make him different from the animal as well as from the computer. This tendency is all the stronger because the affluent part of the population has already tasted full material satisfaction and has found out that the consumer’s paradise does not deliver the happiness it promised. (The less affluent, of course, have not yet had any chance to find out, except by watching the lack of joy of those who “have everything a man could want.” Ideologies and concepts have lost much of their attraction; traditional clichés like “right” and “left” or “communism” and “capitalism” have lost their meaning. #RandolphHarris 9 of 19
People seek a new orientation, a new philosophy, one which is centered on the priorities of life—physically and spiritually—and not on the priorities of death. There is a growing polarization occurring in the United States of America and the whole World: There are those who are attracted to force, “law and order,” bureaucratic methods, and eventually to non-life, and those with a deep longing for life, for new attitudes rather than ready-made schemes and blueprints. This new front movement which combines the wish for profound changes in our economic and social practice with changes in our psychic and spiritual approach to life. In its most general form, its aim is the activation of the individual, the restoration of man’s control over the social system, the humanization of technology. It is a movement in the name of life, and it has such a broad and common base because the threat to life is today a threat not to one class, to one nation, but a threat to all. Today, a widespread hopelessness exists with regard to the possibility of changing the course we have taken. This hopelessness is mainly unconscious, while consciously people are “optimistic” and hope for further “progress.” If Spinoza’s work is a treatise aiming at the “salvation” of the individual (salvation meaning the conquest of freedom by awareness and labour), Marx’s intent is also the salvation of the individual. However, while Spinoza deals with individual irrationality, Marx extends the concept. He sees that the irrationality of the individual is caused by the irrationality of society in which he lives, and that this irrationality itself is the result of the planlessness and the contradiction inherent in the economic and social reality. #RandolphHarris 10 of 19
Marx’s aim, like Spinoza’s, is the free and independent man, but in order to achieve this freedom man must become aware of those forces which act behind his back and determine him. Emancipation is the result of awareness and effort. More specifically, Marx, believing that the working class was the historical agent for universal human liberation, believed that class-consciousness and struggle were the necessary conditions for man’s emancipation. Like Spinoza, Marx is a determinist in the sense of saying: If you remain blind and do not make the utmost efforts, you will lose your freedom. However, he, like Spinoza, is not only a man who wants to interpret; he is a man who wants to change—hence his whole work is that attempt t teach man how to become free by awareness and effort. Marx never said, as is often assumed, that he predicted historical events which would necessarily occur. He was always an alternativist. If he is aware of the forces operating behind his back, if he makes the tremendous effort to win his freedom, man can break the chains. In this century man has the alternative of choosing between socialism and barbarism. Dr. Freud, the determinist, was also a man who wanted to transform: he wanted to change neurosis into health, to substitute the dominance of the Ego for that of the Id. What else is neurosis—of whatever kind—but man’s loss of freedom to act rationally? What else is mental health but man’s capacity to act according to his true interest. Dr. Freud, like Spinoza, and Marx, saw to what degree man is determined. #RandolphHarris 11 of 19
However, Dr. Freud also recognized that the compulsion to act in certain irrational and thus destructive ways can be changed—by self-awareness and by effort. Hence his work is the attempt to devise a method of curing neurosis by self-awareness and the motto of his therapy is: “The truth shall make you free.” Several main concepts are common to all three thinkers: Man’s actions are determined by previous causes, but he can liberate himself from the power of these causes by awareness and effort. Theory and practice cannot be separated. In order to achieve “salvation,” or freedom, one must know, one must have the right “theory.” However, one cannot know unless one acts and struggles. Dr. Freud, for instance, believed it to be necessary that the patient make an economic sacrifice by paying for his treatment, and the sacrifice of frustration by not acting out his irrational fantasies in order to achieve a cure. It was precisely the great discovery of all three thinkers that theory and practice, interpretation and change are inseparable. While they were determinists in the sense that man can lose the battle for independence and freedom, they were essentially alternativists: they taught that man can choose between certain ascertainable possibilities and that it depends on man which of these alternatives will occur; it depends on him as long as he has not yet lost his freedom. #RandolphHarris 12 of 19
Thus Spinoza did not believe that every man would achieve salvation, Marx did not believe that socialism had to win, nor did Dr. Freud believe that every neurosis could be cured by his method. In fact, all three men were skeptics and simultaneously me of deep faith. For them freedom was more than acting in the awareness of necessity; it was man’s great chance to choose the good as against the evil—it was a chance of choosing between real possibilities on the basis of awareness and effort. Their position was neither determinism nor indeterminism; it was a position of realistic, critical humanism. The position of alternativism described here is essentially that of the Hebrew Bible. God does not interfere in man’s history by changing his heart. He sends his messengers, the prophets, with a threefold mission: to show man certain goals, to show him the consequences of his choices, and to make protest against the wrong decision. It is up to man to make his choice; nobody, not even God, can “save” him. The clearest expression of this principle is expressed in God’s answer to Samuel when the Hebrew wanted a king: “Now therefore hearken unto their voice; howbeit ye protest solemnly unto them, and show them the manner of the king that shall reign over them.” After Samuel has given them a drastic description of Eastern despotism, and the Hebrews still want a king, God says: “Hearken to their voice and make them a king,” reports 1 Samuel 8.9, 22. The same spirit of alternativism is expressed in the sentence: “I put before your today a blessing and curse, life and death. And you choose life.” Man can choose. God cannot save him; al God can do is to confront him with the basic alternatives, life, and death—and encourage him to choose life. #RandolphHarris 13 of 19
We have examined man’s heart, its inclination for good and evil. Have we reached ground that is more solid than the vision we previously had? In some ways this work might be compared with that of the detective in mystery stories. It is worth emphasizing, however, that whereas the detective wants to discover the criminal the analyst does not want to find out what is bad in the patient, but attempts to understand him as a whole, good and bad. Also, he deals not with several people, all under suspicion, but with a multitude of driving forces in one person, all under suspicion not of being bad but of being disturbing. Through concentrated and intelligent observation of every detail he gathers clues, sees a possible connection here and there, and forms a tentative picture; he is not too easily convinced of his solution, but tests it over and over again to see whether it really embraces all factors. In mystery stories there will be some people working with the detective, some only apparently doing so and secretly obstructing his work, some definitely wanting to hide and becoming aggressive if they feel threatened. Similarly, in analysis part of the patient co-operates—this is an indispensable condition—another part expects the analyst to do all the work and still another use all its energies to hide or mislead and become panicky and hostile when threatened with discovery. It is mainly from the patient’s free associations that the analyst derives his understanding of unconscious motivations and reactions. The patient is not usually aware of the implications of what he presents. #RandolphHarris 14 of 19
Therefore the analyst, in order to form a coherent picture out of the multitude of discrepant elements presented to him, must not only listen to the manifest content but also try to understand what the patient really wants to express. He tries to grasp the red thread that passes through the apparently amorphous mass of material. If too many unknown quantities are involved, he sometimes fails in this endeavour. Sometimes the context also speaks for itself. To further highlight this illustration, a patient tells me that he had a bad night and that he feels more depressed than ever. His secretary has had an attack of influenza, and this not only disturbs his business arrangements but also upsets him because of his fear of infection. He talks then about the frightful injustice done to small European countries. Then he thinks of a physician who annoyed him by failing to give him clear information about the contents of a drug. Then a tailor comes up in his mind who had not delivered a coat as promised. The main theme is annoyance at untoward events. The egocentric nature of the grievances is shown by his enumerating the secretary’s illness in one line with the unreliability of the tailor, as if both were personal offenses against him. The fact that the secretary’s flu has rearoused his fear of infection does not lead him to think that he should try to overcome this fear. He expects, instead, that the World should be so arranged as not to arouse his fears. The World should attend to his needs. #RandolphHarris 15 of 19
Here the theme of justice comes in: it is unfair that others do not heed his expectations. Since he is afraid of infection nobody in his environment should all ill. Thus others become responsible for his difficulties. He is as helpless against influences as small European countries are against invasion (actually he is helpless in the clutches of his own expectations). The association concerning the doctor also acquires a special meaning in this contest. It, too, implies expectations not complied with and in addition it refers to his grievance against me for not offering him a clear solution of his problems, instead of groping around and expecting his co-operative activity. Patients who are able to recall the origins of a symptom and to give uninhibited expression to the emotions attendant upon the situation in which it evolved were subsequently relieved symptomatically and generally improved in their overall adjustment. This function of emotional purging or catharsis came gradually to be perceived as but one phase of a more general process in which the patient, under the accepting, encouraging, and supportive friendship of the therapist, was enabled to give expression to his conflicts, his anxiety, his guilts, his resentments, to relieve his previously bottled-up feelings without fear of rejection or misunderstanding. To this basic process whereby the suffering supplicant is helped to achieve release from the tormenting burden of his previously suppressed (or repressed) emotions, from the personal isolation stemming from his previously unshared feelings, is given the name ventilation. #RandolphHarris 16 of 19
