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He is the Emperor of Life Who Determines How Each Person Will Die
Confused values are called into play by incipient rebellion. Scientists have shown that tobacco, marijuana, alcohol, drugs, and too much meat can harm us physically. However, the most important blessings of keeping the Word of Wisdom are spiritual, not physical. Our bodies are temples, and when we abuse our bodies by consuming harmful substances, the Spirit of the Lord is restrained in out lives. “Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any man defile the temple of God, him, shall destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are,” reports 1 Corinthians 3.16-17. The Spirit will not inhabit a polluted temple. Abusing your temple could land you in jail. Jail is a place where you cannot trust anyone. It is a jungle. You even have to be careful about listening to any piece of advice. Beware! Many of the people are sick! Neurotic, psychotic, psychopathic. It is hard to believe anyone. Only one out of twenty there has his marbles. Sex perverts, child molesters, snitches, robbers, murderers, psychopaths. It is hard to trust anyone. Someone who claims they are you follower could be an old murderer. They keep an eye on you. Everything you do. And no one gets bailed out of state prison. The government cannot let you would. A judge or politician would get in a lot of trouble for that. It is also dangerous to be seen talking to some people. The worst things you can think of are the easiest to conjure in prison and are not only possible, probable, but they are happening right now. There are also no secrets in prison. #RandolphHarris 1 of 20
When a loved one is incarcerated, the financial impact on the family can be significant. Loss of income and court and legal fees can lead to a loss of health care, housing, and savings. It is important to address these issues as soon as possible with a trusted adviser. As difficult as it may be, it is helpful to accept the reality that you have experienced changes with lasting effects. As you accept this reality, it will become easier to talk with others. Start by deciding what you will tell people. It may not be appropriate to share every detail. However, being honest about your feelings and your needs will allow others to help. You have the right to draw liberally upon the Saviour’s power to help your family and others you love. The Holy Ghost will be your personal tutor as you seek to understand what the Lord would have you to know and do. As you exercise faith in the Lord and His priesthood power, your ability to draw upon this spiritual treasure that the Lord has made available will increase. Man’s solidarity is founded upon rebellion, and rebellion, in its turn can only find its justification in this solidarity. We have, then, the right to say that any rebellion which claims the right to deny or destroy this solidarity loses simultaneously its right to be called rebellion and becomes in reality an acquiescence in murder. In the same way, this solidarity, except in so far as religion is concerned, comes to life only on the level of rebellion. And so, the real drama of revolutionary thought is announced. #RandolphHarris 2 of 20
In order to exist, many must rebel, but rebellion must respect the limit it discovers in itself—a limit where minds meet and, in meeting, begin to exist. Rebellious thought, therefore, cannot dispense with memory: it is a perpetual state of tension. In studying its actions and its results, we shall have to say, each time, whether it remains faithful to its first noble promise or if, through indolence or folly, it forgets its original purpose and plunges into a mire of tyranny or servitude. Meanwhile, that initial progress that the spirit of rebellion provokes in a mind is originally imbued with the absurdity and apparent sterility of the World. In absurdist experience, suffering is individual. However, from the moment when a movement or rebellion begins, suffering is seen as a collective experience. Therefore, the first progressive step for a mind overwhelmed by the strangeness of things is to realize that this feeling of strangeness is shared with all men and that human reality, in its entirety, suffers from the distance which separates it from the rest of the universe. The malady experienced by a single man becomes a mass plague. In our daily trials rebellion plays the same role as does the “cogito” in the realm of thought: it is the first piece of evidence. However, this evidence lures the individual from his solitude. It founds its first value on the whole human race. I rebel—therefore we exist. #RandolphHarris 3 of 20
Metaphysical rebellion is the movement by which man protests against his condition and against the whole of creation. It is metaphysical because it contests the ends of man and of creation. The slave protests against the condition in which he finds himself within his state of slavery; the metaphysical rebel protest against the condition in which he find himself as man. The rebel slave affirms that there is something in him that will not tolerate the manner in which his master treats him; the metaphysical rebel declares that he is frustrated by the universe. For both of them, it is not only a question of pure and simple negation. In both cases, in fact, we find a value judgment in the name of which the rebel refuses to approve the condition in which he find himself. The slave who opposes his master is not concerned with repudiating his master as human being. He repudiates him as a master. He denies that the has the right to deny him, a slave, on grounds of necessity. The master is discredited to the exact extent that he fails to respond to a demand which he ignored. If men cannot refer to a common value, recognized by all existing in each one, then man is incomprehensible to man. The rebel demands that this value should be clearly recognized in himself because he knows or suspects that, without this principle, crime and disorder would reign throughout the World. An act of rebellion on his part seems like a demand for clarity and unity. The most elementary form of rebellion, paradoxically, expresses an aspiration to order. #RandolphHarris 4 of 20
The metaphysical rebel attacks a shattered World in order to demand unity from it. He opposes the principle of justice which he finds in himself to the principle of injustice which he sees being applied in the World. Thus, if he can, all he wants, originally, is to resolve this contradiction and establish the unitarian reign of justice, or if his is driven to extremes, injustice. Meanwhile, he denounces the contradiction. Metaphysical rebellion is a claim, motivated by the concept of a complete unity, against the suffering of life and death and a protest against the human condition both for its incompleteness, thanks to death, and its wastefulness, thanks to evil. If a mass death sentence defines the human condition, then rebellion, in one sense, is its contemporary. At the same time that he rejects his mortality, the rebel refuses to recognize the power that compels him to live in this condition. The metaphysical rebel is therefore not definitely an atheist, as one might think of him, but he is inevitably a blasphemer. Quite simply, he blasphemes primarily in the name of order, denouncing God as the father of death and as the supreme outrage. By the time he is six, our typical human being has left kindergarten (in America at least), and is pushed into the more competitive World of first grade. There he will be on his own to deal with teachers and other boys and girls. Fortunately, by this time, he is no longer a babe, thrust helpless into a World he never made. #RandolphHarris 5 of 20
From the little suburb of his home, he venters into the great metropolis of the bustling school with whole sets of social responses ready to offer the various kinds of people around him. His mind is all wired up with his own ways of getting along, or at least of surviving, and his life plan has already been made. This was well known to priests and teachers of the Middle Ages, who said: “Give me a child until he is six, and you can have him thereafter.” A good kindergarten teachers can even predict what the outcome will be, and what kind of life the child will have: happy or unhappy, winning or losing. Thus the comedy or tragedy of each human life is that it is planned by an urchin or pre-school age, who has a very limited knowledge of the World and its ways, and whose heart is filled mainly with stuff put there by his parents. Yet this wonder child is precisely who determines in the long run what will happen to kings and peasants and whores and queens. He has no way to tell the facts from the delusions, and the most everyday events are distorted. He is told that if he had pleasures of the flesh before marriage, he will be punished. And that if he has pleasures of the flesh after marriage, he will not be punished. He believes that the Sun sets, and it takes him ten or forty years to discover that he is running away from the sun; and he confuses his belly with his stomach. He is much too young to be deciding much beyond what he wants for dinner, but he is the Emperor of Life who determines how each person will die. #RandolphHarris 6 of 20
The plan he makes for the eternal future is drawn to the family specification. Some of the key ones can often be uncovered very quickly, perhaps in the first interview, by asking: “What did your parents tell you when you were very little?” or “What did your parents tell you about life when you were little?” or “What did your parents say to you when they were angry?” Often the answer will not sound like a directive, but with a little Martian thinking it can be stated in the form.” To further highlight this illustration, many of the training slogans we mentioned in the past are actually parental commands. “Public Performance” is. In effect, a command to show off. The child soon learns that by observing his mother’s pleasure when he does and her disappointment when he fails to do so. Similarly, “Come and See How Cute” means “Put on a good show!” “Hurry Up” and “You Can Just Sit There Till You Do” are negative commands or injunctions: “Do not keep me waiting!” and “Do not talk back!” “Let Him Take His Time,” however, is a license of permission. He understands these differences first from his parents’ reactions, and later, when he has a vocabulary, from their actual words. The child is born free, but he soon learns different. During the first two years, he is programmed mainly by his mother. This program forms the original skeleton, or anlage, of his script, the “primal protocol,” at first concerned with swallowing or being swallowed, and then, when he gets teeth, with tearing or being torn. #RandolphHarris 7 of 20
It is being a hammer or being an anvil, as Goethe put it, the most primitive versions of being a winner or being a loser, as seen in Greek Myths and Primal Rituals, where children are devoured and the limbs of the poet lie scattered on the ground. Even in the nursery, it is often already apparent who is in control, the mother or the baby. This may be reversed sooner or later, but echoes of the original situation can still be heard in times of stress or temper. However, very few people can remember anything from this period, which in many ways is the most important, so it has to be reconstructed with the help of the parents, relatives, nursemaids, and pediatricians, conjectures made about dreams, and perhaps the family album. From two to six the ground is firmer, because nearly everyone remembers a few transactions, incidents, or impressions from that phase of script development, which parallels and is closely connected with the progress of the Oedipus complex. In fact, after weaning and toilet training, the directives which are most universal throughout the World and have the most lasting effects are those concerned with sexuality and aggression. The organism and the species survive by means of circuits which have been built in by natural selection. Since nursing, pleasures of the flesh, and fighting require the presence of another person, they are “social” activities. These urges give character or quality to the individual: acquisitiveness, maleness and femaleness and aggressiveness. #RandolphHarris 8 of 20
Also built in are circuits which tone down such urges. These give rise to the opposite tendencies: renunciation, reticence, and restraint. Those qualities enable people to live together at least part of the time in reasonable tranquility, a dull roar of competition rather than an unmitigated and unremitting bedlam of grabbing, copulation, and fighting. And in some ways which is not clear, excretion becomes mixed up in this system of socialization, and the circuits built in for its control give rise to qualities of orderliness. Parental programming determines how and when the urges are expressed, and how and when the restraints are imposed. It uses the circuits which are already built in, and sets them up in a certain way in order to get certain results or payoffs. As a result of this programing, new qualities emerge, which are compromises between urges and controls. From acquisitiveness and renunciation emerge patience; from maleness or femaleness and reticence emerge masculinity and femininity; from fighting and restraint emerge shrewdness, and from messiness and orderliness come tidiness. All these qualities are taught by the parents and programed during the plastic years between two and six. Physiologically, programing means facilitation, the establishment of a path of lessened resistance. Operationally, it means that a given stimulus will evoke, with a high degree of probability, an already established response. #RandolphHarris 9 of 20
Phenomenologically, parental programing means that a response is determined by parental directives, sound tracks previously recorded, whose voices can be heard by listening carefully to what goes on inside one’s own head. It is probably the lot of human beings that once they have learned speech, then perceptions of reality are always filtered through, and guided by, their concepts of reality. For example, if you learn to concept gun and then look at a gun, you probably see something entirely different from what a primitive savage might: guns have no place, nor even a word to describe them, in his or her culture. Words limit what a person will actually experience in a concrete situation. Once a concept has been learned, a person will look at a given object long enough to place it in its proper category or to assign an appropriate name to it. The person may then ignore much of what is actually there. We are all familiar with the bigoted person who, once he or she has determined that a person is a Jew or Hispanic, never looks further at the person. The bigot “knows” the properties of all members who fall into those classes. In reality, the bigot fails to observe the enormous amount of variation among members of any class. The ability to break down categories and discern uniqueness is as essential for healthy personality as the ability to classify. However, the ability to see what is there, to transcend labels and classes and apprehend the thing before one’s view, is a means of enriching one’s knowledge of the World and of deepening one’s contact with reality. #RandolpHarris 10 of 20
Fritz Perls would have his patients in Gestalt therapy go through exercises of simply looking at something or somebody, in order to discern the reality beyond the concept. To be able to sense the “raw World” involves the ability to abandon presently held concepts and categories. This ability is possessed by the productive scientists who deliberately ignores the orthodoxies, and looks ever afresh at the raw data that prompted the information of present-day concepts and categories. The artist probably possesses to a marked degree the ability to apprehend the unique, the individual object. The ability to set conventional categories and concepts aside and to look fully at the World with minimal preconceptions seems to be a trait that facilitates scientific discovery, art, human relations, and, more generally, an enrichment of the sensory experiences of living. The capacity to let oneself see or perceive what is there seems to entail the temporary cessation of an active, searching, or critical attitude. Need-directed perception is a highly focused searchlight darting here and there, seeking the objects that will satisfy needs, ignoring everything irrelevant to the need. Being-cognition, as Maslow has called it, refers to a more passive mode of perceiving. It involves letting oneself be reached, touched, or affected by what is there so that the perception is richer. The most efficient way to perceive the intrinsic nature of the World is to be more passive than active, determined as much as possible by the intrinsic organization of that which is perceived and as little as possible by the nature of the perceiver. #RandolphHarris 11 of 20
This kind of detached, Taoist, passive, non-interfering awareness of all the simultaneously existing aspects of the concrete, has much in common with some descriptions of the aesthetic experience and of the mystic experience. The stress is the same. Do we see the real, concrete World, or do we see our own systems of rubrics, motives, expectations and abstractions which we have projected onto the real World? Or, to put it very bluntly, do we see or are we blind? This mode of cognition, however, seems to be possible only at those times when we have adequately fulfilled the basic need. When we are anxious, deprived of pleasures of the flesh, or hungry, it is as if our organs of perceiving and of knowing have been “commandeered” to find the means of gratification. Our consciousness seems most free to play, to be most receptive to new impressions, when the urgency of needs is diminished. If we want to know hitherto unnoticed features of the Word that confronts us, the implication is clear, our chances of doing so are increased when our basic needs are satisfied. The direction of our cognition by needs has adaptive values, because it increases our chances of finding the things that will satisfy our needs and it permits us to avoid dangers in our environment. However, if persons are always perceiving the World under the direction of their needs, they will simply not perceive much that exists. The aesthetic, appreciative contemplation of reality, with no purpose other than the delight of looking at it, or experiencing it, lends a dimension of richness to an existence that is ordinarily characterized by the search for satisfaction. Competence at gratifying one’s needs frees one from time to time of the necessity to be forever struggling and permits one the luxury of aesthetic sensing. #RandolphHarris 12 of 20
Reflect on the super-wondrous glory of the human brain. The terrestrial human life cycle spins the developing individual through twelve stages. The suckling infant is certainly a very different caste from the serious ten-year-old school child. The rock ‘n’ roll teenager is certainly different caste from the toddering postmenopausal seniors. The human being is a robot, blindly operating within the reality bubble of structural caste and current temporal caste imprint. At each developmental stage the individual imprints the current hive reality for that developmental stage. Infants cannot be concerned with teenage sperm-egg fantasies. They must suck, suck, suck at the cultural cues that they have imprinted—the touch, smell taste, and sound of the mother. Domesticated new-parents at stage eleven suddenly, miraculously forget the barbarian teenage reality in which they have lived just a few months previous. Each human accepts the reality of the current temporal stage hive-imprint, and almost totally represses the memory of previous stages. Hum-ants are directed by involuntary instincts—committed to religious or political passivity, blindly obedient to hive morality—unable to operate as independent individuals. There is, however, a sizable, and enormously influential population of post-social, self-directed persons swarming on the Western Front. About 15 percent of those living in the highly developed civilization of the 21st Century operate at the post-political level of hedonic consumerism, self-consumerism and self-actualization. They are committed to self-responsible philosophies and do not look to theological or political bureaucrats. #RandolphHarris 13 of 20
The statistically average American is somewhere between a Neolithic caveman and a superstitious robot from the priest-run, caste-stratified pre-civilized Past. The average I.Q. is 100, meaning that the person can read and write primitively, but is generally incapable of any inventive thought. Given a chance, the average American would operate like Attila the Hun. Our study also found that Japan had the highest I.Q. with an I.Q. score of 106.48, followed closely by Taiwan at 106.47, and Singapore at 105.79. The United States of America ranked 31 with an average I.Q. score of 97. Singapore, Japan, and China, in that order, scored the highest in reading, math, and science tests. I.Q. ranges from 70 to 80 are considered borderline intellectual functioning and anything below 70 indicates intellectual disability. Classifications as defined in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), a reference book on mental health disorders published by the American Psychiatric Association (APA): I.Q. 71 to 84: Borderline intellectual functioning. I.Q. 50-55 to approximately 70: Mild mental retardation. I.Q. 35-40 to 50-55: Moderate retardation. I.Q. 20-25 to 35-40: Severe mental retardation. I.Q. below 20-25: Profound mental retardation. Some ways to improve your average I.Q. scores and move to a higher range include: learning new skills, such as learning music or a sport, regularly playing word and other puzzles and brain games, reading more and acquiring knowledge, learning a new language, training to improve verbal skills, maintaining good health with nutritious food, regular exercise, and adequate sleep. #RandolphHarris 14 of 20
The brilliant Men who wrote the American Constitution designed a system of checks and balances to keep the average Neolithic American from grabbing control. The Athenian experience, for example, failed because of Demo-poll—the Tyranny of the Mediocre. Many people say that the most annoying sound in the World is a baby crying. However, that is not true. Babies cry randomly and can be quieted down by feeding them, changing them, or holding them. Yet, those who are awakened by the annoying sound of a leaf blower Monday through Sunday know that it the most annoying sound in the World. It is a violent way to wake up and start the day. It is akin to hearing a chain saw every morning, for several hours, like clockwork day after day. I would think that using a loud leaf blower is not only healthy for the operators’ ears and lungs, wastes a lot of water because they blow around so much dust and get cars dirty, but it is also dangerous because people work hard and are tired and they could snap. In fact, in 2023, an Illinois man, William Martys, age 59, was using a leaf blower in his yard at his Antioch home on 12 April when he was approached by his next-door neighbour, Ettore Lacchei, age 79. The two argued and Mr. Lacchei shot Mr. Martys in the head. With clean energy being such a hot topic, for conservation and security measures, it seems the Environmental Protection Agency would mandate that leaf blowers meet noise decibels requirements. According to the Centers for Disease Control, leaf blowers expose users to noise levels of around 90 decibels. Noises beyond 70 decibels are registered as “disturbance.” Prolonged exposure to anything beyond the level of 85 decibels 85 decibels can result in hearing damage. Even from 50 feet away, the sound of a leaf blower can each 77 to 80 decibels—just under the hearing loss threshold. For residential environments, the limits are set at 55-65 decibels. #RandolphHarris 15 of 20
Leaf blowers emit more than 60 times the hydrocarbons of a car, as well as large amounts of carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, and volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Emissions from gas leaf blowers creates high levels of formaldehyde, benzene, fine particulate matter, and smog-forming chemicals. A 2011 study showed that a lead blower emits nearly 300 times the air pollutants as a pickup truck. You can file a complaint with local authorities. People often take prejudice or habit for truth and in that case feel no discomfort, but if they once realize that their truth is nonsense, the game is up. From then onwards it is only by the force that a man can be compelled to do what he considers absurd. A look of exasperation at my unworldly imaginings, my inability to see what is required of people today because it is “necessary” is unbelievable. However, it was the Chief of Police in San Francisco who said, when asked what could be done to decrease the number of suicides, “We gotta slow down.” Why should we arrange a “civilization” which is a torture to many and not very good for anybody? The World we live in does not have to be the way it is. Out of all the possibilities, we chose to make it this way. Those who never did liked it helped to make it by going along with it. What people do not go along with falls apart, so what is, people are going along with. Even a military government loses its power when people do not go along with it. In Hawaii after the Japanese attack of Pearl Harbor, we had martial law, and one of the first acts of the military was to make it unlawful to speak against the military. These same people also saw it as unpatriotic to drive Japanese cars. #RandolphHarris 16 of 20
You cannot punish everyone. Physically it is not possible and besides, then who is left to work with you? Leaders are non-existent without followers. The number of people who now do not like what we have made seems to include almost everyone. However, we are all split up in groups which do not like this and do not like that, who are fighting each other, not knowing that what we deeply want is something else. It seems to me that this is a common cause of juvenile delinquency and other forms of mental illness. Security of Earthly possessions is hard to find and harder to keep in the quick-changing World of today. So anxieties and worries get multiplied. Because of this, inner security, the close friend of inner peace, becomes proportionately more valuable. If it is to be attained, the first practical requirement is to train oneself in the art of keeping emotionally and mentally calm. This deliberate practice of calmness is a preparation for the deeper state of Mental Quiet, which comes by itself when meditation is sufficiently advanced. It is effort consciously and quickly made to keep a hold on passion and emotions so that the work of getting nearer the realization of ideals is not hindered. Whether, or how much, philosophy removes fear must depend on either his capacity to withdraw part of awareness from the body or on a higher level to remain unmoved in the non-dual identity. Most people are captive, in different degrees, to some kind of fear. It may be caused by their surroundings, by their religious upbringing, by those in authority over them, by their bodily condition, by suggestion received from others or self-made. It is prudent to keep away from temptation—at least until enough beneficial strength has been developed to risk the test. However, if development is not sought and obtained, then untempted and unproven virtue may be merely negative. #RandolphHarris 17 of 20
Instead of fighting in a political battle for the insight and convictions they have gained, many become totally absorbed in their dream of a cottage settlement. In the end, they find themselves sitting between the chairs. (A reference to a German saying, “Trying to sit on all of the chairs and ending up sitting between them” which actually means torn between conflicting interests, however here is more specifically means torn between two interests and ending up with nothing, or not sitting on a chair at all.) What makes this even worse is the leadership’s way of thinking; they believe their policies will help them avoid any armed conflict. They try to sit on all the chairs at the same time and the result is the proverbial fall between the chairs. If a New Man comes into being—a man who has emerged from the archaic ties of blood and soil, and who feels himself to be the son of man, a citizen of the World whose loyalty is to the human race and to life, rather than to any exclusive part of it; a man who loves his country because he loves mankind, and whose judgment is not warped by tribal loyalties, only then can the One World which is emerging can come into existence. Man’s growth is a process of continuous birth, of continuous awakening. We are usually half-asleep and only sufficiently awake to go about our business; but we are not awake enough to go about living, which is the only takes that matters for a living being. The great leaders of the human race are those who have awakened man from his half-slumber. The great enemies of humanity are those who put it to sleep, and it does not matter whether their sleeping potion is the worship of God or that of the Golden Calf. #RandolphHarris 18 of 20
The mission of the Sacramento Fire Department is to: Protect the lives and property of the people of Sacramento and its visitors from fires, natural disasters, accidents, hazardous material incidents, and other causes requiring a rapid and skilled response by land or water. “I did a lot of EMS in the Sacramento Fire Department when I was in college. I became a ski patrolman my freshman year, took advanced first aid. I became a fireman the next summer and began the EMT course in the fall. I originally wanted to become an EMT for ski patrol. I was an EMT by the spring of my sophomore year. I took my EMT 2 training in Sacramento as well as my paramedic training. I remember very well one of the first calls I ever got. It was the first snow of the season, and a couple of kids skipped school and went out riding on a snowmobile. They were crossing a road on this snowmobile, and they got clipped by a Honda Accord. Two kids, twelve and thirteen. We were called to the scene. The snowmobile was there, and one of the kids was lying close to it, but the other kid was fifty or sixty feet down the road. There was a trail of blood all the way down to him, and he was DOA (dead on arrival). The first kind had a pulse. So, we started doing CPR, and at the first chest compression the blood just gushed out. I had seen broken legs, but this was very gruesome. It was a heavy-duty accident. Finally, there was no pulse. We did the best we could. We kept trying to resuscitate him, but couldn’t revive him. #RandolphHarris 19 of 20
“I was in the hospital for quite a while, getting our equipment back. I was there when the parents came in, two sets of parents. They had assumed that the kids were in school, they didn’t know that the kids had skipped school to go play with a snowmobile. The response of the parents—I got goosebumps, and I felt tingling in the back of my head. They just collapsed. No one appreciates the word grief until they see how parents respond when they find out their child has died. I remember calling my mother that night just to convey the story to hear and to touch case with that part of myself.” The Sacramento Fire Department’s primary mission is to provide fire protection, emergency medical care, fire prevention, and other critical public safety services to both residents and visitors. You can save lives by donating to the Sacramento Fire Department. The Sacramento Fire Department works hard to save lives and property and often risk their own lives. Awaken compassionate thoughts and actions by helping others realize that, like our Saviour, they too have compassion for others. Please make donate to the Sacramento Fire Department to asset them in their fire prevent duty and other programs. To help keep America a God loving, Christian community, please raise your children to love America and to love God and Jesus Christ. In a afford to help America pull through the massive national deficit, please buy American made cars and other American made good and services. Also, please remember to respect law and order and treat your elders with the utmost dignity and kindness possible. And take your education seriously so that you will be successful in life and make your family proud. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic, for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. #RandolphHarris 20 of 20
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Note Everything that the Primitives Say
Genetics is not about fate; it is about opportunity. It is the genius—genetic-volatility—of humanity that, although each of us is a genetic-robot, we pass through twelve stages as we mature. What a wondrous package, indeed is WoMan! Woman in Mandarin Chinese means “we.” Each of us represents one of the twelve intelligence-survival solutions and each of us, in maturing, passes through and relives all twelve solutions. Genetic consciousness allows us to discard the old outmoded hive-reality maps, to file away and retire, every previous theological and philosophic blueprint—except those which are based on continual evolution. This does not mean that you should reject empirical data or close-off information or ignore opinions. Be open to every stupidity, savagery, rigidity of the Newtonian natives. Listen to the Christian Fundamentalists when they shout that the Christian Holy Bible and Book of Mormon are word-for-word revelations and you gain insight into the parroting, Paleolithic, humanoid brain. Not everything that the primitives say, then check your own behaviour for parrot-brained rote repetition. Study and then file-away orthodox Darwinian blind-selection theories, while respecting the field reports of evolutionists and ethologists. Play with the notions of structural and temporal caste as they affect you. Admire this clever twelve tactic process that allows each of us to recapitulate evolution and to move ahead to create The Future. #RandolphHarris 1 of 23
Alpha reality—for now let us assume that your genetic template determines your structural caste which, in turn, determines your lifelong reality attitude. Attitude is used in the high-altitude, high-velocity aeronautical context—angle of approach. Your structural caste is your Alpha Reality. A nineteen-year-old woman once consulted me, seeking help with a problem that was bothering her. She believed her roommate was stealing her money, jewelry, and even stationary. She noticed various items missing from her dresser from time to time, and she concluded her roommate was guilty. However, she dared not confront the roommate with her suspicion. Instead, she felt distrust and resentment and struggled to conceal these feelings from her. Their relationship gradually deteriorated to one of formality, forced politeness, and false expressions of friendship. I asked the young woman why she did not bring the whole issues out into the open. She stated that if she did this, her roommate would hate her, and she could not stand this. I asked if there were any other possible way of interpreting the loss of her money and jewelry. She replied that she had not thought of any. Rather, she had concluded that if her things were missing, they must have been stolen by the person closet to her. When I suggested that her roommate might be saddened at the way their friendship had deteriorated and that she might welcome some frank talk to settle things, the young woman admitted that this might be possible, but she was afraid to talk about the problem. However, she agreed to broach the subject. #RandolphHarris 2 of 23
The next time I saw her, she was happy to report that she had discussed the whole affair. She learned that her roommate was puzzled by the way their relationship had changed. Moreover, she was glad to discuss the loss of the articles with her and she was able to clear herself of any blame. In fact, the roommate too had been missing some money, and investigation by the dormitory counselor brought forth the fact that other women had been robbed and that the guilty party was a cleaning woman, who was promptly discharged. The example illustrates how some initial, untested beliefs that one person forms about some aspect of the World—in this case, about another person—can lead to misunderstanding in interpersonal relationships and to considerable unhappiness. At first, the woman was afraid to carry out any efforts at reality testing to see if her assumption of the guilt of her roommate was warranted. This illustrates another aspect of reality testing; frequently, people may be reluctant to go after the information that is crucial to the formation of accurate beliefs. Yet, if a person gives in to the fear of getting at the truth, that person is almost sure to become increasingly out of touch with reality. The search for the “real” reality in contrast to the perceived reality is a difficult one even for the scientist. Here are some rules that may help you become fare more effective in reality testing: State the belief clearly. Ask, “What evidence is there to support this belief?” Ask, “Is there any other way of interpreting this evidence?” Try to determine how consistent the belief is with other beliefs that are known to be real. #RandolphHarris 3 of 23
Reasons for rebellion do seem to change, in fact, with periods and civilizations. It is obvious that a Hindu pariah, an Inca warrior, a primitive native of central African, and a member of one of the first Christian communities had not at all the same ideas about rebellion. We could even assert, with considerable assurance, that the idea of rebellion has no meaning in these particular cases. However, even if they differed about the reasons for it, a Greek slave, a serf, a condottiere of the Renaissance, a Parisian bourgeois during the Regency, a Russian intellectual at the beginning of the twentieth century, and a contemporary worker would undoubtedly agree that rebellion is legitimate. In other words, the problem of rebellion seems to assume a precise meaning only within the confines of Western thought. It is possible to be even more explicit by remarking, like Scheler, that the spirit of rebellion finds new means of expression in societies where inequalities are very great (the Hindu caste system) or, again, in those where there is absolute equality (certain primitive societies). The spirit of rebellion can exist only in a society where a theoretical equality conceals great factual inequalities. The problem of rebellion can exist only in a society where a theoretical equality conceals great factual inequalities. The problem of rebellion, therefore, has no meaning except within our own Western society. If the preceding remarks had not put us on our guard against this conclusion, one might be tempted to affirm that it is relative to the development of individualism. On the basis of the evidence, the only conclusion that can be drawn from Scheler’s remark is that, thank to the theory of political freedom, there is, in the very heart of our society, an increasing awareness in man of the idea of man and, thanks to the application of this theory of freedom, a corresponding dissatisfaction. #RandolphHarris 4 of 23
Actual freedom has not increased in proportion to man’s awareness of it. We can only deduce from this observation that rebellion is the act of an educated man who is aware of his own rights. However, there is nothing which justifies us in saying that it is only a question of individual rights. Before of the sense of solidarity we have already pointed out, it would rather seem that what is at stake is humanity’s gradually increasing self-awareness as it pursues its course. In fact, for the Inca and the pariah the problem never arises, because for them it has been solved by a tradition, even before they had had time to raise it—the answer being that tradition is sacred. If in a World where things are held sacred the problem of rebellion does not arise, it is because no real problems are to be found in such a World, all the answers having been given simultaneously. Metaphysic is replaced by myth. There are no more questions, only eternal answers and commentaries, which may be metaphysical. However, before man accepts the sacred World and in order that he should be able to accept it—or before he escapes from it and in order that he should be able to escape from it—there is always a period of soul-searching and rebellion. The rebel is a man who on the point of accepting or rejecting the sacred and determined on laying claim to a human situation in which all the answers are human—in other words, formulated in reasonable terms. #RandolphHarris 5 of 23
From this moment every question, every word, is an act of rebellion while in the sacred World every word is an act of grace. It would be possible to demonstrate in this manner that only two possible to Worlds can exist for the human mind: the sacred (or, to speak in Christian terms, the World of grace) and the World of rebellion. The disappearance of one is equivalent to the appearance of the other, despite the fact that this appearance can take place in disconcerting forms. There again we rediscover the All or Nothing. The present interest of the problem of rebellion only springs from the fact that nowadays whole societies have wanted to discard the sacred. We live in an unsacrosanct moment in history. Insurrection is certainly not the sum total of human experience. However, history today, with all its storm and strife, compels us to say that rebellion is one of the essential dimensions of man. It is our historic reality. Unless we choose to ignore reality, we must find our values in it. It is possible to find a rule of conduct outside the realm of religion and its absolute values? That is the question raised by rebellion. Dying on the prison mattress, this inmate’s mind peered at itself through the window of a luxurious beach house in Santa Monica. She was lying scantly clad in front of the fire. A famous singer sings from a vinyl record on a low womb-shaped table almost buried amongst the furs. The breath of the fire moistens the room. #RandolphHarris 6 of 23
“All I want is to feel good,” she says and falls back amongst the cushions. He is nervous. “I haven’t been intimate with a woman in a month, baby.” “Just keep me high, she murmurs. Guilt is an abstraction, pleasure is real.” She lay unmoving, evidently under the effect of some kind of narcotic. He raised her leg, walked to the window and pressed his face against the glass. She stood naked in front of the fire, weeping. It was three o’clock in the morning. A flashlight whispering yellow. Get up! You are on the lost for transfer. Roll up gear. Report below. Your cell’s unlocked. He left the rodent cage, ran right down the molecular runway, left down lattice stairs turn right. Forty-eight men in blue waiting in a dark tunnel of the maximum-security prison, rolling weed, coughing smoke, reciting their sorrows. Career cons. The impenitent nobility. Gallant slaves. As the World of an empress is decked with pennants, Hers was decorated with desire. Wherever she went She was invested with this could of male vitality. He walked the length of the Release Room of the State Prison, a naked captive, carrying shoes to the exit cage counter. “Gentlemen, I’m checking out. Could you have my bill ready?” he says. The guard frowns down at levity. “Yeah, you owe us ten long years.” Forty-eight men dressed in white jump suits, from a gray line waiting for the bus to long-term. All aboard for CMC East, CMC West, grim Soledad, San Quentin, Folsom, and Forestry Camps north. #RandolphHarris 7 of 23
