Fear

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From The Principles of Psychology (Volume 1 of 2) (1890)

  The familiar noises of house and street keep them in constant trepidation until such time as they either learned the objects which emit them, or have become blunted to them by frequent experience of their innocuity. [91] Outlines, p. 153 [92] Cf. Helmholtz, Optik, pp. 433, 723, 728, 772; and Spencer, Psychology, vol. n. p. 24q note. [93] The more or less geometrically regular phantasms which are produced by pressure on the eyeballs. congestion of the head inhalation of anæsthetics, etc., might again be cited to prove that feint and vague excitements of sense-organs are transformed into figured objects by the brain. only the facts are not quite clearly interpretable; and the figuring may possibly be due to some retinal peculiarity, as yet unexplored. Beautiful patterns, which would do for wall-papers, succeed each other when the eyeballs are long pressed. Goethe's account of his own phantasm of a flower is well known. It came in the middle of his visual held whenever he closed his eyes and depressed his head, ''unfolding itself and developing from its interior new flowers, formed of colored or sometimes green leaves, not natural but of fantastic forms, and symmetrical as the rosettes of sculptors," etc. (quoted in Müller's Physiology, Baly's tr., p. 1397). The fortification—and zigzag-patterns, which are well-known appearances in the held of view in certain functional disorders, have characteristics (steadiness, coerciveness, blotting out of other objects) suggestive of a retinal origin—this is why the entire class of phenomena treated of in this note seem to me still doubtfully connected with the cerebral factor in perception of which the text treats.—I copy from Taine's book on Intelligence (vol. I. p. 61) the translation of an interesting observation by Prof. M. Lazarus, in which the same effect of an after-image is seen. Lazarus himself proposes the name of 'visionary illusions' for such modifications of ideal pictures by peripheral stimulations (Lehre von den Sinnestäuschungen, 1867, p. 19). "I was on the Kaltbad terrace at Rigi, on a very clear afternoon, and attempting to make out the Waldbruder, a rock which stands out from the midst of the gigantic wall of mountains surrounding it, on whose summits we see like a crown the glaciers of Titlis, Uri-Rothsdock, etc. I was looking alternately with the naked eye and with a spy-glass; but could not distinguish it with the naked eye. For the space of six to ten minutes I had gazed steadfastly upon the mountains, whose color varied according to their several altitudes or declivities between violet, brown, and dark green, and I had fatigued myself to no purpose, when I ceased looking and turned away.

• From The Principles of Psychology (Volume 1 of 2) (1890)

  She screamed whenever the dog entered the room, and for many months remained afraid to touch him. It is needless to say that no change in the pug's unfailingly friendly conduct had anything to do with this change of feeling in the child. Preyer tells of a young child screaming with fear on being carried near to the sea . The great source of terror to infancy is solitude. The teleology of this is obvious, as is also that of the infant's expression of dismay—the never-failing cry—on waking up and finding himself alone. Black things, and especially dark places, holes, caverns, etc., arouse a peculiarly gruesome fear. This fear, as well as that of solitude, of being 'lost,' are explained after a, fashion by ancestral experience. Says Schneider: "It is a fact that men, especially in childhood, fear to go into a dark cavern or a gloomy wood. This feeling of fear arises, to be sure, partly from the fact that we easily suspect that dangerous beasts may lurk in these localities—a suspicion due to stories we have heard and read. But, on the other hand, it is quite sure that this fear at a certain perception is also directly inherited. Children who hare been carefully guarded from all ghost-stories are nevertheless terrified and cry if led into a dark place, especially if sounds are made there. Even an adult can easily observe that an uncomfortable timidity steals over him in a lonely wood at night, although he may have the fixed conviction that not the slightest danger is near." This feeling of fear occurs in many men even in their own house after dark, although it is much stronger in a dark cavern or forest. The fact of such instinctive fear is easily explicable when we consider that our savage ancestors through innumerable generations were accustomed to meet with dangerous beasts in caverns, especially bears, and were for the most part attacked by such beasts during the night and in the woods, and that thus an inseparable association between the perceptions of darkness of caverns and woods, and fear took place, and was inherited." [395] High places cause fear of a peculiarly sickening sort, though here, again, individuals differ enormously. The utterly blind instinctive character of the motor impulses here is shown by the fact that they are almost always entirely unreasonable, but that reason is powerless to1 suppress them. That they are a mere incidental peculiarity of the nervous system, like liability to sea-sickness, or love of music, with no teleological significance, seems more than probable.

• From The Diary of a Young Girl (The Definitive Edition) (2020)