Catharsis and ventilation are the naturally inevitable first steps in any truly intimate personal relationship, requiring nothing more than an accepting (and probably understanding) auditor. It is difficult to imagine any formal psychotherapy which could either in theory or expert practice deliberately prevent the occurrence of such ventilation. (It is possible that full ventilation may be prevented or delayed by the inexperienced, insensitive, or inept therapist who is overly active and insufficiently appreciative of the self-curative forces in nature.) And ventilation and catharsis as general factors may prove to account for a sizable portion of the total therapeutic impact of all psychotherapies. Knowing when we need to trust our instincts and go with our gut is an essential life skill. Many people play on the emotions of others. It is easy to do to some, and harder to impossible to do to others. That is because some people are more in tune than others. It does not make them any smarter, just more wary of individuals and their motives. If a little boy came crying to you, needing your help to get his poor baby calf that was stuck in the swimming pool, you would probably believe him and rush to help. In this situation, relaying on your emotions seems to be the right thing to do. However, if it was not a little boy, it was a grown man who came to you, asking the same thing, you would most likely be cautious and unwilling to help him, assuming that he had other intentions, perhaps even evil ones. #RandolphHarris 17 of 19
Not all people react the same way. Especially if he was very convincing, there are some who might still feel sympathy and empathy for the man. Society has taught us to help others. It is a natural human reaction to tend to those who are crying or upset. We want to fix it, most o us want to help. However, what happens when someone takes advantage of that part of us? Can we do anything to change the outcome? The spirit acquires the full authority given it by the Creator over the powers of the soul, and through the soul over the body. The conscious personal life is once more completely under the authority of the spirit. The dependency upon God, which man sough to break off in his mania for exalting himself by setting his reason, his emotions, or the flesh upon the throne, is restored again. The Spirit of God can exercise once more His controlling and quickening power. The deeds of the flesh are put to death by the Spirit, the powers and the gifts of the Spirit developed, the man becomes spiritual, full of Holy Spirit. Jesus is the Christ, the bringer of the New Being. When considering the human situation, it is quite convincing that man’s problems are basically ontological. There is something unassailable in his potions, for ontology, by definition, deals with ultimates. Although one may flee ontology, one can never quite escae it, since everyone possess some kind of ontology, albeit in an inchoate and disguised form. However, the fact must be faced that we live in a non-metaphysical age, and it may be unrealistic to describe man’s existential situation in ontological terms. To do so seems even to violate the method of correlation, for the theological answers are then clothed in the ontological forms so unappealing to modern man. #RandolphHarris 18 of 19
Charity is the pure love of Chrit. It is the love that Jesus as the Christ has for the children of men and that children of men should have for one another. It is the highest, noblest, and strongest kind of love and the most joyous to the soul. Charity is “the pure love of Christ,” or “everlasting love.” The prophet Mormon taught: “Charity suffereth long, and is kind, and envieth not, and is not puffed up, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil, and rejoiceth not in the iniquity but rejoiceth in the truth, beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.” Jesus as the Christ is the perfect example of charity. In His mortal ministry, He always went about doing good, teaching the gospel and showing tender compassion for the less affluent, afflicted, and distressed. His crowning expression of charity was His infinite Atonement. He said, “Greater love hath no man, than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” This was the greatest act of long-suffering, kindness, and selflessness that we will ever know. The Saviour wants all people to receive His love and to share it with others. He declared to His disciples: “A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.” 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. When you are at your worst and life has you down, when you have something horrible going on, whether it is a fire, medical problem, or some other type of disaster, the Sacramento Fire Department will be there for you and help you every time! They will do everything they can to make thing better again. Please be sure to donate to the Sacramento Fire Depart. Solving problems can get them into trouble, even to the point at which they may lose a firefighter. #RandolphHarris 19 of 19
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I Could be Stringing Pearls for the Joy of Heaven
The great man knows he has limitations, he knows his defects and faults—but he is not afraid of them. The power of persuasion is one way to get what you want. And it is not that evil to persuade people to do things, is it? Advertisements are powerful persuasions. Everyone uses ads to get what they want. Politicians use them, and companies use the. So how bad can it be, really? When used for beneficial purposes, this power is not anything bad. However, when used for unethical, immoral, illegal, and dangerous things, persuasion can get people into real trouble. There are some errors, which have a major importance. One error lies in the habit of speaking of the freedom of choice of man rather than that of a specific individual. Choice, by definition, lies between alternatives. That an alternative is genuinely and psychologically open to choice can be supported by the observation that people have chosen it. That people have sometimes failed to choose it, has no tendency to show that it is closed to choice. As soon as one speaks of the freedom of man in general, rather than of an individual, one speaks in an abstract way which makes the problem insoluble; this is so precisely because one man has the freedom to choose—another has lost it. If applied to all men, we either deal with an abstraction, or with a mere moral postulate in the sense of Kant or of William James. Deception is something we have to deal with every day. Therefore, trusting what someone says about anything is not always the best practice. #RandolphHarris 1 of 18
Another difficulty in the traditional discussion of freedom seems to lie in the tendency, especially of the classical authors from Plato to Aquinas, to deal with the problem of good and evil in a general way, as if man had the choice between good and evil “in general,” and the freedom to choose good. This view greatly confuses the discussion because, when confronted with the general choice most men choose “good” as against “evil.” However, there is no such thing as the choice between “good” and “evil”—there are concrete and specific action that are means toward what is good, and others that are means toward what is evil, provided good and evil are properly defined. Our moral conflict on the question of choice arises when we have to make a concrete decision rather than when we choose good or evil in general. Still another shortcoming of the traditional discussion lies in the fact that it usually deals with freedom versus determinism of choice, rather than with the various degree of inclinations. The problem of freedom versus determinism is really one of conflict of inclinations and their respective intensities. Finally, there is confusion in the use of the concept of “responsibility.” “Responsibility” is mostly used to denote that I am punishable or accusable; in this respect it makes little difference whether I permit others to accuse me or whether I accuse myself. If I find myself guilty, I punish myself; if others find me guilty, they will punish me. There is another concept of responsibility, however, which has no connection with punishment or “guilt.” In this sense responsibility only means “I am aware that I did it.” #RandolphHarris 2 of 18
In fact, as soon as my deed is experienced as “sin” or “guilt” it becomes alienated. It is not I who did this, but “the sinner,” “the band one,” that “other person” who now needs to be punished; not to speak of the fact that the feeling of guilt and self-accusation creates sadness, self-loathing, and loathing of life. Whoever talks about and reflects upon an evil thing he has done, is thinking the vileness he has perpetrated, and what one thinks, therein is one caught—with one’s whole soul one is caught utterly in what one thinks, and so he s still caught in vileness. And he will surely not be able to turn, for his spirit will coarsen and his heart rot, and besides this, a sad mood may come upon him. What would you? Stir filth this way and that, and it is still filth. To have sinned or not to have sinned—what does it profit us in Heaven? In the time I am brooding on this, I could be stringing pearls for the joy of Heaven. That is why it is written: “Depart from evil, and do good”—turn wholly from evil, do not brood in its way, and do good. You have done wrong? Then balance it by doing right.” We become alive as we take, knowingly, fully responsibility for our own life and as we stop blaming circumstances. What then does it mean to be free? Freedom means to have matured to the full knowledge of our dangerously many responsibilities as a human being. We have learned that everything we do, and even say or think, has consequences. We realize that too long we have believed that we were victims of circumstances. In the Gospel of John, 8.32, we read that following: “And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” #RandolphHarris 3 of 18
As we open our hearts to the message of God’s truth, as it was restored in our time, we begin to understand why there was, and still is, so much misery, pain, suffering, and even starvation. In the same dimension as we are learning to accept the revealed truth in our own life, our faith in the living Son of God will grow, and therefore we will receive spiritual gifts of heretofore unknown capacity. We will learn that nothing is impossible for those who believe in Jesus as the Christ. False bondages will be loosened. Narrow thinking born in tragedies of false traditions will disappear. The more our understanding of the vastness and the completeness of the plan of salvation is developing, the more we see ourselves in our smallness, in our incompleteness. And seeing ourselves in that humility, with a broken heart and a contrite spirit, will let us understand and finally accept this most sacred covenant with our Heavenly Father in the form of baptism. We gladly will submit ourselves into this covenant, knowing that there is a big difference between mere desire and covenant. When we just desire something, we will work towards achieving it only when convenient. However, when we are bound by a sacred covenant, like baptism, we are learning to overcome all obstacles through obedience, and in so doing we will be blessed with the presence of the Spirit and therefore eventually with achievement. One thing, of course, we know: having “freedom to” means that we have the potential of making wrong choices. Wrong choices have their merciless consequences, and when they are not stopped and corrected, they lead us into misery and pain. #RandolphHarris 4 of 18