Each man walks shivering in the morning fog to the loading platform. Searched, handcuffed. After a pat-down, the inmate we are focused on holds hands up for bracelets. The Lieutenant grumbles. “Skip the cuffs for him. He’s minimum security,” he told the guard. Speaking to our focus inmate, the Lieutenant then says, “You pass out matches and rolling smokes.” He walked down the bus aisle. “Fasten seat belts gentlemen and ladies. Select your weed. Inside dope. Acapulco Gold. Tehachapi Red. Quentin Green. Metal-clad hands reach up beseeching nicotine.” As the mobile prison rumbles along the polluted L.A. freeways, they look down at commuters droning to work. Around Ventura the bus bursts out the L.A. smog to wide blue Pacific seascapes, sparkling visions for prison eyes. Slender girl twisting long sunny hair on the Ventura streets. Their shackled slave wagon climbed the hill to a white-marbled courthouse. Picking up long-hair parole violators. In the rear-cage compartment the armed guard pushes brown-paper food snacks through a metal slot. Our focus inmate serves lunch and as a good trustee gets a double helping. However, he gave it to a young African America carrying a life sentence. Even people who are down on their luck are kind enough to show compassion. Compassion means to for love and mercy toward another person. It means to show sympathy and relieve the suffering of others. It means to show kindness and tenderness towards another. #RandolphHarris 8 of 23
Whoever prolongs resentment belongs to past years and chapters long left behind, himself adds to the injury he suffered. Such brooding brings on negative moods. Personal feelings must be studied and analysed, not to become more neurotically self-wrapped but to correct, discipline, and lift them to a higher level. The more emotional a person is, the more easily is he hurt. The way to lessen such hurts is to bring up reason to the same strength and to deepen calm. The more he practicses keeping calm in the confrontations of Worldly stress, the less difficult will it be to practise prayer. The practise not only makes it easier for intelligence to operate but also for thoughts to come under control. A panicky feeling disorganizes the whole of man, throws him into confusion. If one cultivates inner calm constantly, this is avoided. He cannot afford to imitate those who show a calm exterior while raging furiously within themselves. Not necessarily—nor only—for the sake of appearances or personal advantage does he remain calm, but also because the ideal of self-control is very close to his heart. However, although philosophy refuses to accept a wild emotionalism or an unbalanced one or an egotistic one, it would be a grave mistake to think that it refuses to accept emotion altogether in its own sphere. On the contrary, it asserts that without the most intense possible feeling, a genuine devotion to the Overself cannot be given. And without such devotion, the Overself in turn is unlikely to give its Grace. What philosophy does ask, however, is that emotion should be balanced, purified, and deepened. #RandolphHarris 9 of 23
Pessimism will corrode our better nature, optimism may disillusion itself in the end. The middle way is the better way—and also the truer way—for it gives both sides of the case. It is not only in practical life that emotional control will be needed but also in mystical life. The very intensity of his emotions—however noble and aspiring they be—will confuse the reception of the truth during prayer and mingle it with the meditator’s own preconceptions. We believe first and think out our belief afterwards. This is because emotion rather than reason is our driving force. Reason actuates us from a deeper level and is therefore slower to arouse and harder to keep going than feeling. The Stoics in old Europe tried to put the emotions under the absolute control of reason. Jesus Christ tried to do exactly the same. However, whereas the Stoics did this in order to meet the every day alternations of fate, health, and fortune with great courage, the self-actualized Christians did it in order to escape from those alternations. The Stoics were practical men who accepted the World but sought to conquer it through the power gained by conquering themselves. The self-actualized Christians rejected the World, and like the desert monks of early Christianity, wanted to be done with its struggles and afflictions. If he sulkily takes constructive, well-intentioned criticism as if it were a personal insult, if his emotional self falls discouraged into a slough of despond at the smallest discovery of his own faults and weaknesses, then he is likely not ready for this quest. Some self-preparation is first needed. #RandolphHarris 10 of 23
If not quickly subdue them, merely to recollect that he is on the quest should soften his angers. They should deliberately face whatever it is they fear. When they become frightened, they should not seek escape, but, in times of prayer and meditation, should turn full attention on its cause. Then, they should call upon latent resources and if the cause is made in the right way, the response will appear in their conscious will. Thus equipped, they will be capable of compelling fears to subside and, in time, of overcoming them. This inner quiescence, this emotional calm, this being at peace with oneself, this refusal to be upset or feel hurt, is one of those conditions which make possible the discovery of the true being. The truth crushes all the falseness and all the deceptiveness in sentimentality and emotionality, but leaves intact what is sound in them. The ego eagerly wants to nourish itself with these pitiful illusions, therefore. It is even helpful in certain cases to put the physical body under the strain of hard manual labour, or hard physical exercise for some weeks. This counterbalances the mental tension. To eradicate anger, he should cultivate it opposite—forgiveness. According to ethics of the hidden teaching, hatred and anger are twin branches on the same tree. How immense the distance from self-mastered Founder to self-indulgent follower! The often-used word “freedom” is conveniently misunderstood, its true meaning twisted to suit their sensual appetites. #RandolphHarris 11 of 23
Conduct is a deliberate, consciously purposeful, and willed activity whereas behaviour is general, casual, and not specifically directed. When in the development of the script, one of the most important things to do is find a plot with the proper ending, an answer to the question: “What happens to someone like me?” The child knows, because he is taught, whether he is going to be a winner or a loser, how he is supposed to feel about other people, and how other people are going to treat him, and that is what is meant by “someone like me.” Sooner or later, he hears a story about “someone like me,” and that tells him what he is headed for. It may e a fairy tale read to him by his mother, the story of Sleeping Beauty told to him by his grandmother, or a street-gang legend he hears on the corner. However, whatever he hears it, when he hears it, he knows it, and he says: “That is me!” That story will then be his script and he will spend the rest of his life trying to make it come to pass. Thus, on the basis of early experience with the breast or the bottle, in the bathroom or outhouse, in the bedroom and kitchen and living room, the child acquires his convictions, makes his decisions, and takes his position. Then from what he hears and reads, he chooses a prediction and a plan: how he will go about being a winner or a loser, on what grounds, and what the payoff will be; and that is the first clear version of his life script. #RandolphHarris 12 of 23
Subverbal interaction refers to communication that occurs without the use of words. I spent nearly six months of bi-weekly meetings which consisted of my standing next to a man on the ward. Whenever I asked him to come into the office with me, he became verbal, but only to tell me to go away and leave him alone. Yet, when I would come only to stand next to him where he stood on the ward, he would usually remain for the whole hour despite the fact that he knew I would leave if he walked away. During such an hour we would exchange many glances, motions, and a few sentences. Often—that is to say, every few silent minutes—I might say something of the tension I felt, and of my wish that our silences would be or feel all right, as well as of my wish to hear from him, and my knowledge of his discomfort and tension with me. After a while I did usually receive a sentence or two, often in the nature of summaries that seemed to stem from much ongoing inner turmoil, feeling, and thinking, such as: “Maybe I am crazy,” or, “someone must a have a use for a person,” or “If you are for me or against me, I do not know,” or “they just do not have a heart,” or, “I would wake them up.” Some hours passed without such expressions. Sometimes he would accept my responses to these statements, more often he would show me that I could more easily be talked to if I was quiet: he would say, “do not pressure me,” or, “it is awful hot today.” #RandolphHarris 13 of 23
At slight movements, or unsureness, or verbiage from me, he would react with sudden black looks or leap away three feet. So I learned to be quiet while he talked; perhaps a few minutes later I might tell him something of what I thought about it. When I stood next to this man in silence, it was not the case that nothing happened when we were silent. Clearly, he was very active inside himself, and to me it was also clear that I had a great deal to do with the process, and with the quality of this process, within him. It is this kind of interaction which I termed “subverbal.” The development from early to later interviews involves the establishment of subverbal interaction. In our research, the proportions of speech and silence do not change from second to thirtieth interviews. However, not only do the silence come to be subverbally important and therapeutic, but the verbalizations also become more significant, as the findings on the Kirtner and Experiencing Scales show. Subverbal interaction is thus not a giving up of verbal therapy, but rather a reaching for the deeper and wider feeling processes which occurs in every individual at every moment, and within which psychotherapy occurs. Words, no matter how relevant or irrelevant, are only messages from this deeper feeling process, only symbolizations of experiencing. #RandolphHarris 14 of 23
The Democratic Party will not fight for the future of America in a political battle because they believe the future is secured adequately through increasing the $38 trillion-dollar federal deficit, which increased by $2 trillion in 2024. This kind of debt spending is unheard of and will have unknown ramifications. Not only will your children be responsible for paying this money back, and the rest of your family for generations, America could go bankrupt. All of those handouts the Democratic party has given to the 20,000,000 illegal immigrants that have allowed to waltz into America is costing us all dearly. The Democratic Party’s plan is to just keep raising taxes. However, how our tax dollars are spent should be a matter left up to voters. Politicians should not be able to go wild and spend our hard earn money anyhow they please on programs that are not even necessary nor desirable. No one can “save” his fellow man by making the choice for him. All that one man can do for another is to show him the alternatives truthfully and lovingly, yet without sentimentality or illusion. Confrontation with the true alternatives may awaken all the hidden energies in a person, and enable him to choose life as against death. If he cannot choose life, no one else can breathe life into him. There are two ways of arriving at the choice of the good. The first is that of duty and obedience to moral commands. This way be can be effective, yet one must consider that in thousands of years only a minority have fulfilled even the requirements of the Ten Commandments. #RandolphHarris 15 of 23
Many more have committed crimes when they were presented to them as commands by those in authority. The other way is to develop a taste for and a sense of well-being in doing what is good or right. By taste for well-being, I do not mean pleasure in the Benthamian of Freudian sense. I refer to the sense of heightened aliveness in which I confirm my powers and my identity. I believe that education means to acquaint the young with the best heritage of the human race. However, of this heritage is expressed in words, it is effective only if these words become reality in the person of the teacher and in the practice and structure of society. Only the idea which has materialized in the flesh can influence man; the idea which remains a word only changes words. I believe in the perfectibility of man. This perfectibility means that man can reach his goal, but it does not mean that he must reach it. If the individual will not choose life and does not grow, he will by necessity become destructive, a living corpse. Evilness and self-loss are as real as are goodness and aliveness. If he chooses not to realize his primary potentialities, they are the secondary potentialities of man. Only exceptionally is man born as a saint or as a criminal. Most of us have dispositions for good and for evil, although the respective weight of these dispositions varies within individuals. #RandolphHarris 16 of 23
Hence, our fate is largely determined by those influences which mold and form the given dispositions. The family is the most important influence. However, the family itself is mainly an agent of society, the transmission belt for those values and norms which a society wants to impress on its members. Hence, the most important factor for the development of the individual is the structure and the values of the society into which he has been born. Society has both a furthering and an inhibiting function. Only in cooperation with others, and in the process of work, does man develop his powers, only in the historical process does he create himself. However, at the same time, most societies until now have served the aims of the few who wanted to use the many. Hence, they had to use their power to stultify and intimidate the many (and this, indirectly, themselves), to prevent them from developing all their powers; for this reason, society has always conflicted with humanity, with the universal norms valid for every man. Only when society’s aim will have become identical with the aims of humanity, will society cease to cripple man and to further evil. Every many represents humanity. We are different as to intelligence, health, talents. Yet we are all one. We are all stains and sinners, adults and children, and no one is anybody’s superior or judge. We have all been awakened with Jesus Christ, we have also be crucified with Christ, and we have all been burned at the stake and robbed with the witches of Salem, Massachusetts. #RandolphHarris 17 of 23
Man can visualize the experience of the whole universal man only by realizing his individuality and never by trying to reduce himself to an abstract, common denominator. Man’s task in life is precisely the paradoxical one of realizing his individuality and at the same time transcending it and arriving at the experience of universality. Only the fully developed individual self can drop the ego. The Sacramento Department of Fire Services provides the fire service, regulated industries, and individuals with training, education, prevention, investigation, and emergency responses service. This work includes training firefighters, hazardous material response, fire investigation, public education in fire and life safety, and incident support. “The fire was in a two-and-a-half-story frame dwelling. My company was on the second alarm, so when we got there the fire was well involved. I reported to the chief and went through the normal procedures. The whole upper floor, a converted attic, was on fire, and part of the second floor. We took a two-and-a-half-inch hand line down the left side of the building to the rear kitchen—myself, my pipe man, and my leadoff man. The pipe man is the nozzle man. We take the line in dry to the place where we’re going to use it—it’s easier to maneuver without the water in the line. We get to the back kitchen, and I pick up my radio to call the pump operator to get water in the line. As it happens when there are so many additional alarms, it gets so busy that the pump operator is swamped with calls, and radio communications is the biggest problem. #RandolphHarris 18 of 23
“First I sent out my lead man, then I went out, and I told the pump operator to put water in the line. I waited a minute to make sure that he did, because sometimes they are so busy they don’t always comprehend what’s going on. As soon as the two-and-a-half got charged up, I straightened out a couple of kinks and started back along the side of the building. I felt a couple of embers or wood brands dropping, and I just kind of pulled my shoulders up and dropped my head and just kept moving. Then, bam. Instantly the whole world stopped. It seemed the entire building dropped, and it came right down on me. It was unreal. The whole left side of the building and the roof came down on me. It just kicked out. I had never heard of this happening before, but since than I have read articles about the collapse of frame buildings and how fast they just kick out. I straightened up, and I could feel all of my weight pushing back as hard as I could, and there was just no way that I could stop it. Thank the Lord, right where I stood was a tree and a fence that ran down the side of the property. I must have swung around so I was right at the tree, and when the wood and the roof came down it hit the tree and acted like a lean-to. And instead of squashing me flat, it just pushed me down into the tree and wedged me down there. I was facedown into the roots of the tree, which was about eight or ten inches in diameter. #RandolphHarris 19 of 23
“The weight of the falling building just snapped it over, and I was wedged against it. But my arm was up, like half over the fence. I don’t know if I had tried to leap over the fence or what, but the arm was pinned separately from the rest of my body. The other guys thought I was dead, for sure. I had to be. It was just unreal, the amount of debris that was piled on top of me. The radio on my hip was caught in an open position. Afterwards the chief said it was the one thing that showed I was still alive. All they could hear was a string of good, rotten words, one after another. I was in severe pain. Terrible pain. I thought, ‘This is it, this is the end of my world.’ My ribs, my side, my arm, everything was hurting but my head. My head wasn’t hurting, or if it was I couldn’t feel it. ‘God, I hope they get me out of here,’ I thought. I was trapped, no way I could move an inch. I’m a good-sized fellow, and I’m wedged against the tree into the ground. There is all this roof and wood pile on me. Luckily, there was no fire right in that area. The fire was still maybe four or five feet behind me. I began to think about a secondary collapse. The way it was piled on me and the tree, I thought, ‘If this son of a gun drops, I mean, that’s it.’ There was no way I could hold any more weight: if it let loose a second time, I would have been gone. For a few minutes I talked to God. ‘Well, sure, I’m going to die,’ I told him. I didn’t know how badly I had been injured. I just knew I had been hurt so bad it was beyond hurting. #RandolphHarris 20 of 23
“Suddenly a mob of people were there, and some of the fellows were coming g up on top of the stuff that’s on top me. I could feel more pressure. I thought, ‘Jesus Christ, get off of the collapse.’ Everything gets chaotic. I mean I’m pinned under there, and I can picture in my mind everybody running around and everybody trying to help. That’s the first thing when one of yours is down. Everybody wants to get in. I’ve been on a number of rescues of civilians, but when it’s one of yours it’s just a little bit different. There’s a little more adrenaline flowing. Everybody was just disregarding everything else, trying to get in as quickly as possible. I heard somebody say, ‘Truck Company, get a saw.’ And the company answered, ‘Our saw’s down in the shop.’ I thought, ‘Oh, crud, here I am trapped, and their saw is down in the shop.’ A couple of things went through my mind down there. The first thing I thought was, ‘Oh, God, let me just get back with my family. Just one more shot. Just give me another shot at it.’ Finally the Rescue Company sets up the airbags, which were new in the department at the time. They were to stabilize the rest of the building so it wouldn’t come down. Now I was concentrating on their methods to get me out. They got a couple of saws going, and they started cutting the fence down to get into me. I said to the lead rescuer, “A1, A1, hold up a minute. My arm’s pinned separately.’ #RandolphHarris 21 of 23
“I just pictured them cutting this fence and grabbing me and pulling me out, and my arm was going to stay there. All I could think of was, ‘God Almighty, if they pull me out and leave my arm there, I would rather just stay.’ It took them about thirty minutes to get everything under control, to get me out. That’s how long I was trapped, and I stayed conscious the whole time. I never really screamed. I tried to stay as clam as I could, hoping that would help them in extricating me a little quicker than otherwise. The lieutenant said afterward that I said a couple of things that didn’t make sense to him. Maybe I was going out of my head a little but, I don’t know, but that was his terminology. I thought I handled it pretty well. One of the funny things I thought afterwards was, ‘Damn, this is my last night in.’ It was the end of a four-night trick. Then we get two days off in a row. They had to drag me out. They raised and secured the wood that was lying over me enough so that they could slide me out. Only then could they stabilize me on a backboard. It was a big job because I’m six-two and weigh 240. The guys said afterwards, ‘God, X, don’t get trapped again. You’ll kill us getting you out again.’ The doctors at the hospital say my size is one of the things that helped save my life. I mean, I’m a big man, and I’m big-boned, and as this stuff came down on me I tightened up to keep in from crushing me. So they got me out to the ambulance. The two paramedics were excellent. #RandolphHarris 22 of 23
“I was in shock trauma twenty-one days and off the job for eleven months. Then I came back on regular duty, and I’ve been working ever since. At times, I hurt. Particularly when I’m wearing a mask at a fire. For two days after, my shoulders hurt, my back hurts, my side hurts from wearing the tank and just the general punishment you go through. But I’m not ready to go out yet.” The Sacramento Fire Department works hard to save lives and property and often risk their own lives. Awaken compassionate thoughts and actions by helping others realize that, like our Saviour, they too have compassion for others. Please make donate to the Sacramento Fire Department to asset them in their fire prevent duty and other programs. To help keep America a God loving, Christian community, please raise your children to love America and to love God and Jesus Christ. In a afford to help America pull through the massive national deficit, please buy American made cars and other American made good and services. Also, please remember to respect law and order and treat your elders with the utmost dignity and kindness possible. And take your education seriously so that you will be successful in life and make your family proud. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic, for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. #RandolphHarris 23 of 23
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The Alchemical Magic Spread Swiftly
Our knowledge of human neurogenetics is so primitive that we have only recently realized that structural and temporal castes exist. Sociobiologist and ethologists define their professions as the study of behavioural genetics. However, neurogenetics is a more accurate description because what is inherited is not behaviour but neural templates that determine use of the anatomical-technology. Local hive behaviour cues—languages, customs, artifacts, and the like are not genetically inherited—they are cultural imprints. Only the caste-circuits are inherited not the behaviours, which are acquired in a cultural context. Until ethologists understand the difference between neurogenetic castes and local-social-imprints, their brilliant observations cannot be mapped. This insight is changing our conceptions of human nature and society. It is probable that we are neurologically programmed so that understanding of castes becomes part of species contelligence—consciousness + intelligence—only at the time that space migration occurs. Plan-It Colonies in High Orbit provide the new ecological vacuum in which human castes differences can blossom without the friction and crowded competition that has coloured Earthly racial-class-sexual-caste differences. #RandolphHarris 1 of 25
You must realize that we are a genetic-caste-robot to understand your own personal development. John Lilly articulates this beautifully in Programming the Human BioComputer. We are templated by DNA to play a certain role. We are outfitted with a 24-gear brain that is very different from 92 percent of other human brains. Values, according to good authorities, “most often represent a transition from facts to rights, from what is desired to what is desirable (usually through the intermediary of what is generally considered desirable).” The transition from facts to rights is manifest, as we have seen, in rebellion. So is the transition from “this must be” to “this is how I should like things to be,” and even more so, perhaps, the idea of the sublimation of the individual in a henceforth universal good. The sudden appearance of the concept of “All or Nothing” demonstrates that rebellion, contrary to current opinion, and though it springs from everything that is most strictly individualistic in man, questions the very idea of the individual. If the individual, in fact, accepts death and happens to die as a consequence of his act of rebellion, he demonstrates by doing so that he is willing to sacrifice himself for the sake of a common good which he considers more important than his own destiny. If he prefers the risk of death to the negation of the rights that he defends, it is because he considers these rights more important than himself. #RandolphHarris 2 of 25
Therefore, he is acting in the name of certain values which are still indeterminate but which he feels are common to himself and to all men. We see that the affirmation implicit in every act of rebellion is extended to something that transcends the individual in so far as it withdraws him from his supposed solitude and provides him with a reason to act. However, it is already worth noting that this concept of values as pre-existent to any kind of action contradicts the purely historical philosophies, in which values are acquired (if they are ever acquired) after the action has been completed. Analysis of rebellion leads at least to the suspicion that, contrary to the postulates of contemporary thought, a human nature does exist, as the Greeks believed. If there is nothing permanent in oneself worth preserving, why rebel? It is for the sake of everyone in the World that the slave asserts himself when he comes to the conclusion that a command has infringed on something in him which does not belong to him alone, but which is common ground where all men—even the man who insults and oppresses him—have a natural community. (The community of victims is the same as that which units victim and executioner. However, the executioner does not know this.) Two observations will support this argument. First, we can see that an act of rebellion is not, essentially, an egoistic act. Of course, it can have egoistic motived. #RandolphHarris 3 of 25
However, one can rebel equally well against lies as against oppression. Moreover, the rebel—once he has accepted the motives and at the moment of his greatest impetus—preserves nothing in that he risks everything. He demands respect for himself, of course, but only in so far as he identifies himself with a natural community. Then we note that rebellion does not arise only, and necessarily, among the oppressed, but that it can also be caused by the mere spectacle of oppression of which someone else is the victim. In such cases there is a feeling of identification with another individual. And it must be pointed out that this is not a question of psychological identification—a mere subterfuge by which the individual imagines that it is he himself who has been offended. On the contrary, it can often happen that we cannot bear to see offenses done to others which we ourselves have accepted without rebelling. The suicides of the Russian terrorists in Siberia as a protest against their comrades’ being whipped is a case in point. Nor is it a question of a feeling of community of interests. Injustices done to men who we consider enemies can, actually, be profoundly repugnant to us. There is only identification of one’s destiny with that of others and a choice of sides. Therefore the individual is not, in himself alone, the embodiment of the values he wishes to defend. It needs all humanity, at least, to comprise them. #RandolphHarris 4 of 25
When he rebels, a man identifies himself with other men and so surpasses himself, and from this point of view of human solidarity is metaphysical. However, for the moment we are only talking of the kind of solidarity that is born in chains. Many rebels do end up in chains. At the Friday night movie in prison, some sit suicidally depressed in the front row eating trustee popcorn. And there is dope. The lunch pail express, sideline of bribed guards who keep the flow of illegal contraband moving in and out. Prisons are a quest for the serpent who swallows his own tail. It is just a matter of connecting neural wires. Many people spend every free moment on the prison yard either at handball, yoga, or lifting metal weights to the point of pain-strain. Prisoners often talk about their case, their arrest, their trial, and the next destination. Everyone has a hope habit of one kind or another. You can even get to know the permanent work crew trustees. For the most part, they are older white-collar criminals with potbellies. Some trustees have big red calendars on the wall. Each day a number is removed. The big red arrow always points to tomorrow. However, there is no number for the current day. In confidence men’s terminology, when you wake up in the morning, that day is as good as over. Half of the prisoners, the young half, are dopers, guiltless spirits, Black and White, totally detached from the system, certain of their alchemical beliefs. #RandolphHarris 5 of 25
The alchemical magic spreads swiftly. After ten years, there are millions who choose the superstitious perspective, seeking to stay high. The prison guards are retired enlisted men. They act like motel clerks opening the dining room, locking and unlocking doors for the prisoners. They walk the tiers at night while inmates’ sleep; fatigued men with flashlights slipping mail under their cell doors. Their work centers around keys. The lawyers say that any day the California Supreme Court will grant some of these men bail. However, advisers often shrug skeptically. Often, guards get down on these men. They order them to the barbershop, search their cells, find dust, then orders them back to the barbershop for a closer trim, writes them up for petty misdemeanors. As prisoners swing high and happy down the cavernous hall of the main line, guards will often make them remove personal effects. Some of these men get an attitude and stand in the prison corridor looking at the guard, as the guard looks back at them dull with tired hatred before muttering, “Watch yourself.” Well, that is the basic confrontation of politics. The guard and the prisoner. Two men looking into each other’s eyes defiantly across the abyss of slavery. Everyone in the World is on the side of the guard or on the side of the prisoner. Police, lawyers, judges, prison guards. #RandolphHarris 6 of 25
Criminals are the opposing militia. The forces are exactly even. Law-and-order people control the press and the media of communication and education but they fool no one. At any moment, at least half of the World population is in open conscious opposition to the government. Most police accept that it is a war on crime. So do most prisoners. It is obvious, that in most cases, rebellion pays bad dividends. It can inevitably result in a sense of emptiness that often leads to alcoholism, drug addiction, bizarre religious practices, flagrant immortality, broken homes, incurable diseases, and despair. Sadly, many experience the high cost of putting what they call “my way” above “God’s way.” To live as if there is no God is foolish, for it leads to pain, despair, and eternal death. However, to live in the “fear of God” is wise, for it leads to satisfaction, rejoicing, and everlasting life. You must decide, so choose wisely! “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction,” reports Proverbs 1.7. When the client gives me nothing intimate, or self-expressive—it is then that I must draw on my own momentary reservoir to find within me my response to him—a clear, intimate expression of me in this moment with him. However, when the client is in the process of expressing himself to me, then I find within me chiefly my sense of his expression and I try to tell him with unmuddied simplicity what I understand him to feel and think. #RandolphHarris 7 of 25
It is just as important that I sense and state his experience as his (as purely as possible from his own frame of reference), as it is to make clear that my experiential self-expression are mine, when that is the case. Very often, when the client is in the course of expressing himself, a response that simply states what the therapist understands the client to think or feel is a powerfully effective response. Often it is the only possible helpful response. If anyone does–with schizophrenics and with many others, it is the therapist who will initiate the relationship, will begin open and expressive interaction, and will first express warmth, care, interest, and a person-to-person quality. If the therapist must sit passively, or argue intrusively, I do not think he is likely to form a relationship with an individual who does not already wish for therapy or for a relationship. The therapist’s moment-to-moment expressiveness largely determines the quality of the interaction, at least at first, and especially with unmotivated individuals. Even if the client is consistently silent or expresses only trivia, the therapist’s self-expression can make the interaction eventful, personal, and even expressive. The therapist’s expressions—the events occurring in himself—will concern the interaction and will deepen it, when they are spoken. Both persons tend to experience an eventful, open and personal interaction even while only one of them is verbalizing his felt side of the interaction. #RandolphHarris 8 of 25
In order to verify predictions, it is necessary to define success, that is, winners and losers. A winner is someone who succeeds in what he says he is going to do. A loser is someone who fails to accomplish what he sets out to do. A man who says: “I am going to Reno and gamble,” is only committed to getting there and betting, regardless of whether he wins or loses. If he says: “I am going to Reno and this time I am going to win,” then he comes out a winner is he wins and a loser if he does not, depending upon how much money he has in his pockets when he gets back on the pavement. A woman who gets a divorce is not a loser unless she has said “I will never get a divorce.” If she has declared: “Some day I am going to quit my job and I will never work again,” then her alimony will signify that she is a winner, because she has accomplished what she set out to do. Since she had made no statement as to how she would do it, no one can fault her with being a loser. Each language provides words that sensitize a person to those aspects of the World that are most important for survival in that place. Thus, we have only one word for snow, whereas Inuit people have many, corresponding with different qualities of snow, which indicate whether hunting or igloo building is possible. We do not see the World; rather, we “read” the meanings of what we see, just as we read the words in a book. These meanings are provided for us as we grow up by the person who teaches us to speak our “mother tongue.” #RandolphHarris 9 of 25
It is our mothers who give the first meanings to our World, who gives the World the “voices” with which it tells us of dangers and gratifications. In developing countries like Indonesia or India, each child learns three languages, each of which highlights some aspects of the World more than others, and which gives different meanings and emotional qualities to the perceived World. Thus, a child will learn the language of the village from his or her mother; in India or Indonesia, it will be one of the several hundred local languages, which differ so much that people fifty miles apart cannot understand one another’s mother tongues. At school an Indonesian child will learn Malay, and an Indian child will learn Hindi—both languages are the national tongue, which facilitates communication throughout the country. Finally, both Indonesian and Indians may learn English, which makes communication beyond national boundaries possible. In each case, the language that is spoken affects perception. In order really to perceive what is there in the World, a person will have to suspend language and really look and listen, to discern the reality beyond language. For many, to sustain an inner calm is not easy. Many a time, in test situations, he will fail. However, even when the negative, explosive, or depressive emotion asserts itself strongly, he is not to show it in behaviour no express it in speech. For this is a step toward that control of self, that impersonality, which is what the quest means. If mind influences body, body also influences mind. From the physical control he may proceed to the mental. #RandolphHarris 10 of 25
When calmness has been well practiced for a sufficient period, it will occasionally of itself lead the practiser into sudden brief and ecstatic experiences of a mystical character. He should calmly recognize that suffering has its allotted function to perform in the divine plan, that other people have their lessons to learn through it when they will learn in no other way, and that the spectacle of its operation should, in such cases, be met with intelligent understanding rather than with neurotic sentimentality. He should face the fact that many people will not learn from reason, intuition, or teaching and that no one can really liberate them from their sufferings except themselves. Every other kind of liberation is a false one. Others may effect it today only to see the same condition return tomorrow. He should not, in certain situations calling for hard decision, for instance, show unjustifiable weakness under the belief that he is showing forbearance, nor submit to antisocial egotism under the thought that he is practising love, nor abandon his highest duties for the sake of making a false and superficial peace with interfering ignorance, nor passively accept a flagrant wrong because God’s will must always be borne. The lower emotions and the moods they produce are his first enemies. Every antagonism and envy, every wrathful temper and animal lust, every self-injuring desire and socially harmful greed bars his way. And it will not move out of the way without a long fight. #RandolphHarris 11 of 25
This spiritual quest takes the aspirant through many moods. He will alternate at times between blank despair and exalted joy. Though naturally affected by these moods, he ought nevertheless to try to keep a certain balance even in their very midst, to cultivate a kind of higher indifference towards them, and patience towards their results. This can be achieved more easily by obtaining a firm conviction of the transient character of such moods. Both emotion and reason have their proper place in practical life, but in the philosophic life where the Quest is for truth alone and not for satisfaction, there is no place for emotion other than a secondary one. Its power over man is so great however that it will continually come into conflict with this ruling, it will struggle desperately to resist reason and to silence its voice, it will contradict the dictate of calm considered judgment and seek by sheer force to dominate the mind. Again and again the uprush of emotion will disturb the would-be philosopher and destroy his equanimity, thus rendering impossible a correct appreciation of the truth he seeks. The melancholy feeling that he is missing something joyous in life, that a happiness which so many others have captured is running away from him with the years, so one of the emotional snares likely to beset the aspirant’s path. #RandolphHarris 12 of 25
If he yields to its self-pitying suggestiveness, it will weaken his resolve and disturb his peace. From that it is only a step or two to descend into a painted and delusive animality. Those who waste themselves in emotional excesses weaken themselves spiritually, for the power of feeling is an essential part of the higher nature. With the pressures brought down upon them by his total philosophic effort, the grosser desires will gradually be flattened out anyway. If he deliberately and directly assists them to enter that condition, it will not be to his detriment. If we are to command our deeds, we must command our thoughts, but much more, we must command the emotional impulses behind those thoughts and those deeds. When he is tempted to be angry with some irritating person, he is faced with two choices: either to identify himself with this lower emotion or with his higher aspirations. If, following bad habit, he succumbs to the first, he weakens himself still further. If, following good resolve, he overcomes the temptation, he strengthens himself for the future. Strong emotional attachment to another person may only tighten the ego’s hold, may narrow, limit, warp, or prevent the seeing of the truth. This happens all-too-often in family relationships and in the affections of the young. It can even happen in guru-disciple relationships. #RandolphHarris 13 of 25
