fear

• historically › primitive religion drove men forward by fear

5:4.1The moral­ity of the re­li­gions of evo­lu­tion drives men for­ward in the God quest by the mo­tive power of fear. The re­li­gions of rev­e­la­tion al­lure men to seek for a God of love be­cause they crave to be­come like him. But re­li­gion is not merely a pas­sive feel­ing of “ab­so­lute de­pen­dence” and “surety of sur­vival”; it is a liv­ing and dy­namic ex­pe­ri­ence of di­vin­ity at­tain­ment pred­i­cated on hu­man­ity ser­vice.

• religion becomes real as it emerges from

12:9.5Your re­li­gion is be­com­ing real be­cause it is emerg­ing from the slav­ery of fear and the bond­age of su­per­sti­tion. Your phi­los­o­phy strug­gles for eman­ci­pa­tion from dogma and tra­di­tion. Your sci­ence is en­gaged in the age­long con­test be­tween truth and er­ror while it fights for de­liv­er­ance from the bond­age of ab­strac­tion, the slav­ery of math­e­mat­ics, and the rel­a­tive blind­ness of mech­a­nis­tic ma­te­ri­al­ism.

• cure for fear › love of God casts out all

48:6.8Even on Uran­tia they coun­sel the hu­man teach­ers of truth and righ­teous­ness to ad­here to the preach­ing of “the good­ness of God, which leads to re­pen­tance,” to pro­claim “the love of God, which casts out all fear.” Even so have these truths been de­clared on your world:

• face difficulties and uncertainties without f.

48:6.35From them you will learn to let pres­sure de­velop sta­bil­ity and cer­tainty; to be faith­ful and earnest and, withal, cheer­ful; to ac­cept chal­lenges with­out com­plaint and to face dif­fi­cul­ties and un­cer­tain­ties with­out fear. They will ask: If you fail, will you rise in­domitably to try anew? If you suc­ceed, will you main­tain a well-bal­anced poise—a sta­bi­lized and spir­i­tu­al­ized at­ti­tude—through­out ev­ery ef­fort in the long strug­gle to break the fet­ters of ma­te­rial in­er­tia, to at­tain the free­dom of spirit ex­is­tence?

• nature of fear › master intellectual fraud

48:7.42. Few per­sons live up to the faith which they re­ally have. Un­rea­soned fear is a mas­ter in­tel­lec­tual fraud prac­ticed upon the evolv­ing mor­tal soul.

• historically › subdued fiery tempers of primitive man

52:1.7All mor­tals who are in­dwelt by Thought Ad­justers are po­ten­tial wor­shipers; they have been “lighted by the true light,” and they pos­sess ca­pac­ity for seek­ing re­cip­ro­cal con­tact with di­vin­ity. Nev­er­the­less, the early or bi­o­logic re­li­gion of prim­i­tive man is largely a per­sis­tence of an­i­mal fear cou­pled with ig­no­rant awe and tribal su­per­sti­tion. The sur­vival of su­per­sti­tion in the Uran­tia races is hardly com­pli­men­tary to your evo­lu­tion­ary de­vel­op­ment nor com­pat­i­ble with your oth­er­wise splen­did achieve­ments in ma­te­rial prog­ress. But this early fear re­li­gion serves a very valu­able pur­pose in sub­du­ing the fiery tem­pers of these prim­i­tive crea­tures. It is the fore­run­ner of civ­i­liza­tion and the soil for the sub­se­quent plant­ing of the seeds of re­vealed re­li­gion by the Plan­e­tary Prince and his min­is­ters.

• historically › man’s tendencies to f. date from dawn-mammal ancestors

62:2.4Be­ing small of stature and hav­ing keen minds to re­al­ize the dan­gers of their for­est habi­tat, they de­vel­oped an ex­traor­di­nary fear which led to those wise pre­cau­tion­ary mea­sures that so enor­mously con­tributed to sur­vival, such as their con­struc­tion of crude shel­ters in the high tree­tops which elim­i­nated many of the per­ils of ground life. The be­gin­ning of the fear ten­den­cies of man­kind more specif­i­cally dates from these days.

• historically › Primates greatly subject to

62:4.4The Pri­mates were more hu­man and less an­i­mal than their mid-mam­mal pre­de­ces­sors. The skele­tal pro­por­tions of this new species were very sim­i­lar to those of the prim­i­tive hu­man races. The hu­man type of hand and foot had fully de­vel­oped, and these crea­tures could walk and even run as well as any of their later-day hu­man de­scen­dants. They largely aban­doned tree life, though con­tin­u­ing to re­sort to the tree­tops as a safety mea­sure at night, for like their ear­lier an­ces­tors, they were greatly sub­ject to fear. The in­creased use of their hands did much to de­velop in­her­ent brain power, but they did not yet pos­sess minds that could re­ally be called hu­man.

• historically › Caligastia 100 sought to substitute Creator f. for ghost f.
• historically › early civilization forged out on hammers of

66:5.136. The col­lege of re­vealed re­li­gion. This body was slow in func­tion­ing. Uran­tia civ­i­liza­tion was lit­er­ally forged out be­tween the anvil of ne­ces­sity and the ham­mers of fear. But this group had made con­sid­er­able prog­ress in their at­tempt to sub­sti­tute Cre­ator fear for crea­ture fear (ghost wor­ship) be­fore their labors were in­ter­rupted by the later con­fu­sion at­ten­dant upon the se­ces­sion up­heaval. The head of this coun­cil was Hap.