If not corrected, wrong choices will lead us to the ultimate possible disaster in each person’s life: to become separated from our Heavenly Father in the World to come. Jesus as the Christ wants to empower our lives, according to our own righteous choices, to that dimension that, through our faith and our doings, the circumstances whose prisoners we were in the past will eventually change. It is in the same spirit that the Old Testament word chatah, usually translated as meaning “sin,” actually means “to miss” (the road); it lacks the quality of condemnation which the words “sin” and “sinner” have. Similarly, the Hebrew word for “repentance” is teschubah, meaning “return” (to God, to oneself, to the right way), and it also lacks the implication of self-condemnation. This the Talmud uses the expression “the master of return” (“the repentant sinner”) and says of him that he stands even above those who have never sinned Assuming we agree that we speak of the freedom of choice between two specific courses of action which one specific individual is confronted with, then we might begin our discussion with one concrete, commonplace example: the freedom of choice between smoking or nor smoking. Let us take a heavy smoker who has read the reports on the health hazard of smoking and has arrived at the conclusion that he wants to stop smoking. He has “decided that he is going to stop.” This “decision” is no decision. It is nothing but the formulation of hope. He has “decided” to stop smoking, yet the next day he feels in too good a mood, the day after in too bad a mood, the third day he does not want to appear “asocial,” the following day he doubts that the health reports are correct, and so he continues smoking, although he had “decided” to stop. #RandolphHarris 5 of 18
All these decisions are nothing but ideas, plans, fantasies; they have little or no reality until the real choice is made. This choice becomes real when he has a cigarette in front of him and has to decide whether to smoke this cigarette or not; again, later he has to decide about another cigarette, and so on. It is always the concrete act which requires a decision. The question in each situation is whether he is free not to smoke, or whether he is not free. Several questions arise here. Assuming he did not believe in the health reports on smoking or, even if he did, he is convinced that it is better to live twenty years less than to miss this pleasure; in this case there is apparently no problem of choice. Yet the problem may only be camouflaged. His conscious thoughts maybe nothing but rationalizations of his feelings that he could not win the battle even if he tried; hence he may prefer to pretend that there is no battle to win. However, whether the problem of choice is conscious or unconscious, the nature of the choice is the same. It is the choice between an action which is dictated by reason as against an action which is dictated by irrational passions. According to Spinoza, freedom is based on “adequate ideas” which are based on the awareness and acceptance of reality and which determine actions securing the fullest development of the individual’s psychic and mental unfolding. Human action, according to Spinoza, is casually determined by passions or by reason. When ruled by passions, man is in bondage; when by reason, he is free. #RandolphHarris 6 of 18
Irrational passions are those which overpower man and compel him to act contrary to his true self-interests, which weaken and destroy his powers and make him suffer. The problem of freedom of choice is not that of choosing between two equally good possibilities; it is not the choice between playing tennis or going on a hike, or between visiting a friend or staying at home reading. The freedom of choice where determinism or indeterminism is involved is always the freedom to choose the better as against the wore—and better or worse is always understood in reference to the basic moral question of life—that between progressing or regressing, between love and hate, between independence and dependence. Freedom is nothing other than the capacity to follow the voice of reason, of health, of well-being, of conscience, against the voices of irrational passion. In this respect we agree with the traditional views of Socrates, Plato, the Stoic, Kant. The freedom to follow the commands of reason is a psychological problem that can be examined further. Free associations do not work miracles, but if carried out in the right spirit they do show the way the mind operates, as X-rays show the otherwise invisible movements of lungs or intestines. And they do this in a more or less cryptic language. #Randolphharris 7 of 18
To associate freely is difficult for everyone. Not only does it contrast with our habits of communication and with conventional etiquette, but it entails further difficulties which differ with each patient. These may be classified under various headings though they are inevitably overlapping. In the first place, there are patients in whom the whole process of association arouses fears or inhibitions, because if they should permit free passage to every feeling and thought, they would trespass on territory that is tabu. The particular fears that will be touched off depend ultimately on the existing neurotic trends. A few examples may illustrate. An apprehensive person, overwhelmed since his early years by the teat of the unpredictable dangers of life, is unconsciously set upon avoiding risks. He clings to the fictitious belief that by straining his foresight to the utmost he can control life. Consequently, he avoids taking any step of which he cannot visualize the effects in advance: his uppermost law is never to be caught off guard. For such a person free association means the utmost recklessness, since it is the very meaning of the process to allow everything to emerge without knowing in advance what will appear and whither it will lead. The difficult is of another kind for a highly detached person who feels safe only when wearing a mask and who automatically wards off any intrusion into the precincts of his private life. Such a one lives in an ivory tower and feels threatened by any attempt to trespass into its vicinity. For him free association means an unbearable intrusion and a threat to his isolation. #RandolphHarris 8 of 18
And there is the other person who lacks moral autonomy and does not dare to form his own judgments. He is not accustomed to think and feel and act on his own initiative but, like an insect extending its feelers to rest out the situation, he automatically examines the environment for what is expected of him. His thoughts are good or right when approved by others, and bad or wrong when disapproved. He, too, feels threatened by the idea of expressing everything that comes into his mind, but in quite a different way from the others: knowing only how to respond, not how to express himself spontaneously, he feels at a loss. What does the analyst expect of him? Should he merely talk incessantly? Is the analyst interested in his dreams? Or in his sexual life? Is he expected to fall in love with the analyst? And what does the latter approve or disapprove of? For this person the idea of frank and spontaneous self-expression conjures up all these disquieting uncertainties, and also threatens an exposure to possible disapproval. And finally, a person caught within the traps of his own conflicts has become inert and has lost the capacity to feel himself as a moving force. He can proceed with an endeavour only when the initiative comes from the outside. He is quite willing to answer questions but feels lost when left to his own resources. Thus he is unable to associate freely because his capacity for spontaneous activity is inhibited. And, if he is one to whom success in all things is a driving necessity, this inability to associate may provoke in him a kind of panic, for he is likely then to regard his inhibition as a “failure.” #RandolphHarris 9 of 18
These examples illustrate how for some persons the whole process of free association arouses fears or inhibitions. However, if it is touched upon, even those who are capable of the process in general have in them one or another area that gives rise to anxiety. Thus in the example of Clare, who on the whole was able to associate freely, anything approaching her repressed demands on life aroused anxiety at the beginning of her analysis. Another difficulty lies in the fact that an unreserved expression of all feelings and thoughts is bound to lay bare traits that the person is ashamed of and that he is humiliated to report. As mentioned in the report on neurotic trend, the traits that are regarded as humiliating vary considerably. If he betrays idealistic propensities, a person who is proud of his cynical pursuit of material interests will be bewilder and ashamed. A person who is proud of his angelic façade will be ashamed to betray signs of selfishness and inconsiderateness. And the same humiliation will occur when any pretense is uncovered. The problem is not anxiety. The problem is what causes the person to experience anxiety and what determines the pattern of his reaction to the experience of anxiety. We do not presently possess a broadly based and reasonably detailed classification of the anxiety-generating problems of the twenty-first century man which cuts across all dimensions of our society. We know that problems of the very young man are different from those of the very mature, but this is hardly a sufficient differentiation on which to base selective approached to problem solutions. #RandolphHarris 10 of 18
Among adolescents, there are some who experience acute anxiety because of problems of school achievement. There are others who are greatly distressed by the complexities of heterosexual maturation. There are some who suffer from conflicts and frustrations in both of these areas. All of them may show comparable amounts and patterns of anxiety. However, anxiety is not the problem, and no single, uniform approach to the counseling of these youths is likely to prove equally effective with all. Experts in the mental health filed generally accept the professional platitude that one must not “treat the symptoms,” but rather one must attack the cause. There is also general acceptance of the motion that anxiety is only a symptom of an underlying pathology. However, the overwhelmingly predominant approach to the current psychotherapy of the neuroses is based on a theory in which anxiety plays a most central role and in which the basic source of anxiety is traced to the circumscribed sphere of psychosexual development. Furthermore, that theory evolved basically from clinical observations of a handful of upper-class patients from Dr. Freud’s late nineteenth-century Vienna. Elaborations and revisions of the basic Freudian theory while to some extent correcting for the differences between the culture of nineteenth-century Europe and twenty-first century U.S.A. have not significantly broadened the clinical observations on which the theory and the technique of treatment are based. It is still an orientation to etiology and treatment based on experience with middle-class and upper-class patients. #RandolphHarris 11 of 18
