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 Cults Inside Out: How People Get In and Can Get Out (2014)

  When you face your own death, life’s never the same. It’s just not.”1040 Wambli Sina Win, a former Oglala Sioux tribal judge and authority concerning authentic sweat-lodge practices, told the press, “Whatever he led was not a sweat-lodge ceremony as I understand it…He evidently learned bits and pieces and created a Frankenstein.” Linda Andresano, a nurse who had attended traditional sweat lodges but passed out and had to be carried out of Ray’s version, testified, “It was much hotter than any one I’d been in before.” She explained that in a traditional sweat lodge, leaders “would ask how everybody was doing, and pass water around.”1041 In one segment of his training, called the Samurai Game, Ray literally commanded participants to feign death. Connie Joy, a frequent participant of Ray retreats, said, “You have to picture him in the Samurai Game dressed in a white robe, pointing at people. When they say he said to die, I mean in a booming voice, pointing at you and saying, ‘Die!’ And if you didn’t drop instantly, he really started screaming at you to die.” Typically, the command to die followed an infraction of Ray’s rules or some form of noncompliance. Joy, who became disenchanted with Ray after problems at one of his retreats held in Peru, told the press, “He enjoyed playing God.”1042 “This could have happened to any of us. If you’re with a group of people for a week, and everyone walks into a situation, you’re going to go, too. And if your leader tells you it’s OK, you’re going to believe him. As you spend time together, a group mentality develops,” explained Christine B. Whelan, PhD, a visiting assistant professor of sociology at the University of Pittsburgh who has studied the self-help industry.1043 Sweat-lodge participant Dennis Mehraver described how reliant he had become on James Ray’s leadership. “With all my experiences before with Mr. Ray I believed he knew how far I could go better than myself,” Mehraver stated in court.1044 “He was strong with the people. They were too intimidated, they were too committed to him,” Jennifer Haley observed. Haley was a volunteer member of what Ray called his Dream Team.1045 Ray also used various techniques including Holotropic Breathing, an accelerated breathing technique to reach an “altered state of consciousness.”1046 James Ray reached a financial settlement with the families of those who had died in his sweat lodge. They were each paid $3 million. This money came from James Ray’s insurers.1047 After his criminal conviction and subsequent sentencing, Ray sold his home in the Beverly Hills area of California for $3.015 million.1048 In 2012 James Ray claimed he was broke and $11 million in debt. He requested that the court declare him “indigent” for the purpose of costs associated with his appeal.

• From The City of God

  149 Lecture 7 Transcript—Augustine’s Political Vision (Book 4) could be something other than power politics. But Augustine, like other political realists, refuses to imagine that the crucial response to our recognition of this political reality is outrage and disappointment, and a belief that some sort of other politics is possible. He goes on, and he next critiques the rhetoric of politics in two ways— in the ways that history and symbols, including religions, are used to obscure realities and so mislead us as to what is going on. Consider here his ruthless critique of the piety surrounding Roman patriotism. This comes in two parts. First, a critique of Roman nostalgia for their glorious past; and second, a critique of the myths and the gods the Romans use to enframe that noble past as a sign of a special divine favor upon them. First, the Romans nostalgically assume that their ancestors’ behavior was essentially especially heroic and morally pure, that there was an era of heroism from which they can judge the shallowness and shabbiness of the present, and to which they can aspire once again. Second, the Romans believe that there is some deeply theologically- charged character to their polity, unlike every other polity in the world. This kind of what we might call Roman exceptionalism, akin to our present-day American exceptionalism, attracts a great deal of scorn from Augustine. Let’s take each of these in turn. Now, Augustine makes relatively quick work of Roman nostalgia for their own greatest generation. His is a radically anti-nostalgic picture of the past. In Book 4, he repeatedly recalls Sallust—the pagan historian Sallust—on what kept the Romans together in their greatest generation. It was fear, a mortal fear of Carthage, a fear that Carthage might win, might conquer Rome. This is a much more sober account than the one that focuses on the idea that Roman heroic self-sacrifice was motivated fundamentally by some autonomous noble positive vision of the glory of Rome. The Romans were focused, ruthlessly self- sacrificial, and did not quarrel among themselves, not because they were uniquely virtuous, but because they had a wolf at their door and they knew that any dissent or lack of focus could be deadly.