When it comes to relationships, it is the responsibility of the national leaders to forge that sword through their foreign policy. The purpose of this foreign policy must be the securing of weapons and finding allies. The state is only a result of human forces, only a work of our thoughts, but man is the force of the source itself and the creator of the thought. As the deputy of all humanity whose heart beats, for all mankind, our passion must be the World and future generations. At a time when everybody is bust erecting new Fatherlands, the Fatherland of the man who thinks without prejudice and can rise above his time is nowhere and everywhere. However, nationalism killed humanism. The nation and its sovereignty have become the new idols to which the individual has succumbed. With all the new technology, the revolution of the colonial peoples, communication by air, the radio, etcetera, have shrunk the globe to the proportions of one continent or, rather, one state as they existed one hundred- and seventy-years ago. The One World which is in the process of being born is, however, not one World because of the friendly and brotherly relations that exist among its various parts, but rather because of the fact that missiles can carry death and destruction to almost any part of the World in a matter of hours. The one World is one, so far, inasmuch as it is one potential battlefield, rather than a new system of World citizenship. #RandolphHarris 14 of 25
We live in one World, yet in his feelings and thoughts contemporary man still lives in the nation state. His loyalties are still primarily to sovereign states and not to the human race. This anachronism can only lead to disaster. It is a situation similar to that of the religious wars before religious tolerance and coexistence became an accepted principle of European life. If the One World is not to destroy itself, it needs a new kind of man—a man who transcends the narrow limits of his nation and who experiences every human being as a neighbour, rather than as a barbarian; a man who feels at home in the World. Why is this step so difficult? Man’s life begins in the womb. Even after birth he is still part of mother, just as primitive man was part of nature. He becomes increasingly aware of himself as separate from others, yet he is deeply drawn to the security and safety of his past. He is afraid of emerging fully as an individual. Mother, the tribe, the family—they all are “familiar.” The stranger, the one who is not familiar through the bonds of blood, customs, food, language, is suspected of being dangerous. This attitude toward the “stranger” is inseparable from the attitude toward oneself. As long as any fellow being is experienced as fundamentally different from myself, as long as he remains a stranger, I remain a stranger to myself, too. When I experience myself fully, then I recognize that I am the same as any other human being, that I am the child, the sinner, the saint, the one who hopes and the one who despairs, the one who can feel joy and the one who can feel sadness. #RandolphHarris 15 of 25
I discover that only the thought concepts, the customs, the surface are different, and that the human substance is the same. I discover that I am everybody, and that I discover myself discovering my fellow man, and vice versa. In this experience, I discover what humanity is, I discover the One Man. Until now the One Man may have been a luxury, since the One World had not yet emerged. If the One World is to live, now the One Man must emerge. Historically speaking, this may be a step comparable with the great revolution which was constituted by the step from the worship of many gods to the One God—or the One No-God. This step was characterized by the idea that man must cease to serve idols, be they nature of the work of his own hands. Man has never yet achieved this aim. He changed the name of his idols and continued serving them. Yet he changed. He made some progress in understanding himself, and tremendous progress in understanding nature. He developed his reason and approached the frontiers of becoming fully human. Yet in this process he developed such destructive powers, that he may destroy civilization before the last step is taken toward constructing a new humanity. #RandolphHarris 16 of 25
Indeed, we have a rich heritage which waits for its realization. However, in contrast to the men of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries who had an unfailing belief in the continuity of progress, we visualize the possibility that, instead of progress, we may create barbarism or our total destruction. The alternative of socialism or barbarism has become frighteningly real today, when the forces working toward barbarism seem to be stronger than those working against it. However, it is not the “socialism” or managerial totalitarianism which will save the World from barbarism. It is the renaissance of humanism, the emergence of the new West which employs its new technical powers for the sake of man, rather than using man for the sake of things; it is a new society in which the norms for man’s unfolding govern the economy, rather than the social and political process being governed by blind and anarchic economic interests. Until the joyful time comes when negative moods or thoughts have ceased to cross the threshold of his consciousness, man must struggle with them by a combination of different methods. First, his will must follow them at once after their entry and remove them forcibly. Second, his imagination and reason must attack them in the prayer period set aside each day for that purpose. Whether or not it is possible to attain a perfection of calmness that is secure against all assaults, it is surely possible to attain sufficient calmness to keep off many or most of the emotional disturbances and mental turmoil which derive from the petty incidents of everyday life. #RandolphHarris 17 of 25
The Sacramento Fire Department protects the lives and property of Sacramento residents and visitors by serving as fires responders to fire, public safety, medical emergencies, and other emergency related situations. “It was a five-alarm fire, a four-story building that had at one time been a manufacturing plant but now had a bar and a restaurant on the first floor and a menagerie of rooms upstairs. It was a gay bar, and the guy who owned the place was gay. The top three floors were his playground. The night of the fire he picked up this kid over at the park, took the kid out, wined and dined him. The kid wanted money, but the guy didn’t want to pay anything. So the kid beat him up and left him there in the building, left him for dead. He then set the fire to cover his behind. I was acting battalion chief at the time, and I covered the fire on the second alarm. The first-alarm company got there and found the guy. He was all bloody. They laid him on the sidewalk at the side of the bar, and he kept saying that the boy was still in there. The police sent the dogs in. They found the kid and chewed him up a bit, but the firemen got him out. The call that came in said they had a small fire on the second floor. Well, the first-alarm chief saw the smoke pumping out beams. No fire, but a lot of smoke coming out of the eaves on the fourth floor. He knew he had more than just a small fire, so he called for the second alarm. I was the second chief in and was assigned to the rear of the building. We were back there, and we had master streams in operation. About then the fire was blowing out all of the windows in the back and front and coming through the roof in one corner. #RandolphHarris 18 of 25
“About an hour later the majority of the fire was out, so we shut the big lines down to get inside and do some interior firefighting. I had the company stretched hand lines and inch-and-a-half up the aerial ladders and into the windows. I was at the top of the ladder, and there was a guy from X Engine, (who we will call Z), who was having trouble with his air mask. He was below me on the ladder. The department had just switched over to a new self-contained air mask, and we were having problems with this one fitting where the face piece connected to the regulator. Z did’nt have it just right. It kept popping loose on him. ‘Well, look,’ I said, ‘get your mask straightened out. I’m going to go inside, and when you get done bring your line up and I’ll meet you in there. I’ll see what we’ve got to do.’ So he went back down. I was on the fourth floor, and I looked into the window with my hand light to see the floor. It was black, all black. I straddled in, leg over windowsill, and had my feet on the floor. Real good sound floor, nice and solid. The darkness was pitch black, as black as it might be inside a collapsed mine shaft. I took two septs, and I started falling. I just started falling. Looking back on it when the doctor asked what happened and going back and looking at it after the fire, I figure out what had happened. But here I was, falling in this complete darkness. Halfway down, about thirty feet, I hit something, straddling it. #RandolphHarris 19 of 25
“Thirty feet and I stopped short between my legs. That is where I fractured my pelvis in for placed. I momentarily stayed in that position, but the momentum of my fall kept me going off there and down another thirty feet. I was now down five stories, and in the basement. I landed on my back in about three feet of water. I landed hard, and I broke my back in two placed. The doctor said that the mask on my back was what saved me. Without it I would have been killed. I had fallen down an elevator shaft. The building was originally a factory where they made automobile tires. The shaft was for one of those huge freight elevators that you could drive a care into, and take it up to different floors and have the tires changed on it. That window I had climbed into opened into the shaftway. The law says that windows opening into shafts must be barred, and I think it was originally barred, but the guy, when he bought the building, did all this renovation work up there, either on the sly or whatever. What I was stepping on was a floor that was probably three feet wide with a steel beam around it, and the car would come up and stop at that floor, that’s why it was still there. The elevator was caught in the fire and was burned out, like the whole bottom of the car was burned out. The only thing left of the car was the metal frame. It was the beam at the top of the elevator that I straddled and flipped off of at the second floor and fell through the elevator to the bottom, that second thirty feet. #RandolphHarris 20 of 25
“So I was lying in three feet of water. I couldn’t stand up, my legs wouldn’t move, nothing. I said to myself, calmly, ‘Well, I’ll just lie here.’ I’m lying there, then I realize I’m being pulled down. My coat is being saturated, and the weight of the coat started pulling me down, and down, and down. Suddenly, my nose is under water. I was trying to float, but I couldn’t because the coat was pulling me down and the boots were full of water and I couldn’t stand. I was beginning to drown. My regular job was captain of the rescue unit, and I knew about scuba and had a lot of water experience. I said, ‘Keep your cool, keep your cool. Don’t panic. Get your coat off.’ I was in no pain. I couldn’t feel a thing. I was just worried about drowning. I went completely under water then, knowing it was my only chance, unsnapped my coat, got one arm out and got the other arm out. The coat dropped away, the heavy mask canister with it. I thought that would save me. Then I started reaching out, and I touched this wall. It was an unfinished wall, just plain bricks. I put my fingertips in the mortar joints and started pulling my head up. I realized I was in a corner, and I’m like, ‘There’s got to be a way out of here.’ So I started going around like this, pulling with my fingertips. I hit another corner, made another turn, and there was a ladder there, a ladder in the wall. ‘Great,’ I said, ‘stay here and wait.’ The water was still cascading in from the streams, getting deeper and deeper. ‘Great’ I’m saying, ‘if the water rises, I’ll rise with it up the ladder.’ #RandolphHarris 21 of 25
The next thing was. The smoke started banking down. I said ‘Oh God. I’m going to suffocate.’ I started coughing, and I got down closer to the water. I was okay, I had this much room at first, and then the smoke was banking down farther and farther. I was down to the water again, my nose just touching it. Then I could hear the debris falling. The first thing I thought was that Z had done the same thing I did. I went back and started feeling around to see if he’s there. I heard people hollering up there. I heard Z holler in the window that the floor was going and that something was wrong. I still didn’t know where I was. I lost my portable radio on the way down. They found that hanging between the second and third floor where a piece of metal was sticking out. I fell and I just missed the metal, but it grabbed the radio and pulled it off my coat. It was hanging there. I lost my helmet, and they later found a piece of it, the plastic eye protection part melted. It had fallen into the fire on the second floor, which was still burning up there. Like I said, I hear all this debris falling, and I thought it was Z, and I went out to look to see if it was. I tool a little step and realized that I just couldn’t do it, I couldn’t stand. So I started calling to see if it was him. Nobody answered. Then I heard somebody holler, ‘There he is.’ This guy we will call A came down the ladder, and he started to touch me, and I said, ‘Don’t touch me, something is broken.’ He hollered, ‘Thrown a rope down here.’ I said, ‘Don’t tie any rope around me, something is broken and I can’t move my legs. I can’t feel anything.’ #RandolphHarris 22 of 25
“So they got the Stokes basket down there, and they floated me on that, then lifted me up and out. They put me in the medic unit, and I went right to the shock trauma center. I still don’t remember a lot of it. I don’t remember blacking out. There are times when I lie at home and I wake up and think, ‘Oh, that’s right, that happened.’ The first fall, I didn’t think that I was going to fall that far, it was only one floor. It’s not going to be even twenty feet. It’s not going to be that bad. It’s not going to be thirty feet. I’m not expecting that I’m going down a shaft, you know, right to the bottom. And when I hit, it felt like I was falling longer than I should have, but it’s pitch black and I can’t see anything, so I’m not expecting it or anything. It’s just falling into the darkness, and then when I hit, it was like, ‘Christ, oh God.’ The beam went right up into my groin. When I started falling, I was worrying about being impaled, about falling into some debris and having a two-by-four go through me. When I hit with my legs apart, the pain was intense through my groin. I was black and blue from my knees to my chest, a dark purple. My privates were swollen the size of grapefruits, because the actual impact was right there. I thought, Hey, this isn’t too bad, it’s over, I’m still alive. And then I realized that I was falling again. I still can’t see anything. I haven’t seen anything yet, no walls. I haven’t felt anything other than hitting the piece, and then I’m going again. I didn’t know I was in an elevator shaft. I had no perception of depth or how far I had fallen. I could have fallen five feet and hit something and then five more feet and been on the third floor. I had thought it was over, and I was falling again, and I realized, ‘No. It isn’t over yet.’ #RandolphHarris 23 of 25
“Another thirty feet. That’s when I did the complete somersault from straight up and down when I first fell, and the beam catapulted me over, and I was falling back first, and that’s when I impacted the water. And then it was like, ‘Oh damn, where am I now? What’s going on?’ In my scuba training I knew that when you first go down you’re apprehensive and you start breathing faster and you get yourself worked up, and you have to calm yourself down. That’s what I was doing. I was like, ‘Okay, keep your cool, you know you’re not dead, and you can get out of this.’ And then I started sinking, and I was like, ‘Oh God, you’re going to drown. You’ve got to get your coat off.’ The water was still coming in. I figure there were ten ladder pipes in service and maybe fire two-and-a-half-inch hand lines, that’s fifteen hoses shooting water in. Coming right down, you could hear it. It was like a waterfall. It’s like, okay, I have the coat off and I’m not going to drown because I have the ladder. Then I thought, ‘God, it’s filling up.’ But I felt good holding on to the ladder. If water keeps coming, I’d just float up with it, and I felt secure. Then the smoke started banking back down, and I started getting scared again. It was like you can’t breathe, coughing. Like, let’s get to the window. But, hell, I can’t move. I can’t go to a window. And I had no mask. So I got lower and lower, with my mouth and nose just above the water. It’s breathable there. It’s still pretty thick smoke, but it’s not something that I’m not used to. Then like I said, I heard the debris falling. #RandolphHarris 24 of 25
“I didn’t know whether anybody knew that I’d fallen. I didn’t know whether Z had come up the ladder or not. I had told him to some back up, but he could have gone down and had his assignment changed by another officer and just, you know, forgot about me. My relief wasn’t due until seven, and this was about four-thirty in the morning. I’m thinking, this is it, this is the way I’m going to die. Then finally I heard somebody holler, ‘There he is.’ Like I said, there was no pain at that time. They got me in a medic unit, and that is when I started feeling pain. After a long recovery time, I was still not back to work. I was on administrative leave. My detail was an office job until I could get myself back to where I could go back to firefighting. I’ll get there.” The Sacramento Fire Department works continually to upgrade fire apparatuses and technology, to educate the public in fire prevention, life safety and disaster preparedness, along with enforcing public safety codes, while ensuring a safe and secure environment to all citizens and visitors through professionalism, leadership, teamwork and partnership with all levels of Government. You can help save lives by donating 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 25 of 25
The Winchester Mystery House
One winter night while closing up The Winchester Mystery House, a caretaker had worked up a sweat. As he was walking down a flight of stairs, the wind grabbed him, lashing at he face, and immediately the sweat on his cheeks frosted over. His hands shook uncontrollably, the lights in the mansion began to flutter. Somewhere, almost muffled by the whine of the wind, he heard a distant clanking—a dull sound echoing across the mansion. He hesitated, tried to recognize the source, but failed. His legs ached with every step. His eyes and ear stung from the frigid blasts of wind he felt inside the house. He longed to rest, but finishing his job pushed him onward. As he reached the last step, he was greeted by what sounded like a bell tolling, warning the countryside of some unseen danger. He rested for a moment. Creeping among the twisting hallways of the mansion, he noticed for the first time that it looked rather peculiar.
He moved slower now, still confident, but careful. After a few moments, he stood motionless, watching the walls shake and curtains sway, chair scraping the floor and rattling against each other. A hazy vision of dancing skeletons and demons appeared. It’s called the house built by spirits, the demons announced, glistening worms squirming from their rotten, toothless mouths. Come join us, they invited, waving long, bony fingers. Come. And he wanted to go. They sounded so inviting. Suddenly, tears streamed down his face. The mansion came to life around him, breathing for the dead. The wind gained strength. The caretaker collapsed hard to the floor. For just one moment, an ivory sliver of moonbeam slipped through the darkness, quickly disappeared. The winter sunrise was still two hours away.
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/
Gladiators’ School
When we see the effect one person can have, it is perhaps no wonder that the Lord reminded us, “Remember the worth of souls.” Evolutionary agents chart the path to the future. They prefabricate future visions, build new hives, custom make plan-its, encourage migration, and teach scientific mastery of the nervous system as an instrument to decode atomic, molecular and subnuclear processes so as to attain immortality, cloning, and extraterrestrial existence. Evolutionary agents study history because understanding out roots is important. We cannot navigate into the future with any confidence unless we understand the rhythms and coherence of past voyages. A philosopher demonstrates understanding of the past by the accuracy of predictions about the future. After we trace our roots backward—back East—it is necessary to move westward into The Future. The time has come to catch the coming waves rolling into the future. They are going to be big ones. The evolution of intelligence involves three great change processes employed by deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). The DNA change processes: Mutation—A species getting smarter. Metamorphosis—Individuals getting smarter. Migration—Individuals moving to a new space to better live out new capacities. #RandolphHarris 1 of 21
Every time you improve, every time you change, every time a challenge increases your intelligence, you have to migrate to find a new space to live out your new capacity, to custom-make your new vision. Mobility is the classic stimulus for Intelligence Increase. Learn to be comfortable with the idea of change. Understanding how our intelligence has evolved reveals who we are. The strategy of evolution is to raise the intelligence of species. Do not let others scare you about change. We each pass through at least twelve volatile and dramatic changes during our lifetimes. Each of us possesses within our nervous systems twelve primitive brains that emerge in sequence as we develop—evolve if you will—from infancy to adult maturity. Cryptography decoding of the DNA helix suggest that each of us has twelve post-terrestrial brains scheduled to activate in sequence as we move into a prefabricate the post-hive future! Terrestrial theologians recognize the supernatural and otherworldly powers of great Evolutionary Agents like Jesus Christ that separate them in time and potency from the hive reality. “Supernatural” is jargon to describe anything beyond hive-platitude. Often Evolutionary Agents must endure long periods of quiescence and obscurity. These can be times of grave peril, obstruction or hive-disgrace. #RandolphHarris 2 of 21
Evolutionary Agents, also known as Out-Castes, have been selected on the basis of their capacity to face and survive experiences that would be judged unendurable by terrestrials. Agents’ childhoods abound in anecdotes of precocious sagacity, strength, and independence from hive-mortals. The scandalous escapades of Jesus Christ, the prowess of Hercules, the boyish wisdom of Einstein, the early verbal cleverness of the Galileo, and the patience of Robert Goddard are a few examples. Human beings, pre-selected from each gene pool, are having their neural circuits activated—usually without their awareness—to fabricate future realities as well as future gene pools. These individuals are genetically tempted to live much of the time in the future. They are, to a large extent, alienated from current hive realities. Unaware of their genetic assignment, many Agents feel agonizingly out of step. Some are shunned and even locked up by the gene pools they serve. Those who are lucky enough to recognize their post-human genetic caste attain a level of great prescience and humorous insight. They understand that they are time travelers, literally walking around in past civilizations—a most entertaining and effective role to play. While they have little power to change the ripples of history or the waves of evolution, they surf them with increasing skill. #RandolphHarris 3 of 21
As out-castes they are cast out, thrown forward, pushed up, above and beyond, contemporary hive realities. Such Evolutionary Agents are best described as Out-Castes. They are cast out, thrown forward, pushed up, above and beyond, contemporary give realities. As evolution accelerates increasing numbers of Evolutionary Agents are emerging. In the 1960s every gene pool cast out its Futique Agents. We are now learning to identify these out-castes and how to benefit from their contribution to the species. The word “Agent” has been in well-deserved ill-repute, especially in political, diplomatic and showbiz circles. It suggests an unscrupulous bureaucratic scoundrel devoid of creativity, aesthetics, principles or talent who, by virtue of shameless cunning, places himself in central positions of power and control. The raison d’etre of the agent is, of course, the deal. The deal involves the alchemy of link-up, package and connection. The agent’s tools are persuasion, negotiation, bluff, manipulation, and salesmanship. The Agent Caste has existed throughout human history, dating back to the Neolithic period when artifacts, abstract-concepts, symbols, intertribal barter systems, and paperwork began to replace direct face-to-face interactions within tribe exchanges. As left-hemisphere technological society emerged, each gene pool produced Agents to represent the assets and interests of the sperm-egg collective in dealing with other gene-colonies. #RandolphHarris 4 of 21
In Feudal times, agents represented the Crown of the Lord in dealing with serfs, peasants, tenants, traders and the agents of other Lords. The sordid odor attributed to agents probably dates back to their role as ruthless tax-collectors, dishonest traders, not to forget the many incidents in which agents betrayed their masters to seize power. The Caste of Agents took on more importance and a more attractive appearance during the emergence of democratic societies when agents became political representatives of the various classes, castes, guilds, brotherhoods, and gene pools which sought to share power in a democratic tradition. The history of civilization is the history of agentry, which is to be expected since agents cunningly arrange for the publication of the history books. Wars are won and lost by generals, but when the smoke clears and the bodies are dragged off the battlefield, the real bottom-line stuff happens—the peace treaties, the Councils of Nice, Trent, Versailles, Vienna, Geneva—all managed by agents. When the autobiographies are written and generals from both sides peddle their memoirs, it is the gents who make the deals. The high-points in the annals of agentry have always come at moments of species mutation. Who has not marveled at the astuteness of Algy Plankton, the renowned Paleozoic agent who put together the first oxygen commercial which led to shoreline migration? #RandolphHarris 5 of 21
In every act of rebellion, the rebel simultaneously experiences a feeling of revulsion at the infringement of his rights and a complete and spontaneous loyalty to certain aspects of himself. Thus, he implicitly brings into play a standard of values so far from being gratuitous that he is prepared to support it no matter what the risks. Up to this point he has at least remained silent and has abandoned himself to the form of despair in which a condition is accepted even though it is considered unjust. To remain silent is to give the impression that one has no opinions, that one wants nothing, and in certain cases it really amounts to wanting nothing. Despair, like the absurd, has opinions and desires about everything in general and nothing in particular. Silence expresses this attitude very well. However, from the moment that the rebel finds his voice—even though he says nothing but “no”—he begins to desire and to judge. The rebel, in the etymological sense, does a complete turnabout. He acted under the lash of his master’s whip. Suddenly he turns and faces him. He opposes what is preferable to what is not. Not every value entails rebellion, but every act of rebellion tacitly invokes a value. Or is it really a question of values? Awareness, no matter how confused it may be, develops from every act of rebellion: the sudden dazzling perception that there is something in man with which he can identify himself, even if only for a moment. #RandolphHarris 6 of 21
Rebellion can sometimes lead to trouble and incarceration. New prisoners generally remain in the Reception Center for an average of six weeks. After psychological testing, observation, and case worker interviews a decision is made as to the long-term prison. Usually, the counselors are the deciding voice. Sometimes, the government likes to throw the book at drug cases. The prison administration can deal with armed robbers, murderers, and normal criminals but not the defiant, guiltless, long-haired dopers. The guards say armed robbers and murderers have guts. Drug users are cowardly escapists. Each inmate had a file called “The Jacket.” Every unusual action by the prisoner is entered in The Jacket. However, the case worker’s recommendation is the key. I found out about the network of the California prison system, listening to sad vacation discussion about the selection of prisons continually reviewing the escape possibilities. Tehachapi Prison is in the mountains. Fresh air, no smog, new buildings. Too remote for visitors. They send young cons there. There are guns in the towers. It is escape-proof. The California Institute for Men, abbreviated CIM, offers colour TV, a golf course, a swimming pool. No Wall. They will never send you there with a ten-year federal hold. CIM is treatment oriented. They call you mister. #RandolphHarris 7 of 21
San Quentin is the Monte Carlo glamour, pleasures of the flesh, dope prison of the system. Near San Francisco. Plenty of action. Gambling, educational courses, and special visitors from San Francisco. They might 7send you to Quentin, making an example out of you. There is no escape from Quentin. Then there is Folsom Prison. The best joint is Folsom; any experienced confidence man will tell you that. No kids there. You do you time quietly. Then there is Soledad. Dread pit of solitude for the toughest gunsel muscle benders. They call it the “Gladiators’ School.” When you check in there, they issue you a sword and a garbage can lid. A continual fight to prove how tough you are. Homosexual rape of soft kids. Soledad. The name itself sends a chill through every spine. CMC East—California Men’s Colony, San Luis Obispo is the science-fiction prison. Four separate quads, TV monitors. Big brother eyes watch every move. It is called medium security, but do not believe it. Huey Newton was there. Gun towers with sharpshooters guards can kill at a mile range. No one escapes. CMC West—California Men’s, Colony, San Luis Obispo is the old man’s home. They send professional long-term prisoners there. It is a country club for elite confidence men. The best prison in the World. It is an easy escape. No wall. The highway runs nearby. They send only nonviolent prisoners there. #RandolphHarris 8 of 21
They will never send you to CMC West with two dimes hanging round your neck. There is a rule that with a federal hold, they cannot send you to minimum security. The State of California owes the Feds ten years of your life. The Vacaville main line is a mental hospital for violent maniacs. They might send you there to use your psychological training. It is maximum security. No one escapes from there. Then there are the Forestry Camps. That is ideal. You work up in the healthy mountains. There is plenty of dope, no fences, you work along the highway. It is simple to run away. Confidence men jump Forestry Camp all the time but they get caught. They always run back home. They get a Dear John letter from their wives or suspect their wives fooling around, they flip, take off, and hitchhike home. They walk in the door and bang the State Police are waiting. If you escape, the first thing they do is stake out your home. There is no chance they will send you to a Forestry Camp, not with all the time you brough here. They will take no chances with you. The Vacaville Prison is a bawdy sexual paradise for some. The beautiful queens of Vacaville dig the cells with mirrors. Before the salves rebel, they accept all the demands made upon them. Very often, they take orders, without reacting against them, which are far more conducive to insurrection than the one at which he balks. He accepted them patiently, though he may have protested inwardly, but in that he remained silent, he was more concerned with his own immediate interests than as yet aware of his own rights. #RandolphHarris 9 of 21
However, with loss of patience—with impatience—a reaction begins which can extend to everything that he previously accepted, and which is almost always retroactive. They very moment a slave refuses to obey the humiliating orders of his master, he simultaneously rejects the condition of slavery. The act of rebellion carries him far beyond the point he had reached by simply refusing. He exceeds the bounds that he fixed for his antagonist, and now demands to be treated as an equal. What was at first the man’s obstinate resistance now becomes the whole man, who is identified with and summed up in this resistance. The part of himself that he wanted to be respected he proceeds to place above everything else and proclaims it preferable to everything, even to life itself. It becomes for him the supreme good. Having up to now been willing to compromise, the slave suddenly adopts (“because this is how it must be…”) an attitude of All or Nothing. With rebellion, awareness is born. However, we can see that the knowledge gained is, at the same time, of an “all” that is still rather obscure and of a “nothing” that proclaims the possibility of sacrificing the rebel to this “All.” The rebel himself wants to be “all”—to identify himself completely with this good which he has suddenly become aware and by which he wants to be personally recognized and acknowledged—or “nothing”; in other words, to be completely destroyed by the force that dominates him. As a last resort, he is willing to accept the final defeat, which is death, rather than be deprived of the personal sacrament that he would call, for example, freedom. Better to die on one’s feet than to live on one’s knees. #RandolphHarris 10 of 21
Writing as shorthand + for O.K. and – for not-O.K., the convictions read: I + or I – ; You + or You –. The possible assortments of these give the four basic positions from which games and scripts are played, and which program the person so that he has something to say after he says Hello. I + You +. This is the “healthy” position (or in treatment, the “get well” one), the best one for decent living, the position of genuine heroes and princes, and heroines and princesses. People in the other position have more or less frog in them, a losing streak put there by their parents, which will drag them down again and again unless they overcome it; if they are not rescued by a miracle of psychiatric or self-healing, in extreme cases, they will waste themselves. I + You + is what the hippies were trying to tell the policeman when they gave him a flower. However, the I + is genuine or merely a pious hope, and whether the policeman will accept the + or will prefer to be – on this particular scene, is always in doubt. I + You + is something the person either grows into in early life, or must learn by hard labour thereafter; it cannot be attained merely be an act of will. I + You –. I am a prince; you are a frog. This is the “get rid of” position. These are the people who play “Blemish” as a pastime, a game, or a deadly procedure. They are the ones who sneer at their spouses, send their children to juvenile hall, and times war, and sit in groups finding fault with their real or fire their friends and retainers. They start crusades and some-imagined inferiors or enemies. #RandolphHarris 11 of 21
This is the “arrogant” position, at worst a killer’s, and at best a meddler’s for people who make it their business to help the “not-O.K. others” with things they do not want to be helped with. However, for the most part it is a position of mediocrities, and clinically it is paranoid. I – You +. This is psychologically the “depressive” position, politically and socially a self-abasement transmitted to the children. Occupationally, it leads people to live by choice on favours large and small and enjoy it with a vengeance, that being the poor satisfaction of making the other pay as much as possible for his O.K. stamp. These are melancholic suicides, losers who call themselves gamblers, people who get rid of themselves instead of others by isolating themselves in obscure rooming houses or canyons or by getting a ticket to prison or the psychiatric ward. It is the position of the “If Onlys” and “I Should Haves.” I – You –. This is the “futility” position of the Why Notters: Why not kill yourself, Why not go crazy. Clinically, it is schizoid or schizophrenic. These positions are universal among all mankind, because all mankind nurses at his mother’s breast or bottle and gets the message there, and later has it reinforced when he learns his manners, whether in the jungle, the slum, the condominium, or the ancestral halls. #RandolphHarris 12 of 21
Even in the small unlettered communities which anthropologists study for their “cultures,” where everyone is raised according to the same long-established rules, there are enough individual differences between mothers (and fathers) to yield the standard harvest. For winners, there are chiefs and medicine men, captains and capitalist who own a thousand head of cattle or are worth a hundred thousand yams. The losers can be found in the mental hospital at Papeete or Port Moresby or Dakar, or perhaps in Her Majesty’s Gaol at Suva. For each position already carries with it is own kind of script and its own kinds of endings. Even in this country, where there are ten thousand “cultures,” there are only a few endings, none different, really, from any other country’s. Because each person is the product of a million different moments, a thousand states of mind, a hundred adventures, and usually two different parents, a thorough investigation of his position will reveal many complexities and apparent contradictions. Nevertheless, there can usually be detected one basic position, sincere or insincere, inflexible or insecure, on which his life is staked, and from which he plays out his games and script. This is necessary so that he can feel that he has both feet on solid ground, and he will be as loath to give it up as he would the foundation of his house. #RandolphHarris 13 of 21
To take one simple example, a woman who thinks it very important that she is poor while others are rich (I — They +) will not give this up merely because she acquires a lot of money. That does not make her rich in her own estimation; it merely makes her a poor person who happens to have some assets. Her classmate who thinks it is important to be rich, in contrast to the underprivileged poor (I + They -) will not abandon her position if she loses her money; this does not make her a poor person, but merely a rich person who is temporarily embarrassed financially. This tenacity, as we shall see later, accounts for the life led by Cinderella after she married her prince, and it also accounts for the fact that men in the first position (I + You +) make good leaders, for even in the utmost adversity they maintain their universal respect for themselves and those in their charge. Thus, the four basic positions, I + You + (success); I + You – (arrogant); I — You + (depressive); and I – You – (futility), can rarely be changed by external circumstances alone. Stable changes must come from within, either spontaneously or under some sort of “therapeutic” influence: professional treatment, or love, which is nature’s psychotherapy. However, there are those whose convictions lack convictions, so that they have options and alternations between one position and another; from I + You + to I — You —, or from I + You — to I — You +, for example. These are, as far as position is concerned, insecure or unstable personalities. #RandolphHarris 14 of 21
Secure or stable ones are those whose positions, good or deplorable, cannot be shaken. In order for the idea of positions to be of any practical use, it must not be defeated by the changes and instabilities of the insecure. The transactional approach—finding out what was actually said and done at a certain moment—takes care of that. If A behaves at noon as though he were in the first position (I + You +), then we say that “A is in the first position.” If he behaves at 6.00pm as though he were in the third position (I – You +), then we say “In the noon setup A is in the first position under 6pm circumstances he is in the third.” From this we can conclude that A is insecure in the first position, and that if he has symptoms, they occur under special conditions. If he behaves under all circumstances as through he were in the first position, then we say that “A is stable in the first position,” from which we predict that A is a winner, that if he has been in treatment, he is now cured, and that he is game free, or at least that he is not under compulsion to play games, but has social control—the option of deciding for himself at each moment whether or not he wants to play. If B behaves under all circumstances as though he were in the fourth position, we say that “B is stable in the fourth position” from which we predict that B is a loser, that it will be difficult to cure him, and that he will be unable to stop himself from playing those games which prove that life is futile. All this is done by careful analysis of actual transactions engaged by A and B. #RandolphHarris 15 of 21
Once the predictions are made, they are easily tested by more observation. If later behaviour does not confirm them, then either the analysis was faulty or the theory of position is wrong and will have to be changed. If it does confirm the predictions, then the theory is strengthened. The evidence so far supports it. Reality is what we take to be real. This, in turn, is powerfully influenced by what significant other people have told us is true, real, and important in the World. We are continuously told by newspapers, comics, friends, and family members, movies and television programs about the way things are. Sometimes this influence is subtle; someone merely describes some aspect of the World to us, and we find that this description impels us to see that World as we were told it is. One teacher played a classroom game; she asked the children to pretend that blonde, blue-eyed children were evil. In time, the black-haired children came to loathe the blondes, who in turn felt inferior. Other people, then, can so influence one’s ways of perceiving, and of attaching meaning and value, that one loses one’s own autonomous perspective. If other people are strong, with high status, they may invalidate one’s own perspective on reality; the weaker person accepts the perspective of the stronger. #RandolphHarris 16 of 21