In the absence of detailed information about the nature, frequency, and patterning of psychological problems across the complete range of those major demographic variables that we know are related to personality functioning, we cannot know what manner of psychological approach is most likely to prove effective. In turn, we cannot know what program of training is best adapted to the production of therapists who will be maximally effective either with the complete spectrum of psychoneurosis, if this is a reasonable goal, or with the dynamics of special forms of personality disruption which very well may prove to be particular to the members of certain subcultures. We have mentioned the peculiar ambiguities of diagnosis of mental illness. These ambiguities are especially troublesome in the diagnosis of the psychoneuroses, those forms of emotional disturbance for which psychological treatment is indicated. We have mentioned in the prevailing system of diagnosis by symptom pattern rather than by underlying problem. And we have indicated the extreme paucity of information about the psychological problems of people who represent the complete range of our population in regard to defining characteristics of major psychosocial classes—age, gender, and so on. Finally, we have commented on the absence of agreed upon “rules of exclusion.” All of these factors conjoin to create a situation in which the person who presents himself as a candidate for therapeutic conversation has made a self-diagnosis—and, significantly, he is most generally accepted on the basis of that diagnosis. #RandolphHarris 12 of 18
This fact presents the possibility that out limited resources for psychotherapy may be overburdened in pat by the presence of individuals who in fact are not proper candidates for that type of therapeutic conversation which the major therapists of our present professional culture are equipped to give. This likelihood is enhanced by still other considerations. There is good reason to believe that the major impact of the mental hygiene movement has been on the members of the upper social classes. It is these persons whose education has made them psychologically sensitive and whose sophistication has made them socially receptive who, while not the prime target of the mental hygienists any more than any other social class, have the greatest readiness for self-referral. It is a corollary of the readiness for self-referral that the problems which the psychological sophisticate takes to the psychotherapist may be not only of lesser severity but may in fact be not focally psychoneurotic. Thus, any reasonably critical and honest therapist of long experience will have to confess that he has been confronted by some supplicants who have suffered not from anxiety nor from depression but rather from a loss of meaning in the lives, an absence of purpose, a failure of faith. Some of these persons suffer what has been termed “alienation.” Their condition has been characterized by one thoughtful clinician as a very special disturbance, that noogenetic neurosis. Frequently they are successful, effective, productive people. #RandolphHarris 13 of 18
These individuals, together with many others who lack the customary symptomatic hallmarks of anxiety, depression, obsession, or compulsion yet who present themselves to the psychotherapist for help, might be uniformly described as unhappy. Their lives may be rewarding in a variety of ways and generally comfortable, but nonetheless joyless. They are responsive to certain implicit messages of the mental hygiene movement—namely, that unhappiness is a gorm of mental illness and that the psychiatrist or psychologist is an expert in treating unhappiness. It would be well for those who are responsible for programs of public mental health education to consider carefully whether or not there are any conditions of man’s psychic life which, while painful or distressing, do not constitute neurosis and are not in their essential nature responsive to the techniques of the psychotherapist. Our Declaration of Independence claimed as one of the rights of our citizens the “pursuit of Happiness.” However, freedom for this pursuit, like any other search, entails the possibility of failure. This possibility need be threatening only in an atmosphere which suggests that an absence of happy emotion is a sign of illness. Our capacity for introspection and our inwardly directed sensitivity to our own feelings can be major sources of satisfaction and of pleasure. From these same sources spring much of our most painful experiences. We cannot have the luxury of introspective sensitivity without the cost of self-questioning and doubt. #RandolphHarris 14 of 18
When sensitive persons become stuck in an introspective rut of uncertainty, when they become immobilized by doubt, or when they are struggling against surrender to a conviction in an area in which all final convictions must necessarily be acts of faith, then they can be heled in their struggle by the challenge of perspectives elicited in the questions and suggestions of wise men. However, the wisdom needed to elicit such perspectives is hardly the exclusive possession of any existing professional group. Neither the psychiatrist nor the psychologist is trained to be wise. They should be trained to recognize those cases that call not for psychotherapy but for exposure to wise counsel. All the work of the ancient World in vain: I have no words to express my feelings about something so monstrous. And considering that its work was preliminary work, that the foundations for the work of millennia had just been laid with granite self-confidence, the entire meaning of the ancient World in vain! Wherefore Greeks? Wherefore Romans? All preconditions for a learned culture, all scientific methods were there already, the great, incomparable art of reading well had already been established—that precondition for a tradition of culture, for the unity of science; natural science, in concert with mathematics and mechanics, was moving along the best paths—the sense for facts, the ultimate and most precious of all senses, had its schools, its already centuries-old tradition! Do we understand this? #RandolphHarris 15 of 18
Everything essential for moving forward with the work had been found—the methods, it must be said ten times, are precisely what is essential, and most difficult, and are what have for the longest time faced the obstacles of habit and laziness. What we today have reconquered, with incomparable self-mastery—for we all somehow still have bad instincts, Christian instincts in our bones—a clear view of reality, a careful hand, patience and seriousness, in the smallest matters, complete integrity in knowledge: it was already there! Already, more than two thousand years ago! And in addition good, subtle tact and taste! Not as brain training! Not as “German” education with loutish manners! However, as body, as gesture, as instinct—as, in word, reality…All in vain! Overnight, just memory! Greeks! Romans! The refinement of instinct, of taste, methodical research, the genius for organization and administration, the faith, the will to a future of man, the great Yes to all thing visible as an imperium Romanum, visible to all the senses, the grand style become not just art but reality, truth, life…And not buried overnight by natural events! Not crushed by Germanic tribes and others trampling them underfoot! However, done in by sly, sneaky, invisible, anemic vampires! Not vanquished—merely sucked dry! Covert vindictiveness, petty envy become master! Everything pathetic, suffering of itself, afflicted with bad feelings, the entire ghetto World of soul on top, all at once! #RandolphHarris 16 of 18
One need only read any Christian agitator, Saint Augustine, for example, in order to grasp, to grasp, to smell what sort of filthy hirelings have thereby risen to the top. One would be deceiving oneself in assuming any intellectual inferiority among the leaders of the Christian movement—oh, they are smart all right, smart to the point of saintliness, these gentle church fathers! What they lack s something altogether different. Nature has neglected them—she forgot to bestow upon them a modest dowry of respectable, decent, clean instincts. The self-actualized is to be able to stand against the wiles of the ultimate negative, and put on the whole armour for doing this. However, if he does not know what the wile is, how does man stand against a wile? There is a difference between the temptation and wiles—between the principles and working of the ultimate negative (and his emissaries) and their wiles; id est, they themselves are tempters. Temptation is not a while. A wile is the way they scheme to tempt. If one is able to stand against their wiles, of these wiles can be detected, then the ultimate negative’s objective can be frustrated and destroyed. The spiritual man needs the fullest concentration and sagacity of mind for reading quickly his spirit-sense, and detecting the active operations of the foe; he also requires alertness in using the message his spirit conveys to him. A spiritual believer ought to be able to read the sense of his spirit with the same instinctive adroitness as a person recognizes cold by his physical sense when he feels a draft, and then immediately uses his mental faculties for actively protecting himself from it. #RandolphHarris 17 of 18
So the spiritual man needs to use his spirit-sense in locating and dislodging the foe by prayer. 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. Do not be afraid of evil tidings; let your heart be steadfast, trusting in the Lord. Happy are they that keep justice, that do righteousness at al times. Happy are they that are upright in the way, who walk in the law of the Lord. Happy are they that keep His testimonies, that seek Him with their whole heart. Happy is the people that thus know Him, happy is the people whose God is the Eternal. It is important to keep in mind the heroism and hardships, sacrifices and brilliant achievements of the Sacramento Fire Department and their history of fighting and the development of fire prevention and fire control, which has become an exact science. When you stop to think of the loss of life, and that the fire losses in the United States of America alone, the cost of property fires in 2022 is estimated at $18 billion. Local fire departments responded to an estimated 1.5 million fires. These fires caused 3,790 civilian fire deaths, and 13,250 reported civilian fire injuries. You must realize how important it is for the Sacramento Fire Department to be efficient and have all the resources they need. You must know that insurance rates are based on fire loses, and no matter how great may be the care and skill exercised in construction of buildings to prevent fires, no matter what precautions may be taken, the need of efficient firemen and women is ever preset for the saving of life and property. In this poor economy, the Sacrament Fire Department is not receiving all of their resources, please make a donation to ensure they have adequate support. #RandolphHarris 18 of 18
The Winchester Mystery House
One afternoon in December of 2007, two caretakers were walking around the mansion with a guest. “As we were walking up the path to the Grand Ballroom,” he wrote, “I stopped and said,” ‘The organ is playing.’ My first though was that maybe the was a Christmas party. The other caretaker stopped and looked at me. He turned to beckon me with a smile, so I thought that he had found it was just someone practicing. To my amazement the Grand Ballroom was empty and silent. We sat down near the organ for a moment and he said, ‘Have you heard the story of the organ playing before?’ I assured him that I had not…We afterwards went up and down the hallway sever times to see if we could hear it again but could not. The whole event was over in half a minute, and it was absolutely impossible for anyone to have escaped in that time.” There have been many attempts at explanation or elucidation of the events surrounding The Winchester Mystery House. It has been calculated that the phenomena connected with the house and garden have been described by over three thousand separate witnesses. It has even been conjected that the witnesses themselves have been the agents of the unusual activity; unknow to themselves, some force draws their energies. This is true of many “ghost stories.” However, while one can be skeptical about any individual instance, the sum total presents a body of evidence that is impossible to ignore.