• historically › of ghosts

68:2.4The herd in­stinct in nat­u­ral man is hardly suf­fi­cient to ac­count for the de­vel­op­ment of such a so­cial or­ga­ni­za­tion as now ex­ists on Uran­tia. Though this in­nate gre­gar­i­ous propen­sity lies at the bot­tom of hu­man so­ci­ety, much of man’s so­cia­bil­ity is an ac­quire­ment. Two great in­flu­ences which con­tributed to the early as­so­ci­a­tion of hu­man be­ings were food hunger and sex love; these in­stinc­tive urges man shares with the an­i­mal world. Two other emo­tions which drove hu­man be­ings to­gether and held them to­gether were van­ity and fear, more par­tic­u­larly ghost fear.

• nature of fear › common fear is physiological in origin

68:3.1Prim­i­tive de­sires pro­duced the orig­i­nal so­ci­ety, but ghost fear held it to­gether and im­parted an ex­trahu­man as­pect to its ex­is­tence. Com­mon fear was phys­i­o­log­i­cal in ori­gin: fear of phys­i­cal pain, un­sat­is­fied hunger, or some earthly calamity; but ghost fear was a new and sub­lime sort of ter­ror.

• of Lord is beginning of wisdom

68:3.3Ex­cept for this ghost fac­tor, all so­ci­ety was founded on fun­da­men­tal needs and ba­sic bi­o­logic urges. But ghost fear in­tro­duced a new fac­tor in civ­i­liza­tion, a fear which reaches out and away from the el­e­men­tal needs of the in­di­vid­ual, and which rises far above even the strug­gles to main­tain the group. The dread of the de­parted spir­its of the dead brought to light a new and amaz­ing form of fear, an ap­palling and pow­er­ful ter­ror, which con­tributed to whip­ping the loose so­cial or­ders of early ages into the more thor­oughly dis­ci­plined and bet­ter con­trolled prim­i­tive groups of an­cient times. This sense­less su­per­sti­tion, some of which still per­sists, pre­pared the minds of men, through su­per­sti­tious fear of the un­real and the super­nat­u­ral, for the later dis­cov­ery of “the fear of the Lord which is the be­gin­ning of wis­dom.” The base­less fears of evo­lu­tion are de­signed to be sup­planted by the awe for De­ity in­spired by rev­e­la­tion. The early cult of ghost fear be­came a pow­er­ful so­cial bond, and ever since that far-dis­tant day man­kind has been striv­ing more or less for the at­tain­ment of spir­i­tu­al­ity.

• historically › instinct fostered institutions of survival

69:1.31. The in­sti­tu­tions of self-main­te­nance. These in­sti­tu­tions em­brace those prac­tices grow­ing out of food hunger and its as­so­ci­ated in­stincts of self-preser­va­tion. They in­clude in­dus­try, prop­erty, war for gain, and all the reg­u­la­tive ma­chin­ery of so­ci­ety. Sooner or later the fear in­stinct fos­ters the es­tab­lish­ment of these in­sti­tu­tions of sur­vival by means of taboo, con­ven­tion, and re­li­gious sanc­tion. But fear, ig­no­rance, and su­per­sti­tion have played a promi­nent part in the early ori­gin and sub­se­quent de­vel­op­ment of all hu­man in­sti­tu­tions.

• effect of fear › led Cain to repent

76:2.8Cain’s life in Mes­o­po­ta­mia had not been ex­actly happy since he was in such a pe­cu­liar way sym­bolic of the de­fault. It was not that his as­so­ciates were un­kind to him, but he had not been un­aware of their sub­con­scious re­sent­ment of his pres­ence. But Cain knew that, since he bore no tribal mark, he would be killed by the first neigh­bor­ing tribes­men who might chance to meet him. Fear, and some re­morse, led him to re­pent. Cain had never been in­dwelt by an Ad­juster, had al­ways been de­fi­ant of the fam­ily dis­ci­pline and dis­dain­ful of his fa­ther’s re­li­gion. But he now went to Eve, his mother, and asked for spir­i­tual help and guid­ance, and when he hon­estly sought di­vine as­sis­tance, an Ad­juster in­dwelt him. And this Ad­juster, dwell­ing within and look­ing out, gave Cain a dis­tinct ad­van­tage of su­pe­ri­or­ity which classed him with the greatly feared tribe of Adam.

• persists because we lack Adamic inheritance

76:4.6The Adamic chil­dren were usu­ally Ad­juster in­dwelt since they all pos­sessed un­doubted sur­vival ca­pac­ity. These su­pe­rior off­spring were not so sub­ject to fear as the chil­dren of evo­lu­tion. So much of fear per­sists in the pres­ent-day races of Uran­tia be­cause your an­ces­tors re­ceived so lit­tle of Adam’s life plasm, ow­ing to the early mis­car­riage of the plans for racial phys­i­cal up­lift.

• historically › differed little from worship to primitives

85:7.2You must re­mem­ber that feel­ing, not think­ing, was the guid­ing and con­trol­ling in­flu­ence in all evo­lu­tion­ary de­vel­op­ment. To the prim­i­tive mind there is lit­tle dif­fer­ence be­tween fear­ing, shun­ning, hon­or­ing, and wor­ship­ing.

• historically › early religious stimulus

86:0.2Man’s ear­li­est pre­re­li­gious fear of the forces of na­ture grad­u­ally be­came re­li­gious as na­ture be­came per­son­al­ized, spir­i­tized, and even­tu­ally de­i­fied in hu­man con­scious­ness. Re­li­gion of a prim­i­tive type was there­fore a nat­u­ral bi­o­logic con­se­quence of the psy­cho­logic in­er­tia of evolv­ing an­i­mal minds af­ter such minds had once en­ter­tained con­cepts of the super­nat­u­ral.