For example, when high school seniors in the minority are confronted by perceptions or judgments from a majority identified as college students, the high schoolers conform to the perceptions of the higher status college student. A person may need to disengage from other people and go into solitude, in order to separate other people’s perspectives on reality from one that is more truly individual. An excessive humility or a morbid self-depreciation may present a man from seeking outside help. This too is a manifestation of the ego, which cunningly uses such emotion to keep him away from a contract which threatens its rule. This quality of a continuous calmness—so highly prized by self-actualized Christians—is hard to come by but exceedingly precious when gained. He who possesses it, who is unfailingly one and the same not only toward others but also toward himself, becomes a rock of upholding strength in their crises, an oasis of hidden comfort in his own. This beautiful serenity makes many other qualities possible in his own development while leaving a benedictory afterglow of encouragement with all those who are still struggling with their own refractory emotions and passions. Emotion is an unreliable adviser but refined, purified, and liberated from egotism, it becomes transformed into intuition. As all worries and fears are aroused in the ego, they are lulled when, by meditation, the ego-thought is lulled and the mediator feels peace. However, when the ego is rooted out by the entire philosophic effort, they are then rooted out, too. #RandolphHarris 17 of 21
The Sacramento Fire Department educates and prepares Sacramento County residents and visitors for all emergencies, through public education, community outreach, and training. “It was a hot summer night. I had to work the day tour the following morning, and the phone rang just as I was getting into bed. A friend called me and told me to turn on the radio. Two firefighters had been killed in a fire, and the names weren’t released pending notifications. I called my own firehouse, where the grapevine had carried the news. I found out who they were. I drove down to the bar, then. It was early morning, an hour or so past midnight. I was thinking of X’s children. He had eight of them, and was known as a great father. Y, one of the partners, was there. He was crying, and put his arms around me, connecting, I guess, to the brotherhood of the job. We decided to drive up to the firehouse. There were guys off duty there, he knew, and they would appreciate the company. It was a classy thing, I thought. We went up to the top floor of Rescue A. Z was there, and a bunch of firefighters who had driven in as soon as they heard the news. Z told us they had been on the roof of a five-story tenement. A young firefighter who had been working on the top floor, the fifth, had been separated from his boss, a lieutenant who happened to be B, my friend and one of the most decorated men in the department. A back room was lit up completely, and C was caught. He was at a windowsill, yelling, and Rescue A heard him. The fire was lapping up the side of the building, licking over the rooftop. D tied his own small, forty-foot, personal rope to a pipe, attached it to his safety harness, and went over the rooftop. #RandolphHarris 18 of 21
“He knew there was not much he could do, because the personal role could not take the weight of two men. The manuals said it was to be used for escape purposes only, and in extreme emergencies. But D just wanted to be with C. X stepped right up, and he went over the roof, six stories above the solid concrete of the backyard below. Z was looking down over the roof parapet. They lowered him down to where D and C were now framed by the fire. ‘I have him,” X said to D. C held fast around X’s neck, and they both became one, a kind of pendulum escaping the fire. Then something happened, no one knew what. It was an imperfect rope. It just snapped, and X and C fell. It was hard for D to tell the story, we all knew, but we also knew that it was all in the family. It was the straight stuff, because there’s no point in holding back from the family. After having some Lipton’s ice tea, the men were relaxed a little. There was not much for any of us to do. Rescue A would have to prepare for the funeral, and all those official investigations and reports. But now the men just wanted to regain their breath. Z and I worked for a long time with a man named F, who had been promoted out of Engine G, and who was a good friend of X. Z suggested I call him, rather than have him hear the news in the morning from a radio, the Internet, or TV reporter. I went to the phone to dial his number, and it then struck me. What if he’s not home? What would his wife H think about a phone call at three in the morning? What momentary pain would that cause? I wanted to hang up as the phone was answered. I heard her voice, and the first thing I said was “This has nothing to do with F.” It turns out he was working that night as a covering officer, and had listened to the alarms as they came over the department radio. #RandolphHarris 19 of 21
“Then I thought, who was going to ring the bell of X’s house this sad night? And, what extraordinary pain would the ringing of that bell bring to so many people?” The Sacramento Fire Department provide fire protection, rescue, and medical services to the community. They also ensure the safety and well-being of residents through their dedicated efforts. You can help save lives by donating to the Sacramento Fire Department. The Spirit of America is often found in a deep sense of patriotism, where people show enduring loyalty to their country and their fellow citizens. This love for one’s country goes beyond just celebrating national holidays; it is seen in how people treat each other and work for the community every day. Please raise your children to love America. When patriotic feelings are genuine and inclusive, they can transcend individual interests and foster a collective identity. It is also important to teach your children to love God and Jesus Christ. American almost universally view God as a loving parent. The desire to emulate God’s love moderates religious disagreements among the great majority of Americans. Also, buying a car is a huge expense, so it makes sense to support America and buy a car made in this county. Luckily, there are plenty of American cars worth buying, whether you are looking for something reliable for your small family, a truck to haul your trailer, or a sports car. Furthermore, as patriotic Americans, everyone must make a commitment to respect laws, legal authorities, legal signage and signals, and courts. Imagine if everyone in your community decided that they did not want to be bothered by traffic laws and signals, for example. The streets in your community would quickly become a chaotic and less safe place. #RandolphHarris 20 of 21
The young should honour their elders as “superiors in age and gifts. Contrary to the way of the World, we put a premium on age, not youth. We value the wisdom that comes from life experience. Seniors should strive to be worthy of such honour, walking in faith, love, and wisdom. And youth should remember to take their education seriously. It will help them achieve financial stability. 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. Children need to know that having faith in the Saviour and following Him will help them receive peace in this troubled World. We are grateful for the opportunities we have. Children need to experience the Light of Christ so they can choose light and resist the darkness. There are two kinds of inner peace. The first is somewhat like that which the ancient Stoics cultivated: the result of controlling emotions and disciplining thoughts, the result of will and effort applied to the mastery of self. It brings with it, at best, a contentment with what one has, as least, a resignation to one’s lot. The second is much deeper, for it comes out of God. It is the blessed result of Divine Grace liberating one from the craving for existence. To attain this inner equilibrium, the emotions need to be brought under control. It is not enough to repress them by will alone: they need also to be understood psychologically in a far deeper sense than the academic one. It is not enough to analyse their obvious surface causes and workings: their relationship to the real self at the centre of being must become quite clear. The “I” who experiences them must be sought. #RandolphHarris 21 of 21
The Winchester Mystery House
On occasion, caretakers are left alone in The Winchester Mystery House to close the mansion up. During the summer, it does not bother some of them because as they are closing the windows, they can hear sounds from the street and do not feel alone. However, when the chills of autumn set in, and the windows have to be closed to keep it out, one of the caretakers because gradually aware that he was not really alone on those lonely nights. One particular night, early in his employment at the house, he was alone and heard rapid, firm footsteps starting at the front door, inside the house, and coming through the parlor and the dining room, and finally approaching the room he was in down the hall. He leapt out into the hall, wondering with sheer terror what the intruder would do. However, no one came. More to calm himself than because he really believed it, the caretaker convinced himself that he must have been mistaken about those footsteps. It was probably someone in the street. With reassuring thoughts, he continued to lock up the mansion. The next day, he did not tell anyone about the nocturnal event. After all, he did not want them to think they hired a strange man! However, the footsteps returned, night after night, always at the same time and always stopping abruptly at the morning room. Rather than facing his employers with the allegation that he was working in a haunted house, he bravely decided to face the intruder and find out what this was all about.
One night he deliberately waited for the new familiar brisk footfalls. The clock struck nine, then nine-thirty. In the quiet of the night, he could hear his heart pounding in his chest. Then the footsteps came close, closer and closer, until they got to the entryway of the morning room. At this moment, he snapped on the light, and tore the door wide open. There was nobody there, and no retreating footsteps could be heard. He tried it again and again, but the invisible intruder never showed himself once the door was opened. The winter was bitterly cold, and they were in the habit of having two caretakers close up the house at night. One night the additional caretaker left the basement and said, “Why were you walking around in the freezing basement and didn’t answer when I called out to you?” Of course he had not been down in the basement, and told her as much. Then they discovered that she, too, had heard footsteps, but had thought it was him walking restlessly about the basement. She heard the footsteps whenever she was in the basement, and they would suddenly cease, but no one would be around. Since everything was always securely locked, and countless attempts to trap the ghost had failed, the caretakers shrugged and learned to live with this peculiar boarder. Gradually the steps became part of the atmosphere of the Victorian house, and the terror began to fade into the darkness of night.
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/
Departing Seniors and the House of Secrets
The receptivity of the masses is extremely limited, their intelligence is small, but their power of forgetting is enormous. In consequence of these fact, all effective propaganda must be limited to a very few points and must harp on these in slogans until the last member of the public understands what you want him to understand by your slogan. Each person, in addition, has a preconscious life plan, or script, by which he structures longer periods of time—months, years, or his whole life—filling them with ritual activities, pastimes, and games which further the script while giving him immediate satisfaction, usually interrupted by periods of withdrawal and sometimes by episodes of intimacy. Scripts are usually based on youthful illusions which may persist throughout a whole lifetime; but in more sensitive, perceptive, and intelligent people these illusions dissolve one by one, leading to the various life crises described by Erik Erikson, which include trust versus mistrust, autonomy versus shame and doubt, initiative versus guilt, industry versus inferiority, identity versus confusion, intimacy versus isolation, generativity versus stagnation, and integrity versus despair. #RandolphHarris 1 of 28
Among these crises are the adolescent reappraisal of parents; the protests, often bizarre, of middle age and the emergence of philosophy after that. Sometimes, however, overly desperate attempts to maintain the illusions in later life lead to depression or spiritualism, whole the abandonment of all illusions may lead to despair. Time structuring is an objective term for the existential problem of what to do after saying Hello. What follow is the attempt to answer this question by observing what it is that people do after they say Hello, and by inserting a few hints of what might be. This can be profitably done by investigating the nature of life scripts and the course of their development. The destiny of every human being is decided by what goes on inside his skull when he is confronted with what goes on outside his skull. Each person designs his own life. Freedom gives him the power to carry out his own designs, and power gives him the freedom to interfere with the designs of others. Even if the outcome is decided by men he has never met or germs he will never see, his last words and the words on his gravestone will cry out his striving. #RandolphHarris 2 of 28
If by great misfortune he dies in dust and silence, only those who know him best will get the slogan right, and all outside the private chambers of friendship, marriage, and medicine will see him wrong. In most cases he had spent his life deceiving the World, and usually himself as well. Each person decides in early childhood how he will live and how he will die, and that plan, which he carries in his head whenever he goes, is called his script. His trivial behaviour may be decided by reason, but his important decisions are already made: what kind of person he will marry, how many children he will have, what kind of bed he will die in, and who will be there when he does. It may not be what he wants, but it is what he wants it to be. Sarah was a devoted wife and mother, but when her youngest boy got extremely sick, she realized to her horror that in the back of her mind was an idea, a picture, or perhaps even a wish that the much-loved son would die. It reminded her of the time when her husband was overseas with the army and the same thing had happened. She was haunted by an eerie vision that he would get killed. #RandolphHarris 3 of 28
In both cases she pictured herself in terrible grief and affliction. This would be her cross to bear, and everyone would admire the way she bore it. Q. What would happen after that? A. I never got that far. I would be free, and then I could do what I wanted to. Start over. When Sarah was in grade school she had many adventures with her classmates, and the guilt of that had been with her ever since. The death of her son or husband would be a punishment or an expiation for this, and would free her from her mother’s curse. She would no longer feel like an outcast. People would exclaim: “Isn’t she courageous!” and acknowledge her as a full-fledged member of the human race. Throughout most of her her life she had had this tragic cinema planned out and pictured in her mind. It was the third act of her life drama, or script, as written in her childhood. Act I: Guilt involving pleasures of the flesh and Confusion. Act II: Mother’s Curse. Act III: Expiation. Act IV: Release, and a New Life. However, in reality she was leading a very conventional life, in accordance with the teachings of her parents, and doing what she could to keep her loved ones healthy and happy. This was counter to the plot of her script—a counterscript—and was certainly not as dramatic or exciting. #RandolphHarris 4 of 28
A script is an ongoing life plan formed in early childhood under parental pressure. It is the psychological force which propels the person toward his destiny, regardless of whether he fights it or says it is his own free will. Examples of this can be seen in the 2019 film Max Winslow and the House of Secrets and in the 2023 film Departing Seniors and the 2017 movie 911 starring Charlie Sheen. A real persons may be defined as one who acts spontaneously in a rational and trustworthy way with decent consideration for others. One who follows a formula is a not-real, or unreal, person. However, since these seem to constitute the bulk of humanity, it is necessary to try to learn something about them. These studies indicate that perhaps it is possible to observe cause and effect in counseling and psychotherapy. They are actually the first studies to endeavour to isolate and measure the primary change-producing influences in counseling. Whether they are still further confirmed by later research, or whether they are contradicted or modified by future studies, they represent pioneering investigations of the question, “What really makes the difference in counseling and psychotherapy?” And the answer they give is that it is the attitudes provided by the counselor, the psychological climate largely created by him, which really makes the difference, which really induces change. #RandolphHarris 5 of 28
There is another highly practical significance to these studies. They indicate quite clearly that, by assessing a relationship early in its existence, we can to some degree predict the probability of its being a relationship which makes for growth. It seems to be quite within the range of possibility that in the not-too-distant future we will acquire an increasingly accurate knowledge of the elements which make for constructive psychological development, just as we have in the realm of nutrition acquired an increasingly accurate knowledge of the elements which promote physical growth. As this knowledge accumulates, and as our instruments grow sharper, then there is the exciting possibility that we may be able, relatively early in the game, to predict whether a given relationship will actually promote or inhibit individual psychological growth and development, just as we can assess the diet of a child and predict the extent to which this diet will promote or inhibit physical growth. In this connection the disturbing finding that an inadequate interpersonal relationship can have a negative effect on personal development, at least in the case of highly disturbed individuals, makes such early assessment of a relationship an even more challenging possibility and responsibility. #RandolphHarris 6 of 28
In principle the provocations for resistance are the same in self-analysis. Here, however, it is not the analyst’s interpretations but the person’s own encroachment on a painful insight or implication that provokes a resistance. Furthermore, the provocation that may lie in the analyst’s behavior is lacking. If the responses to them are correctly analyzed, this is an advantage of self-analysis to some extent, though it should not be forgotten that these provocations can prove to be most constructive. Finally, in self-analysis the experiences of daily life seem to have a greater power to produce a blockage. This is readily understandable: in professional analysis the patient’s emotions are largely concentrated on the analyst, because of the importance he has assumed for the time being, but such a concentration is lacking when analysis is undertaken alone. The ways in which resistances express themselves in professional analysis may be roughly grouped under three headings: first, an open fight against the provoking problem; second, defensive emotional reactions; and third, defensive inhibitions or evasive maneuvers. Different though they are in form, essentially these various expressions merely represent different degrees of directness. #RandolphHarris 7 of 28
In illustration let us assume with a patient who has a compulsive striving for absolute “independence” the analyst starts to tackle his difficulties in relationships with people. The patient feels this approach as an indirect attack upon his aloofness and therefore on his independence. Only if the goal is to improve his human relationships, in this he is right because any work at the difficulties he has with people is meaningful and will help him toward a greater friendliness and a feeling of solidarity with others. The analyst may not even have these goals consciously in mind; he may believe that he merely wants to understand the patient’s timidity, his provocative behaviour, his predicaments with women. However, the patient senses the approaching danger. His resistance may then take the form of an open refusal to tackle the difficulties mentioned, a frank declaration that he does not want to be bothered with people anyhow. Or he may react with distrust of the analyst, suspecting that the latter wants to impose his standards upon him; he may believe, for instance, that the analyst wants to execute on him a distasteful gregariousness. Or he may simply be listless toward the analytical work: he is late for his appointment, nothing much occurs to him, he changes the subject, he has no more dreams, he swamps the analyst with dreams so involved that their meaning is unintelligible. #RandolphHarris 8 of 28
In addition to the issue of self-consciousness versus spontaneity, there are two other views of the concept of divided self that are of great consequences: the multiple self and the two sides of the brain. One of the strangest forms of adjustment to emerge in our times centers about the person who has not merely divided into two selves but into several selves. The most dramatic accounts of this phenomenon are found in the books The Faces of Eve and Sybil, both of which are true histories of individuals with multiple personalities. Also, the film 2017 film Cabin 28, which is based on a true story, is another great example. One may have sympathy with a multiple-selved person in the light of the classic work of Kelly identifying the need for self-consistency as being the fundamental drive. Neither of the two, Eve or Sybil, was able to function constructively as long as the “person” kept switching identities or consciousness of self. The phrases that speak of this phenomenon have now become standard in our language, “putting it all together,” “getting my act together,” “getting my head together.” While Eve had three selves, Sybil had sixteen, each a distinct personality. Other psychiatrists have since reported similar conditions in rare instances, and one might predict that this phenomenon of divided consciousness will become more frequent, since many of the psychoses seem to have cultural or temporal connections—that is, they are products of the social situation. Something in our divided society seems to favor the emergence of this behaviour syndrome. #RandolphHarris 9 of 28
In sharp contrast to the previous logical, philosophical, or psychological views of divided consciousness is the position of Orenstein that each side of the brain controls widely differing functions. Both the structure and the function of the two “half brains” in some part underlie the two modes of consciousness which simultaneously coexist within each one of us. Although each hemisphere shares the potential for many functions, and both sides participate in most activities, in the normal person the two hemispheres tend to specialize. The left hemisphere (connected to the right side of the body) is predominately involved with analytic, logical thinking, especially in verbal and mathematical functions. Its mode of operation is primarily liner. This hemisphere seems to process information sequentially. This mode of operation of necessity must underlie logical thought, since logic depends on sequence and order. Language and mathematics, both left-hemisphere activities, also depend predominately on linear time. The right hemisphere (again, remember, connected to the left side of the body) seems specialized for holistic mentation. Its language ability is quite limited. This hemisphere is primarily responsible for our orientation in space, artistic endeavour, crafts, body image, recognition of faces…the right hemisphere is more holistic and relational. #RandolphHarris 10 of 28
Ornstein and others have suggested that the existence of the two functions implies the need for developing both sides and for seeing these as complimentary functions rather than as polarities in the human being. The high-level-functioning person will effectively utilize both functions in work and lifestyle. There are many other views that should be considered. A third viewpoint needs to be mentioned, even though its full exposition is well beyond the scope of this report. The relationship between self or self-consciousness and the brain, considered as a physiological entity, has been fully explored in a rare dialogue between two distinguished thinkers, one, Karl R. Popper, a philosopher, and the other, Sir John Eccles, a brain researcher. Both are dualists and espouse the separate existence of mind and brain. Eccles describes their view: “According to the dualist-interactionist philosophy presented…, the brain is a machine of almost infamous complexity and subtlety, and in social regions, under appropriate conditions, it is open to interaction with…the World of conscious experience. Around the beginning of the 20th century, Dr. Freud’s theories—even though they may not all have been correct—challenged existing mores and thoughts; they necessarily attracted people with a critical mind and were part of the critical movement which existed in other spheres of intellectual, political, and artistic life in Western society. #RandolphHarris 11 of 28
However, by 1930 the social mores had changed (to some extent under the influence of psychoanalysis, but mainly through the development of a consumer society which encourages consumption in all spheres and discourages the frustration of desires). Pleasures of the flesh were no longer taboo; and to speak freely of incestuous wishes, of perversions involving pleasures of the flesh, and so on, ceased to be shocking for the urban middle class. All these topics, which an average “decent” person would not even have dared think about around 1910, lost their tabooed qualities and were accepted as the latest and not particularly exciting results of “science.” In several ways psychoanalysis, instead of challenging society, conformed to it, not only in the obvious sense that since Dr. Freud’s Future of an Illusion and Civilization and Its Discontent, psychoanalysts, with very few exceptions, did not produce any social criticism; but on the contrary, the vast majority of psychoanalysts represented urban middle class attitudes and tended to consider as neurotic anyone who deviated from this attitude, either to the left or to the right. Very few psychoanalysts had any serious political, philosophical, or religious interests beyond those customary in the urban middle class. This very fact points to another aspect of the deterioration of psychoanalysis: instead of being a radical movement, it became a substitute for being a radical movement, it became a substitute for radicalism in politics and religion. #RandolphHarris 12 of 28
Its adherents were people who, for one reason or another, were not interested in serious political or religious problems, and thus whose lives were lacking in the meaning such interests had given to former generations. Yet, since man has a need for some philosophy which gives meaning to his life, psychoanalysis was very handy for this class. It presumed to give an all-embracing philosophy of life (even though Dr. Freud had denied such an intention explicitly). Many a psychoanalyzed person believed that he had solved all the riddles of life by means of the concepts of the Oedipus complex, the fear of castration, etcetera; that if the whole World could be psychoanalyzed, or at least all its leaders, there would be no serious political problems left for man to solve. When he enjoined his disciples to love their neighbours as themselves, what did Jesus Christ mean? Did he mean the sentimental, emotional, and hail-fellow-well-met attitude which the churches teach? How could he when in order to become what he was, he had once to hate and turn aside from that part of himself, the lower part—that is, the ego and the animal nature—which is mostly what neighbours show forth? #RandolphHarris 13 of 28
If His disciples were taught to hate, and not to love, their egos, how then could they love the ego-dominated humanity amidst which they found themselves? The injunction “Love thy neighbour” has often led to confusion in the minds of those who hear or read it, a confusion which forces many to refuse to accept it. And they are the ones who do not understand its meaning, but misinterpret it to mean “Like thy neighbour!” The correct meaning of this age-old ethical injunction is “Practise compassion in your physical behaviour and exercise goodwill in your mental attitude towards your neighbour.” Everyone can do this even when he cannot bring himself to like his neighbour. Therefore, this injunction is not a wholly impracticable one as some believe, but quite the contrary. Whoever imagines that it means the development of a highly sentimental, highly emotional condition is mistaken; for emotions of that kind can just as easily swing into their opposites of hate as remain what they are. This is not love, but the masquerade of it. Sentimentality is the mere pretense of compassion. When it is put under strains, it breaks down, whereas genuine compassion will always continue and never be cancelled by them. #RandolphHarris 14 of 28
True love towards one’s neighbour must come from a level higher than the emotional and such a level is the intuitive one. What Jesus Christ meant was, “Come into such an intuitive realization of the one Infinite Power from which you and your neighbour draw your lives that you realize the harmony of interest, the interdependence of existence which results from this fact.” What Jesus Christ meant, and what alone he could have meant, was indicated by the last few words of his injunction, “as thyself.” The self which they recognized to be the true one was the spiritual self, which they were to seek and love with all their might—and it was this, not only the frail ego, which they were also to love in others. The quality of compassion may easily be misunderstood as being mere sentimentality or mere emotionality. It is not these things at all. They can be foolish and weak when they hide the truth about themselves from people, whereas a truly spiritual compassion is not afraid to speak the truth, not afraid to criticize as rigorously as necessary, to have the courage to point out faults even at the cost of offending those who prefer to live in self-deception. Compassion will show the shortcoming within themselves which is in turn reflected outside themselves as maleficent destiny. #RandolphHarris 15 of 28
A valid formula will produce successful results every time and for everyone. You just must follow it. Try this one and see. Life provides a wonderful opportunity to seek our talents and interests. It is well to remember, however, that “all have not every gift given unto them; for there are many gifts, and to every man is given a gift by the Spirit of God,” reports Doctrine and Covenants 46.11. In our searching, it is important to discover skills we should develop. Once we have decided what we really want to do, the Lord has given us a formula for achieving our eternal and temporal goals: “For He will give unto the Faithful line upon line, precept upon precept; and I will try you and prove you herewith,” reports Doctrine and Covenants 98.12. The Lord reminds us that real success will exclusively come only to the faithful—those who have sincere determination to achieve their goal. Learning is a slow process and comes line upon line, one step at a time. The Lord offers kind encouragement when He says, “Wherefore, be not weary in well-doing, for ye are laying the foundation of a great work. And out of small things proceedeth that which is great,” reports Doctrine and Covenants 64.33. We must learn to be patient with ourselves while pushing to new levels of achievement or knowledge. It is important to take time occasionally to remind ourselves of what we are trying to do. #RandolphHarris 16 of 28
We are to be tried. As we pursue our goals, we may meet difficulties or distractions. Other people may ridicule our efforts. Or maybe we will find it difficult to understand or use what we have learned. There may even be temptations to give up. However, if we can just persist, the proof or benefits of our efforts will eventually come to us, which is the final part of the formula. In some cases, the rewards may be improved skills or greater knowledge. Perhaps we will be better qualified for a good job. Of utmost importance in using this process is when we use it to live as the Lord has taught us, our vision and determination will be good. Those who first seek the kingdom of God can “receive revelation upon revelation, knowledge upon knowledge, that thou mayest know the mysteries and peaceable things—that which bringeth joy, that which bringeth life eternal,” reports Doctrine and Covenants 42.61. As you do, you will find more self-confidence and increased faith in the Lord. You will find you do not really understand a gospel principle until you live it. Paying tithing may be difficult for some even though the Lord had made great promises to those who do so. When it comes into a person’s mind and heart to pay an honest tithing out of appreciation, love, and obedience, then one begins to understand what the Lord has been promising him. #RandolphHarris 17 of 28
Although concrete economic and strategic interests, such as Chinese trade and the vital necessity of sea power, were the prominent issues in the imperial debate, the movement took its rationale from more general ideological conceptions. The appeal of Anglo-Saxonism was reflected in the adherence to it of political leaders of the expansion movement. The idea of inevitable Anglo-Saxon destiny figured in the outlook of Senators Albert T. Beveridge and Henry Cabot Lodge and of John Hay, Theodore Roosevelt’s Secretary of State, as well as the President himself. During the fight for the annexation of the Philippines, when the larger question of imperial policy was thrown open for debate, expansionists were quick to invoke the law of progress, the inevitable tendency to expand, the Manifest Destiny of Anglo-Saxons, and the survival of the fittest. Before the Senate in 1899, Beveridge cried: “God has not been preparing the English-speaking and Teutonic people for a thousand years for nothing but vain and idle self-admiration. No! He has made us the master organizers of the World to establish system where chaos reigns…He has made us adepts in government that we may administer government among savages and senile peoples.” #RandolphHarris 18 of 28
In the most memorable of his imperialist exhortations, “The Strenuous Life” (1899), Theodore Roosevelt warned of the possibility of national elimination in the international struggle for existence: “We cannot avoid the responsibilities that confront us in Hawaii, Cuba, Porto Rico, and the Philippines. All we can decide is whether we shall meet them in a way that will redound to the national credit, or whether we shall make of our dealings with these new problems a dark and shameful page in our history…The timid man, the lazy man, the man who distrusts his country, the over-civilized man, who has lost the great fighting, masterful virtues, the ignorant man, and the man of dull mind, whose soul is incapable of feeling the mighty lift that thrills “stern men with empires in their brains”—all these, of course, shrink from seeing the nation undertake its new duties. I preach to you, then, my countrymen, that our country calls not for the life of ease but for the life of strenuous endeavour. The twentieth century looms before us big with the fate of many nations. If we stand idly, if we seek merely swollen, slothful ease and ignorable peace, if we shrink from the hard contests where men must win at hazard of their lives and at the risk of all they hold dear, then the bolder and stronger peoples will pass us by, and will win for themselves the domination of the World.” #RandolphHarris 19 of 28
John Hay found in the impulse to expand a sign of an irresistible “cosmic tendency.” “No man, no party, can fight with any chance of final success against a cosmic tendency; no cleverness, no popularity avails against the spirit of the age.” “If history teaches any lesson,” echoed another writer a few years later, “it is that nations, like individuals, follow the law of their being; that in their growth and in their decline, they are creatures of conditions in which their own volition plays but a part, and that often the smallest part.” The question of the Philippines was sometimes pictured as the watershed of American destiny; our decision would determine whether we should undergo a new expansion greater than any in the past, or fall back into decline as senile people. Said John Barrett, former minister to Siam: “Now is the critical time when the United States of America should strain every nerve and bend all her energies to keep well in front in the mighty struggle that has begun for the supremacy of the Pacific Seas. If we seize the opportunity we may become leaders forever, but if are laggards now we will remain laggards until the crack of doom. The rule of the survival of the fittest applies to nations as well as to the animal kingdom. It is cruel, relentless principle being exercised in a cruel, relentless competition of mighty forces; and these will trample over us without sympathy or remorse unless we are trained to endure and strong enough to stand the pace.” #RandolphHarris 20 of 28
Among the conditions which make victory for President Trump of a new orientation a real possibility is the fact that the middle class has begun to listen and to be moved. Several elements have made this possible: material affluence and the promise of the Platinum Plan in the African American communities has allowed the middle class to have the experience that more consumption is not the way to happiness. A higher educational level brings them into contact with new ideas and makes them more responsive to rational argument. Their comfortable economic situation makes them more aware of the many personal problems which they cannot solve. In the back of their minds is, often unconsciously, the question: Why is it that we, having everything one could wish, are unhappy, lonely, and anxious? Is there something in our way of life, in the structure or value system of our society, which is wrong? Are there other and better alternatives? In addition, there is another important factor: the relationship of youngsters to their parents. It has happened again and again in recent years that young people from twelve to twenty have confronted their parents with their own doubts about the sincerity of what is preached or about the sense of what is done, and many parents have been influenced by their children. #RandolphHarris 21 of 28
While one might say that it is a regrettable sign that parents do not believe in either an authoritarian or a progressive value, this lack of belief has at least now the great advantage that they can be converted by their children, who, having gone through the experience of disappointment and, not yet having acquired a resignation to falsehood and double-talk, confront their parents with a deep contradiction within their own lives, very often open their eyes and, not rarely, stimulate them and activate them to a more sincere and less hopeless way of looking at the World. Some have even gained a new interest in political action of which they had been despairing before. Perhaps the most important factor among those which form the basis for the real possibility of change is one which is not given enough weight in the general discussion. I mean the power of ideas. It may be necessary to point out the difference between ideas and ideologies. Ideologies are ideas formulated for public consumption, satisfying the need of everybody to relieve his guilty conscience in the belief that he acts in favour of something which appears good or desirable. Ideologies are ready-made “thought-commodities” spread by the press, the orators, the ideologist in order to manipulate the mass of people for purposes which have nothing to do with the ideology, and are very often exactly the opposite. Such ideologies are sometimes manufactured ad hoc—for instance, when a war is made popular by being described as a war for freedom, or when religious ideologies are used to rationalize political status quo even though it may be in complete contrast to the genuine ideas of the religion in whose name the ideologies are preached. #RandolphHarris 22 of 28
By its very nature, the ideology does not appeal to active thought, nor to active feeling. It is like a pill which either excites or puts man to sleep. When he remarked in Mein Kampf that the best time for a public rally is the evening, when people are tired and most susceptible to influence, Mr. Hitler saw this very clearly. In contrast, the idea refers to what is real. It opens the eyes. It wakes men from their slumber. It requires them to think and to feel actively and to see something which they have not seen before. The idea has the power to awaken those who are exposed to it, provided it appeals to man’s reason. If the idea touches the people, it becomes one of the most powerful weapons because it creates enthusiasm, dedication, and increases and channels human energy. What matters is that the idea is not vague and general, but specific and enlightening and relevant to man’s needs. The force of ideas become all the greater in a situation where those who defend the status quo do not have ideas, and this is precisely the case of the present situation. By the very nature of our bureaucracy and of the kind of organization which we encourage, at best we obtain bureaucratic effectiveness but no ideas. If we compare our situation with that in the middle of the nineteenth century, the fact cannot be ignored that the romantics and the reactionaries of the nineteenth century were full of ideas, very often profound and attractive ones—even though they may have been used for purposes which did not fulfill what the ideas promised. #RandolphHarris 23 of 28