• From The City of God

  Chapter 11. --Of Gog and Magog, Who are to Be Roused by the Devil to Persecute the Church, When He is Loosed in the End of the World. "And when the thousand years are finished, Satan shall be loosed from his prison, and shall go out to seduce the nations which are in the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, and shall draw them to battle, whose number is as the sand of the sea. "This then, is his purpose in seducing them, to draw them to this battle. For even before this he was wont to use as many and various seductions as he could continue. And the words "he shall go out" mean, he shall burst forth from lurking hatred into open persecution. For this persecution, occurring while the final judgment is imminent, shall be the last which shall be endured by the holy Church throughout the world, the whole city of Christ being assailed by the whole city of the devil, as each exists on earth. For these nations which he names Gog and Magog are not to be understood of some barbarous nations in some part of the world, whether the Getae and Massagetae, as some conclude from the initial letters, or some other foreign nations not under the Roman government. For John marks that they are spread over the whole earth, when he says, "The nations which are in the four corners of the earth," and he added that these are Gog and Magog. The meaning of these names we find to be, Gog, "a roof," Magog, "from a roof,"--a house, as it were, and he who comes out of the house. They are therefore the nations in which we found that the devil was shut up as in an abyss, and the devil himself coming out from them and going forth, so that they are the roof, he from the roof. Or if we refer both words to the nations, not one to them and one to the devil, then they are both the roof, because in them the old enemy is at present shut up, and as it were roofed in; and they shall be from the roof when they break forth from concealed to open hatred. The words, "And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and encompassed the camp of the saints and the beloved city," do not mean that they have come, or shall come, to one place, as if the camp of the saints and the beloved city should be in some one place; for this camp is nothing else than the Church of Christ extending over the whole world. And consequently wherever the Church shall be,--and it shall be in all nations, as is signified by "the breadth of the earth,"--there also shall be the camp of the saints and the beloved city, and there it shall be encompassed by the savage persecution of all its enemies; for they too shall exist along with it in all nations,--that is, it shall be straitened, and hard pressed, and shut up in the straits of tribulation, but shall not desert its military duty, which is signified by the word "camp. "

• From The City of God

  [1524] 2 Tim. ii. 19. [1525] Rom. viii. 14. [1526] Gal. v. 17. Chapter 16. --The Laws of Grace, Which Extend to All the Epochs of the Life of the Regenerate. But such is God's mercy towards the vessels of mercy which He has prepared for glory, that even the first age of man, that is, infancy, which submits without any resistance to the flesh, and the second age, which is called boyhood, and which has not yet understanding enough to undertake this warfare, and therefore yields to almost every vicious pleasure (because though this age has the power of speech, [1527] and may therefore seem to have passed infancy, the mind is still too weak to comprehend the commandment), yet if either of these ages has received the sacraments of the Mediator, then, although the present life be immediately brought to an end, the child, having been translated from the power of darkness to the kingdom of Christ, shall not only be saved from eternal punishments, but shall not even suffer purgatorial torments after death. For spiritual regeneration of itself suffices to prevent any evil consequences resulting after death from the connection with death which carnal generation forms. [1528]But when we reach that age which can now comprehend the commandment, and submit to the dominion of law, we must declare war upon vices, and wage this war keenly, lest we be landed in damnable sins. And if vices have not gathered strength, by habitual victory they are more easily overcome and subdued; but if they have been used to conquer and rule, it is only with difficulty and labor they are mastered. And indeed this victory cannot be sincerely and truly gained but by delighting in true righteousness, and it is faith in Christ that gives this. For if the law be present with its command, and the Spirit be absent with His help, the presence of the prohibition serves only to increase the desire to sin, and adds the guilt of transgression. Sometimes, indeed, patent vices are overcome by other and hidden vices, which are reckoned virtues, though pride and a kind of ruinous self-sufficiency are their informing principles. Accordingly vices are then only to be considered overcome when they are conquered by the love of God, which God Himself alone gives, and which He gives only through the Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who became a partaker of our mortality that He might make us partakers of His divinity. But few indeed are they who are so happy as to have passed their youth without committing any damnable sins, either by dissolute or violent conduct, or by following some godless and unlawful opinions, but have subdued by their greatness of soul everything in them which could make them the slaves of carnal pleasures. The greater number having first become transgressors of the law that they have received, and having allowed vice to have the ascendency in them, then flee to grace for help, and so, by a penitence more bitter, and a struggle more violent than it would otherwise have been, they subdue the soul to God, and thus give it its lawful authority over the flesh, and become victors. Whoever, therefore, desires to escape eternal punishment, let him not only be baptized, but also justified in Christ, and so let him in truth pass from the devil to Christ. And let him not fancy that there are any purgatorial pains except before that final and dreadful judgment. We must not, however deny that even the eternal fire will be proportioned to the deserts of the wicked, so that to some it will be more, and to others less painful, whether this result be accomplished by a variation in the temperature of the fire itself, graduated according to every one's merit, or whether it be that the heat remains the same, but that all do not feel it with equal intensity of torment.