Take pleasure in the antiques, the gardens and experience the homemaking of Victorian times. Enjoy a delicious meal in Sarah’s Café. For further information about tours, including group tours, weddings, school events, birthday party packages, facility rentals, and special events please visit the website: https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
Please visit the online giftshop, and purchase a gift for friends and relatives as well as a special memento of The Winchester Mystery House. A variety of souvenirs and gifts are available to purchase. https://shopwinchestermysteryhouse.com/
Nothing but Ruthless Honesty with Oneself is Helpful
Even though the Wild, Wild, West has been tamed, it is believed that it still presents a picture of moral bankruptcy to the “New World.” We preached Christianity to people, while we were taking them for slaves and treating them as if they were not worthy of life, liberty, justice, freedom, and the pursuit of happiness; now we preach spirituality, morality, virtue, chastity, faith in God, and autonomy, while our effective values (and it is part of our system of “doublethink” that we also orate them) are money and consumption. Unless we experience an authentic renaissance of our professed values, we shall only create antagonism in those whom we have held in contempt. Only a drastic change in our attitude towards other cultures and countries can do away with their deep suspicious of our motives and of our sincerity. In addition to this psychological factor is the economic one. If the new countries must achieve industrialization without considerable American financial aid, they may choose the way of China and practice complete control over and utilization of their “human capital.” However, if they were to recover economic aid from the West, they are likely to prefer a more humane and democratic way. Some of the new leaders may be bought; but thpe will be exceptions. The majority will go ahead, attempting to further the development of their peoples. Their attitude toward the West will depend mostly on ourselves, on our capacity to break entirely with our colonialist past, psychologically, and on the economic and technical aide we are willing to give them freely without trying to force them into political alliance with us. #RandolphHarris 1 of 24
Will these countries then become democratic, “free” countries? It is most unfortunate that, the words “democracy” and “freedom” are used so much in a ritualistic sense and with a great deal of insincerity. Many of our “freedom-loving” allies are dictatorships, and we seem to care little whether a country is a democracy or not, as long as it is a political and military ally against the Communist bloc. However, aside from this opportunistic insincerity, we also take a shallow and superficial view of democracy. The political concept of democracy and freedom has developed during several hundreds of years of European history. It is the result of the victory against monarchical autocracy, achieved by the great revolutions in England and France. The essence of this concept is that no irresponsible monarch has the right to decide the fate of the people, but only the people themselves; its aim is “government of the people, by the people, for the people.” However, democracy was not born in one day. Throughout most of the nineteenth century, as in England for example, the right to vote was restricted to those who owned property; while in the United States of America even today there are a considerable number of marginalized groups who are practically disenfranchised. Yet on the whole, with the economic and social development of the last hundred and sixty years, universal suffrage has been generally accepted in most of the Western countries. A system that permits free and unrestricted political activities and truly free elections is the most desirable one, even if it has its shortcomings. However, this is only one aspect of democracy. #RandolphHarris 2 of 24
Democracy cannot easily be transferred to different social systems, which have no middle class, a small degree of literacy, or are ruled by small minorities unwilling to give up their privileges. If we are truly concerned with the role of the individual in society, we must transcend the exclusive concept of free elections and a multiparty system and look at the problem of democracy in several dimensions. The democratic character of a system can be judged only by looking at it from all aspects, of which the following four are the most important ones: Political democracy in the Western sense: a multiparty system and free elections (provided they are real, and not shame). An atmosphere of personal freedom. By this I mean a situation in which the individual can feel free to voice any opinion (including one critical of the government), without fear of any reprisals. It is clear that the degree of this personal freedom can vary. There can be, for instance, sanctions which pertain to a person’s economic position but which do not threaten one’s personal freedom. There is a difference between the plain terror that existed under Mr. Stalin and the police atmosphere under Mr. Khrushchev. However, though even the latter is greatly preferable to Mr. Stalin’s terror, it does not constitute an atmosphere of personal freedom even in a restricted sense. However, according to all reports, Poland and Yugoslavia, even though they are not democracies in terms of the first criterion, are societies in which personal freedom exists. This second aspect of democracy is so important because the possibility of living, thinking, speaking without fear of reprisal is of fundamental significance for the development of free humans, even if they are not permitted to translate their views into political action. #RandolphHarris 3 of 24
An entirely different aspect of democracy is the economic one. If one wants to judge the role of the individual in any given country, one cannot do so without examining for whose benefit the economic system works. If a system works mainly for the benefit of a small upper class, what is the use of free elections for the majority? Or rather, how can there be any authentically free election in a country which has such an economic system? Democracy is only possible in an economic system that works for the vast majority of the population. Here too, of course, are many variations. On the one extreme are systems where 90 percent or more of the population do not share in economic progress of the country (as is the case in many of the Latin American countries); on the other end are systems, like those of the United States of America and Great Britian, where, in spite of considerable inequality, there is a tendency toward increasing the equalization of economic benefits. What matters is that the democratic character of a country cannot be judged without taking into account the fundamental economic situation. Eventually there is a social criterion of democracy, namely the role of the individual in one’s work situation, and in the concrete decision of one’s daily life. Does a system tend to turn people into conforming automatons, or does it tend to increase their individual activity, and responsibility? Does it tend to centralize power and to decentralize power and decision-making, and thus secure democracy against the danger of dictators who by conquering the opposition ipso facto conquer the whole? #RandolphHarris 4 of 24
Here again, there are many variations, and it is particularly important to examine not only the social role of the individual at a given moment, but the general trend within the system. Is it furthering or hindering individual development, responsibility, and decentralization? If we are really concerned with democracy, we must be concerned with the chances a given system affords an individual to become a free, independent, and responsible participant in the life of one’s society. The full development of democracy depends on the presence of all four requirements mentioned above: political freedom, personal freedom, economic democracy, and social democracy. Only if we take in account all four criteria, and then form an over-all judgment of the quality and the degree of democracy to be found in any given system can we judge the democratic character of any country. Our present method of paying attention only to the first criterion is unrealistic and will help only to defeat our Worldwide propaganda for freedom and democracy. If we apply these criteria concretely, we will find, for example, that the United States of America (and Great Britain) satisfy the criteria of political democracy, personal freedom (less than completely in the United States of America after the First World War and during the McCarthy period), and economic democracy. However, the active role of the individual is losing its importance with increasing bureaucratization. China on the other hand, has some political and personal freedom, and does foster some individual freedom, which allows it to have an economy geared to the welfare of the large majority. Yugoslavia does not have a multiparty system, but it has personal freedom, an economy which serves the majority, and it tends to encourage individual initiative and responsibility. #RandolphHarris 5 of 24
Returning to the “New World,” it is clear that many countries do not have the necessary pre-condition for a full-fledged democracy that satisfies all four of our criteria. Beyond that, the construction of state-directed economy may make a full democracy impossible in a number of countries for quite some time. However, provided criteria 2, 3, and 4 are present and developing, the absence of criterion 1—of free elections and a multiparty system—is not all that matters. If a society permits personal freedom, fosters economic justice, and encourages the expression of individua activity in economic and social life, I should think it can be called democratic, certainly with much more justification than states that are dominated economically by a minority, but that presents a façade of political democracy. If we are truly concerned with the individual, we must stop thinking in cliches, and instead evaluate each country, including our own, from the standpoint of this multi-dimensional concept of democracy. For a full-fledged democracy to be possible, several conditions are necessary. First of all, noncorrupt governments. A corrupt government morally undermines the whole citizenry from top to bottom, paralyzes initiative and hope, and makes planning and the use of outside economic aid more or less impossible. In addition, planning is necessary primarily to use economic resources as adequately as possible. However, it must also be added that planning and an honest government produce perhaps the most stimulating psychological reaction as far as the unfolding of human energy is concerned: hope. Hope and hopelessness are not primarily individual psychological factors; they are mainly created by the social situation of a country. If people have reasons to believe that they are marching toward a better future, they can move mountains. If they have no hope, they will stagnate and waste their energy. #RandolphHarris 6 of 24