However, today there are no ideas which help the defenders of the status quo. The latter repeat the old formulae of free enterprise, individual responsibility, law and order, honor of country, etcetera, some of which are plainly in contrast to the reality to which they refer, and some of which are nothing but vague ideologies. It is a remarkable fact that today new ideas are to be found almost entirely among the people who are in favour of basic change of the status quo: scientists, artists, and farsighted men of business and politics. The great chance for those who want a new direction lies in the fact that they have ideas, while their opponents have outworn ideologies which may quiet people down but do not stimulate them or enhance their energies. It would be an oversimplification to say that, because the mass media support the establishment, they will block the publication of ideas which favour radical change. While the mass media are parts of the establishment, they also need customers and hence, just as the press needs to print news, they need to publish ideas which attract people, and they must face competition from new sources of news and discussion. Those who believe that the mass media are absolute obstacles to the spread of new ideas think in too doctrinaire and abstract a way and do not take account of the subtle realities which are inherent in the business of television, radio, and the press in a country like the United States of America. #RandolphHarris 24 of 28
What might hold true for a country where the mass media are completely controlled by the state does not hold true to the same degree for the mass media who need to sell their products. The spread of ideas fortunately is not entirely dependent on the favours of the mass media. The paperback and blogs and podcasts have changed publication methods drastically. Many publishers are willing to publish ideas which find enough readers—and that can be a small minority within the whole reading public—sometimes because they are interested in the idea itself, most of the time because they need to sell books, products, and other goods and services. A paperback for twelve dollars is accessible economically as any number of the mass-media magazines and can easily become a vehicle to spread ideas provided the test is interesting and attract attention. And most blogs and pod casts are free of charge and people really enjoy those also. If we must deny its most powerful manifestations, if we are taught to deny the body and ignore the senses, if we are to reject the natural satisfactions and renounce the aesthetic ones, life makes no sense. To deny Nature in the name of some narrow ascetic doctrine, to judge men and art by its standards, is to introduce unattractiveness into life, prejudice into affairs, and imbalance into character. Not in ascetic despisal of the flesh nor in fascinated enslavement to it will peace be found. #RandolphHarris 25 of 28
As one of the World’s largest accredited municipal fire agencies, the Sacramento Fire Department promotes excellence. They are recognized as a premier public service organization, respected, and admired by their peers and the community as the most diverse, innovative, and efficient public safety provider known to man. “I recently took the lieutenant’s test, and I passed the written. Then I had to take the oral. I don’t like the oral system. I was kind of nervous. The system is tough. You go in there. I’m there for fifteen minutes, and these three guys are sizing me up in fifteen minutes. They don’t know anything about me. They don’t know my credibility. They don’t know anything from the chief of the department about me. They don’t know if I’m an abuser of sick time. They have no idea what my background is. All they do is shoot nine questions at you, and you’re nervous, and you’ve got to answer them. If you don’t answer them right, or if they don’t like the way you look, I mean, my whole twenty years can be blown down the drain by these three guys. I would not evaluate a man’s career without knowing something about the man. I’m the only one who feels this way. In my twenty years I’ve taken make thirty-some sick days. I’m a professional firefighter. I do my job. If my chief and the twelve district chiefs had to say thumbs up or thumbs down on me, I know it would be thumbs up with every one of them. I’ve been through a lot of stuff. I’ve received burns. I was caught in a backdraft. I’ve been hospitalized. I recoeved the medal of valor for rescues. #RandolphHarris 26 of 28
“They don’t know all this. All they’re judging me on is nine questions, and I’m hesitating, I’m nervous. And they could blow my whole life down the drain.” No one must go through life’s challenges alone. Jesus Christ understands perfectly what you are going through and will support you. Because God loves you and wants you to become your best, He sent His perfect Son to Earth to redeem you. An important part of Jesus Christ’s mission was to be our advocate. He overcame suffering and affliction so that He would know how to support us. If you turn to God in prayer and ask for guidance, He knows you perfectly and knows how to help you. As you turn to God and Jesus Christ, your faith will be strengthened and act as an anchor in the storms of life. Christ’s gospel can teach you the way to lasting joy, and the truths taught in His Church can bring peace and hope. The Sacramento Fire Department is committed to creating safe and resilient communities through prevention, preparedness, and effective emergency response. Friends, family, and the community can be a wonderful source of support and happiness. You can help save lives and property by donating to the Sacramento Fire Department. And remember parents, raise your children to love America, to be patriotic, to buy American made products, to love God and Jesus, respect law and order and treat everyone, especially their elders with dignity and respect. #RandolphHarris 27 of 28
It was like a dream, when by the Lord from bondage American was restored; our mouths were filled with mirth and songs to God, to whom all praise belongs. 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. To the nations owned that God has wrought Great works, which joy to us has brought; as southern streams when filled with rain, He turned our captive state again. Who sow in tears, with joy shall reap; though bearing precious seed they weep while going forth, yet shall they sing when, coming back, their sheaves they bring. We may not, probably will not, receive a personal visit from the Lord, but the answers do come—from prayer, the scriptures, the words of the prophet, the still, small voice of inspiration. I should like to reassure you that we truly can find courage to face our challenges and also give service to those whose needs are even greater than our own. Sometimes to each of us will come questions of life and death, purpose and our own inevitable parting. All of us have had losses or will have. Perhaps it is for this that we are taught “to mourn with those that mourn,” reports Mosiah 18.9 and to “weep for the loss of them that die,” reports Doctrine and Covenants 42.45. Death is not permanent. We have the reality of the Resurrection and that makes the waiting endurable and purposeful. #RandolphHarris 28 of 28
Starting September, Friday the 13th, Winchester Mystery House presents Unhinged: Hotel, a brand-new chapter of our Halloween haunt 👻
Book your stay and prepare for an unforgettable night of terror. Will you make it to check out? 🧳
Tickets on sale now–be sure to get your tickets early as some time slots have already sold out!
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/
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The Big, Blonde, Democratic Teuton
The expression of compassion for others is the essence of the gospel of Jesus as the Christ. It is meaningful to observe that Jesus’s compassionate acts were not occasional, nor mandated manifestations based on a list of tasks to be completed but everyday expressions of the reality of His pure love for God and His children and His abiding desire to help. One of the most poignant examples of kindness in the Christian Bible is when Jesus showed compassion at the grave of Lazarus. When Jesus saw Lazarus’ friends weeping, he wept alongside them (John 11.33-35). Over and over, our Lord Jesus felt compassion on people, healing them and comforting them. He saw the large crowd as sheep without a shepherd and he came to give them purpose and shelter. As the Son of God, Jesus possessed more than we can ever imagine. Even so, he gave up everything, voluntarily and selflessly sacrificing Himself for us so that we can have eternal life. In that sacrifice, we see the greatest example of compassion in the Bible. The stories of compassion in the Bible should motivate us to put compassion into action. Those who cannot make the leap and rise above human love to their higher self—with its impersonality and immateriality—may continue to draw a happiness from it. However, the limitations will be there, inexorable, unconquerable, of time and body, relativity, and change. #RandolphHarris 1 of 25
One of the most important scriptures in the Bible is Hebrews 13.2, “Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing so some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it. Now, what are angels? Angels are messengers of God. Therefore, what this scripture could also mean is to show compassion to others, not only does how you treat people reflect on your and your family, but you could also be entertaining people who have great power and influence in this World. If you want to get ahead in life, the right way, it is important that people see you as a good person. Fear weakens a man, hate destroys him in the end, but love brings him his best. If everyone in the World would practice universal love, then the whole World would enjoy peace and order. We must learn to rise above our emotions, and understand by this kind of love a state of mind, not a state of emotion. When two people confront each other, there are six ego states involved, three in each person. Since ego states are as different from each other as actual people are, it is important to know which ego state is active in each person when something takes place between them. The exasperating response is where someone who wants sympathy gets facts instead. This is known as a child/parent-adult/adult. Impudence is where someone who expects compliance gets what is consider a “smart aleck” response instead, in the form of a factual statement. #RandolphHarris 2 of 25
There are 812 or 6561 different types of duplex transactions possible. For example, if we engage in only three transactions, and each time we have a choice among 6597 varieties, then we have our three transactions in 65973 ways. This gives us about 300 billion different ways of structuring our three exchanges with each other. That certainly gives us all the room we need to express our individualities. Since most people engage in hundreds or thousands of transactions every day, each person has trillions and trillions of combinations at his disposal. Even if he has an aversion to 5000 of the 6597 possible types of transactions, and never gets into them, there is still plenty of room to maneuver in, and there is no necessity for his behaviour to be stereotyped unless he himself sets it up that way. If he does so, as most people do, that is not the fault of transactional analysis, but of others influences that form the chief subject matt of this report. Since this system, in all its branches, is referred to as transactional analysis, what has been described above, the analysis of single transactions, is called transactional analysis proper, which is the second step after structural analysis. Transactional analysis proper gives a rigorous definition of the system, which will be of interest principally to those trained in scientific methodology. #RandolphHarris 3 of 25
A transaction consisting of a single stimulus and a single response, verbal or non-verbal, is the unit of social action. It is called a transaction because each party gains something from it, and that is why he engages in it. Anything that happens between two or more people can be broken down into a series of single transactions, and this gives all the advantages which any science attains when it has a well-defined system of units. Transactional analysis is a theory of personality and social action, and a clinical method of psychotherapy, based on the analysis of all possible transactions between two or more people, on the basis of specifically defined ego states, into a finite number of established types (nine complementary, 72 crossed, 6480 duplex, and 36 angular). Only about 15 of these commonly occur in ordinary practice; the rest are largely of academic interest. Any system or approach which is not based on the rigorous analysis of single transactions into their component specific ego states is not transactional analysis. This definition, in effect, purports to set up a model for all possible forms of human social behaviour. This model is efficient because it follows the principle of scientific economy (sometimes knows as “Occam’s razor”), making only two assumptions: that human beings can change from one ego state to another, and that if A says something and B says something shortly thereafter, it can be verified whether what B said was a response to what A said. #RandolphHarris 4 of 25
It is also very effective because, so far, no examples have been found among thousands or millions of interchanges between human beings which could not be dealt with by the model; and it is rigorous as well, because it is limited by simple arithmetical considerations. The best way to understand the “transactional viewpoint” is to ask: “What would a one- or two- or three-year-old child do that would correspond to this grownup’s behaviour?” Eastern philosophers are fond of pointing out how Westerns live with a “divided” consciousness, experiencing a gulf between mind and body, between self and nature. Divided consciousness is a chronic self-consciousness, such that the person is always aware of self. Whether the person is watching a sunset, enjoying pleasures of the flesh, or playing a game of tennis, he or she is always aware of self as the “subject, whereas that which the person is noticing is experienced as the “object,” as “out there,” distance from the self. Even our language, with its grammatical structure, encourages us to enter a chronic state of self-consciousness, of reflection upon our experiencing. A child, before taking on language, apparently has the capacity to perceive in selfless fashion. Eventually, the child learns to monitor experience and action, after having learned that he or she will be called on to give an account of thoughts and actions. The child is to become a spy or witness of his or her own actions, and is to give a report to parents upon request. #RandolphHarris 5 of 25
As the child grows older, such self-vigilance becomes habitual, and the rift in consciousness that hinders spontaneity has been permanently inserted. When a happening fully absorbs someone’s attention, the person may re-experience the long-lost mode of unreflective, unself-conscious perception. This is a terrible way to live—always to be watching one’s self. The capacity to be self-conscious is unique to human beings, because of the relative seize of the human cerebral cortex. Doubtless, the ability to observe the flow of one’s experiencing has some adaptive and adjustive value. However, chronic self-consciousness is agonizing, and it destroys enjoyment of living; in extreme instances, self-consciousness can so limit a person that he or she becomes unable to act at all until having first checked and rechecked the proposed action or communication. When self-consciousness is carried to this extreme, the individual may become nearly paralyzed by doubt and indecision, as in a pattern of neurosis called doubting compulsion. When used to “mirror” self and know how you are perceived by others, the gift of reflecting consciousness is helpful. Prayer to God and His Son, Jesus Christ, was developed as a means of healing the breach in consciousness. #RandolphHarris 6 of 25
The purpose of prayer is to help a person “transcend” the ego and experience a unification of self with all that exists. When such enlightenment and unification occur, the person becomes more capable of effortless action, grace of movement, and power of reason, because the person is not doing two things at once, that is, doing something and reflecting upon what is being done. Prayer is one of the greatest blessings we have while we are here on Earth. Through prayer we can communicate with our Heavenly Father and seek His guidance daily. Prayer is a sincere, heartfelt talk with our Heavenly Father. We should pray to God and to no one else. We do not pray to any other being or to anything made by man or God. “Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in Heaven above, or that is in the water under the Earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me,” reports Exodus 20.3-5. Prayer has been an important part of the gospel from the beginning of the World. An angel of the Lord commanded Adam and Eve to repent and call upon God in the name of the Son. “Wherefore, thou salth do all that thou doest in the name of the Son, and thou shalt repent and call upon God in the name of the Son forevermore,” reports Moses 5.8. This commandment has never been taken away. #RandolphHarris 7 of 25
Prayer will help us draw closer to God. All our thoughts, our words, and our actions are influenced by our prayers. The experience of overcoming chronic fixation upon a self-conscious, reflective state of awareness, so that one begins to smell and taste, and remember and imagine with greater vividness, can easily be described as “an enlargement of the World,” a rebirth, or a self-unification. Yet reflection, or self-witnessing, helps a person to learn skills. Self-consciousness may rob action of its spontaneity and of its joy. The aim of healthy personality is to be able to reflect upon experience when it is appropriate to do so, and to engage unself-consciously like a child in action, and in personal relationships, when there is no need to reflect. Action is one way to obtain temporary respite from self-consciousness. Warm-up exercises, followed by intense involvement in a game of tennis or basketball, or in dance, enable a person to be engaged without reflection. Other means for temporarily suppressing the act of reflection include listening to music, engaging in hobbies, and absorption in a book or a drama on a video steaming service or DVD. Dialogue with another person that fully engages one’s attention is also a means of overcoming self-consciousness. When such dialogue is going on, each person is responding to the other without premediated efforts to produce a particular impression in the experience of the other. #RandolphHarris 8 of 25
The Darwinian mood sustained the belief in Anglo-Saxon racial superiority which obsessed many American thinkers in the latter half of the nineteenth century. The measure of World dominion already achieved by the “race” seemed to prove it the fittest. Also, in the 1870’s and 1880’s many of the historical conceptions of the Anglo-Saxon school began to reflect advances in biology and allied developments in other fields of thought. For a time, American historians fell under the spell of the scientific ideal and dreamed of evolving a science of history comparable to the biological sciences. The keynote of their faith could be found in E.A. Freeman’s Comparative Politics (1874), in which he allied the comparative method with the idea of Anglo-Saxon superiority. “For the purposes of the study of Comparative Politics,” he had written, “a political constitution is a specimen to be studied, classified, and labeled, as a building or an animal to be studied, classified, and labeled by those to whom buildings or animals are objects to study.” If political constitutions were to be classified and compared by Victorian scholars as if they were animal forms, it was highly probable that the political methods of certain peoples would be favoured over others. Inspired by the results of the comparative method in philology and mythology, particularly by the work of Edward Tylor and Max Muller, Freeman tried, using this method, to trance the signs of original unity in the primitive institutions of the Aryans, particularly in the “three most illustrious branches of the common stock—the Greek, the Roman, and the Teuton.” #RandolphHarris 9 of 25
When Herbert Baxter Adams set up his great historical seminar at John Hopkins, it was with the official blessing of Freeman; and Freeman’s dictum, “History is past politics and politics is present history,” was emblazoned on the historical studies that came pouring forth from Adams’ seminar. A whole generation of historians receiving their inspiration from the John Hopkins school could have said with Henry Adams, “I flung myself obediently into the arms of the Anglo-Saxons in history.” The leading notion of the Anglo-Saxon school was that the democratic institutions of England and the United States of America, particularly the New England town meeting could be traced back to the primitive institutions of the early German tribes. Despite differences in detail, the Hopkins historians were in general agreement on their picture of the big, blonde, Democratic Teuton and on the Teutonic genealogy of self-government. The viewpoint of the school was given a fitting popular expression in 1890 with the publication of James K. Hosmer’s Short History of Anglo-Saxon Freedom, which drew upon the home literature of Anglo-Saxondom to establish the thesis that government of the people and by the people is of ancient Anglo-Saxon origin. #RandolphHarris 10 of 25
Wrote Hosmer: “Though Anglo-Saxon freedom in a partial form has been adopted (it would be better perhaps to say imitated) by every nation in Europe, but Russia, and in Asia by Japan, the hopes for that freedom, in the future, rest with the English-speaking race. By that race alone it has been preserved amidst a thousand perils; to that race alone is it thoroughly congenial; if we can conceive the possibility of the disappearance among peoples of that race, the chance would be small for that freedom’s survival.” Hosmer shared the optimism of his English contemporary John Richard Green, who believed that the English-speaking race would grow in enormous numbers and spread over the New World, Africa, and Australia. “The inevitable issues,” concluded Hosmer, “is to be that the primacy of the World will lie with us. English institutions, English speech, English thought, are to become the main features of the political, social, and intellectual life of mankind.” Thus would the survival of the fittest be written large in the World’s political future. What Hosmer did for Anglo-Saxon history, John W. Burgess did for political theory. His Political Science and Comparative Constitutional Law, published in the same year as Hosmer’s book, serves as a reminder of German as well as English influences in the American Anglo-Saxon cult; for Burgess, like Herbert Baxter Adams, had received a large part of his graduate training in Germany. #RandolphHarris 11 of 25
The peculiarity of his work, Burgess declared, it was method. “It is a comparative study. It is an attempt to apply the method, which has been found so productive in the domain of Natural Science, to Political Science and Jurisprudence.” It was Burgess’ contention that political capacity is not a gift common to all nations, but limited to a few. The highest capacity for political organization, he believed, has been shown, in unequal degrees by the Aryan nations. Of all these, only “the Teuton really dominates the World by his superior political genius.” It is therefore not to be assumed that every nation must become a state. If we may judge from history, The political subjection or attachment of unpolitical nations to those possessing political endowment appears to be as truly a part of the World’s civilization as is the national organization of states. I do not think that Asia and Africa can receive political organization in any other way…The national state is…the most modern and complete solution of the whole problem of political organization which the World has yet produced; and the fact that it is the creation of Teutonic political genius stamps the Teutonic nations as the political nations par excellence, and authorizes them, in the economy of the World, to assume the leadership in the establishment and administration of states. #RandolphHarris 12 of 25
The Teutonic nations can never regard the exercise of political power as a right of man. With them this power must be based upon capacity to discharge political duty, and they themselves are the best organs which have yet appeared to determine when and where this capacity exists. We see the beginnings of this, for instance, in songs like “We Shall Overcome,” which are living rituals, not just songs. A ritual like that of common silence as it has been practiced by the Friends as the center of their religious service could be acceptable to large groups of people; it could become a custom that every meeting of significance begins or ends with five or fifteen minutes of common silence given to prayer and concentration. It is not too farfetched an idea to suggest that, instead of prayers or patriotic formulae, classes in schools and special occasions in universities could be introduced by a period of common silence. We also have shared symbols, such as the dove and the outline of a human figure as symbols of peace and respect for man. There is no point in speculating about further details of possible common rituals and symbols outside church life, because they will grow naturally once the soil is prepared. In the field of art and music, there are innumerable possibilities for the creation of new ritual and symbolic expressions. #RandolphHarris 13 of 25
Whatever new psychospiritual systems may arise, they will not be “fighting” religion, although they will be a challenge to those in the various religions who have made an ideology of religious teachings and an idol of God. Those who worship the “living God” will have no difficulty in sensing that they have more in common with the “unbelievers” than they have in what separates them; they will have a deep sense of solidarity with those who do not worship idols and who try to do what the believers call “God’s will.” I expect that to many the hope expressed here for new manifestations of man’s psychospiritual needs are too vague to form the basis of hope that such a development will happen. Those who want certainty and proof before they can take any hope seriously are right in reacting negatively. However, those who believe in the reality of the yet unborn will have more trust that man will find new forms of expressing vital needs, even though at this moment there is only a dove with an olive branch indicating the end of the flood. It is the rule rather than the exception in the historical process that ideas deteriorate into ideologies; mere words take the place of the human reality; these words are administered by a bureaucracy which thus succeeds in controlling people and gaining power and influence. And usually, the result is that the ideology, while still using the words of the original idea, in effect expresses the opposite meaning. This fate has happened to the great religions and to philosophical ideas; it has happened to Marx’s and to Dr. Freud’s ideas. #RandolphHarris 14 of 25
What was Dr. Freud’s original system? First, it was radical thought; radical, in the original sense of the word, meaning going to the roots and—as Marx said—since the root is man, going to the very nature and essence of man. Dr. Freud’s psychoanalysis was critical thought; critical first, of existing psychiatric ideas which took consciousness as the basic datum of psychiatry. However, Dr. Freud’s thought was critical in a much broader sense. It attacked many of the values and ideologies of the Victorian age; it attacked the notion that pleasures of the flesh were not a subject for rational and scientific investigation; it attacked the insincerity of Victorian morality; it attacked the sentimental notion of the “purity” and “innocence” of the child. However, its most important attack was directed against the notion that there is no psychic content transcending consciousness. Dr. Freud’s system was a challenge to existing ideas and prejudices; it opened a new era of thought corresponding to the new development in the natural sciences and in art. It might be called in this sense a revolutionary movement, even though despite his criticism of some aspects of society Dr. Freud did not transcend the existing social order, nor did he think of new social and political possibilities. What became of this radical and critical movement after the first thirty years of its existence? #RandolphHarris 15 of 25
First, psychoanalysis has become very successful, especially in the Protestant countries of Europe and in the United States of America, while, until the end of the First World War, it was mocked and derided by most “serious” psychiatrists and by the public in general There were many reasons for the growing success of psychoanalysis. The fact is that the movement, ridiculed during the first twenty years of its existence, came to be considered respectable in psychiatry, accepted by many social scientists, and popular among many literary men, some of whom—Thomas Mann, for example—were quite outstanding. However, this academic and intellectual recognition was not all; psychoanalysis became popular with the public; psychoanalysts found it difficult to take all the patients who asked for their help; in fact, the profession of psychoanalysis because one of the most rewarding from the economic standpoint and from that prestige. This successful development, however, was by no means paralleled by a corresponding richness and productivity of psychoanalytic discoveries as regards theory and therapy. In fact, it many be surmised that the very success of psychoanalysis contributed to its deterioration. Psychoanalysis lost is original radicalism and its critical and challenging character. #RandolphHarris 16 of 25
An ability to recognize resistances demands some definite knowledge of their sources and their expressions. Hence it appears appropriate to recapitulate all that has been said about the subject in scattered places throughout this report—often without explicitly mentioning the term “resistance”—and to add certain points that are of special interest for self-analysis. The sources of resistance are the sum of a person’s interests in maintaining the status quo. These interests are not—and emphatically not—identical with a wish to remain ill. Everyone wants to get rid of limitations and sufferings, and in that wish, he is all for change, and for a quick change at that. What he wants to maintain is not “the neurosis” but those aspects of it which have proved to be of immense subjective value to him and which in his mind hold the promise of future security and gratification. The basis factors that no one wants to modify one iota are, briefly, those that concern his secret claims on life, his claims for “love,” for power, for independence and the like, his illusions about himself, the safety zones within which he moves with comparative ease. The exact nature of these factors depends on the nature of his neurotic trends. #RandolphHarris 17 of 25
In professional analysis the provocation for resistance is, in the great majority of cases, something that has occurred in the analysis itself. If strong secondary defenses have developed, the first resistances arise as soon as the analysts questions the validity of these defenses, that is, as soon as he casts any doubt on the rightness, goodness, or unalterability of any factor in the patient’s personality. Thus a patient whose secondary defenses consist in regarding everything concerning himself, faults included, as excellent and unique will develop a feeling of hopelessness as soon as any motivation of his is questioned. Another patient will react with a mixture of irritability and discouragement as soon as he encounters, or the analyst points out to him, any trace of irrationality within himself. It is in accordance with the function of the secondary defenses—protection of the whole system developed—that these defensive reactions are elicited not merely when a special repressed factor is in danger of being uncovered but when anything is questioned, regardless of content. However, if the secondary defenses are not of such vital strength, or if they have been uncovered and faced, resistances are for the most part a response to attacks on specific repressed factors. As soon as any domain is approached, closely or remotely, which is tabu for the patient he will react emotionally with fear or anger and will automatically set going a defensive action to prevent further trespassing. #RandolphHarris 18 of 25
This encroachment on a tabu need not be a specific attack but may be result merely from the analyst’s behaviour. Any thing he does or fails to do, says or fails to say, may hurt one of the patient’s vulnerable spots and create a conscious or unconscious resentment which for the time being blocks the co-operative work. However, resistances to analytical work can be elicited also by factors outside the analytical situation. If outside circumstances change during analysis in such a way as to favour a smooth functioning of the neurotic trends, or even to render them positively useful, the provocation for resistance is greatly increased; the reason is, of course, that the forces opposing change have been strengthened. However, resistance can be provoked also by unfavourable developments in daily life. If a patient feels, for example, that he has been unfairly dealt with by someone in his circle his indignation may be so great that he refuses any effort in analysis to seek the real reason why he felt injured or insulted, his entire energy being concentrated on revenge. If a repressed factor is touched upon, either specifically or remotely, a resistance may be produced by developments outside as well as within the analytical situation. #RandolphHarris 19 of 24
Measurement is important using the Relationship Inventory. The Inventory contains statements regarding the degree to which the counselor is acceptant, empathic, and congruent, and the client responds by evaluating the statement on a six-point scale from “strongly true” to “definitely untrue.” Examples concerning empathy are: “He generally sense or realizes how I am feeling;” “He understands my words but does not realize how I feel.” In relationship to congruence sometimes items are: “He pretends that he likes me or understands me more than he really does.” The Inventory is scored for each of the four attitudinal elements, and there is also a total score. The counselor is the most significant factor in setting the level of conditions in the relationship, though the client, too, has some influence on the quality of the relationship. Clients who later show more change perceive more of these attitudinal conditions early in the relationship with their counselor or therapist. The more disturbed the client, the less he is likely to (or able to?) perceive these attitudes in the counselor. Counselor or therapists tend to be quite consistent in the level of attitudinal conditions which they offer to each client. The major finding from all of the studies is that those clients in relationships marked by a high level of counselor congruence, empathy and unconditional positive regard, show constructive personality development. #RandolphHarris 20 of 25
These high levels of conditions are associated with positive changes on Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory scales and indices, including ego-strength; positive change from the pre- to post-test battery as rated by clinicians working “blind”; decrease in anxiety scores and in a self-consciousness score; a higher level of Process Scales designed to measure process in therapy; and positive changes in counselor’s ratings. Clients relationships characterized by a low level of these attitudinal conditions show significantly less positive changes on these same indices. The client’s perception is the best predictor of change. This finding does not hold for the schizophrenic client, whose inner disturbance makes it difficult for him accurately to perceive the conditions offered by our conscientious and experienced therapist. With our schizophrenics, the rating of the conditions made by the unbiased raters is the best predictor of change. An unexpected finding with the schizophrenic clients is that low conditions in the relationship are associated with negative change in several respects. The clients not only fail to show constructive change but become worse in the judgment of clinicians rating their pre- and post-test batteries; show an increase in anxiety; are worse off than their matched no-therapy controls. Whether this finding holds for clinical clients who come for help has not yet been determined. #RandolphHarris 21 of 25
As might be expected, more experienced counselors, when compared with inexperienced counselors, offer a higher level of these conditions, and are more successful in communicating these to their clients. Thus they are perceived as offering higher conditions, and their clients show more change over the course of the interviews. Many people are sent to counseling for romantic problems. Those who glorify romantic lover avert their eyes from the truth that there is a negative side to it. However ignored, it will one day come into focus. There is a common notion that love, to be worth its name, must be highly emotional and dramatically intense. That, of course, is one kind but it is not the best kind, which is calm, unchanging, and unexcited. The sentimental gush which is talked so often and so freely in religiomystic circles about loving one’s fellow humans is usually quite shallow and will not stand deep analysis. Nor is it the most important of all the virtues as such circles seem to believe. When a woman comes to a man for spiritual help or even spiritual companionship, he should not ask her for more than the chance to serve. Even if she is not conscious of having been sent to him for this purpose, or even if she mistakes the spiritual attraction for merely a human one, this remains true. It would be a spiritual failure on his part to ask for more then the opportunity to serve her. The service he gives must be given with a pure motive. #RandolphHarris 22 of 25
Therefore, he appearance in his life is a test for him. Should he fall in love with her the test still holds good, but its character may change. He is to keep the relationship at a high level. He is not to attempt to possess her but to be content with knowing and loving her. He must accept the situation with calm resignation and complete nonattachment. Does the unified man have to like everyone he meets? Some students believe that Jesus as the Christ commanded us to “love thy neighbour as thyself” and this question ought to be answered with a resounding Yes! However, in actual life we find that some unified men succeed in doing this whereases others frankly do not feel that way nor make any such effort. To make the love of everybody else a compulsory ethic ought not to be demanded even from a quester, much less from the masses! To make the cultivation of goodwill desirable as a general attitude would be more reasonable. Even so it should grow naturally out of the cultivation, not be forced. When a man discovers that the same Overself dwells in his enemy as in his own heart, how can he ever again bring himself to hate or injure another? It is easy to believe more softness to be compassion. It is easy to deceive oneself in this way. However, a vigorous analysis of one’s thoughts and observation of their results in action will expose the very real differences between them. “Do not day: O God, I thank thee that we are better than our brethren; but rather say: O Lord, forgive my unworthiness, and remember my breathren in mercy—yea, acknowledge your unworthiness before God at all times,” reports Alma 38.14. #RandolphHarris 23 of 25
The Sacramento Fire Department is committed to providing citizens with a professional fire service that meets or exceeds professional standards and best practices from across the nation. “The State Department asked me to go to Russia and several other communist countries to speak about contemporary American literature to the writer’s unions, and to the English-speaking clubs of the universities. It was a great trip, because the Russian people are gregarious and full of subtle humor, though, before glasnost, the Russian authority seemed dark and pervasive, like a giant shadow. Consequently, I liked the people and the architecture but felt uncertain about the country. I kept asking to visit a Moscow fire station, and the authorities kept stonewalling me. Finally, after a week of telephone calls, they agreed to take me to one of their huge centralized fire stations where there are ten or so fire companies. This was pretty unusual, for the fire department is quasimiliatry, that is, run by and attached to the army, and they do not normally take Americans to military installations. A reporter came, but they wouldn’t let him in to the station, which was rimmed by a high wall, and he wrote a long story about it in the magazine. I was taken to a reception hall, where I met a group of pretty congenial officers, a general and some colonels, who ran the Russian Fire Service. I was pretty impressed, though I just wanted to talk to a few back-step firefighters. I wanted to hear what the Russian firefighters felt about false alarms or nuisance fires—if, indeed, they existed in that country. #RandolphHarris 24 of 25
“I sat at the head of a long table and began talking about the problems of fighting fires in a large city, in overcrowded buildings where impoverished people lived, where false alarms were as frequent as changing traffic signals, where my one company would respond to forty calls a day, every day. I talked a little about the personal challenge of firefighting, the renewed confrontation, never really resolved, one fire after another. The general stood and pointed to a colonel sitting down the table. The colonel stood as the general related with great price that this man personally had been in more than a hundred fires. ‘Very good,’ I said, ‘congratulations,’ thinking but of course not saying, that to us in Sacramento, a hundred fires represented not a lifetime’s work but a single weekend in July.” The Sacramento Fire Department strives to sustain and improve the health, safety, convenience, and welfare of the citizens of Sacramento and to plan for the future development of the community. You can help save lives and property by donating to the Sacramento Fire Department. And remember parents, raise your children to love America, to be patriotic, to love God and Jesus, respect law and others, treat others with dignity and respect, and the remind them of the importance of education. Every single thing they learn in school can and will apply to the real World. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic, for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible with Liberty and Justice for all. Our Father, our King, be gracious unto us and answer us, for we are wanting in good deeds; deal with us in charity and lovingkindness, and please save us. #RandolphHarris 25 of 25
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Does the Unified Man Like Everyone He Meets?