  He gargles with camomile tea, coats the roof of his mouth with a tincture of myrrh and rubs Mentholatum over his chest, nose, gums and tongue. And to top it off, he’s in a foul mood! Rauter, some German bigwig, recently gave a speech. “All Jews must be out of the German-occupied territories before July 1. The province of Utrecht will be cleansed of Jews [as if they were cockroaches] between April 1 and May 1, and the provinces of North and South Holland between May 1 and June 1.” These poor people are being shipped off to filthiy slaughterhouses like a herd of sick and neglected cattle. But I’ll say no more on the subject. My own thoughts give me nightmares! One good piece of news is that the Labor Exchange was set on fire in an act of sabotage. A few days later the County Clerk’s Office also went up in flames. Men posing as German police bound and gagged the guards and managed to destroy some important documents. Yours, Anne THURSDAY, APRIL 1, 1943 Dearest Kitty, I’m not really in the mood for pranks (see the date). On the contrary, today I can safely quote the saying” Misfortunes never come singly.” First, Mr. Kleiman, our merry sunshine, had another bout of gastrointestinal hemorrhaging yesterday and will have to stay in bed for at least three weeks. I should tell you that his stomach has been bothering him quite a bit, and there’s no cure. Second, Bep has the flu. Third, Mr. Voskuijl has to go to the hospital next week. He probably has an ulcer and will have to undergo surgery. Fourth, the managers of Pomosin Industries came from Frankfurt to discuss the new Opekta deliveries. Father had gone yer the important points with Mr. Kleiman, and there wasn’t enough time to give Mr. Kugler a thor ough briefing. The gentlemen arrived from Frankfurt, and Father was already shaking at the thought of how the talks would go. “If only I could be there, if only I were downstairs,” he exclaimed. “Go lie down with your ear to the floor. They’ll be brought to the private office, and you’ll be able to hear everything.’ Father’s face cleared, and yesterday morning at ten-thirty Margot and Pim (two ears are better than one) took up their posts on the floor. By noon the talks weren’t finished, but Father was in no shape to continue his listen ing campaign. He was in agony from having to lie for hours in such an unusual and uncomfortable position. At two-thirty we heard voices in the hall, and I took his place; Margot kept me company. The conversation was so long-winded and boring that I suddenly fell asleep on the cold, hard linoleum. Margot didn’t dare touch me for fear they’d hear us, and of course she couldn’t shout. I slept for a good half hour and then awoke with a start, having forgotten every word of the important discussion.

• From The Diary of a Young Girl (The Definitive Edition) (2020)

  Our greengrocer buys potatoes from the “Wehrmacht” and brings them in sacks to the private office. Since he suspects we’re hiding here, he makes a point of coming during lunchtime, when the warehouse employees are out. So much pepper is being ground at the moment that we sneeze and cough with every breath we take. Everyone who comes upstairs greets us with an “ah-CHOO.” Mrs. van D. swears she won’t go downstairs; one more whiff of pepper and she’s going to get sick. I don’t think Father has a very nice business. Noth ing but pectin and pepper. As long as you’re in the food business, why not make candy? A veritable thunderstorm of words came crashing down on me again this morning. The air flashed with so many coarse expressions that my ears were ringing with “Anne’s bad this” annd “van Daans’ good that.” Fire and brimstone! Yours, Anne WEDNESDAY, MARCH 10, 1943 Dearest Kitty, We had a short circuit last night, and besides that, the guns were booming away until dawn. I still haven’t gotten over my fear of planes and shooting, and I crawl into Father’s bed nearly every night for comfort. I know it sounds childish, but wait till it happens to you! The ack-ack guns make so much noise you can’t hear your own voice. Mrs. Beaverbrook, the fatalist, practically burst into tears and said in a timid little voice, “Oh, it’s so awful. Oh, the guns are so loud!” -- which is another way of saying “I’m so scared.” It didn’t seem nearly as bad by candlelight as it did in the dark. I was shivering, as if I had a fever, and begged Father to relight the candle. He was adamant: there was to be no light. Suddenly we heard a burst of machine-gun fire, and that’s ten times worse than antiaircraft guns. Mother jumped out of bed and, to Pim’s great annoyance, lit the candle. Her resolute answer to his grumbling was, “After all, Anne is not an ex-soldier!” And that was the end of that! Have I told you any of Mrs. van D.’s other fears? I don’t think so. To keep you up to date on the latest adventures in the Secret Annex, I should tell you this as well. One night Mrs. van D. thought she heard loud footsteps in the attic, and she was so afraid of burglars, she woke her husband. At that very same moment, the thieves disappeared, and the only sound Mr. van D. could hear was the frightened pounding of his fatalistic wife’s heart. “Oh, Putti!” she cried. (Putti is Mrs. van D.’s pet name for her husband.) “They must have taken all our sausages and dried beans. And what about Peter? Oh, do you think Peter’s still safe and sound in his bed?” “I’m sure they haven’t stolen Peter. Stop being such a ninny, and let me get back to sleep!” Impossible. Mrs. van D. was too scared to sleep.

• From The Diary of a Young Girl (The Definitive Edition) (2020)

  If our time has come, well then, it’ll be for Queen and Country, for freedom, truth and justice, as they’re always telling us on the radio. The only bad thing is that we’ll drag the others down with us!” After an hour Mr. van Daan switched places with his wife again, and Father came and sat beside me. The men smoked one cigarette after another, an occasional sigh was heard, somebody made another trip to the potty, and then everything began allover again. Four o’clock, five, five-thirty. I went and sat with Peter by his window and listened, so close we could feel each other’s bodies trembling; we spoke a word or two from time to time and listened intently. Next door they took down the blackout screen. They made a list of everything they were planning to tell Mr. Kleiman over the phone, because they intended to call him at seven and ask him to send someone over. They were taking a big chance, since the police guard at the door or in the warehouse might hear them calling, but there was an even greater risk that the police would return. I’m enclosing their list, but for the sake of clarity, I’ll copy it here. Buralary: Police in building, up to bookcase, but no farther. Burglars apparently interrupted, forced warehouse door, fled through garden. Main entrance bolted; Kugler must have left through second door. Typewriter and adding machine safe in black chest in private office. Miep’s or Bep’s laundry in washtub in kitchen. Only Bep or Kugler have key to second door; lock may be broken. Try to warn jan and get key, look around office; also feed cat. For the rest, everything went according to plan. Mr. Kleiman was phoned, the poles were removed from the doors, the typewriter was put back in the chest. Then we all sat around the table again and waited for either jan or the police. Peter had dropped off to sleep and Mr. van Daan ANNE FRANK and I were lying on the floor when we heard loud footsteps below. I got up quietly. “It’s Jan!” “No, no, it’s the police!” they all said. There was a knocking at our bookcase. Miep whistled. This was too much for Mrs. van Daan, who sank limply in her chair, white as a sheet. If the tension had lasted another minute, she would have fainted. Jan and Miep came in and were met with a delightful scene. The table alone would have been worth a photograph: a copy of Cinema &.. Theater, opened to a page of dancing girls and smeared with jam and pectin, which we’d been taking to combat the diarrhea, two jam jars, half a bread roll, a quarter of a bread roll, pectin, a mirror, a comb, matches, ashes, cigarettes, tobacco, an ashtray, books, a pair of underpants, a flashlight, Mrs. van Daan’s comb, toilet paper, etc. Jan and Miep were of course greeted with shouts and tears.