The concepts of biophilia and necrophilia are related to and yet different from Dr. Freud’s life instinct and death instinct. They are also related to another important concept of Dr. Freud’s which is part of his earlier libido theory, that of the “anal libido” and the “anal character.” Dr. Freud published one of his most fundamental discoveries in his paper Character and Anal Eroticism (Charakter und Analerotik), in 1909. He wrote: “The people I am about to described are noteworthy for a regular combination of the three following characteristics. They are especially orderly, parsimonious and obstinate. Each of these words actually covers a small group or series of interrelated character-traits. “Orderly” covers the notion of bodily cleanliness, as well as of conscientiousness in carrying out small duties and trustworthiness. Its opposite would be “untidy” and “neglectful.” Parsimony may appear in the exaggerated form of avarice; and obstinacy can go over into defiance, to which rage and revengefulness are easily joined. The two latter qualities—parsimony and obstinacy—are liked with each other more closely than they are with the first—with orderliness. They are, also, the more constant element of the whole complex. Yet is seems to me incontestable that all three in some way belong together.” Dr. Freud then proceeded to suggest “that these character traits or orderliness, parsimony, and obstinacy, which are often prominent in people who were formerly anal erotics, are to be regarded as the first and most constant results of the sublimation of anal eroticism.” Dr. Freud, and later other psychoanalysts, showed that other forms of parsimony do not refer to feces but to money, dirt, property, and to the possession of unusable material. #RandolphHarris 7 of 24
It was also pointed out that the anal character often showed traits of sadism and destructiveness. Psychoanalytic research has demonstrated the validity of Dr. Freud’s discovery with ample clinical evidence. There is, however, a different of opinion about the theoretical explanation for the phenomenon of the “anal character,” or the “hoarding character,” as I have called it. Dr. Freud, in line with his libido theory, assumed that the energy supplying the anal libido and its sublimation, was related to an erogenous zone (in this case the anus), and that because of constitutional factors together with individual experiences in the process of toilet training, this anal libido remains stronger than is the case in the average person. I different from Dr. Freud’s view inasmuch as I do not see sufficient evidence to assume that the anal libido, as one partial drive of the sexual libido, is the dynamic basis for the development of the anal character. My own experience in the study of the anal character has led me to believe that we deal here with persons who have a deep interest in and affinity to feces as part of their general affinity to all that is not alive. The feces are the product which is finally eliminated by the body, being of no further use to it. The anal character is attracted by feces as one is attracted by everything which is useless for life, such as dirt, useless things, property merely as possession and not as the means for production and consumption. As cases for the development of this attraction to what is not alive, there is still much to be studies. We have reason to assume that aside from the constitutional factors, the character of the parents, and especially that of the mother, is an important factor. #RandolphHarris 8 of 24
The mother who insists on strict toilet training and who shows an undue interest in the child’s processes of evacuation, et cetera, is a woman with a strong anal character, that is, a strong interest in that which is unalive and dead, and she will after the child in the same direction. At the same time she will also lack joy in life; she will not be stimulating, but deadening. Often her anxiety will contribute toward making the child afraid of life and attracted to that which is unalive. In other words, it is not the toilet training as such, with its effects on the anal libido, which leads to the formation of an anal character, but the character of the mother who, by her fear or hate of life, directs interest to the process of evacuation and in many other ways moulds the child’s energies in the direction of a passion for possessing and hoarding. It can be easily seen from this description that the anal character in Dr. Freud’s sense and the necrophilous character as it was descried in the foregoing paragraphs, show great similarities. In fact, they are qualitatively alike in their interest in and affinity with the unalive and the dead. They are different only with regard to the intensity of this affinity. I consider the necrophilous character as being the malignant form of the character structure of which Dr. Freud’s “anal character” is the benign form. This implies that there is no sharply defined borderline between the anal and the necrophilous characters, and that many times it will be difficult to determine whether one is dealing with the one or the other. #RandolphHarris 9 of 24
There experience indicating that self-analysis is possible. However, it helps when people have been analyzed before they venture on the self-analysis. If this is the case, people will be familiar with the method of approach and will know from experience that in analysis nothing short of ruthless honesty with oneself is helpful. Whether and to what extent self-analysis is possible without such previous experience must be left an open question. There is, however, the encouraging fact that many people gain an accurate insight into their problems before coming for treatment. These insights are insufficient, to be sure, but the fact remains that they were acquired without previous analytical experience. A patient may undertake self-analysis during the longer intervals that occur in most analyses: holidays, absences from the city, for professional or personal reasons, various other interruptions. A person who lives outside the few cities in which there are competent analysts may attempt to carry the main work by oneself and see an analyst only for occasional checkups; the same would hold for those who live in a city in which there are analysts but for financial reasons cannot afford regular treatments. And it may be possible for a person whose analysis has been prematurely ended to carry on by oneself. Finally—and this without a question mark—self-analysis may be feasible without outside analytical help. However, granted that within limitations it is possible to analyze oneself, is it desirable? Is not analysis too dangerous a tool to use without the guidance of a competent person? Did not Dr. Freud compare analysis with surgery—though adding that people do not die because of a wrong application of analysis as they might from an operation badly handled? #RandolphHarris 10 of 24
There are some dangers in self-analysis. Many people will think that it might increase unwholesome introspection. The same objection has been raised, and is still being raised, against any type of analysis. The disapproval expressed in the apprehension that analysis might render a person more introspective seems to arise from the philosophy of life which grants no place to the individual or one’s individual feelings and strivings. What counts is that one fits into the environment, be of service to the community, and fulfill one’s duties. Hence whatever individual fears or desires one has should be controlled. Self-discipline is the uppermost virtue. To give much thought to oneself in any way is self-indulgence and “selfishness.” The best representatives of psychoanalysis, on the other hand, would emphasize not only the responsibility toward others but that toward oneself as well. Therefore they would not neglect to stress the inalienable rights of the individual to the pursuit of happiness, including one’s right to take seriously one’s development toward inner freedom and autonomy. Each individual must make one’s own decision as to the value of the two philosophies. If one decides for the former there is not much sense in arguing with one about analysis, because one is bound to feel it is not right that anyone should give so much though to oneself and one’s problems. One can merely reassure one that as a result of analysis the individual usually becomes less egocentric and more reliable in one’s human relationships; then at best one might concede that introspection may be a debatable means to a worthy end. #RandolphHarris 11 of 24
A person whose beliefs conform with the other philosophy could not possibly hold that introspection in itself is blameworthy. For one the recognition of self is as important as the recognition of other factors in the environment; to search for truth about self is as valuable as to search for truth in other areas of life. The only question that would concern one is whether introspection is constructive of futile. If it is used in the service of a wish to become a better, richer, and stronger human being—if it is a responsible endeavour of which the ultimate goal is self-recognition and change, I would say that it is constructive. If it is an end in itself, that is, if it is pursued merely out of indiscriminate interest in psychological connections—art for art’s sake—then it can easily degenerate into what is called “mania psychologia.” And if it consists merely of immersion in self-admiration or self-pity, dead-end ruminations about oneself, empty self-recrimination, it is equally futile. Therefore, would not self-analysis easily degenerate into just that type of aimless pondering? Judging from my experience with patients, I believe that this danger is not so general as one might be inclined to think. It appears safe to assume that only those would succumb to it who tend also in their work with an analyst to move constantly in blind alleys of this kind. Without guidance these persons would become lost in futile wanderings. However, even so, their attempts at self-analysis, while doomed to failure, could scarcely be harmful, because it is not the analysis that causes their ruminations. They pondered about their bellyache or their appearance, about wrong done by them or to them, or spun out elaborate and aimless “psychological explanations” before they ever came in touch with analysis. #RandolphHarris 12 of 24
By them analysis is used—or abused—as justification for continuing to move in their old circles: it provides the illusion that the circular movements are honest self-scrutiny. We should therefore reckon these attempts among the limitations rather than among the dangers of self-analysis. We must pause here, before we undertake any appraisal of the social import of these last figures, to question whether there are any differences between physical and mental illness that would make the estimation of the real or total incidence of psychiatric disorder in our population subject to sources of significant errors which do not occur in the estimation of physical ailment. There are such differences, and one of the most basic of them may be bridely illustrated. Influenza: “Clinically an acute, highly communicable disease, characterized by abrupt onset with fever which last 1 to 6 days, chills or chillness, aches and pains in the back and limbs, and prostration. Respiratory symptoms include coryza, sore throat and cough. Usually a self limited disease with recovery in 48 to 72 hours; influenza derives its importance from the complications that follow, especially pneumonia in those debilitated by advanced age, by other disease, or in young infants. Laboratory confirmation is by recovery of virus from throat washings or by demonstration of a significant rise in antibodies against a specific influenza virus in serums obtained during acute and convalescent stages of the disease. Measles: An acute highly communicable viral disease with prodromal stage characterized by catarrhal symptoms and Koplik spots on the buccal mucous membranes. A morbilliform rash appears on the third- or fourth-day affecting face, body and extremities, and sometimes ending in branny desquamation. Leucopenia is usual. #RandolphHarris 13 of 24