• From The City of God

  Thus various, then, are the conjectural explanations of the obscure words of the apostle. That which there is no doubt he said is this, that Christ will not come to judge quick and dead unless Antichrist, His adversary, first come to seduce those who are dead in soul; although their seduction is a result of God's secret judgment already passed. For, as it is said "his presence shall be after the working of Satan, with all power, and signs, and lying wonders, and with all seduction of unrighteousness in them that perish. "For then shall Satan be loosed, and by means of that Antichrist shall work with all power in a lying though a wonderful manner. It is commonly questioned whether these works are called "signs and lying wonders" because he is to deceive men's senses by false appearances, or because the things he does, though they be true prodigies, shall be a lie to those who shall believe that such things could be done only by God, being ignorant of the devil's power, and especially of such unexampled power as he shall then for the first time put forth. For when he fell from heaven as fire, and at a stroke swept away from the holy Job his numerous household and his vast flocks, and then as a whirlwind rushed upon and smote the house and killed his children, these were not deceitful appearances, and yet they were the works of Satan to whom God had given this power. Why they are called signs and lying wonders, we shall then be more likely to know when the time itself arrives. But whatever be the reason of the name, they shall be such signs and wonders as shall seduce those who shall deserve to be seduced, "because they received not the love of the truth that they might be saved. "Neither did the apostle scruple to go on to say, "For this cause God shall send upon them the working of error that they should believe a lie. "For God shall send, because God shall permit the devil to do these things, the permission being by His own just judgment, though the doing of them is in pursuance of the devil's unrighteous and malignant purpose, "that they all might be judged who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness. "Therefore, being judged, they shall be seduced, and, being seduced, they shall be judged. But, being judged, they shall be seduced by those secretly just and justly secret judgments of God, with which He has never ceased to judge since the first sin of the rational creatures; and, being seduced, they shall be judged in that last and manifest judgment administered by Jesus Christ, who was Himself most unjustly judged and shall most justly judge. [1404] 2 Thess. ii. 1-11. Whole passage given in the Latin. In ver. 3 refuga is used instead of the Vulgate's discessio.

• From The City of God

  [1650] 1 Cor. iii. 1. [1651] 1 Cor. xv. 44. [1652] Ps. xxvi. 8. Chapter 22. --Of the Miseries and Ills to Which the Human Race is Justly Exposed Through the First Sin, and from Which None Can Be Delivered Save by Christ's Grace. That the whole human race has been condemned in its first origin, this life itself, if life it is to be called, bears witness by the host of cruel ills with which it is filled. Is not this proved by the profound and dreadful ignorance which produces all the errors that enfold the children of Adam, and from which no man can be delivered without toil, pain, and fear? Is it not proved by his love of so many vain and hurtful things, which produces gnawing cares, disquiet, griefs, fears, wild joys, quarrels, lawsuits, wars, treasons, angers, hatreds, deceit, flattery, fraud, theft, robbery, perfidy, pride, ambition, envy, murders, parricides, cruelty, ferocity, wickedness, luxury, insolence, impudence, shamelessness, fornications, adulteries, incests, and the numberless uncleannesses and unnatural acts of both sexes, which it is shameful so much as to mention; sacrileges, heresies, blasphemies, perjuries, oppression of the innocent, calumnies, plots, falsehoods, false witnessings, unrighteous judgments, violent deeds, plunderings, and whatever similar wickedness has found its way into the lives of men, though it cannot find its way into the conception of pure minds? These are indeed the crimes of wicked men, yet they spring from that root of error and misplaced love which is born with every son of Adam. For who is there that has not observed with what profound ignorance, manifesting itself even in infancy, and with what superfluity of foolish desires, beginning to appear in boyhood, man comes into this life, so that, were he left to live as he pleased, and to do whatever he pleased, he would plunge into all, or certainly into many of those crimes and iniquities which I mentioned, and could not mention?