• historically › could kill primitive man

88:4.8Magic is nat­u­ral to a sav­age. He be­lieves that an en­emy can ac­tu­ally be killed by prac­tic­ing sor­cery on his shin­gled hair or fin­ger­nail trim­mings. The fa­tal­ity of snake bites was at­tributed to the magic of the sor­cerer. The dif­fi­culty in com­bat­ing magic arises from the fact that fear can kill. Prim­i­tive peo­ples so feared magic that it did ac­tu­ally kill, and such re­sults were suf­fi­cient to sub­stan­ti­ate this er­ro­neous be­lief. In case of fail­ure there was al­ways some plau­si­ble ex­pla­na­tion; the cure for de­fec­tive magic was more magic.

• historically › could kill primitive man

89:1.2The re­spect which these pro­hi­bi­tions com­manded in the mind of the sav­age ex­actly equaled his fear of the pow­ers who were sup­posed to en­force them. Taboos first arose be­cause of chance ex­pe­ri­ence with ill luck; later they were pro­posed by chiefs and shamans—fe­tish men who were thought to be di­rected by a spirit ghost, even by a god. The fear of spirit ret­ri­bu­tion is so great in the mind of a prim­i­tive that he some­times dies of fright when he has vi­o­lated a taboo, and this dra­matic episode enor­mously strength­ens the hold of the taboo on the minds of the sur­vivors.

• when confronted with unknown or inexplicable

90:0.3Evo­lu­tion­ary re­li­gion is born of a sim­ple and all-pow­er­ful fear, the fear which surges through the hu­man mind when con­fronted with the un­known, the in­ex­pli­ca­ble, and the in­com­pre­hen­si­ble. Re­li­gion even­tu­ally achieves the pro­foundly sim­ple re­al­iza­tion of an all-pow­er­ful love, the love which sweeps ir­re­sistibly through the hu­man soul when awak­ened to the con­cep­tion of the lim­it­less af­fec­tion of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther for the sons of the uni­verse. But in be­tween the be­gin­ning and the con­sum­ma­tion of re­li­gious evo­lu­tion, there in­ter­vene the long ages of the shamans, who pre­sume to stand be­tween man and God as in­ter­me­di­aries, in­ter­preters, and in­ter­ces­sors.

• historically › early religious stimulus

90:3.10Evo­lu­tion unerringly achieves its end: It im­bues man with that su­per­sti­tious fear of the un­known and dread of the un­seen which is the scaf­fold­ing for the God con­cept. And hav­ing wit­nessed the birth of an ad­vanced com­pre­hen­sion of De­ity, through the co-or­di­nate ac­tion of rev­e­la­tion, this same tech­nique of evo­lu­tion then unerringly sets in mo­tion those forces of thought which will in­ex­orably oblit­er­ate the scaf­fold­ing, which has served its pur­pose.

• historically › early religious stimulus

92:1.4Mys­tery and power have al­ways stim­u­lated re­li­gious feel­ings and fears, while emo­tion has ever func­tioned as a pow­er­ful con­di­tion­ing fac­tor in their de­vel­op­ment. Fear has al­ways been the ba­sic re­li­gious stim­u­lus. Fear fash­ions the gods of evo­lu­tion­ary re­li­gion and mo­ti­vates the re­li­gious rit­ual of the prim­i­tive be­liev­ers. As civ­i­liza­tion ad­vances, fear be­comes mod­i­fied by rev­er­ence, ad­mi­ra­tion, re­spect, and sym­pa­thy and is then fur­ther con­di­tioned by re­morse and re­pen­tance.

• fear not, for I am with you

97:7.6At last Ma­chi­venta Mel­chiz­e­dek be­held hu­man teach­ers pro­claim­ing a real God to mor­tal man. Like Isa­iah the first, this leader preached a God of uni­ver­sal cre­ation and up­hold­ing. “I have made the earth and put man upon it. I have cre­ated it not in vain; I formed it to be in­hab­ited.” “I am the first and the last; there is no God be­side me.” Speak­ing for the Lord God of Is­rael, this new prophet said: “The heav­ens may van­ish and the earth wax old, but my righ­teous­ness shall en­dure for­ever and my sal­va­tion from gen­er­a­tion to gen­er­a­tion.” “Fear you not, for I am with you; be not dis­mayed, for I am your God.” “There is no God be­side me—a just God and a Sav­ior.”

• cure for fear › consolation and stabilization of sound religion

99:4.6Dur­ing the psy­cho­log­i­cally un­set­tled times of the twen­ti­eth cen­tury, amid the eco­nomic up­heavals, the moral cross­cur­rents, and the so­ci­o­logic rip tides of the cy­clonic tran­si­tions of a sci­en­tific era, thou­sands upon thou­sands of men and women have be­come hu­manly dis­lo­cated; they are anx­ious, rest­less, fear­ful, un­cer­tain, and un­set­tled; as never be­fore in the world’s his­tory they need the con­so­la­tion and sta­bi­liza­tion of sound re­li­gion. In the face of un­prece­dented sci­en­tific achieve­ment and me­chan­i­cal de­vel­op­ment there is spir­i­tual stag­na­tion and philo­sophic chaos.

• effect of fear › can induce mystic state

100:5.10The more health­ful at­ti­tude of spir­i­tual med­i­ta­tion is to be found in re­flec­tive wor­ship and in the prayer of thanks­giv­ing. The di­rect com­mu­nion with one’s Thought Ad­juster, such as oc­curred in the later years of Je­sus’ life in the flesh, should not be con­fused with these so-called mys­ti­cal ex­pe­ri­ences. The fac­tors which con­tribute to the ini­ti­a­tion of mys­tic com­mu­nion are in­dica­tive of the dan­ger of such psy­chic states. The mys­tic sta­tus is fa­vored by such things as: phys­i­cal fa­tigue, fast­ing, psy­chic dis­so­ci­a­tion, pro­found aes­thetic ex­pe­ri­ences, vivid sex im­pulses, fear, anx­i­ety, rage, and wild danc­ing. Much of the ma­te­rial aris­ing as a re­sult of such pre­lim­i­nary prepa­ra­tion has its ori­gin in the sub­con­scious mind.