• From Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity (1989)

  The re is s ome evidence that when he sat down to write and turned to himself, he experienced a terrifying inner instability . "Mon esprit ... faisant le cheval eschappe ... m'enfante tant de chimeres et monstres fantasques les uns sur les autres, sans ordre et sans propos" ("M y s pirit . .. playing the skittish a nd loose-broken jade . . . begets in me so m an y extravagant Chimeraes, a nd fantasticall monster s , so orderlesse, and without any reason, one hudling upon an other"). 1 His response was to observe and catalogue his thought s , feelings, responses ("J'ai commence de les mettre en rolle"; "I have begun to keep a register of them"). 2 And from this emerged a quite different sta nd towards the impermanence and uncertainty of human life, an acceptanc e of limits, which drew on both Epicurean and Christian source s . It is not that the aspiration to stabili ty is altogether abandon ed. Mon taigne is certai n ly acutel y aware o f the mutability of all things, and above all hu man life: il n'y a aucune constante existe n ce, n y de nostre estre, ny de celui des obj e cts. Et nous, et nostre iugement, et toutes choses mortelles, vont coulant et roulant sans cesse ... Nous n'avons aucune communication a l ' estre, par ce que route humain e nature est tousjours entre le naistre et le mourir, ne baillant de soy qu'une obscure apparence et ombre, et une Exploring "/'Humaine Condition" · I79 incertaine et debile opini o n. Et si, de fortune, vous fichez vostre p ensee a vouloir prendre son estre, ce sera ne plus ne moins que qui voudrait e mpoigner l ' eau. t her e i s no constant existence, neither of our being, nor of the objects. An d w e, and ou r judgement, and all mortall thin gs else do uncessantly rowle, tume, and passe away ... We have no communicat i on with being ; for every humane nature is ever in the middle between being borne an d dying; giving nothing of itself but an obscure apparence and shado w , and an uncertaine and weak opinion. And if perhaps you fix your thought to take its being; it would be even, as if one should go about to grasp the water. 3 Perpetual chang e is not only in us, but everywhere: "Le monde n'est qu'une br anloire perenne. Toutes choses y branle n t sans c esse: la terre, les rochers du Caucase, les pyramides d ' Aegypte, et du bran le public et du leur. La constance mesme n'est autre chose qu'un branle plus la n guissant. ( "The w orld runnes al l on wheele s .

• From The Great Transformation (2006)

  Instead he had conquered the world for gods and humans by taking three giant strides that encompassed the entire cosmos, “widely pacing, with three steppings forth over the realms of earth for freedom and for life.” 30 A benevolent god, he was the friend of human beings and the protector of the unborn child. 31 The Brahmanas identified him with the healing power of sacrifice; in Vedic lore he was associated with the Purusha, the primordial Person who had voluntarily laid down his life to enable the world to come into being, and thus enshrined the principle of self-emptying love. Shiva, the other god of bhakti, was very different. 32 Linked with the terrifying Rudra, the uncanny mountain god whom people implored to stay away from their settlements and cattle, he was frightening as well as gracious. There was violence in his mythos, but he was also the source of great happiness. Shiva was implacable if you did not worship him, but would always save his bhakta. Yet he was a jealous god. In one of the earliest tales, he killed Daksha, a devotee of Vishnu, who had refused to invite Shiva to his sacrifice; there was fierce rivalry between the two sects. However, as the lover of Parvati, Shiva became the enchanting Lord of the Dance and an icon of salvation: the dwarf under Shiva’s foot was an image of the evil that Shiva had subdued; his outstretched hand a sign of grace; his raised foot an emblem of freedom; and the snake around his neck a symbol of immortality. Shiva was creator and destroyer, a householder as well as a great yogin. In his person, he synthesized the apparent contradictions of the spiritual life and gave his worshipers intimations of transcendence and unity that went beyond earthly categories. The effigy was very important in bhakti: the image (murti) of Shiva, Vishnu, or Krishna was their “embodiment,” thought to contain a real and physically manifest divine presence. 33 The god had descended into his statue at the moment of its consecration, so that it became the abode of the divine. In some of the old temples, it was said to have been “found,” sent by a god, or its whereabouts revealed in a dream. The statue was, therefore, itself an avatara, manifesting the self-sacrificing love of the god. Some texts even spoke of the god’s suffering when he compressed himself into the man-made image out of compassion for humanity. When it became the focus of contemplation, the statue was thus an icon of altruism. Buddhists and Jains were also influenced by this new Hindu devotion. In the first century CE, as never before, they began to create statues of the Buddha and of the twenty-four spiritual leaders called tirthankaras (“ford-makers”), who had preceded Mahavira in charting the path to enlightenment.