• From The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce: A 25-Year Landmark Study (2000)

  Fortunately for many children of divorce, their fears of loss and betrayal can be conquered by the time they reach their late twenties and thirties. But what a struggle that takes, what courage and persistence. Those who succeed overcome their difficulties the hard way—by learning from their own failed relationships and gradually rejecting the models they were raised with to create what they want from a love relationship. Those lucky enough to have found a loving partner are able to interrupt their self-destructive course with a lasting love affair or marriage. In other realms of adult life—financial and security, for instance—some children were able to overcome difficulties through unexpected help from fathers who had vanished long before. Still others benefit from the constancy of parents or grandparents. Many men and women raised in divorced families establish successful careers. Their workplace performance is largely unaffected by the divorce. But no matter what their success in the world, they retain some serious residues—fear of loss, fear of change, and fear that disaster will strike, especially when things are going well. They’re still terrified by the mundane differences and inevitable conflicts found in every close relationship. I’m heartened by the hard-won success of these adults. But at the same time, I can’t forget those who’ve failed to straighten out their lives. I’m especially troubled by how many divorced or remained in wretched marriages. Of those who have children and who are now divorced, many, to my dismay, are not protecting their children in ways we might expect. They go on to repeat the same mistakes their own parents made, perpetuating problems that have plagued them all their lives. I’m also concerned about many who, by their mid-and late thirties, are neither married nor cohabiting and who are leading lonely lives. They’re afraid of getting involved in a relationship that they think is doomed to fail. After a divorce or breakup, they’re afraid to try again. And I’m struck by continuing anger at parents and flat-out statements by many of these young adults that they have no intention of helping their moms and especially their dads or stepparents in old age. This may change. But if it doesn’t, we’ll be facing another unanticipated consequence of our divorce culture. Who will take care of an older generation estranged from its children?

• From The City of God

  [542] The Alexandrian Neo-Platonists endeavored in this way to escape from the obvious meaning of the Timaeus. Chapter 13. --Of the Revolution of the Ages, Which Some Philosophers Believe Will Bring All Things Round Again, After a Certain Fixed Cycle, to the Same Order and Form as at First. This controversy some philosophers have seen no other approved means of solving than by introducing cycles of time, in which there should be a constant renewal and repetition of the order of nature; [543] and they have therefore asserted that these cycles will ceaselessly recur, one passing away and another coming, though they are not agreed as to whether one permanent world shall pass through all these cycles, or whether the world shall at fixed intervals die out, and be renewed so as to exhibit a recurrence of the same phenomena--the things which have been, and those which are to be, coinciding. And from this fantastic vicissitude they exempt not even the immortal soul that has attained wisdom, consigning it to a ceaseless transmigration between delusive blessedness and real misery. For how can that be truly called blessed which has no assurance of being so eternally, and is either in ignorance of the truth, and blind to the misery that is approaching, or, knowing it, is in misery and fear? Or if it passes to bliss, and leaves miseries forever, then there happens in time a new thing which time shall not end. Why not, then, the world also? Why may not man, too, be a similar thing? So that, by following the straight path of sound doctrine, we escape, I know not what circuitous paths, discovered by deceiving and deceived sages.

• From The City of God

  And what account do they give of Julian, whom they do not number in the ten? Did not he persecute the Church, who forbade the Christians to teach or learn liberal letters? Under him the elder Valentinian, who was the third emperor after him, stood forth as a confessor of the Christian faith, and was dismissed from his command in the army. I shall say nothing of what he did at Antioch, except to mention his being struck with wonder at the freedom and cheerfulness of one most faithful and steadfast young man, who, when many were seized to be tortured, was tortured during a whole day, and sang under the instrument of torture, until the emperor feared lest he should succumb under the continued cruelties and put him to shame at last, which made him dread and fear that he would be yet more dishonorably put to the blush by the rest. Lastly, within our own recollection, did not Valens the Arian, brother of the foresaid Valentinian, waste the catholic Church by great persecution throughout the East? But how unreasonable it is not to consider that the Church, which bears fruit and grows through the whole world, may suffer persecution from kings in some nations even when she does not suffer it in others! Perhaps, however, it was not to be reckoned a persecution when the king of the Goths, in Gothia itself, persecuted the Christians with wonderful cruelty, when there were none but catholics there, of whom very many were crowned with martyrdom, as we have heard from certain brethren who had been there at that time as boys, and unhesitatingly called to mind that they had seen these things? And what took place in Persia of late? Was not persecution so hot against the Christians (if even yet it is allayed) that some of the fugitives from it came even to Roman towns? When I think of these and the like things, it does not seem to me that the number of persecutions with which the Church is to be tried can be definitely stated. But, on the other hand, it is no less rash to affirm that there will be some persecutions by kings besides that last one, about which no Christian is in doubt. Therefore we leave this undecided, supporting or refuting neither side of this question, but only restraining men from the audacious presumption of affirming either of them.