• effect of fear › mental poison; tremendously interferes with spiritual progress

108:6.2No mat­ter what the pre­vi­ous sta­tus of the in­hab­i­tants of a world, sub­se­quent to the be­stowal of a di­vine Son and af­ter the be­stowal of the Spirit of Truth upon all hu­mans, the Ad­justers flock to such a world to in­dwell the minds of all nor­mal will crea­tures. Fol­low­ing the com­ple­tion of the mis­sion of a Par­a­dise be­stowal Son, these Mon­i­tors truly be­come the “king­dom of heaven within you.” Through the be­stowal of the di­vine gifts the Fa­ther makes the clos­est pos­si­ble ap­proach to sin and evil, for it is lit­er­ally true that the Ad­juster must co­ex­ist in the mor­tal mind even in the very midst of hu­man un­righ­teous­ness. The in­dwelling Ad­justers are par­tic­u­larly tor­mented by those thoughts which are purely sor­did and self­ish; they are dis­tressed by ir­rev­er­ence for that which is beau­ti­ful and di­vine, and they are vir­tu­ally thwarted in their work by many of man’s fool­ish an­i­mal fears and child­ish anx­i­eties.

• effect of fear › mental poison; tremendously interferes with spiritual progress

110:1.5The Ad­juster re­mains with you in all dis­as­ter and through ev­ery sick­ness which does not wholly de­stroy the men­tal­ity. But how un­kind know­ingly to de­file or oth­er­wise de­lib­er­ately to pol­lute the phys­i­cal body, which must serve as the earthly taber­na­cle of this mar­velous gift from God. All phys­i­cal poi­sons greatly re­tard the ef­forts of the Ad­juster to ex­alt the ma­te­rial mind, while the men­tal poi­sons of fear, anger, envy, jeal­ousy, sus­pi­cion, and in­tol­er­ance like­wise tremen­dously in­ter­fere with the spir­i­tual prog­ress of the evolv­ing soul.

• effect of fear › alone, f. can never prevent survival

110:3.5Con­fu­sion, be­ing puz­zled, even some­times dis­cour­aged and dis­tracted, does not nec­es­sar­ily sig­nify re­sis­tance to the lead­ings of the in­dwelling Ad­juster. Such at­ti­tudes may some­times con­note lack of ac­tive co-op­er­a­tion with the di­vine Mon­i­tor and may, there­fore, some­what de­lay spir­i­tual prog­ress, but such in­tel­lec­tual emo­tional dif­fi­cul­ties do not in the least in­ter­fere with the cer­tain sur­vival of the God-know­ing soul. Ig­no­rance alone can never pre­vent sur­vival; nei­ther can con­fu­sional doubts nor fear­ful un­cer­tainty. Only con­scious re­sis­tance to the Ad­juster’s lead­ing can pre­vent the sur­vival of the evolv­ing im­mor­tal soul.

• effect of fear › inhibits creative imagination

111:4.9Since this in­ner life of man is truly cre­ative, there rests upon each per­son the re­spon­si­bil­ity of choos­ing as to whether this cre­ativ­ity shall be spon­ta­neous and wholly hap­haz­ard or con­trolled, di­rected, and con­struc­tive. How can a cre­ative imag­i­na­tion pro­duce wor­thy chil­dren when the stage whereon it func­tions is al­ready pre­oc­cu­pied by prej­u­dice, hate, fears, re­sent­ments, re­venge, and big­otries?

• seraphim find it hard to understand domination by

113:2.5The an­gels de­velop an abid­ing af­fec­tion for their hu­man as­so­ciates; and you would, if you could only vi­su­al­ize the ser­a­phim, de­velop a warm af­fec­tion for them. Di­vested of ma­te­rial bod­ies, given spirit forms, you would be very near the an­gels in many at­tri­butes of per­son­al­ity. They share most of your emo­tions and ex­pe­ri­ence some ad­di­tional ones. The only emo­tion ac­tu­at­ing you which is some­what dif­fi­cult for them to com­pre­hend is the legacy of an­i­mal fear that bulks so large in the men­tal life of the av­er­age in­hab­i­tant of Uran­tia. The an­gels re­ally find it hard to un­der­stand why you will so per­sis­tently al­low your higher in­tel­lec­tual pow­ers, even your re­li­gious faith, to be so dom­i­nated by fear, so thor­oughly de­mor­al­ized by the thought­less panic of dread and anx­i­ety.

• nature of fear › external restraint to free will

118:8.5The whole prin­ci­ple of bi­o­logic evo­lu­tion makes it im­pos­si­ble for prim­i­tive man to ap­pear on the in­hab­ited worlds with any large en­dow­ment of self-re­straint. There­fore does the same cre­ative de­sign which pur­posed evo­lu­tion like­wise pro­vide those ex­ter­nal re­straints of time and space, hunger and fear, which ef­fec­tively cir­cum­scribe the sub­spir­i­tual choice range of such un­cul­tured crea­tures. As man’s mind suc­cess­fully over­strides in­creas­ingly dif­fi­cult bar­ri­ers, this same cre­ative de­sign has also pro­vided for the slow ac­cu­mu­la­tion of the racial her­itage of painfully gar­nered ex­pe­ri­en­tial wis­dom—in other words, for the main­te­nance of a bal­ance be­tween the di­min­ish­ing ex­ter­nal re­straints and the aug­ment­ing in­ter­nal re­straints.