The greater the crime perpetrated by the leadership, the less likely it is that the people will ever believe their leaders to be capable of perpetrating such an event. Fictional character, Henry Regan, on the popular CBS television show Blue Bloods, confessed that when he was an office back in the early 1900s, that his officers would ride around and when they saw someone they wanted to terrorize, they would put on pink bunny ears and beat the tar out of them. He admits that it sounded so ridiculous that no one would ever believe them. If you wish the sympathy of the broad masses, you must tell them the most crude and stupid things. The brutality of all national development is apparent, and we make no excuse for it. To conceal it would be a denial of fact; to glamour it over, an apology to truth. There is little in life that is not brutal except our ideal. As we increase the aggregate of individuals and their collective activities, we increase proportionately their brutality. In this World the nation that has trained itself to a career of unwarlike and isolation ease is bound, in the end, to go down before other nations which have not lost the manly and adventurous qualities. In 1898, The United States of America waged a three-month war with Spain. It took the Philippine Islands from Sapin by treaty and formally annexed the Hawaiian Islands. #RandolphHarris 1 of 20
In 1899, the United States of America partitioned the Samoan Islands by agreement with Germany, and expressed its policy toward western interests in China in the “Open Door” note. In 1900, Americans took part in suppressing the Chinese Boxer Rebellion. By 1902, the Amry had finally suppressed insurrection in the Philippines; and in that year, the islands were made an unorganized territory. As the United States of America stepped upon the stage of empire, American thought turned once again to the subjects of war and empire; opponents and defenders of expansion and conquest marshaled arguments for their causes. After the fashion of late nineteenth-century thought, they sought in the World of nature a larger justification for their ideas. The use of natural selection as a vindication of militarism or imperialism was not new in European or American thought. Imperialists, calling upon Darwinism in defense of the subjugation of weaker races, could point to The Origin of Species, which had referred in its subtitle to The Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life. Darwin had been talking about pigeons, but the imperialists saw no reason why his theories should not apply to men, and the whole spirit of the naturalistic Worldview seemed to call for a vigorous and unrelenting thoroughness in the application of biological concepts. #RandolphHarris 2 of 20
Had not Darwin himself written complacently in The Descent of Man of the likelihood that backward races would disappear before the advance of higher civilization? Militarists could also point to the harsh fact of the elimination of the unfit as an urgent reason for cultivating the material virtues and keeping the national power dry. After the Franco-Prussian War both sides had for the first-time invoked Darwinism as an explanation of the facts of the battle. “The greatest authority of all the advocates of war is Darwin,” explained Max Nordau in the North American Review in 1889. “Since the theory of evolution has been promulgated, they can cover their natural barbarism with the name of Darwin and proclaim the sanguinary instincts of their inmost hearts as the last word of science.” It would nevertheless be easy to exaggerate the significance of Darwin for the theory of militarism either in the United States of America or in Western Europe. Neither the philosophy of force nor doctrines of Machtpolitik had to wait upon Darwin to make their appearance. Nor was racism strictly a post-Darwinian phenomenon. Gobineau’s Essai sur L’Inegalite des Races Humanies, a landmark in the history of Aryanism, was published in 1835-55 without benefit of the idea of natural selection. #RandolphHarris 3 of 20
As for the United States of America, a people long familiar with Indian warfare on the frontier and the pro-slavery arguments of Southern politicians and publicists had been thoroughly grounded in notions of racial superiority. At the time when Darwin was still hesitantly outlining his theory in private, racial destiny had already been called upon by American expansionists to support the conquest of Mexico. “The Mexican race now see in the fate of the aborigines of the north, their own inevitably destiny,” an expansionist had written. “They must amalgamate or be lost in the superior vigor of the Anglo-Saxon race, or they must utterly perish.” This Anglo-Saxon doctrine because the chief element in American racism in the imperial era; but the mystique of Anglo-Saxonism, which for a time had a particularly powerful grip on American historians, did not depend upon Darwinism either for its inception or for its development. It is doubtful that such monuments of English Anglo-Saxon historical writings as Edward Augustus Freeman’s History of the Norman Conquest of England (1867-79) or Charles Kingsley’s The Roman and the Teuton (1864) owed much to biology; and certainly John Mitchell Kemble’s The Saxons in England in England (1849) was not inspired by the survival of the fittest. #RandolphHarris 4 of 20
Like other varieties of racism, Anglo-Saxonism was a product of nationalism and the romantic movement rather than an outgrowth of biological science. Even the idea that a nation is an organism that must either grow or fall into decay, which doubtless received an additional impetus from Darwinism, had been invoked before 1859 by the proponents of “Manifest Destiny.” Still, Darwinism was put in the service of the imperial urge. Although Darwinism was not the primary source of the belligerent ideology and dogmatic racism of the late nineteenth century, it did become a new instrument in the hands of the theorists of race and struggle. The likeness of the Darwinian portrait of nature as a field of battle to the prevailing conceptions of a militant age in which von Moltke could write that “war is an element of the order of the World established by God…[without which] the World would stagnate and lose itself in materialism,” was too great to escape attention. In the United States of America, however, such frank and brutal militarism was far less common than a benevolent conception of Anglo-Saxon World domination in the interests of peace and freedom. In the decades after 1885, Anglo-Saxonism, belligerent or pacific, was the dominant abstract rationale of American imperialism. #RandolphHarris 5 of 20
The radial humanists have the conviction that there is a hierarchy of values in which those of the lower orders follow from the highest value, and these values are binding and compelling principles for the practice of life—individual and social. There may be difference in the radicalism about the affirmation of these values in the practice of one’s life, just as there are in Christianity or in Buddhism among those who lead the monastic life and those who do not. However, all these differences are relatively unimportant beside the principle that there are certain values which cannot be compromised. I submit that if people would truly accept the Ten Commandments as the effective principles to guide their lives, a dramatic change in our whole culture would take place. There is no need at this point to argue about details of the values which need to be practiced, for what matters is to gather those who accept the principle of practice rather of submission to an ideology. Another common principle is the solidarity of all men and the loyalty to life and to humanity which must always take precedence over the loyalty to any group. In fact, even this way of putting it is not correct. Any true love for another person has a particular quality: for I love in that person not only the person but humanity itself, or, as a Christian or Jewish believer would say: God. #RandolphHarris 6 of 20
In the same way, if I love my country, this love is at the same time a love for man and mankind; and if it is not that, it is an attachment based on one’s incapacity for independence and, in the last analysis, another manifestation of idolatry. The crucial question is how these new-old principles can become effective. Those inside religion hope that they can transform their religion into the full practice of humanism, but many of them know that while this may prove to be true for some sectors of the population, there are others who for many obvious reasons cannot accept the theistic concepts and rituals so closely interwoven with them that it is almost impossible to separate the two. What hope is there for that part of the population which cannot even enter the ranks of the living Church? Can a new religion be founded which has no premises such as those in Revelation, or any kind of mythology? Obviously religions are manifestations of the spirit within the concrete, historical process and the specific, social, and cultural circumstances of any given society. One cannot found a religion by putting together principles. Religions are founded by rare and charismatic personalities of extraordinary genius. Such a personality has not appeared yet on today’s horizon, although there is no reason to assume that he has not been born. #RandolphHarris 7 of 20
However, in the meantime, we cannot wait for a new Moses or a new Jesus; we must make do with what we have, and perhaps at this moment of history this is all to the good because the new religious leader might too quickly be transformed into a new idol and his religion might be transformed into idolatry before it had a chance to penetrate the hearts and minds of men. And we then left with nothing but some general principles and values? I do not believe so. If the constructive forces within industrial society which are choked by a deadening bureaucracy, by artificial consumption, and manipulated boredom are released by a new mood of hope, by the social and cultural transformations discussed in his report, if the individual regains his confidence in himself, and if people make contact with each other in spontaneous and genuine group life, new forms of psycho spiritual practices will emerge and grow which might be unified eventually in a total and socially acceptable system. Here, as well as with reference to many other points we have discussed, all depends on the courage of the individual to be fully alive and to seek solutions to the problem of his existence without waiting for the bureaucrats or the concepts to give him answers. #RandolphHarris 8 of 20
For Dr. Freud, as we have indicated before, growing civilization means growing repression—hence social evolution does not lead to the dissolution of repression but rather to its reinforcement. For Marx, on the other hand, repression is essentially the result of contradictions between the need for the full development of man and the given social structure—hence the fully developed society in which exploitation and class conflict have disappeared does not need ideologies and can dispense with repression. In the fully humanized society, there would be no need for repression, hence there would be no social unconscious. According to Dr. Freud, repression increases; according to Marx, it decreases in the process of social evolution. There is another difference between Freudian and Marxian thought which has not been sufficiently emphasized. Through rationalization one tries to make it appear as though an action is motivated by reasonable and moral motives, thus covering up the fact that it is caused by motives which contrast with a person’s conscious thinking. The rationalization is mostly sham, and has only the negative function of permitting a person to act wrongly, yet without awareness that he is acting irrationally or immorally. The ideology has a similar function, yet in one point there is an important difference. Take the example of Christian teaching: the teachings of Christ, the ideals of humility, brotherly love, justice, charity, etcetera, were once genuine ideals which moved the hearts of people to such a degree that they were willing to give their lives for the sake of these ideals. #RandolphHarris 9 of 20
However, throughout history these ideals have been misused to serve as rationalizations for purposes which were their very opposite. Independent and rebellious spirits have been killed, peasants have been exploited and oppressed, wars have been blessed, hatred of the enemy has been encouraged in the name of these very ideals. Inasmuch as this was the case, ideology was not different from rationalization. However, history shows us that an ideology has also a life of its own. Even though the words of Christ were misused, they were kept alive, they remained in the memory of the people, and again and again they were taken seriously and retransformed, as it were, from ideologies into ideals. This happened in the Protestant sects before and after the Reformation; it is happening today in those Protestant and Catholic minorities which are fighting for peace and against hate in a World which professes to hold Chrisitan ideals, yet uses them as ideologies. The task of the critique is not to denounce the ideals, but to show their transformation into ideologies, and to challenge the ideology in the name of the betrayed ideal. The basic interest of transactional analysis is the study of ego states, which are coherent systems of thought and feeling manifested by corresponding patterns of behaviour. #RandolphHarris 10 of 20
Each human being exhibits three types of ego states. Those derived from parental figures, colloquially called the Parent. In this state, he feels, thinks, acts, talks, and responds just as one of his parents did when he was little. This ego state is active, for example, in raising his own children. Even when he is not actually exhibiting this ego state, it influences his behaviour as the “Parental influences,” performing the functions of a conscience. The ego state in which he appraises his environment objectively, and calculates its possibilities and probabilities on the basis of past experience, is called the Adult ego state, or the Adult. The Adult functions like a computer. Each person carries within a little boy or little girl, who feels, thinks, acts, talks, and responds just the way he or she did when he or she was a child of a certain age. This ego state is called the Child. The Child is not regarded as “childish” or “immature,” which are Parental words, but as childlike, meaning like a child of a certain age, and the important factors here is the age, which may be anywhere between two and give years in ordinary circumstances. It is important for the individual to understand his Child, not only because it is going to be with him all his life, but also because it is the most valuable part of his personality. Through careful study it is evident that two Parental components in most cases, one derived from the father, the other from the mother; it will also uncover within the Child ego state the Parent, Adult, and Child components which were already there when the Child was fixated, as can be verified by observing actual children. #RandolphHarris 11 of 20
This second order analysis reveals that the separation of one feeling-and-behaviour pattern from another in diagnosing ego states is called structural analysis. The extent to which a person is factually helpless toward resistances depends not only on their overt but also on their hidden strengths—in other words, the degree to which they are discernible. To be sure, they may be discovered and met in open battle; a patient may be fully aware, for example, that he has a resistance against coming to analysis, or he may even realize that he is fighting tooth and nail against relinquishing a neurotic trend, as Clare did in her eventual battle for and against her dependency. More often resistances sneak up on him in disguised forms, without his recognizing them as such. In that case he does not know that resisting forces are operating; he is merely unproductive, or feels listless, tired, discouraged. And he is, of course, helpless when he is thus confronted with an enemy which is not only invisible but, as far as he knows, does not even exist. One of the most important reasons why he may not recognize the presence of a resistance is the fact that defensive processes are set in motion not only when he is directly confronted with the problems involved, that is, when his secret claims on life are laid bare, his illusions questioned, his security measures jeopardized, but also when he remotely approaches these domains. #RandolphHarris 12 of 20
The more intent he is on keeping them intact, the more sensitive he is to an approach even from the far distance. He is like a person who is frightened by thunderstorms and who is not only terrified by thunder and lightening but reacts with apprehension even to a cloud that appears on the far horizon. These long-distance reactions escape attention so easily because they arise with the emergence of a subject that is apparently innocuous, one that does not seem likely to stir up strong feelings of any kind. Certainly, the professional person who holds the view that individuals are essentially objects to be manipulated for the welfare of the state, or the good of the educational institution, or “for their own good,” or to satisfy his own need for power and control, would not experience the attitudinal elements I have described as constituting growth-promoting relationships. So, these conditions are congenial and natural in certain philosophical context but not in others. Members of the psychotherapeutic professions can function as representative of prevailing views of truth and reality; they are not agents for enlightenment and growth, but agents of social control, dismissing dissenting perspectives as “insane.” A person’s perspective is vulnerable to being so altered, through contact with others, that the person’s action no longer serves his or her own need, but those of the other persons. When this happens, the person is said to be mystified. #RandolphHarris 13 of 20
The idea that ordinary people can love one another, including those they have never met as well as those they meet day after day, is a pleasant piece of sentimentalism. It sounds well when solemnly uttered by ministers of religion before their respectful congregations or when published as advice by professional psychologists. However, where are the individuals who succeed in following it? If we look at history or at the cities and villages we already know, we find that the only form where something like it is discovered is that of organized philanthropy. This is excellent, this is commendable, but still it is not strictly love. Most ordinary people cannot get closer than this to the full sympathetic identification which another person which love really is. Only saints can achieve complete empathy; only they can wash the leper’s sores. For all others, the idea is vague and unreal, although convenient to use in talk at Christmas time. Karamazov, a character in one of Dostoevski’s Russian novels, drily said, “One can love one’s neighbour in an abstract way occasionally perhaps, even from afar, but in close contact, almost never…It is precisely the neighbour, the one who is physically close to us, whom one cannot possibly love. At best, one can love those who are far away.” #RandolphHarris 14 of 20
Now this may be a little exaggerated but it does speak openly of the difficulty many people experience in their attitude towards those with whom they are in daily contact. If they are forced to live with unscrupulous or unliked people, it is still more difficult. Then it will be all they can do to numb their revulsions. However, ordinary people must come to terms with their associates or have at least to take care not to show their dislike. They must particularly learn to endure others who are thoroughly repulsive to them. Unless they do achieve this capacity, there is no hope for the human race, which most otherwise go on fighting and warring until, with the frightful weapons now coming into its hands, it destroys itself. Such tolerance is still only the first station of the route to that active goodwill which the more idealistic persons who take the Quest seriously must try to achieve eventually. Many of them find it hard to each even this first halt. They are sensitive, they are often heterodox, and they cannot warm up to those whose ideas, habits, mannerisms, or orthodoxies irritate them. The Quester who does not eat meat, for instance, may not enjoy sitting down at table with those who delight in it. If he has the fortunate circumstances to do as he likes, he need not do so. However, most are not so free. He may put up with meat-laden table and its diners with bad grace or good grace, but put up with them he must. #RandolphHarris 15 of 20
Or take another case, that of having perforce to associate with someone who indulges in frequent sniffles when such a personal habit is felt to be most repulsive. Again, if he is a Quester and if he is free to do as he likes and to avoid the other person, he is entitled to do so. However, suppose he is not free? Instead of straining himself in the futile task of trying to love unlovable people, it is better to learn how to give them enough goodwill to tolerate them. This is withing his capacity. If he must live with them, or associate with them, he must try to put up with them, which means trying to put himself in their place. And that is a most desirable spiritual exercise, an advanced stepping-stone toward love itself. The practice of goodwill helps the practiser by attracting more of God’s grace and shaping good character. The thought of it, habitual and sustained, helps those who touch, or move within, his orbit. The profound meditation upon it repays him with blissful feelings and mystical harmony. If a man can be nothing else, let him be kind to others. Each time he does this he goes out of his own little ego. He comes a little closer to expressing the spiritual self-dwelling hidden in his heart. Some people believe that love shown to a terrorist would call forth its like from him. This is a typical belief among mystics down through the centuries. #RandolphHarris 16 of 20
When tested by experience, we find that it is successful in some cases but failure in many more. And where it fails it harms the criminal because he believes the more strongly that his crimes go unpunished, and it harms society because it is a misapplication of a good ideal. Everything, even love, must be applied at the right time and at the right place, for when misapplied even a virtue becomes a vice. We must not forget that wise old Latin proverb which warms us that when the best is corrupted it becomes the worst of all. The love for all humanity which many religionist professes to feel would not need much testing to find out the shallowness of its reality. The saint possessed by his higher self may, perhaps out of excessive kindness, be able to give it to the undesirable and the disgusting types. However, the more impersonal philosopher has a wide goodwill, which is not the same as love. When one’s love for another is of the highest type and leads to an expansion of understanding, compassion, and tolerance of others, he has glimpsed the greater purpose of personal love: how the surrender of his “heart” may lead to its opening to, and becoming united with, Universal Love. Being aware of the weaknesses or faults of another does not necessarily mean we love him less. It is an essential part of the message of love that we learn how to forgive surface characteristics by contemplating the essence of the beloved, to see what “is,” while also seeing deeper to what truly IS—the Divine evidenced in a particular form. Only when love ceases to be personal and becomes impersonal, when it passes out of the local into the universal, does it fulfill itself and attain its own unmixed and unadulterated integrity. #RandolphHarris 17 of 20
The Sacramento Fire Department helps people every day. They focus on the value and safety of people as they strive for excellence in providing service to their neighbourhoods and community. “What does it mean to a firefight to work in low-income neighborhood? It means that most of the firefighters you find there are the most dedicated ones. They have a higher rate of activity, more fire activity, and they are in more danger. And there were times, not so much recently but five of six years ago, when some of the citizens did not appreciate us being here. Now that has changed. I tell this when I teach recruits in firefighting. Did you ever notice, when you get a kitchen fire in a nice suburban neighborhood, they make sure to put themselves up in the Marriott for a few months? When they come back, did you ever notice their house? It’s nicer than it was before. New curtains, new draperies, new wallpaper, new granite countertop. They probably lit the thing to begin with, either intentionally or they were just careless. Probably intentionally. Let’s face it, most of our fires are. What about a poor person? They haven’t got a pot to pee in. When you look at that burned-out hulk, you know they are going to be sleeping in that house tonight. So, the harder we work and the more diligent we are in fighting the fires in poor areas, the more those people are going to be materially benefitted. #RandolphHarris 18 of 20
“I thank God I was born into a family with good economic means. These people are less fortunate. They didn’t ask to be born into a horrible situation, but they were. In a way, it makes you feel good to help people who really need the help. I think that most firefighters who work in those neighborhoods, whether they’re churchgoing folk, Christians, or whatever, feel the same way. We’ve had training and classes on the problem of AIDS and hepatitis B in medical emergency situations, and we take precautionary measures. We’re required to wear rubber gloves, and if it’s a situation that warrants it, we’ll put on goggles or glasses to protect our eyes. And we’ll even wear a mask or a bandanna to protect our lungs. I don’t recollect that I’ve ever been exposed to those two things, but I was on the rescue unit where there were a lot of medical emergences of various types, so I’ve been exposed to some things. And I’ve been tested to make sure I haven’t contracted those things. I did it on my own. I went in a could of weeks ago for a personal checkup and a blood test, just to make sure. I think all firefighters should do that one time to time. One of the nurses down at the hospital drew blood one a patient who had infectious hepatitis and ended up getting stuck by the needle and died. Our fire department takes pretty good care of us in that they provide us with nutritional training. They have our physical evaluation every year where they measure our body fat, see how much weight we can push, and have us do a series of push-ups and that sort of thing. #RandolphHarris 19 of 20
“As this AIDS thing becomes more prevalent, if they have any questions about it, firemen should check it out. We fill out injury slips or exposure reports when we get hurt or get smoke in our lungs. So we would pursue thing new stuff through a doctor. If we have any question that we’ve been exposed to AIDS, I believe that guys—women, too—should pursue the testing for their own health” The Sacramento Fire Department continues to grow and evolve throughout their careers in public service. You can help save lives by donating to the Sacramento Fire Department. And remember, parents, raise your children to love God, Jesus Christ, and America. Every child should grow up proud to be citizen of the United States of America. Also, we must remember to respect the property of others, respect law and order, treat others with respect, especially our elders. Real love is not something to be withdrawn abruptly when the person who is its object annoys or offends you. If the human race had not yet learnt to love its neighbour, it is not likely to take the farther step of loving its enemy. 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. Rock of Ages, let our song praise Thy saving power; Thou amidst the raging foes, wast our shelt’ring tower. Furious they assailed us, but Thine arm availed us, and Thy word broke their sword when our own strength failed us. Children of the martyr-race, whether free or fettered, wake the echoes of the songs, where ye may be scattered. Yours the message cheering that time is nearing which will see all men free, tyrants disappearing. #RandolphHarris 20 of 20
The Winchester Mystery House
Energetic and enthusiastic scare actors who love Halloween and wish to join our spooktacular team for speaking and non-speaking roles can apply today for our 2024 Halloween experience! In person auditions will be held on Friday, August 2nd from 4pm to 9pm and Saturday, August 3rd from 12pm to 4pm. See link in bio for more details.