Acute Lobar Pneumonia: An acute bacterial infection characterized by sudden onset with chill followed by fever, often pain in the chest, usually a productive cough, dyspnea, and leukocytosis. Roentgen-ray examination may disclose pulmonary lesions prior to other evidence of consolidation. Not infrequently pneumococcal pneumonia is bronchial rather than lobar, especially in children, with vomiting and convulsions often the first manifestations. Laboratory confirmation is by bacteriological examination of sputum or discharges of the respiratory tract. A rise in antibody titer between acute-phase and convalescent-phase serums is useful in problem cases, and culture of the blood in severe infections. Some definitions of psychological disorder: Neurosis (Psychoneurosis): The psychoneuroses comprise a relatively benign group of personality disturbances which are often described as being intermediate, or as forming a connecting link, between the various adaptive devices unconsciously utilized by the average mind on the one hand and the extreme, often disorganizing, methods observed in the psychotic on the other. The term psychoneurosis has…two connotations. In the first and historical connotation the meaning of psychoneurosis is purely descriptive. It is a term referring to conditions characterized by certain mental and physical symptoms and signs, occurring in various combinations…None of these are dependent on the existence of any discoverable physical disease. Another connotation, more fundamental, since it is an aetiologia one…is to the effect that the existence of psychoneurotic reaction is an indication of mental conflict. Neurotic reactions are the commonest modes of faulty response to the stresses of life, and especially to those inner tensions that come about from confused and unsatisfactory relations with other people. #RandolphHarris 14 of 24
Clinically, a psychoneurosis implies either a bodily disturbance without a structural lesion, and dependent in a way unknown to the patient on mental causes; or a mental disturbance, not the result of bodily disease, in the form usually of morbid fears of many different kinds, or episodic disturbed mental states such as losses of memory and trances, or persistent troublesome thoughts, or acts which the patient feels compelled to do—all of which the patient realizes to be abnormal and the meaning of which one is at a loss to understand. The psychoneuroses are mild or minor mental reactions which represent attempts to find satisfaction in life situation rendered unsatisfactory by faulty attitudes or by faulty emotional development. These attempts are manifested by various physiologic reactions, complaints of bodily discomfort, or recurrent mental trends recognized by the patient as being faulty or unusual. Practically, they are somewhat artificially divided into various etiologic entities. The etiology varies in individual cases but they all have in common the inability to meet life situations, and all of them resort to substitution efforts or symbolic gratification of urges not recognized by nor accepted by the individual. All neurotic phenomena are based on insufficiencies of the normal control apparatus. They can be understood as involuntary emergency discharges that supplant the normal ones. The insufficiency can be brought about in two ways. One way is through an increase in the influx of stimuli: too much excitation enters the mental apparatus in a given unit of time and cannot be mastered; such experiences are called traumatic. #RandolphHarris 15 of 24
The other way is through a previous blocking or decrease of discharge which has produced a damming up of tension within the organism so that normal excitations now operate relatively like traumatic ones. These two possible ways are not mutually exclusive. A trauma may initiate an ensuing blocking of discharge; and a primary blocking, by creating a state of being dammed up, may cause subsequent average stimuli to have a traumatic effect. Phytopathology implies that follow situation of stress, the individual manifests suffering, symptoms, impaired efficiency, lessened ability for enjoyment, lack of adequate insight. In all neurotic manifestations, the patient’s vital needs are involved as well as one’s evaluation of oneself (self-esteem), of other individuals (security feelings), and of the situation with which one has to cope. Thus, one can say that in neurotic manifestations, the patient’s whole personality and whole body are involved. The chief characteristic of these disorders [psychoneurotic] is “anxiety” which may be directly felt and expressed or which may be unconsciously and automatically controlled by the utilization of various psychological defense mechanisms (repression, conversion, displacement, and others). In contrast to those with psychoses, patients with psychoneurotic disorders do not exhibit gross distortion of falsification of external reality (delusions, hallucinations, illusions) and they do not present gross disorganizations of personality. #RamdolphHarris 16 of 24
The chief characteristic of these disorders [psychoneurotic] is “anxiety” which may be directly felt and expressed or which may be unconsciously and automatically controlled by the utilization of various psychological defense mechanisms (repression, conversation, displacement, and others). In contrast to those with psychoses, patients with psychoneurotic disorders do not exhibit gross distortion or falsification of external reality (delusions, hallucinations, illusions) and they do not present gross disorganizations of personality. Anxiety in psychoneurotic disorders is a danger signal felt and perceived by the conscious portion of the personality (exempli gratia, by super-charged repressed emotions, including such aggressive impulses as hostility and resentment) with or without stimulation from such eternal situations as loss of love, loss of prestige, or threat of injury. The various ways in which the patient attempts to hurdle this anxiety results in the various types of reactions. A single perusal of these two samples of definitions, one of physical illnesses and one of psychological illnesses, suffices to illustrate crucial differences. In essence, the differences are in the specificity of symptoms, their locus, order of presentation, precise physical appearance, and course. In these matters the definitions of physical illnesses tend to be explicit, precise, and circumscribed. By contrast, the definitions of mental illness tend to suffer from implicitness, ambiguity and non-restrictiveness. (It is this difference in precision at the basic level of description of the phenomena which contributes heavily to separation of the so-called exact sciences from other “sciences.”) #RandolphHarris 17 of 24
The sample definitions also suggest that the physical diseases are in some instances objectively diagnosable by the utilization of exact laboratory procedures that can confirm or refute a clinical diagnosis; such laboratory or “test” procedures have not yet been developed to an equal level of precision for psychological illness. The laboratory procedures and diagnostic tests of clinical medicine must be evaluated by expert “readers,” and judgements of the pathology or normality of X rays, electrocardiograms, and other tests are not without error. However, quite aside from the contribution of such laboratory tests, description of the clinical symptoms of recognized physical maladies has a specificity that makes the diagnosis of most such illnesses a less arbitrary process than holds for psychological disorders. The taking of an accurate census of mental illness involves directly the question of the reliability or accuracy of diagnosis. The accuracy of diagnosis can be viewed in the form of two queries: Of the true number of cases of a given illness in a population how many detected (assuming the complete population is surveyed with existing diagnostic techniques)? Of a given sample composed of both ill and well persons respectively, how many of the total sample would be jointly diagnosed correctly (either “sick” or “well”) by two or more diagnosticians? The most critical phase of the diagnostic process involves the differentiation between adjustment or normality and mildest maladjustment as defined in the conceptually abstruse terms exemplified above. This might appear to be a more difficult takes than that of differentiating among the various forms of mental illness in a sample composed exclusively of patients. #RandolphHarris 18 of 24
In the latter instance, the somewhat more detailed and specific accounts of symptomatology would appear to facilitate diagnosis by type. We might expect the reliability of “screening” diagnoses to be something less than that of differential diagnosis. Investigations of the reliability of differential psychiatric diagnoses are few: they indicate that agreement among psychiatrists making specific independent diagnoses of heterogenous samples of psychiatric patients ranges from 20 to 50 percent. These figures hardly encourage great confidence in the reliability with which neurosis id detectable: our confidence is not enhanced with the further note that least agreement is obtained in differentiating among the types of milder functional disorder. Pertinent also is the observation that the rate of “false positive” cases among hospitalized patients is negligible. It is not beyond the realm of possibility that social process could lead (and has led) to the inappropriate hospitalization of persons who in point of fact were mental sound. However, the usual procedures required for hospitalization guard against the occurrence of such misdiagnosis. Yet, with corruption and political agendas, anything is possible. Typically, we are secure in our usual procedure of assuming the populations of our state and other mental hospitals are comprised totally of valid cases. Though this is a reasonable assumption about cases at the time of admission, a careful review of chronic patients suggests that a significant number are retained in hospitals primarily because they do not have relatives willing to help them or provide for their return to the community. Some patients are also dumped in mental hospitals by families that want to get rid of them without killing them. #RandolphHarris 19 of 24