• cure for fear › faith vanquishes

130:6.3By this time the young man very much de­sired to talk with Je­sus, and he knelt at his feet im­plor­ing Je­sus to help him, to show him the way of es­cape from his world of per­sonal sor­row and de­feat. Said Je­sus: “My friend, arise! Stand up like a man! You may be sur­rounded with small en­e­mies and be re­tarded by many ob­sta­cles, but the big things and the real things of this world and the uni­verse are on your side. The sun rises ev­ery morn­ing to salute you just as it does the most pow­er­ful and pros­per­ous man on earth. Look—you have a strong body and pow­er­ful mus­cles—your phys­i­cal equip­ment is bet­ter than the av­er­age. Of course, it is just about use­less while you sit out here on the moun­tain­side and grieve over your mis­for­tunes, real and fan­cied. But you could do great things with your body if you would has­ten off to where great things are wait­ing to be done. You are try­ing to run away from your un­happy self, but it can­not be done. You and your prob­lems of liv­ing are real; you can­not es­cape them as long as you live. But look again, your mind is clear and ca­pa­ble. Your strong body has an in­tel­li­gent mind to di­rect it. Set your mind at work to solve its prob­lems; teach your in­tel­lect to work for you; refuse longer to be dom­i­nated by fear like an un­think­ing an­i­mal. Your mind should be your coura­geous ally in the so­lu­tion of your life prob­lems rather than your be­ing, as you have been, its ab­ject fear-slave and the bond ser­vant of de­pres­sion and de­feat. But most valu­able of all, your po­ten­tial of real achieve­ment is the spirit which lives within you, and which will stim­u­late and in­spire your mind to con­trol it­self and ac­ti­vate the body if you will re­lease it from the fet­ters of fear and thus en­able your spir­i­tual na­ture to be­gin your de­liv­er­ance from the evils of in­ac­tion by the power-pres­ence of liv­ing faith. And then, forth­with, will this faith van­quish fear of men by the com­pelling pres­ence of that new and all-dom­i­nat­ing love of your fel­lows which will so soon fill your soul to over­flow­ing be­cause of the con­scious­ness which has been born in your heart that you are a child of God.

• cure for fear › clean heart

131:1.8“At all times call upon his name, and as you be­lieve in his name, so shall your prayer be heard. What a great honor it is to wor­ship the Most High! All the worlds and the uni­verses wor­ship the Most High. And with all your prayers give thanks—as­cend to wor­ship. Prayer­ful wor­ship shuns evil and for­bids sin. At all times let us praise the name of the Most High. The man who takes shel­ter in the Most High con­ceals his de­fects from the uni­verse. When you stand be­fore God with a clean heart, you be­come fear­less of all cre­ation. The Most High is like a lov­ing fa­ther and mother; he re­ally loves us, his chil­dren on earth. Our God will for­give us and guide our foot­steps into the ways of sal­va­tion. He will take us by the hand and lead us to him­self. God saves those who trust him; he does not com­pel man to serve his name.

• cure for fear › faith vanquishes

131:1.9“If the faith of the Most High has en­tered your heart, then shall you abide free from fear through­out all the days of your life. Fret not your­self be­cause of the pros­per­ity of the un­godly; fear not those who plot evil; let the soul turn away from sin and put your whole trust in the God of sal­va­tion. The weary soul of the wan­der­ing mor­tal finds eter­nal rest in the arms of the Most High; the wise man hungers for the di­vine em­brace; the earth child longs for the se­cu­rity of the arms of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther. The no­ble man seeks for that high es­tate wherein the soul of the mor­tal blends with the spirit of the Su­preme. God is just: What fruit we re­ceive not from our plant­ings in this world we shall re­ceive in the next.”

• of Lord is beginning of wisdom

131:2.6“God has made man a lit­tle less than di­vine and has crowned him with love and mercy. The Lord knows the way of the righ­teous, but the way of the un­godly shall per­ish. The fear of the Lord is the be­gin­ning of wis­dom; the knowl­edge of the Su­preme is un­der­stand­ing. Says the Al­mighty God: ‘Walk be­fore me and be per­fect.’ For­get not that pride goes be­fore de­struc­tion and a haughty spirit be­fore a fall. He who rules his own spirit is might­ier than he who takes a city. Says the Lord God, the Holy One: ‘In re­turn­ing to your spir­i­tual rest shall you be saved; in quiet­ness and con­fi­dence shall be your strength.’ They who wait upon the Lord shall re­new their strength; they shall mount up with wings like ea­gles. They shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not be faint. The Lord shall give you rest from your fear. Says the Lord: ‘Fear not, for I am with you. Be not dis­mayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you; I will help you; yes, I will up­hold you with the right hand of my righ­teous­ness.’

• cure for fear › disown f.

131:3.2“Out of a pure heart shall glad­ness spring forth to the In­fi­nite; all my be­ing shall be at peace with this super­mor­tal re­joic­ing. My soul is filled with con­tent, and my heart over­flows with the bliss of peace­ful trust. I have no fear; I am free from anx­i­ety. I dwell in se­cu­rity, and my en­e­mies can­not alarm me. I am sat­is­fied with the fruits of my con­fi­dence. I have found the ap­proach to the Im­mor­tal easy of ac­cess. I pray for faith to sus­tain me on the long jour­ney; I know that faith from be­yond will not fail me. I know my breth­ren will pros­per if they be­come im­bued with the faith of the Im­mor­tal, even the faith that cre­ates mod­esty, up­right­ness, wis­dom, cour­age, knowl­edge, and per­se­ver­ance. Let us for­sake sor­row and dis­own fear. By faith let us lay hold upon true righ­teous­ness and gen­uine man­li­ness. Let us learn to med­i­tate on jus­tice and mercy. Faith is man’s true wealth; it is the en­dow­ment of virtue and glory.