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/
I Love Myself and Use You to Satisfy My Interest or Feelings
We have been told by well-meaning ministers of religion and counsellors in psychology to practice Jesus’s words, “Love thy neighbour.” Now there are two different ways in which we can do so, because there are two different interpretations of these words—the religious and the philosophic. According to the first, we have at least to be amiable toward our next-door neighbour, or at most to throw our arms around him and express our warm feeling for hum in a gushy, sentimental, hyper-emotional manner. According to the second and philosophic interpretation, we must understand that every person who crosses our path is our neighbour, everyone with whom we are thrown into momentary or continuous contact is our neighbour, whether at home or at work. It is in these immediate contacts that irritations are bred, differences are noted, and dislikes appear. It is much easier to love humanity as a whole or in the abstract than it is to love humanity in the individual and in the concrete. Despite the instinctive urge to manifest irritability, dislike, anger, resentment, or even hatred against those with whom you are thrown in contact, you can steel your will and resist the negative feelings. #RandolphHarris 1 of 19
If you can take all these negative feelings and sublimate them into understanding, tolerance, and goodwill based on the teachings of philosophy, you are loving your neighbour in the sense that Jesus meant it. You will then see that such philosophic love is far removed from and far superior to the hyper-emotionalism which slows hot and cold. How can I love my enemy, it is asked, or anyone who is outwardly or inwardly repugnant to me? We are not called on to love what is evil in our enemy nor what is ugly in anyone. We are called on, however, to remember that alongside of the evil there is the divine soul in him, alongside of the ugliness there is the divine beauty in him. His non-awareness of it does not alter the fact of its existence. And because he is a bearer of something grander than himself, unconscious of it though he be, we are to meet his hostility with our goodwill, his baseness with out nobility, and thus help him by our thought or our example to move onward—even if no more than one millimeter—towards the discovery and realization of his own divine soul. When we are enjoined to love others, we are really enjoined to sympathize with them as fellow living creatures and to have compassion for their sufferings or ignorance. #RandolphHarris 2 of 19
If the thought of our enemy arouses hatred, dislike, or fear, he will continue to haunt. The only way to free him is to arouse our compassion for him, to extend goodwill toward him. In the moment that we feel like this we exorcise his wrath and are liberated. “Love thy neighbour as thyself,” the dictum preached by Jesus and practiced by the self-actualized Christians, seems to offer a remote and unapproachable ideal. However, if we come to understand what Jesus meant and how the self-actualized Christian can realize it, it will not seem so. Every man does indeed love himself, but he does not love the whole of himself. There are defects and weaknesses in himself which he hates. He cannot therefore be expected to love them in his Neighbour. However, if he perceives that these faults eventually bring painful Karmic results, he can be expected to feel compassion for those who suffer from them. In the case of the self-actualized Christian, not only is such a consideration operative but also the perception of his neighbour’s existence within the one universal Mind in which he feels himself to be rooted. It is easy and natural for him, therefore, to practice loving kindness towards his neighbour. #RandolphHarris 3 of 19
Here, at this final stage of knowledge, which is Christianity, the “I” in a man becomes inseparable from the “you.” Both exist simultaneously within him, whereas in the ordinary man they stand fundamentally opposed to each other. No longer is the personality the sole content of the mind: it is now but a partial content. In his inmost attitude he is conscious of unity with others and consequently emanates a perfect sympathy towards them. This is not the sentimental attitude which often goes with the superficial emotion called love. It is profoundly deeper. It can never change, whereas emotional love may turn to dislike or even hate. This inner sense of unity can in no wise alter it is always there. Nor can it even be impeded by physical or selfish considerations. There is nothing in another man’s face or body, fortune or misfortune, mind, or heart, which can obstruct the ceaseless flow of the blesser. “We two are rooted in the same Overself” is the remembrance which he cherishes in himself. He has understood the inner penetration of the many in the One and of the One with the many. What he feels for himself is not different from what he feels for others; but what he does for himself will be necessarily different, because wisdom demands recognition of the superior and hence more responsible role which has been allotted to him in his game of life. #RandolphHarris 4 of 19
Many patients who come to a psychiatrist for the first time introduce themselves and shake hands when he invites them into his office. Some psychiatrists, indeed, offer their own hands first. I have a different policy about handshakes. If the patient proffers his hand in a hearty way, I will shake it to avoid being rude, but in a noncommittal fashion, because I am wondering why he is being so hearty. If he offers it in a way which merely suggests that he considers it good manners, I will return the compliment in such a way which indicates that he is desperate, then I will shake it firmly and reassuringly to let him know that I understand his need. However, my manner when I enter the waiting room, the expression on my face and the position of my arms, indicates clearly enough to most newcomers that this amenity will be omitted unless they insist upon it. This is intended to establish, and usually does establish, that we are both there for a more serious purpose than to prove that we are good fellows or to exchange courtesies. Mainly, I do not shake hands with them because I do not know them, and I do not expect them to shake hands with me, because they do not know me; also, some people who come to psychiatrist’s object to being touched, and it is a courtesy to them to refrain from doing so. #RandolphHarris 5 of 19
The ending of the interview is a different matter. By that time, I know a great deal about the patient, and he knows something about me. Thus, when he leaves, I make a point of shaking hands with him, and I know enough about him to know how to do it properly. This handshake means something particularly important to him: that I am accepting him even after he has told me all the “bad” things about himself. (“Acceptance” is not used here in it ill-defined, sentimental sense; it means, specifically, that I am willing to spend more time with him. This involves a serious commitment which may, in some cases, mean one or more years of patience, effort, ups and downs, and getting up in the morning.” If he needs comforting, my handshake is such that it will comfort him; if he needs assertion of his masculinity, my handshake will evoke his masculinity This is not a carefully thought-out device to seduce the patient; it is a spontaneous and freely-given recognition of him as I now know him after talking for an hour with him about his most intimate concerns. On the other side, if he has lied to me out of malice rather than natural embarrassment, or tried to exploit or browbeat me, I will not shake hands with him, so that he knows he will have to behave differently if he wants me on his side. #RandolphHarris 6 of 19
With women, it is slightly different. If one needs a palpable sign that I accept her, I will shape hands in a way suitable to her needs; if (as I know by this time) another shrinks from contact with men, I will say farewell in a correct way but let her pass without a handshake. This latter cause illustrates most clearly the reason for not shaking hands as a greeting: if I shake hands, I awaken her abhorrence. I have, in effect, intruded upon and insulted her before the interview, by forcing her, out of good manners, and against her inclination, to touch me and let me touch her, however courteously. In therapy groups, I follow a similar policy. I do not say Hello on entering, because I have not seen the members for a whole week, and I do not know to whim I am saying Hello. A light or cordial Hello might be quite out of place in the light of something that has happened to them in the interval. However, I do make an extraordinarily strong point of saying Good-by to each member at the end of the meeting, because then I know to whom I am saying Good-by, and how to say it in each case. For example, suppose one woman’s mother has died since the last meeting. A genial Hello from me would seem out of place to her. She might forgive me for it, but there is no need to put that strain on her. By the time the meeting is over, I know how to say Good-by to her in her bereavement. #RandolphHarris 7 of 19
Socially, it is different, since friends are for stroking. With them, Hello and Good-by range from an open handshake to a big hug, depending on what they are ready for or need; or sometimes it is josh and jive to keep from getting too involved, a “smile when you say that.” However, one thing in life is more certain than taxes and just as certain as death: the sooner you make new friends, the sooner you will have old ones. So much for Hello and Good-by. What happens in between falls into the framework of a specific theory of personality and group dynamics, which is also a therapeutic method, knows as transactional analysis. To appreciate what follows, it is first necessary to understand the principles of this approach. Plotinus’ belief that in all his lesser loves, man is seeking the divine, that it is the object he permanently wants much more than these temporary ones, is the truth to which he must come one day. And he will come by a double movement: the first, away from them by successive disenchantments, the second by progressive glimpses of the divine beauty. A life without love is a life emotionally starved and therefore stunted in growth. However, do not limit the meaning of the word love either to a selfish or animalistic definition. #RandolphHarris 8 of 19
How many unreflective and selfish persons have uttered the words “I love you” to someone else—wife, friend, or teacher when what they actually, if unconsciously meant was, “I love myself and use you to serve my interests or to satisfy my feelings.” A merely physical or purely emotional love will fade and die when events test if it really seeks the happiness of the beloved rather than the pleasure of the lover. Despite its fundamental conservatism, the eugenics craze had about it the air of a “reform,” for it emerged at a time when most Americans liked to think of themselves as reformers. Like the reform movements, eugenics accepted the principle of state action toward a common end and spoke in terms of the collective destiny of the group rather than of the individual success. This is significant of the general trend of thought in the Progressive era. A rising regard for the collective aspects of life was one of the outstanding characteristics of the shift in the dominant pattern of thought. The new collectivism was not socialistic, but was based upon an increasing recognition of the psychological and moral relatedness of men in society. It saw in the coexistence of baronial spledour and grinding poverty something more than the accidental dispensation of Providence. Refusing to depend upon individual self-assertion as an adequate remedy, men turned toward collective. #RandolphHarris 9 of 19
The change in the political outlook of the common man was responsible for a change in the fundamental mechanisms of thought among workers in the social sciences. The formalistic thought of the nineteenth century had been built upon an atomistic individualism. Society, men had believed, was a loose collection of individual agents; social advance depended upon improvements in the personal qualities of these individuals, their increased energy and frugality; among these individuals the strongest and best rose to the top and gave leadership to the rest; their heroic accomplishments were the ideal subject matter of history; the best laws were those that gave them the greatest scope for their activities; the best nations were those that produces most leaders of this type; the way of salvation was to leave unhindered the natural processes that produced these leaders and gave the affairs of the World into their hands. This pattern of thought was static; instead of inquiry it seemed to encourage deductive speculation; its essential function was the rationalization of existing institutions. Those who were satisfied with it had felt relatively little need for concrete investigation or even for significant novelty in their abstractions. #RandolphHarris 10 of 19
Between the Spanish-American War and the outbreak of the First World War there was a great restlessness sin American society, which inevitably affected the patterns of speculative thought. The old scheme of thought was repeatedly assailed by critics who were in sympathy with the new spirit of the Progressive era. The intellectual friction engendered by this discontent fired the energies and released the critical talents of new minds in history, economics, sociology, anthropology, and law. The result was a minor renaissance in American social thought, a renaissance which saw in relatively short span of years the rise to prominence of Charles A. Beard, Frederick Jackson Turner, Thorstein Veblen, John R. Commons, John Dewey, Franz Boas, Louis D. Brandeis, and Oliver Wendell Holmes. It is easier to enumerate the achievements of this renaissance than to characterize its intellectual assumptions, but certainly its leading figures did share a common consciousness of society as a collective whole rather than a congeries of individual atoms. They shared also an understanding of the need for empirical research and accurate description rather than theoretical speculation cast in some traditional mold. #RandolphHarris 11 of 19
A drastic departure from ancestor worship in history was marked by Charles Beard’s study of the origins of the Constitution by Frederick Jackson Turner’s quest for environmental and economic explanations of American development. Brandies opened new possibilities in law by drafting for the first time a factual sociological brief in defense of a state law regulating conditions in labour in private enterprise. Franz Boas led a generation of anthropologists away from unilinear evolutionary theory toward cultural history and took pioneer steps in the criticism of race theory. John Dewey made philosophy a working instrument in other disciplines, applying it fruitfully to psychology, sociology, education, and politics. Veblen exposed the intellectual sterility of prevailing economic theory, and pointed the way to an institutional analysis of the facts of economic life. In accordance with the spirit of the times, the most original thinkers in social science had ceased to make their main aim the justification and perpetuation of existing society in all its details. They were trying to describe it with accuracy, to understand it in new terms, and to improve it. Man’s development requires his capacity to transcend the narrow prison of his ego, his greed, his selfishness, his separation from his fellow man, and hence, his basic loneliness. #RandolphHarris 12 of 19
This transcendence is the condition for being open and related to the World, vulnerable, and yet with an experience of identity and integrity; of man’s capacity to enjoy all that is alive, to pour out his faculties into the World around him, to be “interested”; to be rather than to have and to use are consequences of the step to overcome greed an egomania. From an entirely different standpoint, the principle shared by all racial humanists is that of negating and combating idolatry in every form and shape—idolatry, in the prophetic sense of worshiping the work of one’s own hands and hence making man subservient to things, and in this process becoming a thing himself. The idols against which the Old Testament prophets fought were idols in stone or wood, or trees or hills; the idols of our day are leaders, institutions, especially the State, the nation, production, law and order, and every man-made thing. Whether or not one believes in God is a question secondary to whether one denies idols. The concept of alienation is the same as the Christian Bible concept of idolatry. It is man’s submission to the things of his creation and to the circumstances of his doing. If they are true to their common tradition, whatever may divine believers and nonbelievers, there is something which unites them, and that is the common fight against idolatry and the deep conviction that no thing and no institution must ever take the place of God or, as a non-believer may prefer to say, of that empty place which is reserved for No-thing. #RandolphHarris 13 of 19
Dr. Freud was mainly concerned with the uncovering of the individual unconscious. While he assumed that society enforced repressions, these were the repression of instinctual forces, and not the social repression which really matter—the repressions of the awareness of social contradictions, socially produced suffering, of the failure of authority, of feelings of malaise and dissatisfaction, etcetera. Freudian analysis has shown that it is possible to some degree to make the individual unconscious conscious, without touching the social unconscious. However, it follows from the premises which were present thus far, that any attempt for de-repression which excludes the social sphere must remain limited. Only if it transcends the individual realm, and if the process includes the analysis of the social unconscious, is the full awareness of what had been repressed is possible. The reasons for this proposition follows from what has been said before. Unless a person can transcend his society and see how it furthers or hinders the development of human potentialities, he cannot be fully in touch with his own humanity. Socially conditioned taboos and restrictions must appear as “natural” to him, and human nature must appear in a distorted form, if he does not recognize the distortion of human nature by the society, he happens to live in. #RandolphHarris 14 of 19
If uncovering the unconscious means arriving at the experience of one’s own humanity, then, indeed, it cannot stop with the individual but must proceed to the uncovering of the social unconscious. This implies the understanding of social dynamics and the critical appraisal of one’s own society from the standpoint of universal human values. The very insight into society which Marx has given us is a condition for becoming aware of the social unconscious, and hence for the full awakening (“depression”) of an individual. If the “should be Ego where there was Id,” humanistic social criticism is a necessary precondition. Otherwise, the person will become aware only of certain aspects of his individual unconscious, yet in other aspects hardly more awake as a total person than the rest. It must be added, however, that not only is critical understanding of society important for the analytic understanding of oneself, but that the analytic understanding of the individual unconscious is also a significant contribution to the understanding of society. Only if one has experienced the dimension of the unconscious in one’s personal life can one fully appreciate how it is possible that social life is determined by ideologies which are neither truths nor lies or, to put it differently, which are both truths and lies in the sense that they are rationalizations which have the function of hiding the real motivation of social and political actions. #RandolphHarris 15 of 19
Recently, I had occasion to listen to some recorded interviews by a young counselor of elementary school children. She was very warm and optimistic in her attitude toward her clients, yet she was ineffective. She seemed to be responding warmly only to the superficial aspects of each child and so the contacts were charry, social, and friendly, but it was clear she was not reaching the real person of the child. Yet in a few ways, she rated reasonably high on each of the conditions I have described. So perhaps there are still elements missing which I have not captured in my formulation. I am also aware of the possibility that different kinds of helping relationships may be effective with different kinds of people Some of our therapists working with schizophrenics are effective when they appear to be highly conditional, when they do not accept some of the bizarre behaviour of the psychotic. This can be interpreted in two ways. Perhaps a conditional set is more helpful with these individuals. Or perhaps—and this seems to me to fit the facts better—these psychotic individuals perceive a conditional attitude as meaning that the therapist really cares, where an unconditional attitude may be interpreted as apathetic noncaring. In any event, I do want to make it clear that what I have given are beginning formulations which surely will be modified and corrected from further learnings. #RandolphHarris 16 of 19
In the major part of analytical literature it is an implicit or explicit axiom that we are helpless toward our resistances, that is, that we cannot overcome them without expert help. This conviction will be held as the strongest argument against the idea of self-analysis. And it is an argument that will carrying heavy weight, not only with analysts but also with every patient who has been analyzed, because both analyst and patient know the tenacious and devious struggles that arise when precarious territory is approached. However, an appeal to experience can never be a conclusive argument, because experience itself is determined by the whole complex of ruling concepts and customs, and by our mentality. More specifically, analytical experience is determined by the fact that the patient is not given a chance to cope alone with his resistances. The stronger consideration is the theoretical premise that underlies the analyst’s conviction, which is no more and no less than Dr. Freud’s whole philosophy of the nature of man. This subject is too intricate to delve into here. Only this much: if man is driven by instincts and if among them a destruction instinct plays a prominent role—as was the contention of Dr. Freud—not much, if any, space is left in human nature for constructive forces that might strive toward growth and development. #RandolphHarris 17 of 19
And it is these constructive forces that constitute the dynamic counterpole to the forces producing the resistances. A denial of them by necessity lead to a defeatists attitude toward the possibility of overcoming our resistances through our own efforts. I do not share this part of the Freudian philosophy, but I do not deny that the question of resistance remains a serious consideration. The outcome of self-analysis, as of every analysis, depends by and large on the strength of the resisting forces and the strength of the self to deal with them. No two persons can occupy the same space, and so each has a different place from which to view the World. It follows that, if there are eight billion human beings in the World, there are 8 billion ways for this World to be experienced, none more real or valid than another. If each person embodies a unique perspective, then it is a momentous thing indeed to invalidate or destroy it. This is one cruel feature of colonial exploitation, which destroyed the perspectives of black Africans, Australian aborigines, and Native American Indians. Women and African Americas around the World have complained, legitimately, that their perspectives are often ignored or invalidated by the dominate European male populations. #RandolphHarris 18 of 19
With the advent of the various liberation movements, the neglected perspective are revealed to the World, and an enriched existence accrues to all concerned. The growing interest of young people in the religion and the lifestyles of traditional peoples such as the American Indians and Africans, and Mormons, is a quest for perspectives upon self and World that are experienced as more life giving then the perspective of White, male, middle-class American. The human race is a myriad of refractive surfaces staining the White radiance of eternity. Each surface refracts the refractions of refractions of refractions. Each self refracts the refractions of others’ refractions of self’s refractions of others’ refractions…Here is glory and wonder and mystery, yet too often we wish to ignore or destroy those points of view that refract the light differently from out own. 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. Unto the hills I life mine eyes, whence comes my help that lies in God, who is enthroned above the skies, who made the Heavens and Earth to be. He guides thy foot over mountains steeps, he slumbers not, they soul He keeps; behold, He slumbers not nor sleeps, of American the guardian He. He is thy rock, thy shield, and stay, on thy right hand a shade always; the sun never smiteth thee by day, the moon at night never troubles thee. The Lord will guard thy soul from sin, thy life from harm without, within, thy going out and coming in, from this time forth eternally. #RandolphHarris 19 of 19
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An Altar Boy Just Escaped from Mass or Something
The choices you make—mission, education, marriage, career, and faith in God—will shape your eternal destiny. Much has been written and said about today’s generation of young adults. Research shows that many resist organized religion. Many are in debt and unemployed. A majority like the idea of marriage, but many are reluctant to take that step. A growing number do not want children. Without the gospel and inspired guidance, many are wandering in strange paths and losing their way. However, your righteous choices will keep you from getting off course. Think of it: If you choose not to take a drink of alcohol, you will not become an alcoholic! If you never choose to go into debt, you will avoid the possibility of bankruptcy! The Lord will always keep Hos promise: “I will lead you along.” The only question is, will we let ourselves be led? Will we hear His voice and the voice of His servants? If you are there for the Lord, I testify that He will be there for you. If you love Him and Keep His commandments, you will have His Spirit to be with you and guide you. “Put your trust in that Spirit which leadeth to do good…By this shall you know, all things…pertaining unto things…pertaining unto things of righteousness.” #RandolphHarris 1 of 20
If we are steadfast and immovable in doing good, our customs will help us to stay on the covenant path. We all have customs and traditions that are personal, from our family, or from the community in which we live, and we hope to keep all those that align with the principles of the gospel. Edifying customs and traditions are fundamental to our efforts to stay on the covenant path, and those that are an obstacle, we ought to reject. A custom is the practice or the frequent and habitual way of thinking for a person, culture, or tradition. Frequently, the things we think and do in a habitual way we recognize as normal. Few people know what love really means because with nearly all it is filtered through the screens of bodily and selfish considerations. In its pure native state, it is the first attribute of the divine soul and consequently it is one of the most important qualities which the seeker has to cultivate. The love for which man is searching exists; it is as perfect, as beautiful, as perpetual, and as healing as he can imagine it to be. However, it does not exist where one wants to find it. Only the inner kingdom holds and gives it at the end of his search. No other human being can do so unless he or she has previously entered the kingdom, and then only through all the limitations and colourings of the Earthly consciousness. #RandolphHarris 2 of 20
Although we have learned that a love restricted to the limited circle of wife, family, or friends is unphilosophic and should be extended in universal compassion to all mankind, this should not be mistaken to mean that such a restricted love ought to be abandoned. On the contrary, it should have its fullest place within the larger one. We also believe that “love” is one of the most misused words in English. We may now add that it is also one of the most debased words. Why? Because, very often, it is based on sheer self-interest and not on the beloved’s interest and gives only so lang as it gets; because, not seldom, the greater the ardour with which it begins, the greater the antipathy with which it ends; and because it frequently mistakes the goading of animal glands for the awakening of human affection. True love does not change or falter because the beloved has changed and wavered or because the physical circumstances wherein it was born have become different. It cannot be blown hither and thither by the accidents of destiny. It is not merely an emotional attraction, although it will include this. “Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds, …O no! it is an ever-fixed mark…” wrote Shakespeare. #RandolphHarris 3 of 20
It expressed itself outwardly in an exceptionally kindly behaviour. He will not hurt others unnecessarily. He feels that one of the best pieces of advice he can give others is: “Be kind.” In this way you abrase your own egoism and show forth something—just an echo—of this love which emanates from the indwelling spiritual self. The cost in thus weakly and briefly identifying yourself with others is little: the gain in moral growth is large. When your duties, activities, or responsibilities in life call for critical judgment of any person, that is allowable. However, when you fall into it for the sake of idle gossip or, what is worse, when you are nastily censorious, slanderously back-biting, for the sake of malice, that is unkind and unpardonable. Above his own deliberate willing or wishing, quite spontaneously and impulsively, a feeling of pure love begins to well up within him. It is unconnected with physical or egoistic causes, for all those who touch his orbit benefit by it. If they are foolish or dreadful, sinful or deformed, unclean or disagreeable, it does not stop flowing. No one has ever unraveled the mystery of love as it exists between a man and a woman. Since it is usually beyond our power to accept or reject, we should regard it as a Divine Message and seek out its meaning to our spiritual life. #RandolphHarris 4 of 20
What is normal for some may be odd for others, depending on their customs and traditions. Which customs and traditions are normal in our lives? Today, we often hear about “a new normal.” If you really want to embrace a new normal, I invite you to turn your heart, mind, and soul increasingly to our Heavenly Father and His Son, Jesus as the Christ. Let that be your new normal. If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things,” reports Articles of Faith 1.13. At its peak moments, which can arise only in its first or last stages and which belong only to its affectional rather than passional side, human love catches and reflects feebly the nature of divine love. The romantic aureole which young persons put around love, the demands made on it for that which it cannot give, point to the need of maturer instruction. Yet there is a relationship where two can grow in virtues side by side, learning wisdom from one another, harmonizing more and more with each other. However, this calls for self-control, eliminating negatives, cultivating positives. No one has the right to bind, hinder, or restrict the free spiritual movement of another person—no matter how close his blood, contractual, or emotional relationship may be—who enters into the pursuit of higher well-being. If it is done in the name of love, then that word has its meaningly sorely misrepresented, for it is really being done in selfishness. #RandolphHarris 5 of 20
This quality of “love” is not to be measured by the exhibitions of effusiveness on the part of its possessor; it is to be measured by the presence or absence in him of egolessness. Whoever talks of his love for mankind will reveal it better by positive deeds than by sentimental displays. When brought down to individuals, the fact is, however, that such love is hard to feel. Only the actualized Christian really possesses it. Our Heavenly Father’s love for each of His children is real. He is there for each one. The eternal principle of love is manifested by living the two great commandments: love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength and love your neighbour as yourself. We are willing to help each other because we love one another, and our loved one’s needs become our needs, and ours become theirs. No matter what language a child of God speaks or what country he comes from, we love each other because we are brothers, children of the same Father. It is not enough to avoid being a stumbling block for others; it is not enough to notice the needy on the road and pass by. Even if it is the first and only time, we meet him or her in this life, let us take advantage of every opportunity to help our neighbour. By loving the Overself within you in worship you are loving it in all men, because it is present in them, too. Hence, you do not have to go out of your way to love any individual specially, separately, although you will naturally feel affection for some. #RandolphHarris 6 of 20
Adversity in our lives can cause doubt about the fulfillment of the promises that have been made to us. Please trust in our Father. He always keeps His promises, and we can learn what He wants to teach us. Traces of earlier customs survive in present-day cultures. According to the Doctrine of Survival, meaningless customs must be survivals. When and where they first arose, they had a practical or at least a ceremonial intention, but are now fallen into absurdity from having been carried on into a new state in society where the original sense has been discarded. If we can accept the conclusion that every established and settled institution is justifiable, in its setting, as an adaptation, it seems to me that we are thereby accepting the extension of the Darwinian theory to the field of science and society. Sociology is a psychology rather than a biological science. The consciousness of kind, which is the basis of all social organization, is a mental state and not a biological process. Although the fittest is not always the best, the characteristic of the social process makes them identical. Society, however, in selecting the best, gives weight to such qualities as sympathy and mutual aid. It usually eliminates the incompetent and the irresponsible. The improvement of society must be a slow evolutionary process waiting upon the gradual increment of personal characteristics “adapted” to the life conditions of modern industrial society. #RandolphHarris 7 of 20
The individual is a product of his social life and society is an organization of such individuals. Man’s psychical outfit is not divisible into the social and the non-social; but that he is all social in a large sense, is all a part of the common human life. We may desire abolition of war, industrial justice, greater equality of opportunity for all. However, no amount of preaching good will or the golden rule or cultivation of sentiments of love and equity will accomplish the results. There must be change in objective arrangements and institutions. We must work on the environment, not merely on the hearts of men. The prevailing code of morals fails to pierce the veil of the impersonal corporate relations of modern society, and the blame for social ills must be fixed on the absentee malefactors. If we were to cut back unnecessary dehumanizing consumption today, it would mean less production, less employment, and less income and less profit generated in certain sectors of the economy. Clearly, if this were done willy-nilly, with no planning, etcetera, it would cause extreme hardship for the economy as a whole and for specific groups of people. What would be required is a planned process of spreading the increased leisure across all areas of work, retraining of people, and a redeployment of some material resources. #RandolphHarris 8 of 20
Time would be needed, and planning would of course have to be social rather than private, since no one industry could organize and implement a plan affecting wide sectors of the economy. Given proper planning, the reduction in total income and profit would not seem to be an insurmountable problem, since the need for income would have been reduced with the lowering consumption. As our productive potential has increased, we have been faced with the choice of much less work with a much higher production and consumption with a steady level of work. Somewhat begrudgingly we have chosen a mixture of the two. Production and consumption have been increased, and at the same time work hours have been reduced and child labour largely abolished. This choice was not dictated by technical necessity, but was the result of changing social attitudes and political struggle. Whatever the merits of theses suggestion are, they are of little importance in comparison with what economists can suggest in response to the question, Is a stationary technological society possible? The important point is that the specialists address themselves to this problem, and they will do so only if they see the relevance of the question. One should not forget that the main difficulty may be found not in the economic and technical aspects of the problem but in its political and psychological aspects. Habits and ways of thought do not bend easily, and since many powerful interest groups have a very real stake in maintaining and speeding up the consumption treadmill the struggle to change the pattern will be hard and long. As have been said many times, the all-important point at this time is that we make a beginning. #RandolphHarris 9 of 20
We are not alone in our fixation on material consumption—other Western nations, Russia, China, Japan, and East European nations also seem to be caught in the same destructive trap. Witness the Chinese claim that they will bury us in washing machines, cars, minerals, refrigerators, etcetera. The real challenge would be not to engage them in the wrong race, but to transcend this stage of social development and challenge them to build a truly human society—which will not be defined and measured by the number of Smart TVs or cars. If the consumers were to reduce their consumption to satisfy their real needs as living human beings, while this question of an eventually stationary production level is at the moment an essentially theoretical one, there is a very practical one which would arise. If this were to happen, if we redirected and transferred production from certain “unnecessary” private consumption to more humane forms of social consumption, the present rate of economic growth could be maintained. The needs here are clear and have been noted by many contemporary analysts and writers. A partial list of activities would include: a reconstruction of much of the nation’s living spaces (millions of new housing units), a vast expansion and improvement in public education and public health, development of urban and intercity systems of public transportation, tens of thousands of small and large recreation projects in American communities (parks, playgrounds, swimming pools, etcetera), a major beginning in the development of cultural life—brining drama, music, dance, painting, movie making, etcetera, into hundreds of thousands of communities and millions of lives which currently have no real sense of this dimension of human existence. #RandolphHarris 10 of 20
All these efforts involve physical production and the development of vast human resources. Such projects have the immediate virtue of attacking the problems of the impoverished minority, at the same time engaging the imagination and energies of the non-poor. If not completely eliminate, they also soften the problems created by cutting back on consumption. If major programs of this kind were to be undertaken, national economic and social planning would, of course, be required since substantial shifts in the use of human and material resources would be involved. A prime result of such efforts would be to show that we were indeed moving toward a genuinely human community. If we guaranteed that in each aspect of such programs the people and communities involved would be responsible for project development and implementation, this would be another great step in the direction of creating an alive, involved society. At the national level, enabling legislation is necessary plus adequate financing, but given this all-important minimum, maximum public participation and project diversity should be the prime principle. #RandolphHarris 11 of 20
In such a shift from the private to the public sector of consumption, private spending would be restrained as more income was diverted to higher taxes, and there would be a measurable shift from deadening, dehumanizing private consumption to new forms of public consumption that would involve people in creative community activities. Needless to say, such a shift would require careful planning to avoid severe upsets in the economic system; in this respect, we face the same problem in the convention from armament to peace production. For man, inasmuch as he is man—that is to say, inasmuch as he transcends nature and is aware of himself and of death—the sense of complete aloneness and separateness is close to insanity. Man as man is afraid of insanity, just as man as terrestrial being is afraid of death. Man has to be related, he had to find union with others, in order to be sane. This need to be one with others is his strongest passion, stronger than pleasures of the flesh and often even stronger than his wish to live. It is this fear of isolation and ostracism, rather than the “castration fear,” that makes people repress the awareness of that which is taboo since such awareness would mean being different, separate, and hence, to be ostracized. Even if his own eyes could convince him that it is false, for this reason the individual must bling himself from seeing that which his group claims does not exist, or accept as truth that which the majority says is true. #RandolphHarris 12 of 20
The herd is so vitally important for the individual that their views, beliefs, feelings, constitute reality for him, more so than what his sense and his reason tell him. Just as in the hypnotic state of dissociation the hypnotist’s voice and words take the place of reality, so the social pattern constitutes reality for most people. What man considers true, real, sane, are the clichés accepted by his society, and much that does not fit in with these clichés is excluded from awareness, is unconscious. There is almost nothing a man will not believe—or repress when he is threatened with the explicit or implicit threat of ostracism. Retuning to the fear of losing one’s identity, for the majority of people, their identity is precisely rooted in their conformity with the social clichés. “They” are who they are supposed to be—hence the fear of ostracism implies the fear of the loss of identity, and the very combination of both fears has a most powerful effect. Let us imagine a person who has observed that in certain situations in which he would like to participate in discussions he is tongue tied because he is afraid of possible criticism. If he allows this observation to take root within himself he will begin to wonder about the fear involved, since it is out of proportion to any real danger. He will wonder why the fear is so great that it prevents him not only from expressing his thoughts but also from thinking clearly. He will wonder whether the fear is greater than his ambition, and whether it is greater than any consideration of expediency, which for the sake of his career, would make it desirable that he produce a good impression. #RandolphHarris 13 of 20