• From The Great Transformation (2006)

  For three days, they had been able to stand aside from their normal existence, confront their buried fears, and pass through them to renewed life. There was no introspection, and no attempt to analyze the hidden trauma that haunted the Greek psyche. This was touched upon only indirectly by the external rituals. By reenacting the ancient myth, the participants were not behaving as individuals. They laid aside their ordinary selves and did the opposite of what came naturally. Greeks loved banquets and jollity, but for a whole day they had denied their usual inclinations, and drunk their wine in sorrowful silence. By imitating the drama of the past, they had left their individual selves behind and felt touched and transformed by Dionysus, who was present in the intoxicating wine. The ritual had been an initiation, a rite of passage through sorrow, through the fear of death and pollution, to renewed life. When they came to die, some might remember the Anthesteria, and see death as just another initiation. The eastern Mediterranean was coming to life again. By the end of the ninth century, the northern kingdom of Israel had become a major power in the region. When the Egyptian pharaoh Shishak had invaded Canaan in 926, he had not only sacked Jerusalem and devastated 150 towns in Israel and Judah, but had also destroyed the ancient Canaanite strongholds of Megiddo, Rehob, Beth-shean, and Taanach. Canaanite culture never recovered. Israel expanded into the old Canaanite territories, absorbed the inhabitants of the ruined cities, and exploited their skills. 13 King Omri (885–874) built a marvelous new capital in Samaria, with a large, five-acre royal acropolis. His son Ahab (874–853) built a magnificent ivory palace there and established trade links with Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Greece. He also married Jezebel, a Phoenician princess, whose name has become a byword for wickedness. The biblical historian who wrote a very negative account of Ahab in the first book of Kings was appalled by Jezebel, because she had imported the cult of Phoenician Baal into Israel. But he was writing in the seventh century, in a very different world. In the ninth century, Ahab’s marriage would have been considered a political coup. It was important for the kingdom of Israel to integrate with the region, and hold its own against Damascus, Phoenicia, and Moab. Ahab was doing nothing new. Solomon had also made diplomatic marriages with foreign princesses, had included their gods in the royal cult, and built temples for them in the hills outside Jerusalem. 14 But Ahab had the misfortune to inspire the wrath of a small but passionately committed minority, who believed that the people of Israel should worship Yahweh alone.

• From The Diary of a Young Girl (The Definitive Edition) (2020)

  Approximately three o’clock. I have to get up to use the tin can under my bed, which, to be on the safe side, has a rubber mat underneath in case of leaks. I always hold my breath while I go, since it clatters into the can like a brook down a mountainside. The potty is returned to its place, and the figure in the white nightgown (the one that causes Margot to exclaim every evening, “Oh, that indecent nighty!”) climbs back into bed. A certain somebody lies awake for about fifteen minutes, listening to the sounds of the night. In the first place, to hear whether there are any burglars downstairs, and then to the various beds -- upstairs, next door and in my room -- to tell whether the others are asleep or half awake. This is no fun, especially when it concerns a member of the family named Dr. Dussel. First, there’s the sound of a fish gasping for air, and this is repeated nine or ten times. Then, the lips are moistened profusely. This is alternated with little smacking sounds, followed by a long period of tossing and turning and rearranging the pillows. After five minutes of perfect quiet, the same sequence repeats itself three more times, after which he’s presumably lulled himself back to sleep for a while. Sometimes the guns go off during the night, between one and four. I’m never aware of it before it happens, but all of a sudden I find myself standing beside my bed, out of sheer habit. Occasionally I’m dreaming so deeply (of irregular French verbs or a quarrel upstairs) that I realize only when my dream is over that the shooting has stopped and that I’ve remained quietly in my room. But usually I wake up. Then I grab a pillow and a handkerchief, throw on my robe and slippers and dash next door to Father, just the way Margot described in this birthday poem: When shots rino out in the dark of night, The door creaks open and into sight Come a hanky, a pillow, a figure in white. . . Once I’ve reached the big bed, the worst is over, except when the shooting is extra loud. Six forty-five. Brrring . . . the alarm clock, which raises its shrill voice at any hour of the day or night, whether you want it to or not. Creak. . . wham. . . Mrs. van D. turns it off. Screak . . . Mr. van D. gets up, puts on the water and races to the bathroom. Seven-fifteen. The door creaks again. Dussel can go to the bathroom. Alone at last, I remove the blackout screen . . . and a new day begins in the Annex.

• From The Great Transformation (2006)

  Living constantly poised against attack, and ready for war, the beleaguered people developed an embattled cult. Even though the people of Israel felt so separate from their neighbors, the biblical record suggests that until the sixth century Israel’s religion was not in fact very different from that of the other local peoples. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had worshiped El, the High God of Canaan, and later generations merged El’s cult with that of Yahweh.98 Yahweh himself referred to this process when he explained to Moses that at the beginning of Israel’s history the patriarchs had always called him El, and that only now was he revealing his real name, Yahweh.99 But the Israelites never forgot El. For a long time, Yahweh’s shrine was a tent, like the tabernacle in which Canaanite El presided over his divine assembly of gods. In Canaan, El eventually met the fate of most High Gods, and by the fourteenth century his cult was in decline. He was replaced by the dynamic storm god Baal, a divine warrior, who rode on the clouds of heaven in his chariot, fought battles with other gods, and brought the life-giving rains. In the early days, Yahweh’s cult was very similar to Baal’s, and some of Baal’s hymns were even adapted for use in Yahweh’s temple in Jerusalem. Middle Eastern religion was strongly agonistic, dominated by stories of wars, hand-to-hand combat, and fearful battles among the gods. In Babylon, the warrior god Marduk had slaughtered Tiamat, the primal ocean, split her carcass in two like a giant shellfish, and created heaven and earth. Each year this battle was reenacted in the temple of Esagila during the new year ceremony to keep the world in existence for another year. In Syria, Baal fought Lotan, a seven-headed sea dragon, who is called Leviathan in the Bible. He also fought Yam, the primordial sea, symbol of chaos, and Mot, god of drought, death, and sterility. To celebrate his victory, Baal built himself a palace on Mount Sapan, his holy mountain. Until the sixth century, the Israelites also imagined Yahweh fighting sea dragons like Leviathan to create the world and save his people.100 The hymns of Ugarit show that the approach of Baal, the divine warrior, convulsed the entire cosmos: when he advanced on his enemies with his retinue of “holy ones,” brandishing his thunderbolt, The heavens roll up like a scroll, And all their hosts languish As a vine leaf withers As the fig droops.101