• unworthy motivation for religious living

140:4.7“By their fruits you shall know them.” Per­son­al­ity is ba­si­cally change­less; that which changes—grows—is the moral char­ac­ter. The ma­jor er­ror of mod­ern re­li­gions is neg­a­tivism. The tree which bears no fruit is “hewn down and cast into the fire.” Moral worth can­not be de­rived from mere re­pres­sion—obey­ing the in­junc­tion “Thou shalt not.” Fear and shame are un­wor­thy mo­ti­va­tions for re­li­gious liv­ing. Re­li­gion is valid only when it re­veals the fa­ther­hood of God and en­hances the broth­er­hood of men.

• effect of fear › weakens character, destroys happiness

140:5.6The faith and the love of these beat­i­tudes strengthen moral char­ac­ter and cre­ate hap­pi­ness. Fear and anger weaken char­ac­ter and de­stroy hap­pi­ness. This mo­men­tous ser­mon started out upon the note of hap­pi­ness.

• effect of fear › man’s chief enslaver and paralyzer

142:0.2The first day in Je­ru­sa­lem Je­sus called upon his friend of for­mer years, An­nas, the one­time high priest and rel­a­tive of Sa­lome, Zeb­e­dee’s wife. An­nas had been hear­ing about Je­sus and his teach­ings, and when Je­sus called at the high priest’s home, he was re­ceived with much re­serve. When Je­sus per­ceived An­nas’s cold­ness, he took im­me­di­ate leave, say­ing as he de­parted: “Fear is man’s chief en­slaver and pride his great weak­ness; will you be­tray your­self into bond­age to both of these de­stroy­ers of joy and lib­erty?” But An­nas made no re­ply. The Mas­ter did not again see An­nas un­til the time when he sat with his son-in-law in judg­ment on the Son of Man.

• self-deception leads to foolish

143:2.5“Many times, when you have done evil, you have thought to charge up your acts to the in­flu­ence of the evil one when in re­al­ity you have but been led astray by your own nat­u­ral ten­den­cies. Did not the Prophet Jeremiah long ago tell you that the hu­man heart is de­ceit­ful above all things and some­times even des­per­ately wicked? How easy for you to be­come self-de­ceived and thereby fall into fool­ish fears, divers lusts, en­slav­ing plea­sures, mal­ice, envy, and even venge­ful ha­tred!

• cure for fear › faith vanquishes

143:7.3Wor­ship—con­tem­pla­tion of the spir­i­tual—must al­ter­nate with ser­vice, con­tact with ma­te­rial re­al­ity. Work should al­ter­nate with play; re­li­gion should be bal­anced by hu­mor. Pro­found phi­los­o­phy should be re­lieved by rhyth­mic po­etry. The strain of liv­ing—the time ten­sion of per­son­al­ity—should be re­laxed by the rest­ful­ness of wor­ship. The feel­ings of in­se­cu­rity aris­ing from the fear of per­son­al­ity iso­la­tion in the uni­verse should be an­ti­doted by the faith con­tem­pla­tion of the Fa­ther and by the at­tempted re­al­iza­tion of the Su­preme.

• nature of fear › hate is shadow of f.

145:3.4That Sab­bath was a great day in the earth life of Je­sus, yes, in the life of a uni­verse. To all lo­cal uni­verse in­tents and pur­poses the lit­tle Jew­ish city of Ca­per­naum was the real cap­i­tal of Neb­a­don. The hand­ful of Jews in the Ca­per­naum syn­a­gogue were not the only be­ings to hear that mo­men­tous clos­ing state­ment of Je­sus’ ser­mon: “Hate is the shadow of fear; re­venge the mask of cow­ardice.” Nei­ther could his hear­ers for­get his blessed words, declar­ing, “Man is the son of God, not a child of the devil.”

• of Lord is beginning of wisdom

149:6.2“My chil­dren, I am not sur­prised that you ask such ques­tions. In the be­gin­ning it was only through fear that man could learn rev­er­ence, but I have come to re­veal the Fa­ther’s love so that you will be at­tracted to the wor­ship of the Eter­nal by the draw­ing of a son’s af­fec­tion­ate rec­og­ni­tion and re­cip­ro­ca­tion of the Fa­ther’s pro­found and per­fect love. I would de­liver you from the bond­age of driv­ing your­selves through slav­ish fear to the irk­some ser­vice of a jeal­ous and wrath­ful King-God. I would in­struct you in the Fa­ther-son re­la­tion­ship of God and man so that you may be joy­fully led into that sub­lime and su­per­nal free wor­ship of a lov­ing, just, and mer­ci­ful Fa­ther-God.

• historically › evolution through anguish, dread, awe, reverence, to love

149:6.3“The ‘fear of the Lord’ has had dif­fer­ent mean­ings in the suc­ces­sive ages, com­ing up from fear, through an­guish and dread, to awe and rev­er­ence. And now from rev­er­ence I would lead you up, through rec­og­ni­tion, re­al­iza­tion, and ap­pre­ci­a­tion, to love. When man rec­og­nizes only the works of God, he is led to fear the Su­preme; but when man be­gins to un­der­stand and ex­pe­ri­ence the per­son­al­ity and char­ac­ter of the liv­ing God, he is led in­creas­ingly to love such a good and per­fect, uni­ver­sal and eter­nal Fa­ther. And it is just this chang­ing of the re­la­tion of man to God that con­sti­tutes the mis­sion of the Son of Man on earth.