Having thus gained an interest in his problem, he will try to find whether similar difficulties operate in other areas of life, and, if so, what form they take, He will examine his relations with women. Is he too timid to approach them because they might find fault with him? What about his life that involves pleasures of the flesh? Was he once important for a while because he could not get over a failure? Is he reluctant to go to parties? What about shopping? Does he buy an expensive house because otherwise the real estate agent might think he is too economical? Does he tip too generously because the waiter might look down upon him? Furthermore, exactly how vulnerable is he in regard to criticism? What is sufficient to touch off an embarrassment or to make him feel hurt? Is he hurt only when his wife overtly criticizes his necktie or is he uneasy when she merely praises Justin for always matching his tie and his socks? Such considerations will give him an impression of the extent and intensity of his difficulty and of its various manifestations. He will then want to know how it affects his life. He knows already that it makes him inhibited in many areas. He cannot assert himself; he is too complaint with what other expect of him, and therefore he can never be himself but must automatically play a part. #RandolphHarris 14 of 20
Not being able to be himself makes him resentful against others, for they appear to dominate him, but it also lowers his own self-esteem. Finally, he looks out for the factors that are responsible for the difficulty. What made him so fearful of criticism? He may remember that his parents held him to very rigid standards, and may recall any number of incidents in which he was scolded or made to feel inadequate. However, he will also have to think of all the weak spots in his actual personality which, in their totality, render him dependent on others and therefore make him regard their opinion of him as of compelling importance. If he can find the answers to all such questions his recognition that he is afraid of criticism will no longer be an isolated insight, but he will see the relationship of this trait to the whole structure of his personality. It may well be asked whether I mean by this example that a person who has discovered a new factor should deliberately ransack his experiences and feelings in the various ways indicated. Certainly not, because which a procedure would involve the same danger of merely intellectual mastery that was discussed before. #RandolphHarris 15 of 20
However, he should grant himself a period of contemplation. He should mediate on his finding in much the same manner as an archaeologist who has discovered a buried statues, badly mutilated, looks at his treasure from all angels until the original factor that a person recognizes is like a searchlight turned on certain domains of his life, lighting up spots which have hitherto been dark. If only he is vividly interested in recognizing himself, he is almost bound to see them. These are point at which the guidance of an expert would be particularly helpful. I hypothesize that growth and change are more likely to occur the more that a counselor is experiencing a warm, optimistic, acceptant attitude toward what is in the client. It means that he prizes his client, as a person, with somewhat the same quality of feeling that a parent feels for his child, prizing him as a person regardless of his particular behaviour at the moment. It means that he cares for his client in a non-possessive way, as a person with potentialities. It involves an open willingness for the client to be whatever feelings are real in him at the moment—hostility or tenderness, rebellion or submissiveness, assurance of self-depreciation. It means a kind of love for the client as he is, providing we understand the word love as equivalent to the theologian’s term agape, and not in its usual romantic and possessive meanings. #RandolphHarris 16 of 20
This description is a feeling which is not paternalist, not sentimental, nor superficially social and agreeable. It respects the other person as a separate individual, and does not possess him. It is a kind of liking which has strength, and which is not demanding. We have termed it a beneficial regard. Consciousness is awareness, the state of or faculty of being mentally cognizant or aware of anything. This important state of being not only refers to the unique capacity to perceive, remember, think about, and imagine the World in its many realities and possibilities. It includes a special human capacity—to reflect upon the person’s immediate way of being aware. Thus, you can engage in remembering the past; of someone asks, “What are you doing right now?” you can reply, “I am trying to remember something.” You can tell the difference, through such reflection, between perceiving, remembering, and imagining. Indeed, loss of the capacity for such discriminating reflection, confusion of seeing with imagining, is one of the signs by which students of abnormal personality identify psychosis. The first property of human consciousness to which we call attention, then, is that it can be reflected on. Humans are capable of being self-conscious, as well as conscious of the World beyond themselves. This strange ability of the human to “clamber outside of self” and look back at self is a valuable tool of consciousness expansion. It enables the person to see self as others see the person. In gives one an added foothold on reality. #RandolphHarris 17 of 20
We do not have to be hindered by self-judgment. Compassion is an attribute of Christ. It is born of love for others and knows no boundaries. Even when we do what is right, the circumstances in our life can change from good to bad, from happiness to sadness. God answers our prayers according to His infinite mercy and love and in His own time. Our Saviour’s plea is to “let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in Heaven,” reports Matthew 5.16. We want to see Jesus for who He is and we want to feel His love. Worthiness is a process, and perfection and an eternal trek. We can be worthy to enjoy certain privileges without being perfect. There is a natural, probably a mortal, tendency to compare ourselves with others. Unfortunately, when we make these comparisons, we tend to compare our weakest attributes with someone else’s strongest. Obviously these kinds of comparisons are destructive and only reinforce the fear that somehow we do not measure up and therefore we must not be as worthy as the next person. We need to come to terms with our desire to reach perfection and our frustration when our accomplishments or behaviours are less than perfect. Salvation does not come all at one; we are commanded to be perfect even as our Father in Heaven it perfect. It will take us ages to accomplish this end, for there will be greater progress beyond the grave, and it will be there that the faithful will overcome all things, and receive all things, even the fulness of the Father’s glory. #RandolphHarris 18 of 20
As California’s Capitol City fire department, it is the Sacramento Fire Department’s mission to provide unparalleled fire, rescues, and emergency medical services to their community. “Firefighters are individuals unto themselves, with a tremendous sense of humor. I think you need it in this type of job. I don’t think there is another occupation where a sense of humor is so important. The pranks that are played on one another, the fraternity house atmosphere at times, is necessary to cut both the tension of what it is you actually do when you go to work and the tedium in between. Sometimes you meet guys in the job who think they know everything, but the job doesn’t let them get away with it for every long. There was this kid, one of those people who don’t know anything but think they have it all together. He was a probie, a probationary fireman, and he looked like an altar boy just escaped from Mass of something. When you tell him something, he says, ‘I know that. I know that. I’ll tell you something. My friend X and I have been tight because we work together in the same station. I’ve never been to Vietnam or anything like that, but they say that when you are close to death and you’re with somebody, it makes you closer. Well, I know that since we found that baby in that collapsed building, X and Y and I are a lot closer than we were. #RandolphHarris 19 of 20
“I guess just knowing that you could die, just that fact does something to bring you together. We knew that is something happened we were all going together.” California’s Capital City fire department stives to maintain a focus on providing value to the residents, business owners, and visitors who live, work and play within in boundaries. The Sacramento Fire Department promotes safety and assists people in their time of crisis. They seek not only to make a good impression, but to provide the public piece of mind that their fire department is capable, ready, and willing to help them when they need it. You can help save lives by donating to the Sacramento Fire Department. As this is a community of family values, it is essential to raise your children to love America, be patriotic, love God and Jesus Christ, respect and obey law and order, and treat others with dignity and kindness. 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. God of the World, eternity’s sole Lord! King over kings, be now Thy name adored! Blessed are we to whom Thou dost accord this gladsome time Thy wonderous ways to scan! This is the day bless above all others, for the Rock of Ages rested thereon. Six days are days for toil and labour, but the seventh day is a day unto the Lord. Toil not! This day is not for labour! In six days was the World created. #RandolphHarris 20 of 20
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The Fear of Isolation and Ostracism
Many people wonder why it is so important to work hard. Well, accumulation is the reward of personal merit and millionaires are a product of natural selection; the business class is essentially predatory in outlook and habits. The personal attributes of the ideal pecuniary man are ordinarily reserved for moral delinquents. Where the function of the captain of industry is conventionally considered a productive one, the methods of a developed business society is an attenuated form of sabotage. Where pecuniary acquisition is regarded as the reward of social service, the productive function of industry is an expression of workmanship, and the partially fraudulent character of business is an expression of salesmanship and chicanery. Competition has sometimes been looked at chiefly as a rivalry in productive service, but this is only true of the past when there had been no divorce between business and industry. Competition had once centered about rivalry between producers for industrial efficiency; but when business became supreme over industry it had become chiefly a contest between seller and consumers with a large admixture of fraudulent exploitation. #RandolphHarris 1 of 24
Institutions, individuals, and habits of thought are results of selective adaptation. The simple aggression characteristic of barbarian culture has given way to shrewd practice and chicanery, as the best approved method of accumulating wealth. There are the qualities which have become essential for selective admission into the leisure class. The tendency of pecuniary life is, in a general way, to conserve the barbarian temperament, but with the substitution of fraud and prudence, or administrative ability, in place of the predilection for physical damage that characterizes the early barbarian. The process of selection, under the conditions of modern society, has caused the aristocratic and bourgeois virtues—that is to say the destructive and pecuniary traits—to be found among the upper classes, and the industrial virtues, the peaceable traits, largely among the classes given to mechanical industry. The thing that distinguishes post-Darwinian science from pre-evolutionary science is not the insistence on facts, nor again the effort to formulate schemes of growth or development. It is a difference of spiritual point of view…a difference in the basis of valuation of the fact for the scientific purpose, or in the interest from which the facts are appreciated. #RandolphHarris 2 of 24
Evolutionary science is unwilling to depart from the test of causal relation or quantitative sequence. The modern scientist who asks the question “Why?” demands an answer in terms of cause and effect and refuses to go beyond it to any ultimate system, to any teleological conception of the cosmos. This is the crux of the distinction; for earlier natural scientists were not satisfied with this bare formula of mechanical sequence, but sought for some ultimate systematization the facts within a framework of natural law. They persistently clung to the notion of some spiritually legitimate end resident in and underlying the matters of fact which they observed. Their object was to formulate knowledge in terms of absolute truth; and this absolute truth is a spiritual fact. This pre-Darwinian viewpoint still dominates the conceptions of modern economics. The ultimate laws formulated by the classical economists are laws setting down the normal or natural in the light of their preconception regarding the ends to which, in the nature of things, all things, tend; and this preconception imputes to things a tendency to work out what the instructed common sense of the time accepts as the adequate or worthy end of human effort. #RandolphHarris 3 of 24
Yet evolutionary natural science deals only with cumulative causation, and not with the formulation of some normal case, which is constructed not out of any available facts but out of the investigator’s ideal of economic life. Traditional economics, following a preconceived notion of the normal, formulates an abstraction of the hedonistic man as a homogeneous globule of desire of happiness, passive under the buffetings of pain and pleasure stimuli. In the light of evolutionary science, on the contrary, man is seen to be a coherent structure of propensities and habits which seeks realization and expression in an unfolding activity. Instead of seeking for normal cases in the existence f an imaginary normal hedonistic man, a truly evolutionary economics must be the theory of a process of cultural growth as determined by the economic interest, a theory of cumulative sequence of economic institutions stated in terms of the process itself. Where other economist had found in Darwinian science merely a source of plausible analogies or a fresh rhetoric to substantiate traditional postulates and precepts, it is a loom upon which the whole fabric of economic thinking could be rewoven. The dominant school of economists had said that the existing is the normal and the normal is the right, and the roots of human ills lie in acts which interfere with natural unfolding of this normal process toward its inherent end in a beneficent order. #RandolphHarris 4 of 24
By virtue of their hedonistic preconceptions, their habituation to the ways of a pecuniary culture, and their avowed animistic faith that nature is in the right, the classical economists knew that the consummation to which, in the nature of things, all things tend, is the frictionless and beneficent economic system. This competitive ideal, therefore, affords the normal, and conformity to its requirements affords the test of absolute economic truth. In so far as economists had tried to use Darwinism, it was only to fortify this theoretical structure. Henceforth, economics should abandon such preconceived notions and devote itself to a theory of the evolution of institutions as they actually are. It is interesting to note that earlier political economists writing in the nineteenth century saw clearly that the economic process of greater and greater production was a means to an end, not an end in itself. Once a decent standard of material life had been achieved, it was hoped and expected that productive energies would be redirected toward the truly human development of society. The goal of producing more material goods as the final and total end of life was foreign to them. #RandolphHarris 5 of 24
Solitude, in the sense of being often alone, is essentially to any depth of meditation or of character; and solitude, in the presence of natural beauty and grandeur, is the cradle of thoughts and aspirations which are not only good for the individual, but which society could ill do without. Nor is there much satisfaction in contemplating the World with nothing left to the spontaneous activity of nature; with every rood of land brought into cultivation, which is capable of growing food for human beings; every flowery waste or natural pasture ploughed up, all quadrupeds or birds which are not domesticated for man’s use exterminated as his rivals for food, every hedgerow or superfluous tree rooted out, and scarcely a place left where a wild shrub or flower could grown without being eradicated as a weed in the name of improved agriculture. If the Earth must lose that great portion of its pleasantness which it owes to things that the unlimited increase of wealth and population would extirpate from it, for the mere purpose of enabling it to support a larger, but not a better or happier population, I sincerely hope, for the sake of posterity, that they will be content to be stationary, long before necessity compels them to it. #RandolphHarris 6 of 24
It is scarcely necessary to remark that a stationary condition of capital and population implies no stationary state of human improvement. There would be as much scope as ever for all kinds of mental culture, and moral and social progress; as much room for improving the Art of Living, and much more likelihood of its being improved, when minds ceased to be engrossed by the art of getting on. And though it is true that a shortening of the hours of labour would in many cases lessen the national dividend and lower wages; it would probably be well that most people should work rather less; provided that the consequent loss of material income could be met exclusively by the abandonment by all classes of the least worthy methods of consumption; and they could learn to spend leisure well. The most revolutionary change in our times lies in the fact that all the peoples of the World have opened their eyes and are aware of their desire for a dignified material life, and that man has discovered the technical means for the fulfillment of this aspiration. In the Western World and in Russian it will take only a relatively short while until this stage is achieved, even though it will take much longer in the nonindustralized countries of Asian, Africa, and Latin America. #RandolphHarris 7 of 24
Does this mean that in the rich industrial countries there is almost no longer any need for repression? This is, indeed, a widespread illusion among most people; yet it is not a fact. These societies, too, exhibit many contradictions and irrationalities. Does it make sense to spend millions of dollars on storing agricultural surpluses while millions of people in the World are starving? Well, in some senses yes. Many of the people who are starving in these other countries are not allies of America. The World is already overpopulated and by feeding people who are starving, they will be encouraged to breed more. When people cannot afford to feed themselves, they generally abstain from having children, which would reduce the burden on the World. Does it make sense to spend half of the national budget on weapons which, if and when they are used, will destroy our civilization? Well, the only way to protect a nation is to be heavily armed. This will make developed nations and less developed nations strongly reconsider an attack. Does it make sense to teach children the Christian virtues of humility and unselfishness and, at the same time, to prepare them for a life in which the exact opposites of these virtues are necessary in order to be successful? #RandolphHarris 8 of 24
In spite of our sinful heats, competition can bring out the best in people. When we compete, we push each other to test our strengths and give our best. In corporate America, competition can result in innovation and excellence. When people and ideas compete over something, it results in greater good for mankind. We all want a product that is more efficient, a process that is simpler, a person who is more skilled, and a business that is more profitable. Healthy competition is God’s way of providing the best for society. Does it make sense that we fought the last two World Wars for “freedom and democracy,” ending them with the demilitarization of the “enemies of freedom,” and that only a few years later we are rearming again for “freedom and democracy,” except that the former enemies of freedom are not its defenders, and the former allies are the enemies? I hope that the Lord’s people may be at peace one with another during times of trouble, regardless of what loyalties they may have to different governments or parties. Death of our military members seems to represent the contradictions of the peace of the gospel and the tides of war. The nations of the Earth have been divided over the possibility of World War III. Feelings run strong. There have been demonstrations for and against. #RandolphHarris 9 of 24
War, of course, is not new. The weapons change. The ability to defend and attack is constantly refined. However, there has been conflict throughout the ages over essentially the same issues. In the course of history, tyrants have arisen from time to time who have oppressed their own people and threatened the World. Such is adjudged to be the case presently, and consequently great and terrifying forces with sophisticated and fearsome armaments have engaged in battle. As citizens, we are all under the direction of our respective national leaders. They have access to greater political and military intelligence than do the people generally. Those in the armed services are under obligation to their respective governments to execute the will of the sovereign. When they joined the military service, they entered into a contract by which they are presently bound and to which they have dutifully responses. There are times and circumstances when nations are justified, in fact have an obligation, to fight for family, for liberty, and against tyranny, threat, and oppression. However, we are a people of peace. We are followers of our Redeemer, the Lord Jesus Christ, who was the Prince of Peace. However, even He said, “Think not that I am come to send peace on Earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword,” reports Matt 10.34. #RandolphHarris 10 of 24
This places us in the position of those who long for peace, who teach peace, who work for peace, but who also are citizens of nations and are subject to the laws of our governments. Furthermore, we are a freedom-loving people, committed to the defense of liberty wherever it is in jeopardy. I believe that God will not hold men and women in uniform responsible as agents of their government in carrying forward that which they are legally obligated to do. If we try to impede or hedge up the way of those who are involved in a contest with forces of evil and repression, it may even be that He will hold us responsible. If they have a military alliance with us, does it make sense to be deeply indignant against systems which do not grant freedom of speech and of political activity, while we call the very same systems, and even more ruthless ones, “freedom loving?” There is much that we can and must do in these perilous times. We can give our opinions on the merits of the situation as we see it, but never let us become a party to words or works of evil concerning our brothers and sisters in various nations on one side or the other. Political differences never justify hatred or ill will. I hope that the Lord’s people may be at peace one with another during times of trouble, regardless of what loyalties they may have to different governments or parties. #RandolphHarris 11 of 24
Let us pray for those who are called upon to bear arms by their respective governments and plead for the protection of Heaven upon them that they may return to their loved ones in safety. Does it make sense that we live in the midst of plenty, yet have little joy? Joy comes from exercising faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, worthily receiving and faithfully honouring sacred ordinances and covenants, and striving to become deeply converted to the Saviour and His purposes. Becoming more like the Saviour and receiving His image in countenance our Quest. Does it make sense that we are all literate, have radio and television, yet are chronically bored? Accept the reality of some boring routines. Not all of life is deeply meaningful and exciting. Avoid creating drama, intensity, or conflict to deal with boredom. Instead, appreciate and enjoy the good around you, and look for ways to improve and serve. Does it make sense that…We could go on for many more pages, describing the irrationalities, fictions, and contradictions of our Western way of life. Yet all these irrationalities are taken for granted and are hardly noticed by anybody. This is by no means due to the lack of critical capacity; we see these same irrationalities and contradictions quite clearly in our opponents—we only refuse to apply rational and critical judgement to ourselves. #RandolphHarris 12 of 24
The repression of the awareness of facts is, and must be, supplemented by the acceptance of many fictions. The gaps which exist because we refuse to see many things around us must be filled so that we may have a coherent picture. What are these ideologies which are fed into us? There are so many. We are Christians; we are individualists; our leaders are wise; we are good; our enemies (whoever these happen to be at the moment) are bad; our parents love us and we love them; our marriage system is successful; and so on, and so on. The Russian states have constructed another set of ideologies: That they are Marxists; that their system is socialism; that it expresses the will of the people; that their leaders are wise and work for humanity; that the profit interest in their society is a “socialist” profit interest and different from the “capitalist” profit interest; that their respect for property is that for “socialist” property and quite different from the respect for “capitalist” property; and so on, and so on. As if they were the result of men’s own thinking, all these ideologies are impressed on the people from childhood on by their parents, by the schools, churches, movies, television, newspapers, and they take hold of men’s minds. If this process takes place in societies opposed to our, we call it “brain washing,” and, in its less extreme forms, “indoctrination” or “propaganda”; in our, we call it “education” and “information.” #RandolphHarris 13 of 24
Even though it is true that societies differ in the degree of awareness and brain washing, and even though Western World is somewhat better in this respect than Russia, the difference is not enough to alter the fundamental picture of a mixture between repression of facts and acceptance of fiction. Why do people repress the awareness of what they would otherwise be aware of? Undoubtedly the main reason is fear. However, fear of what? Is it fear of castration, as Dr. Freud assumed? There does not seem to be sufficient evidence to believe this. Is it fear of being killed, imprisoned, or fear of starvation? That might sound like a satisfactory answer, provided repression occurred only in systems of terror and oppression. However, since this is not so, we have to inquire further. Are there more subtle fears which a society such as our own, for instance, produces? Let us think of a young executive or engineer in a big corporation. If he has thoughts which are not “sound,” he might be inclined to repress them lest he might not get the kind of promotion others get. This is, in itself, would be to tragedy, were it not for the fact that he, his wife, and his friends will consider him a “failure” if he falls behind in the competitive race. Thus the fear of being a failure can become a sufficient cause for repression. However, there is still another and, as I believe, the most powerful motive for repression: the fear of isolation and ostracism. #RandolphHarris 14 of 24
Empathy is an essential condition in the human relationship. An empathic understanding of another’s private World, and the ability to communicate some of the significant fragments of that understanding is very important. To sense if a confidant’s inner World of private personal meanings as if it were you own, but without every losing the “as if” quality, this is empathy, and this seems essential to a growth-promoting relationship. To sense his confusion or his timidity or his anger or his feeling of being treated unfairly as if it were your own, yet without your own uncertainty or fear or anger or suspicion getting bound up in it, this is the optimal condition. When another person’s World is clear to you and you can move about in it freely, then you can both communicate his understanding of what is vaguely known to the client, and you can also voice meanings in the client’s experience of which the client is scarcely aware. It is this kind of highly sensitive empathy which seems important in making it possible for a person to get close to himself and to learn, to change and develop. I suspect that each of us has discovered that this kind of understanding is extremely rare. We neither receive it nor offer it with any great frequency. Instead, we offer another type of understanding which is very different, such as “I understand what is wrong with you,” or “I understand what makes you act this way.” #RandolphHarris 15 of 24
There are the types of understanding which usually offer and receive—an evaluative comprehension from outside. It is not surprising that we shy away from true understanding. If I am truly open to the way life is experienced by another person—if I can take his World into mine—then I run the risk of seeing life in his way, of being changed myself, and we all resist change. So we tend to view this other person’s World only in our terms, not in his. We analyze and evaluate it. We do not understand it. However, when someone understands how it feels and seems to be me, without wanting to analyze me or judge me, then I can blossom and grow in that climate. I am sure I am not alone in that feeling. I believe that when the counselor can grasp the moment-to-moment experiencing occurring in the inner World of the client, as the client sees and feels it, without losing the separateness of his own identity in this empathic process, then change is likely to occur. Though the accuracy of such understanding is highly important, the communication of intent to understand is also helpful. If he perceives that I am trying to understand his meaning, even in dealing with the confused or inarticulate or bizarre individual, this is helpful. It communicates the value I place on him as an individual. It gets across the fact that I perceive his feelings and meanings as being worth understanding. #RandolphHarris 16 of 24
None of us steadily achieves such a complete empathy as I have been trying to describe, any more than we achieve complete congruence, but there is no doubt that individuals can develop along this line. Suitable training experiences have been utilized in the training of counselors, and also in the “sensitivity training” of industrial management personnel. Such experiences enable the person to listen more sensitively, to receive more of the subtle meanings the other person is expressing in words, gesture, and posture, to resonate more deeply and freely within himself to the significance of those expressions. I hope the above account of an empathic attitude will make it abundantly clear that I am not advocating a wooden technique of pseudo-understanding in which the counselor “reflects back what the client has just said.” I have been more than a little horrified at the interpretation of my approach which has sometimes crept into the teaching and training of counselors. If a person has made a pertinent observation or gained an insight into himself, he should examine how the peculiarity uncovered manifests itself in various areas, what consequences it has and which factors in his personality account for it. #RandolphHarris 17 of 24
Consciousness, the capacity to experience the World in its richness, is the evidence for life itself. You may say, “I am experiencing; therefore, I know I am alive!” Certainly a distinguishing characteristic of the healthy personality is openness to new experience. Indicative of the extent of the person’s consciousness is the ability to be responsive to new idea, new thoughts, new perceptions. However, does the person have to be selective about the particular experiences that are chosen and even about the ways new experiences are sought? If at all, chemical alterations in consciousness are at best a mixed blessing and need to be engaged in with great caution. New experiences that entail genuine effort and accomplishment differ from the chemically induced experience in important ways. Consciousness is a complex and important human characteristic, and the serious student should become familiar with a number of professional points of view concerning the expansion of consciousness in one’s own life. This is especially necessary in a time such as the present, when alternation or expansion of states of consciousness has become a popular and sometimes dangerous recreational activity. #RandolphHarris 18 of 24
It is essential that the student keep his romantic inclinations under constant surveillance of reason, caution, and reflection upon consequences. He is well advised to avoid emotional entanglements; for in this region there is often, for those who have a special spiritual destiny, a thorn concealed beneath every rose. When two people, emotionally involved with each other, have a misunderstanding or difference of opinion regarding the Quest itself, it is best that they deliberately discontinue their relationship for a while. In this way, they avoid a revival of the discussion which can only lead to exacerbation and further confusion. Time will solve the problem. Probably there are faults on both sides, since we are all human, but we have to carry on with the Quest despite these faults. Being on the Quest need not prevent the continuance and even the development of a friendship with one of the opposite gender, provided that it be kept on a high plane above the physical. Universal laws may be involved and these have to be carefully negotiated. The relationships can be beautiful, platonic, and mutually helpful but a strong discipline of the ego is called for. Great men can liberate great feelings in others or lift them toward acceptance of true ideas. #RandolphHarris 19 of 24
The mission of the Sacramento Fire Department is to provide the City of Sacramento with superior customer service and integrated emergency response to any situation that threatens life, safety, and well-being of people and property. “Firefighters, as a group, are different from other people. I think the thing that brings us you together is not the lives you save, it’s the fatalities that you see together. Most firemen can handle an adult fatality. But the one that gets everybody is the death of a child. Most firemen are family men, and they relate. There have been times when I have come home emotionally drained and have actually just sat down and cried, because things were beyond my control. Firemen need that feeling of being in control of a situation. At a fire you’re doing something not everybody else is doing—you’re going in when everyone else is coming out—but you feel that you have a grip on the situation and you can handle it. It’s not bravery, it’s a matter of fortitude, a little intelligence, with guts mixed in. And then once in a while it gets you, because you can’t handle it. The only thing worse than a child fatality is a fatality involving a fireman. It’s because of the brotherhood that’s there. You can share good times with any group of people, but I think it’s the bad times that bring people together, because you can’t really share it with anybody else. It’s only the guys in the room and the feeling, ‘This is what it’s about, this is what we’re doing this for.’ #RandolphHarris 20 of 24
“Some of the outsiders have the idea that what firemen do at a fire is throw things out the window. My fire department doesn’t do that. Our point of view is not to break anything in the interior unless it’s necessary in attacking the fire. Most all cities operate that way. These are people who are leaving their jobs and willing to put their lives on the line, for free, to help their neighbours out, or to fulfill something in their own lives, or whatever their reasons are. But they do it. Just as in any other job, there are various degrees of success. Not everybody is as good as everybody else in any field. That’s why there are superstars in baseball while there are guys in the minor leagues. Not everybody is going to be Hank Aaron. But they’re doing it, and doing it successfully throughout the country. For a country that’s as under the gun from fire as this country is, we have given it a good fight. I’ve been to fires all over Sacramento City, and the thing that amazes me is the blasé attitude of the populace. They will stop and look for a second and then just keep going. Here is somebody’s life tragedy being played out on the streets of Sacramento, and they’ll just stop for an instant and look. Or watch it on the television while they are cooking dinners. There is so much going on here that people are immune. They put walls around themselves. #RandolphHarris 21 of 24
“In small town America, everyone would be involved. There are some exceptional good Samaritans. When that helicopter went down in the East River, a jogger, who was a teacher, dove head first into cold water to help some people out. Nobody asked him to do it. He was in his mid-fifties. It was a pretty wild maneuver to jump in the water, because the water was moving. I’ve had close friends on teams I’ve been on and business companies I’ve worked for, and we were kind of like brothers. But it’s not like the brother feeling that you get with the firemen. Even if you don’t like the guy. I mean, I had an uncle I wasn’t too found of, but he was still related to me, and there was nothing I could do about it. It’s like that with the brotherhood of the fire department. They are your brothers. You might not like one of them on a given day, but he is your brother. It’s not the shared danger. There are lots of other jobs where you share danger, or sports like surfing, which I used to do a lot. It’s more the things you see, the shared grief, the loss of another fireman, the loss of a child at a fire, the unspeakable things. The things you can’t bring home and tell your family. You tell them about the rescues and the funny things, but you can’t go home and graphically explain. With other firemen, you don’t have to graphically explain, you just look. You just look into each other’s eyes after a fire, and you know that he is thinking what you are thinking. Because nobody else on the face of the Earth comes across what we come across on a regular basis. #RandolphHarris 22 of 24
“The fireman knows the awful dangers civilians manage to get themselves into, and that’s why he is willing to go to the point of killing himself to make a rescue, because he knows how bad it is. I’ve heard it said that firemen already know what hell is. That could very well be. I wouldn’t want my worst enemy to die by means of fire. I myself really don’t think about it. You wouldn’t be able to do the job you have to do. You get the job done, and you think about it later. You sit around and have a cup of coffee, and you shake your head: ‘I can’t believe I just got myself through that.’ One of the great things about a rescue company is that they are handpicked men, and they get unusual incidents to go to. I have been to building collapses, train crashes, plane crashes. Light planes. I haven’t gone to a jetliner yet, thank God. I hope I never see one of those. I’ve been in many successful rescues. At least four people are walking around today because of me personally, which makes me feel great. I’ve been extremely lucky. I’m lucky to be part of Rescue (number is being kept confidential), the best fire company in the World. There are tremendous people working in the Sacramento Fire Department. #RandolphHarris 23 of 24
“I was lucky to win awards. I used the award money to take my family to Hawaii, which was a lifetime dream of mine, having been a surfer most of my life. I use the word luck, and I don’t know another word for it. To make a rescue, you have to be working that day, there had to be a fire your company goes to, there unfortunately has to be somebody trapped, and you have to be in the right position to go get them. Luck stops, though, when you fine those few minor obstacles you have to overcome before you can make the rescue. All the brothers have a common interest, a shared understanding, and that is that we’re out there protecting life and property.” The goal of the Sacramento Fire Department is to continually strive for excellence and seek to improve the Fire Department through innovation, education, teamwork and open communication, making Sacramento a safer place to live and be a source of pride for all. You can help out by donating. Also, remember to raise your children to love America and to be patriotic, to love God and Jesus Christ, respect law and order and treat all people with dignity. 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. May America be blessed with angels a cohort, of peace and of rest. #RandolphHarris 24 of 24
The Winchester Mystery House
One day Mrs. Winchester’s niece Daisy accompanied her to the attic. While Mrs. Winchester was busy looking for dresses, Daisy wandered around the attic. Suddenly she came running out of the back room and beckoned her aunt to follow her. “There is a lady back there,” she explained. Immediately, Mrs. Winchester went back but she saw nothing this time. Whether this visit to the attic had stirred up some sort of psychic contact, or whether her years of living in the mansion now allowed her to see entities, Daisy had something more to say about Ghosts before long. Naturally, no one discussed such matters with her. Why frighten the young lady? “There is a man in the attic,” Daisy explained earnestly, “and his name is Gunther. He died. He was short in the head, and he’s buried in the back yard under the bushes.” Daisy led Mrs. Winchester to the dining room window and pointed at the bushes in the backyard. It’s under the bushes there,” Daisy repeated and stared out the window. Mrs. Winchester shuddered. It was a spot she had wondered about many times. No matter how she tried, no matter what she planted, nothing would grow on that spot!
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/
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Randolph Harris II International Institute 