• From The Principles of Psychology (Volume 1 of 2) (1890)

  But the most valuable contribution to the subject is the paper of G. H. Schneider,[181] who takes up the matter zoologically, and shows by examples from every branch of the animal kingdom that movement is the quality by which animals most easily attract each other's attention. The instinct of shamming death 'is no shamming of death at all, but rather a paralysis through fear, which saves the insect, crustacean, or other creature from being noticed at all by his enemy. It is paralleled in the human race by the breath-holding stillness of the boy playing 'I spy,' to whom the seeker is near; and its obverse side is shown in our involuntary waving of arms, jumping up and down, and so forth, when we wish to attract someone's attention at a distance. Creatures 'stalking' their prey and creatures hiding from their pursuers alike show how immobility diminishes conspicuity. In the woods, if we are quiet, the squirrels and birds will actually touch us. Flies will light on stuffed birds and stationary frogs.[182] On the other hand, the tremendous shock of feeling the thing we are sitting on begin to move, the exaggerated start it gives us to have an insect unexpectedly pass over our skin, or a cat noiselessly come and snuffle about our hand, the excessive reflex effects of tickling, etc., show how exciting the sensation of motion is per se. A kitten cannot help pursuing a moving ball. Impressions too faint to be cognized at all are immediately felt if they move. A fly sitting is unnoticed,—we feel it the moment it crawls. A shadow may be too faint to be perceived. As soon as it moves, however, we see it. Schneider found that a shadow, with distinct outline, and directly fixated, could still be perceived when moving, although its objective strength might be but half as great as that of a stationary shadow so faint as just to disappear. With a blurred shadow in indirect vision the difference in favor of motion was much greater—namely, 13.3:40.7. If me hold a finger between our closed eyelid and the sunshine we shall not notice its presence. The moment we move it to and fro, however, we discern it. Such visual perception as this reproduces the conditions of sight among the radiates.[183]

• From The Principles of Psychology (Volume 1 of 2) (1890)

  These little creatures show opposite instincts of attachment and fear, either of which may be aroused by the same object, man. If a chick is born in the absence of the hen, it "will follow any moving object. And, when guided by sight alone, they seem to have no mole disposition to follow a hen than to follow a duck or a human being. Unreflecting lookers-on, when they saw chickens a day old running after me," says Mr. Spalding, "and older ones following me for miles, and answering to my whistle, imagined that I must have some occult power over the creatures: whereas I had simply allowed them to follow me from the first. There is the instinct to follow; and the ear, prior to experience, attaches them to the right object." [382] But if a man presents himself for the first time when the instinct of fear is strong, the phenomena are altogether reversed. Mr. Spalding kept three chickens hooded until they were nearly four days old, and thus describes their behavior: "Each of them, on being unhooded, evinced the greatest terror tome, dashing off in the opposite direction whenever I sought to approach it. The table on which they were unhooded stood before a window, and each in its turn beat against the window like a wild bird. One of them darted behind some books, and, squeezing itself into a corner, remained cowering for a length of time. We might guess at the meaning of this strange and exceptional wildness; but the odd fact is enough for my present purpose. Whatever might have been the meaning of this marked change in their mental constitution-had they been unhooded on the previous day they would have run to me instead of from me—it could not have been the effect of experience; it must have resulted wholly from changes in their own organizations." [383] Their case was precisely analogous to that of the Adirondack calves. The two opposite instincts relative to the same object ripen in succession. If the first one engenders a habit, that habit will inhibit the application of the second instinct to that object. All animals are tame during the earliest phase of their infancy. Habits formed then limit the effects of whatever instincts of wildness may later be evolved. Mr. Romanes gives some very curious examples of the way in which instinctive tendencies may be altered by the habits to which their first 'objects' have given rise. The cases are a little more complicated than those mentioned in the text, inasmuch as the object reacted on not only starts a habit which inhibits other kinds of impulse toward it (although such other kinds might be natural), but even modifies by its own peculiar conduct the constitution of the impulse which it actually awakens. Two of the instances in question are those of hens who hatched out broods of chicks after having (in three previous years) hatched ducks.