149:6.4“In­tel­li­gent chil­dren do not fear their fa­ther in or­der that they may re­ceive good gifts from his hand; but hav­ing al­ready re­ceived the abun­dance of good things be­stowed by the dic­tates of the fa­ther’s af­fec­tion for his sons and daugh­ters, these much loved chil­dren are led to love their fa­ther in re­spon­sive rec­og­ni­tion and ap­pre­ci­a­tion of such mu­nif­i­cent benef­i­cence. The good­ness of God leads to re­pen­tance; the benef­i­cence of God leads to ser­vice; the mercy of God leads to sal­va­tion; while the love of God leads to in­tel­li­gent and free­hearted wor­ship.

149:6.5“Your fore­bears feared God be­cause he was mighty and mys­te­ri­ous. You shall adore him be­cause he is mag­nif­i­cent in love, plen­teous in mercy, and glo­ri­ous in truth. The power of God en­gen­ders fear in the heart of man, but the no­bil­ity and righ­teous­ness of his per­son­al­ity beget rev­er­ence, love, and will­ing wor­ship. A du­ti­ful and af­fec­tion­ate son does not fear or dread even a mighty and no­ble fa­ther. I have come into the world to put love in the place of fear, joy in the place of sor­row, con­fi­dence in the place of dread, lov­ing ser­vice and ap­pre­cia­tive wor­ship in the place of slav­ish bond­age and mean­ing­less cer­e­monies. But it is still true of those who sit in dark­ness that ‘the fear of the Lord is the be­gin­ning of wis­dom.’ But when the light has more fully come, the sons of God are led to praise the In­fi­nite for what he is rather than to fear him for what he does.

• historically › evolution through anguish, dread, awe, reverence, to love

149:6.6“When chil­dren are young and un­think­ing, they must nec­es­sar­ily be ad­mon­ished to honor their par­ents; but when they grow older and be­come some­what more ap­pre­cia­tive of the ben­e­fits of the pa­ren­tal min­istry and pro­tec­tion, they are led up, through un­der­stand­ing re­spect and in­creas­ing af­fec­tion, to that level of ex­pe­ri­ence where they ac­tu­ally love their par­ents for what they are more than for what they have done. The fa­ther nat­u­rally loves his child, but the child must de­velop his love for the fa­ther from the fear of what the fa­ther can do, through awe, dread, de­pen­dence, and rev­er­ence, to the ap­pre­cia­tive and af­fec­tion­ate re­gard of love.

• effect of fear › man’s chief enslaver and paralyzer

157:2.2When Je­sus had thus spo­ken, he with­drew and pre­pared for the evening con­fer­ence with his fol­low­ers. At this con­fer­ence it was de­cided to un­der­take a united mis­sion through­out all the cities and vil­lages of the De­capo­lis as soon as Je­sus and the twelve should re­turn from their pro­posed visit to Cae­sarea-Phi­lippi. The Mas­ter par­tic­i­pated in plan­ning for the De­capo­lis mis­sion and, in dis­miss­ing the com­pany, said: “I say to you, be­ware of the leaven of the Phar­isees and the Sad­ducees. Be not de­ceived by their show of much learn­ing and by their pro­found loy­alty to the forms of re­li­gion. Be only con­cerned with the spirit of liv­ing truth and the power of true re­li­gion. It is not the fear of a dead re­li­gion that will save you but rather your faith in a liv­ing ex­pe­ri­ence in the spir­i­tual re­al­i­ties of the king­dom. Do not al­low your­selves to be­come blinded by prej­u­dice and par­a­lyzed by fear. Nei­ther per­mit rev­er­ence for the tra­di­tions so to per­vert your un­der­stand­ing that your eyes see not and your ears hear not. It is not the pur­pose of true re­li­gion merely to bring peace but rather to in­sure prog­ress. And there can be no peace in the heart or prog­ress in the mind un­less you fall whole­heart­edly in love with truth, the ide­als of eter­nal re­al­i­ties. The is­sues of life and death are be­ing set be­fore you—the sin­ful plea­sures of time against the righ­teous re­al­i­ties of eter­nity. Even now you should be­gin to find de­liv­er­ance from the bond­age of fear and doubt as you en­ter upon the liv­ing of the new life of faith and hope. And when the feel­ings of ser­vice for your fel­low men arise within your soul, do not sti­fle them; when the emo­tions of love for your neigh­bor well up within your heart, give ex­pres­sion to such urges of af­fec­tion in in­tel­li­gent min­istry to the real needs of your fel­lows.”

• do not appeal to f. in proclaiming gospel

159:3.2Al­ways re­spect the per­son­al­ity of man. Never should a righ­teous cause be pro­moted by force; spir­i­tual vic­to­ries can be won only by spir­i­tual power. This in­junc­tion against the em­ploy­ment of ma­te­rial in­flu­ences refers to psy­chic force as well as to phys­i­cal force. Over­pow­er­ing ar­gu­ments and men­tal su­pe­ri­or­ity are not to be em­ployed to co­erce men and women into the king­dom. Man’s mind is not to be crushed by the mere weight of logic or over­awed by shrewd elo­quence. While emo­tion as a fac­tor in hu­man de­ci­sions can­not be wholly elim­i­nated, it should not be di­rectly ap­pealed to in the teach­ings of those who would ad­vance the cause of the king­dom. Make your ap­peals di­rectly to the di­vine spirit that dwells within the minds of men. Do not ap­peal to fear, pity, or mere sen­ti­ment. In ap­peal­ing to men, be fair; ex­er­cise self-con­trol and ex­hibit due re­straint; show proper re­spect for the per­son­al­i­ties of your pupils. Re­mem­ber that I have said: “Be­hold, I stand at the door and knock, and if any man will open, I will come in.”

• do not appeal to f. in proclaiming gospel

159:3.5Never be guilty of such un­wor­thy tac­tics as en­deav­or­ing to frighten men and women into the king­dom. A lov­ing fa­ther does not frighten his chil­dren into yield­ing obe­di­ence to his just re­quire­ments.