Recognizing diagnosis as a two-edged sword, we should not be unmindful that in our customary approach to mental illness statistics we are assuming perfect screening diagnosis. Now consider the problem before a diagnostic team charged with surveying an entire urban or rural community to determine the number of inhabitants suffering from any form of mental illness, including those so-called “minor” psychoneurotic disorders which are grouped under the loosely conceived and abstractly stated definitions given above. This becomes the problem of determining whether or not each individual studied has mental conflicts, inner tensions, unsatisfactory relationships to other people, faulty attitudes, symbolic gratification of urges, or any of the other, grosser and patent evidences of major mental illness. Ideally this determination should be made through application of reasonably operational definitions or rules of description of the above concepts, so that a second survey team working independently and reviewing the same population would identify the same individuals as respectively “sick” or “healthy.” In such a survey the critical problem is to avoid false negatives, to hold to a minimum the numbers of those individuals who are mislabeled “health.” In essence, this is the problem of a reverse approach to diagnosis: we may define as mentally ill any person who does not have perfect mental health and we may define perfect mental health in terms of such rigorous standards that it is a condition notable for tis absence rather than its presence in a majority of the population at any given time. #RandolphHarris 20 of 24
One might ask what is wrong with a diagnostic philosophy which implies mental health as a goal for the nation. There is nothing wrong with such a philosophy or such a goal. As applied methodology in public health surveys, however, it could have the undesirable effect of generating statistics that were overwhelming or misleading or both. The hard facts concerning unarguably diagnosed and hospitalized patients are sufficient to communicate the urgency and magnitude of the problem of mental illness and to arouse the public to recognition of the need for monies to support attacks on the problem from all fronts—research, prevention, and care. These same facts are adequate to orient the professions of psychiatry, psychology and social work to the realistic challenges that exists here and now—to the job of discovery in areas of etiology, prophylaxis, and treatment that must be done before notions of an unconflicted, tensionless society can be more than a utopian fantasy. There is a subtle danger in the extrapolated statistic and the premature application of “reverse diagnosis”: the resulting “real” case load can generate attitudes antithetical to scientific endeavour—attitudes either of hopelessness or heroism. Psychological derivation of our belief in reason—the concept of “reality,” “being,” is drawn from our “subject”—feeling. “Subject”: interpreted from out of ourselves, so that the “I” counts as substance, as the cause of all doings, as doer. The logic-metaphysical postulates—the belief in substance, accident, attribute, et cetera—gets its force of conviction from our being accustomed to regard all our actions as following from our will: so that the I, as substance, does not vanish in the manifold of change. –But there is no will. #RandolphHarris 21 of 24
We have no categories at all allowing us to distinguish a “World in itself” from a “World as appearance.” All our categories of reason are of sensuous origin, read off of the empirical World. “The soul,” “the I”—the history of our concepts shows that here, too, the oldest distinction (“breath,” “life”). If there is nothing material, either is there anything immaterial. The concept no longer contains anything. No subject-“atom”: the sphere of a subject constantly increasing or decreasing, the midpoint of a system constantly adjusting itself; in the case where it cannot organize the mass it has acquired, it breaks in two. On the other hand, it can refashion a weaker subject into its functionary without destroying it and, to a certain degree, form a new unity with it. No “substance,” but rather something that in itself stives for enhancement; and which only indirectly wants to “preserve” itself (it wants to surpass itself–). The ultimate negative is a murderer. The ultimate negative as the Prince of Death watches every occasion to take the life of servants of the ultimate concern—if in any wise it can get them to fulfill conditions which enable it to do so: b their willful insistence on going into danger through visions of supernatural guidance, drawing them into actions which enable it to work behind the law of nature for destroying their lives. That is what the ultimate negative tried to do with Christ in the wilderness temptation. Therefore, one must recognize the Tempter and the Murderer. One must know that one’s life will end for swaying to the temptations of the ultimate negative. The Deceiver will not propose anything righteous, however apparently innocent or seemingly for the glory of the ultimate concern’s glory, unless some great scheme for its own ends is deeply hidden in its proposition. #RandolphHarris 22 of 24
The ultimate concern now holds the keys of death and of Hades and one that hath the power of death, that is, the ultimate negative. The ultimate negative cannot exercise its power without permission. However, when the children of the ultimate concern, knowingly or unknowingly, fulfill the conditions which give the ultimate negative ground to attack their physical lives, the ultimate concern with the keys of death works according to law, and does not save them—unless by the weapon of prayer they enable God to interpose and give them victor over the law of death, as well as the law of sin through the law of the Spirit of the life in the ultimate concern. That is why, guilty or not, people in prisoned in the penal system pray and reform. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. Death is therefore an enemy—to be recognized as an enemy and to be resisted as an enemy. The believer may lawfully desire to depart and be with the ultimate concern, but ought never to desire death merely and an end of “trouble.” One should not let the lawful desire to be with the ultimate concern make one yield to death when one is needed for the service of the Church of the ultimate concern. To abide in the flesh is needful for you, therefore I know that I shall abide. Within World history the Kingdom of God is realized whenever political power is justly exercised, whenever constructive social growth occurs, whenever a healthy tension is maintained between temporal and eternal aspirations, and whenever the sacrifice of an individual lends to one’s own fulfilment. #RandolphHarris 23 of 24
However, the fragmentary nature of these victories raises the question of the non-fragmentary, total realization of the Kingdom of God, the question of the end of history. The word “end” can mean both “finish” and “aim.” It is the second meaning that poses the eschatological problem, not the cessation of clock time which is an event in the physical order. The last inner-historical day is the eschata so poetically depicted in apocalyptic literature, but it is the singular eschaton, the transhistorical goal of history, about which theology concerns itself. The end of history thus becomes an immediate existential problem, for the eternal goal of history underlies every moment of time. The eschaton symbolizes the “transition” from the temporal to the eternal, and this is a metaphour similar to that of the transition from the eternal, and this is a metaphour similar to that of the transition from the eternal to the temporal in the doctrine of the fall, and from existence to essence in the doctrine of salvation. To forestall needless confusion, it should be noted that the aim of history can symbolized by anyone of three symbols: the Kingdom of God, the Spiritual Presence, and Eternal Life. The only distinction is by degrees of connotation. The Kingdom of God connotes equally the inner-historical and the transhistorical fulfilment of history, while the Spiritual Presence Stresses the inner-historical, and Eternal Life stresses the transhistorical aspect. 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. Those whom Thou, O Lord, did free from exile’s endless night, who breathe again the pure, sweet air of freedom and of hope, they build once more on America’s hills, there, where their fathers dwelt. The Sacramento Fire Depart stands ready to safe the lives of millions. Please assist them by kindly making a donation to assure that they have the necessary resources. #RandolphHarris 24 of 24
The Decoration of the Parlor and the choice and arrangement of the furniture reflect the changing role of women in the nineteenth century. Women as the embodiment of purity and high moral virtue was a theme which nineteenth-century popular culture adopted with obsessive fervor. Before the middle of the century the image of a woman was what it had been since the Middle Ages. She was the daughter of Eve, the embodiment of wantonness. Before the Industrial Revolution, misogynic literature always pictured women as less than human beings, closer to animals, and less able to control their lust by exercise of their intellect or moral powers. By the 1880s, the myth of pure Victorian woman was fully formed, and the transformation of woman’s image was complete. Late nineteenth-century reformers wrote that women had no libido; that, in fact, it was replaced by a “maternal instinct,” and that women only concepted to pleasures of the flesh to procreate. Women were also said to be the kinder, gentler gender which higher moral standards and greater-self-control. Men were thought of as smarter and more competent but more lustful and “primitive” with less ability to control their passions.
From the Winchester Mansion, there comes an account of a man wheeling a barrow from the garden door to the front door of the house across the lawn. He is seen at night, and does nothing but wheel the barrow hither and tither. There are reports of ghosts sweeping up leaves, or tending to fires, or simply sitting in an accustomed chair. There are also many reports of dead 18th century villagers or townspeople being “seen” on the estate which they had cared for all their lives. In 1989, a caretaker saw an employee who had called in sick by the gate of the mansion. He entered the garden and walked up palm avenue to the carriage house and disappeared when he entered the house. The employee had recently been taken to hospital and, on the caretaker remarking to her manager that he seemed much better, she was informed the he had died that afternoon. These phenomena suggest that the memory of human form is held in the terrain itself. These wraiths may be images on a rotating spool. Or perhaps they are held in the atmosphere, as if in a solution.
On 31 October 1990, the residents of the neighbourhood were surprised by strange sights in the sky. Between one and two o’clock in the morning was heard by some the “howling of wolves.” But then, on the sudden…appeared in the sky were orbs and shadowy figures. So amazing and terrifying the poor people that they could not give credit to their ears and eyes; they ran inside of their houses, some calling the police. When police arrived, they determine the noise was coming from the movie theater and the orbs and shadows were simply projector lights used to attacked customers, which had been obscured by cloud cover. However, some people believed that ghosts were in Mrs. Winchester’s mansion celebrating, and they could be seen leaving.
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Randolph Harris II International 