• From Fields of Blood: Religion and the History of Violence (2014)

  1 It was to date the largest loss of civilian life in a single incident in U.S. history. The deceased men, women, and children were members of the People’s Temple founded during the 1950s in Indianapolis, Indiana, by the charismatic preacher James Warren Jones (1938–78). Its commitment to racial and social equality had attracted chiefly poor, working-class white Americans and African Americans. Members lived a strictly communal life based on what Jones called the “apostolic socialism” of the Acts of the Apostles. In 1965, after having a vision of a nuclear bomb destroying Chicago, Jones had persuaded his followers to move with him and his family to safety in California. The Temple opened facilities in San Francisco and Los Angeles and gained a reputation for being politically progressive, offering legal services, child care, housing, and drug and alcohol rehabilitation. Membership increased to about one thousand, and in 1976, to escape the systemic violence and injustice that it believed to be inherent in the United States, the Temple moved to Guyana. Jonestown is often cited by those who claim that religion has been responsible for more death and suffering than any other human activity. Yet even though Jones was an ordained Methodist pastor who often quoted the gospels and used religion in recruitment, he was a self-confessed atheist and communist who often ridiculed conventional Christianity. Stories about the Temple’s violence had begun to circulate in 1972: defectors spoke of beatings, verbal abuse, and emotional cruelty. Members were viciously castigated for making racist or sexist remarks, complaining about the communal living arrangements, or wasting food. Culprits were subjected to brutal physical punishment and other humiliations in public, and the community was kept in a state of constant terror. Jones filled their minds with graphic descriptions of CIA torture methods, Nazi concentration camps, and Ku Klux Klan lynchings. In 1972, while still in California, he announced that the U.S. government was gonna put people in this country in concentration camps. They’re gonna put them in gas ovens, just like they did the Jews.... They’re gonna put you in the concentration camps that’re already in Tule Lake, California, Allentown, Pennsylvania, near Birmingham, outside El Reno, Oklahoma. They’ve got them all ready.... They still have the concentration camps, they did it to the Japanese, and they’ll do it to us. 2 “I tell you, we’re in danger from a corporate dictatorship,” Jones insisted, “a great fascist state, a great communist state.” 3 The ultimate terror began in 1978, when members started to rehearse their mass suicide.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  The first conspicuous examples of inflicting the Interdict occurred in France. Bishop Leudovald of Bayeux, after consulting with his brother bishops, closed in 586 all the churches of Rouen and deprived the people of the consolations of religion until the murderer of Pretextatus, Bishop of Rouen, who was slain at the altar by a hireling of the savage queen Fredegunda, should be discovered.400 Hincmar of Laon inflicted the interdict on his diocese (869), but Hincmar of Rheims disapproved of it and removed it. The synod of Limoges (Limoisin), in 1031, enforced the Peace of God by the interdict in these words which were read in the church: "We excommunicate all those noblemen (milites) in the bishopric of Limoges who disobey the exhortations of their bishop to hold the Peace. Let them and their helpers be accursed, and let their weapons and horses be accursed! Let their lot be with Cain, Dathan, and Abiram! And as now the lights are extinguished, so their joy in the presence of angels shall be destroyed, unless they repent and make satisfaction before dying." The Synod ordered that public worship be closed, the altars laid bare, crosses and ornaments removed, marriages forbidden; only clergymen, beggars, strangers and children under two years could be buried, and only the dying receive the communion; no clergyman or layman should be shaved till the nobles submit. A signal in the church on the third hour of the day should call all to fall on their knees to pray. All should be dressed in mourning. The whole period of the interdict should be observed as a continued fast and humiliation.401 The popes employed this fearful weapon against disobedient kings, and sacrificed the spiritual comforts of whole nations to their hierarchical ambition. Gregory VII. laid the province of Gnesen under the interdict, because King Bolislaw II. had murdered bishop Stanislaus of Cracow with his own hand. Alexander II. applied it to Scotland (1180), because the king refused a papal bishop and expelled him from the country. Innocent III. suspended it over France (1200), because king Philip Augustus had cast off his lawful wife and lived with a concubine.402 The same pope inflicted this punishment upon England (March 23, 1208), hoping to bring King John (Lackland) to terms. The English interdict lasted over six years during which all religious rites were forbidden except baptism, confession, and the viaticum. Interdicts were only possible in the middle ages when the church had unlimited power. Their frequency and the impossibility of full execution diminished their power until they fell into contempt and were swept out of existence as the nations of Europe outgrew the discipline of priestcraft and awoke to a sense of manhood. § 87. Penance and Indulgence.

• From The Diary of a Young Girl (The Definitive Edition) (2020)

  The first warning siren went off in the morning while we were at breakfast, but we paid no attention, because it only meant that the planes were crossing the coast. I had a terrible headache, so I lay down for an hour after breakfast and then went to the office at around two. At two-thirty Margot had finished her office work and was just gathering her things together when the sirens began wailing again. So she and I trooped back upstairs. None too soon, it seems, for less than five minutes later the guns were booming so loudly that we went and stood in the hall. The house shook and the bombs kept falling. I was clutching my “escape bag,” more because I wanted to have something to hold on to than because I wanted to run away. I know we can’t leave here, but if we had to, being seen on the streets would be just as dangerous as getting caught in an air raid. After half an hour the drone of engines faded and the house began to hum with activity again. Peter emerged from his lookout post in the front attic, Dussel remained in the front office, Mrs. van D. felt safest in the private office, Mr. van Daan had been watching from the loft, and those of us on the landing spread out to watch the columns of smoke rising from the harbor. Before long the smell of fire was everywhere, and outside it looked as if the city were enveloped in a thick fog. A big fire like that is not a pleasant sight, but fortunately for us it was all over, and we went baCk to our various chores. Just as we were starting dinner: another air-raid alarm. The food was good, but I lost my appetite the moment I heard the siren. Nothing happened, however, and forty-five minutes later the all clear was sounded. After the dishes had been washed: another air-raid warning, gunfire and swarms of planes. “Oh, gosh, twice in one day,” we thought, “that’s twice in one day,” we thought, “that’s twice too many.” Little good that did us, because once agai the bombs rained down, this time on the others of the city. According to British reports, Schiphol Airport was bombed. The planes dived and climbed, the air was abuzz with the drone of engines. It was very scary, and the whole time I kept thinking, “Here it comes, this is it.” I can assure you that when I went to bed at nine, my legs were still shaking. At the stroke of midnight I woke up again: more planes! Dussel was undressing, but I took no notice and leapt up, wide awake, at the sound of the first shot. I stayed in Father’s bed until one, in my own bed until one-thirty, and was back in Father’s bed at two. But the planes kept on coming.