• cure for fear › self-understanding

160:1.12This wor­ship­ful prac­tice of your Mas­ter brings that re­lax­ation which re­news the mind; that il­lu­mi­na­tion which in­spires the soul; that cour­age which en­ables one bravely to face one’s prob­lems; that self-un­der­stand­ing which oblit­er­ates de­bil­i­tat­ing fear; and that con­scious­ness of union with di­vin­ity which equips man with the as­sur­ance that en­ables him to dare to be God­like. The re­lax­ation of wor­ship, or spir­i­tual com­mu­nion as prac­ticed by the Mas­ter, re­lieves ten­sion, re­moves con­flicts, and might­ily aug­ments the to­tal re­sources of the per­son­al­ity. And all this phi­los­o­phy, plus the gospel of the king­dom, con­sti­tutes the new re­li­gion as I un­der­stand it.

• cure for fear › intimate contact with others

160:2.72. Union of souls—the mo­bi­liza­tion of wis­dom. Ev­ery hu­man be­ing sooner or later ac­quires a cer­tain con­cept of this world and a cer­tain vi­sion of the next. Now it is pos­si­ble, through per­son­al­ity as­so­ci­a­tion, to unite these views of tem­po­ral ex­is­tence and eter­nal prospects. Thus does the mind of one aug­ment its spir­i­tual val­ues by gain­ing much of the in­sight of the other. In this way men en­rich the soul by pool­ing their re­spec­tive spir­i­tual pos­ses­sions. Like­wise, in this same way, man is en­abled to avoid that ever-pres­ent ten­dency to fall vic­tim to dis­tor­tion of vi­sion, prej­u­dice of view­point, and nar­row­ness of judg­ment. Fear, envy, and con­ceit can be pre­vented only by in­ti­mate con­tact with other minds. I call your at­ten­tion to the fact that the Mas­ter never sends you out alone to la­bor for the ex­ten­sion of the king­dom; he al­ways sends you out two and two. And since wis­dom is super­knowl­edge, it fol­lows that, in the union of wis­dom, the so­cial group, small or large, mu­tu­ally shares all knowl­edge.

• have no f. for those who can kill the body

165:3.3“Soon, very soon, will the things which our en­e­mies now plan in se­crecy and in dark­ness be brought out into the light and be pro­claimed from the house­tops. But I say to you, my friends, when they seek to de­stroy the Son of Man, be not afraid of them. Fear not those who, al­though they may be able to kill the body, af­ter that have no more power over you. I ad­mon­ish you to fear none, in heaven or on earth, but to re­joice in the knowl­edge of Him who has power to de­liver you from all un­righ­teous­ness and to pre­sent you blame­less be­fore the judg­ment seat of a uni­verse.

• cure for fear › disown f.

165:5.5“But in the work which is just ahead of us, and in that which re­mains for you af­ter I go to the Fa­ther, you will be griev­ously tried. You must all be on your watch against fear and doubts. Ev­ery one of you, gird up the loins of your minds and let your lamps be kept burn­ing. Keep your­selves like men who are watch­ing for their mas­ter to re­turn from the mar­riage feast so that, when he comes and knocks, you may quickly open to him. Such watch­ful ser­vants are blessed by the mas­ter who finds them faith­ful at such a great mo­ment. Then will the mas­ter make his ser­vants sit down while he him­self serves them. Ver­ily, ver­ily, I say to you that a cri­sis is just ahead in your lives, and it be­hooves you to watch and be ready.

• cure for fear › Jesus frequently delivered victims of

167:3.5Je­sus fre­quently de­liv­ered such vic­tims of fear from their spirit of in­fir­mity, from their de­pres­sion of mind, and from their bond­age of fear. But the peo­ple thought that all such af­flic­tions were ei­ther phys­i­cal dis­or­ders or pos­ses­sion of evil spir­its.

• cure for fear › intimate contact with others

184:4.6These are the mo­ments of the Mas­ter’s great­est vic­to­ries in all his long and event­ful ca­reer as maker, up­holder, and sav­ior of a vast and far-flung uni­verse. Hav­ing lived to the full a life of re­veal­ing God to man, Je­sus is now en­gaged in mak­ing a new and un­prece­dented rev­e­la­tion of man to God. Je­sus is now re­veal­ing to the worlds the fi­nal tri­umph over all fears of crea­ture per­son­al­ity iso­la­tion. The Son of Man has fi­nally achieved the re­al­iza­tion of iden­tity as the Son of God. Je­sus does not hes­i­tate to as­sert that he and the Fa­ther are one; and on the ba­sis of the fact and truth of that su­preme and su­per­nal ex­pe­ri­ence, he ad­mon­ishes ev­ery king­dom be­liever to be­come one with him even as he and his Fa­ther are one. The liv­ing ex­pe­ri­ence in the re­li­gion of Je­sus thus be­comes the sure and cer­tain tech­nique whereby the spir­i­tu­ally iso­lated and cos­mi­cally lonely mor­tals of earth are en­abled to es­cape per­son­al­ity iso­la­tion, with all its con­se­quences of fear and as­so­ci­ated feel­ings of help­less­ness. In the fra­ter­nal re­al­i­ties of the king­dom of heaven the faith sons of God find fi­nal de­liv­er­ance from the iso­la­tion of the self, both per­sonal and plan­e­tary. The God-know­ing be­liever in­creas­ingly ex­pe­ri­ences the ec­stasy and grandeur of spir­i­tual so­cial­iza­tion on a uni­verse scale—cit­i­zen­ship on high in as­so­ci­a­tion with the eter­nal re­al­iza­tion of the di­vine des­tiny of per­fec­tion at­tain­ment.