• From The Diary of a Young Girl (The Definitive Edition) (2020)

  Brilliant, as usual. If we had such a thing as “cum laude,” she would have passed with honors, she’s so smart. Father has been home a lot lately. There’s nothing for him to do at the office; it must be awful to feel you’re not needed. Mr. Kleiman has taken over Opekta, and Mr. Kugler, Gies & Co., the company dealing in spices and spice substitutes that was set up in 1941. A few days ago, as we were taking a stroll around our neighborhood square, Father began to talk about going into hiding. He said it would be very hard for us to live cut off from the rest of the world. I asked him why he was bringing this up now. “Well, Anne,” he replied, “you know that for more than a year we’ve been bringing clothes, food and furniture to other people. We don’t want our belongings to be seized by the Germans. Nor do we want to fall into their clutches ourselves. So we’ll leave of our own accord and not wait to be hauled away.” “But when, Father?” He sounded so serious that I felt scared. “Don’t you worry. We’ll take care of everything. just enjoy your carefree life while you can.” That was it. Oh, may these somber words not come true for as long as possible. The doorbell’s ringing, Hello’s here, time to stop. Yours, Anne WEDNESDAY, JULY 8, 1942 Dearest Kitty, It seems like years since Sunday morning. So much has happened it’s as if the whole world had suddenly turned upside down. But as you can see, Kitty, I’m still alive, and that’s the main thing, Father says. I’m alive all right, but don’t ask where or how. You probably don’t understand a word I’m saying today, so I’ll begin by telling you what happened Sunday afternoon. At three o’clock (Hello had left but was supposed to come back later), the doorbell rang. I didn’t hear it, since I was out on the balcony, lazily reading in the sun. A little while later Margot appeared in the kitchen doorway looking very agitated. “Father has received a call-up notice from the SS,” she whispered. “Mother has gone to see Mr. van Daan” (Mr. van Daan is Father’s business partner and a good friend.) I was stunned. A call-up: everyone knows what that means. Visions of concentration camps and lonely cells raced through my head. How could we let Father go to such a fate? “Of course he’s not going,” declared Margot as we waited for Mother in the living room. “Mother’s gone to Mr. van Daan to ask whether we can move to our hiding place tomorrow. The van Daans are going with us. There will be seven of us altogether.” Silence. We couldn’t speak.The thought of Father off visiting someone in the Jewish Hospital and completely unaware of what was happening, the long wait for Mother, the heat, the suspense -- all this reduced us to silence.

• From The Diary of a Young Girl (The Definitive Edition) (2020)

  But they also have their outings, their visits with friends, their everyday lives as ordinary people, so that the tension is sometimes relieved, if only for a short while, while ours never is, never has been, not once in the two years we’ve been here. How much longer will this increasingly oppressive, unbearable weight press I down on us? The drains are clogged again. We can’t run the water, or if we do, only a trickle; we can’t flush the toilet, so we have to use a toilet brush; and we’ve been putting our dirty water into a big earthenware jar. We can man- age for today, but what will happen if the plumber can’t fix it on his own? The Sanitation Department can’t come until Tuesday. Miep sent us a raisin bread with “Happy Pentecost” written on top. It’s almost as if she were mocking us, since our moods and cares are far from “happy.” We’ve all become more frightened since the van Hoeven business. Once again you hear “shh” from all I sides, and we’re doing everything more quietly. The police forced the door there; they could just as easily do that here too! What will we do if we’re ever . . no, I mustn’t write that down. But the question won’t let itself be pushed to the back of my mind today; on the contrary, all the fear I’ve ever felt is looming before me in all its horror. I had to go downstairs alone at eight this evening to use the bathroom. There was no one down there, since they were all listening to the radio. I wanted to be brave, but it was hard. I always feel safer upstairs than in that huge, silent house; when I’m alone with those mysterious muffied sounds from upstairs and the honking of horns in the street, I have to hurry and remind myself where I am to keep from getting the shivers. Miep has been acting much nicer toward us since her talk with Father. But I haven’t told you about that yet. Miep came up one afternoon all flushed and asked Father straight out if we thought they too were infected with the current anti-Semitism. Father was stunned and quickly talked her out of the idea, but some of Miep’s suspicion has lingered on. They’re doing more errands for us now and showing more of an interest in our troubles, though we certainly shouldn’t bother them with our woes. Oh, they’re such good, noble people! I’ve asked myself again and again whether it wouldn’t have been better if we hadn’t gone into hiding, if we were dead now and didn’t have to go through this misery, especially so that the others could be spared the burden. But we all shrink from this thought. We still love life, we haven’t yet forgotten the voice of nature, and we keep hoping, hoping for. . . everything. Let something happen soon, even an air raid.

• From The Great Transformation (2006)

  The Daodejing consists of eighty-one small chapters, written in enigmatic verse. Even though Laozi was far more spiritual than the Legalists, there was an affinity between them, which the Legalists spotted immediately. Both despised the Confucians; both had a paradoxical view of the world, in which goals could be achieved only by pursuing their opposites; and both believed that the ruler should “do nothing” and intervene as little as possible in the life of the state. Unlike the Legalists, Laozi wanted his king to be virtuous, but not like a Confucian sage, who was endlessly trying to do things for his people. Instead, a prince who practiced the self-effacement and total impartiality of wu wei would bring the violence of the Warring States period to an end. The ancient kings, it was said, had ruled by the magical potency that established the Way of Heaven on earth by performing a series of external ceremonies. Laozi internalized these old rites, and advised the princes to acquire an interior, spiritualized conformity with the Way. These were terrifying times for the small principalities, which were about to be obliterated by Qin. The fear of imminent annihilation runs like a leitmotif through the Daodejing, which offers the vulnerable prince a stratagem for survival. Instead of posturing aggressively, he must retreat and make himself small. Instead of plotting and scheming, he must abandon thought, calm his mind, relax his body, and free himself of conventional ways of looking at the world. He must allow his problems to solve themselves by the discipline of wu wei.31 But this could be achieved only if he reformed his own heart, which must be rooted in stillness and emptiness. That is why Laozi devoted thirty chapters of his book to the mystical discipline that would transform the interior life of the prince and give him the power to replenish and restore the world, as the ancient kings had done. The very first chapter introduces us to Laozi’s method. The sage ruler had to learn to think in an entirely different way. Ordinary rational thought would be useless: doctrines, theories, and systems could only impede his progress, because he had to enter a dimension that existed beyond language and concepts. Hence Laozi began: The way that can be spoken of is not the constant way; The name that can be named is not the constant name. The nameless was the beginning of heaven and earth.

• From The Erotic Mind (1995)

  It is quite different for most men. A typical boy will also experience his first intimate bond with mother. But whereas a girl readily sustains this bond and builds on it as she experiments with other nurturing alliances, boys must eventually separate themselves from their mothers to establish a masculine identity. This need to “be one’s own man,” to “go it alone,” runs deep in the male psyche. Consequently, for most adolescent males, identity is not established through intimate connections but through achievements, exploits, and tests. For the male, romantic intensity, if experienced too soon and too strongly, can threaten his budding sense of autonomy. At the same time, his interest in sexuality skyrockets, and with it his fascination with girls, or with other boys if that’s where his attractions draw him. But these attractions will soon be contaminated by his need to act cool and unperturbed, no matter how rattled he may feel inside. A man’s sense of security remains tentative, fragile, and elusive, virtually impossible to establish once and for all. This is a key factor behind many of the behaviors commonly attributed to male ego. When a woman falls in love she is likely to be prepared, at least to some degree, for the strong emotions and vulnerabilities that follow. The first limerent experience for a man is typically the same roller-coaster ride of euphoria and risk that it is for a woman, but he enters this new world of emotional intensity with practically no preparation. While it is usually more difficult for a man to leap into limerence, once he does he becomes—and feels—exceedingly vulnerable. Much to the dismay of his partner, he may need to take refuge by avoiding or withdrawing from his LO. THE DARK SIDE OF LOVELove, like lust, has a dark side, a fact our erotic well-being requires that we acknowledge. Love is most likely to show its destructive potential when the romantic impulse is not reciprocated. Both men and women have been known to pursue, stalk, or harass those who will not return their “love.” Even when limerent attractions are reciprocated, the deep vulnerabilities and cravings they engender cause the worst as well as the best in all of us to emerge when the power dynamics that are integral to the limerent exchange become exaggerated and distorted. Nowhere is this synthesis of love and power clearer than in the “urge to merge” that appears to be universal in limerence. The challenges and joys of merging are intricately interwoven with surrender and control. On the one hand, without surrender there is no merging. To bask in the transformative powers of the idealized other, you must relinquish control. Love’s surrender may or may not be expressed through sexual submission, but it often is—in both men and women.

• From The Principles of Psychology (Volume 1 of 2) (1890)

  The split-off consciousness forms a secondary self; and M. Janet writes me that he sees no reason why sensations whose 'dissociation' from the body of consciousness makes the patient practically anæsthetic, might not, nevertheless, contribute to the emotional life of the patient. They do still contribute to the function of locomotion; for in his patient L. there was no ataxia in spite of the anæsthesia. M. Janet writes me, apropos of his anæsthetic patient L., that she seemed to 'suffer by hallucination.' "I have often pricked or burned her without warning, and when she did not see me. She never moved, and evidently perceived nothing. But if afterwards in her movements she caught sight of her wounded arm, and saw on her skin a little drop of blood resulting from a slight cut, she would begin to cry out and lament as if she suffered a great deal. 'My blood flows,' she said one day; 'I must be suffering a great deal!' She suffered by hallucination. This sort of suffering is very general in hysterics. It is enough for them to receive the slightest hint of a modification in their body, when their imagination fills up the rest and invents changes that were not felt.' See the remarks published at a later date in Janet's Automatisme Psychologique, pp. 214-15. [422] Op. cit. p. 63. [423] It must be confessed that there are cases of morbid fear in which objectively the heart is not much perturbed. These, however, fail to prove anything against our theory, for it is of course possible that the cortical centres normally percipient of dread as a complex of cardiac and other organic sensations due to real bodily change, should become primarily excited in brain-disease, and give rise to an hallucination of the changes being there.—an hallucination of dread, consequently, coexistent with a comparatively calm pulse, etc. I say it is possible, for I am ignorant of observations which might test the fact. Trance, ecstasy, etc., offer analogous examples,—not to speak of ordinary dreaming. Under all these conditions one may have the liveliest subjective feelings, either of eye or ear, or of the more visceral and emotional sort, as a result of pure nerve-central activity, and yet, as I believe, with complete peripheral repose. [424] R. M. Bucke: Man's Moral Nature (N.Y., 1879), p. 97. [425] Lange, op. cit. p. 61. [426] I am inclined to think that in some hysteriform conditions of grief, rage, etc., the visceral disturbances are less strong than those which go to outward expression. We have then a tremendous verbal display with a hollow inside.