• From The City of God

  [1433] 1 John iii. 9. [1434] Isa. lvi. 5. Chapter 23. --What Daniel Predicted Regarding the Persecution of Antichrist, the Judgment of God, and the Kingdom of the Saints. Daniel prophesies of the last judgment in such a way as to indicate that Antichrist shall first come, and to carry on his description to the eternal reign of the saints. For when in prophetic vision he had seen four beasts, signifying four kingdoms, and the fourth conquered by a certain king, who is recognized as Antichrist, and after this the eternal kingdom of the Son of man, that is to say, of Christ, he says, "My spirit was terrified, I Daniel in the midst of my body, and the visions of my head troubled me," [1435] etc. Some have interpreted these four kingdoms as signifying those of the Assyrians, Persians, Macedonians, and Romans. They who desire to understand the fitness of this interpretation may read Jerome's book on Daniel, which is written with a sufficiency of care and erudition. But he who reads this passage, even half asleep, cannot fail to see that the kingdom of Antichrist shall fiercely, though for a short time, assail the Church before the last judgment of God shall introduce the eternal reign of the saints. For it is patent from the context that the time, times, and half a time, means a year, and two years, and half a year, that is to say, three years and a half. Sometimes in Scripture the same thing is indicated by months. For though the word times seems to be used here in the Latin indefinitely, that is only because the Latins have no dual, as the Greeks have, and as the Hebrews also are said to have. Times, therefore, is used for two times. As for the ten kings, whom, as it seems, Antichrist is to find in the person of ten individuals when he comes, I own I am afraid we may be deceived in this, and that he may come unexpectedly while there are not ten kings living in the Roman world. For what if this number ten signifies the whole number of kings who are to precede his coming, as totality is frequently symbolized by a thousand, or a hundred, or seven, or other numbers, which it is not necessary to recount?

• From The City of God

  Worn out with weeping, and driven by necessity, it occurred to him to call in an Alexandrian, who was at that time esteemed a wonderfully skillful operator, that he might perform the operation his rage would not suffer them to do. But when he had come, and examined with a professional eye the traces of their careful work, he acted the part of a good man, and persuaded his patient to allow those same hands the satisfaction of finishing his cure which had begun it with a skill that excited his admiration, adding that there was no doubt his only hope of a cure was by an operation, but that it was thoroughly inconsistent with his nature to win the credit of the cure by doing the little that remained to be done, and rob of their reward men whose consummate skill, care, and diligence he could not but admire when be saw the traces of their work. They were therefore again received to favor; and it was agreed that, in the presence of the Alexandrian, they should operate on the fistula, which, by the consent of all, could now only be cured by the knife. The operation was deferred till the following day. But when they had left, there arose in the house such a wailing, in sympathy with the excessive despondency of the master, that it seemed to us like the mourning at a funeral, and we could scarcely repress it. Holy men were in the habit of visiting him daily; Saturninus of blessed memory, at that time bishop of Uzali, and the presbyter Gelosus, and the deacons of the church of Carthage; and among these was the bishop Aurelius, who alone of them all survives,--a man to be named by us with due reverence,--and with him I have often spoken of this affair, as we conversed together about the wonderful works of God, and I have found that he distinctly remembers what I am now relating. When these persons visited him that evening according to their custom, he besought them, with pitiable tears, that they would do him the honor of being present next day at what he judged his funeral rather than his suffering. For such was the terror his former pains had produced, that he made no doubt he would die in the hands of the surgeons. They comforted him, and exhorted him to put his trust in God, and nerve his will like a man. Then we went to prayer; but while we, in the usual way, were kneeling and bending to the ground, he cast himself down, as if some one were hurling him violently to the earth, and began to pray; but in what a manner, with what earnestness and emotion, with what a flood of tears, with what groans and sobs, that shook his whole body, and almost prevented him speaking, who can describe!

• From Sense and Sensibility (1811)

  “Not yet,” cried the other, concealing her terror, and assisting Marianne to lie down again, “but she will be here, I hope, before it is long. It is a great way, you know, from hence to Barton.” “But she must not go round by London,” cried Marianne, in the same hurried manner. “I shall never see her, if she goes by London.” Elinor perceived with alarm that she was not quite herself, and, while attempting to soothe her, eagerly felt her pulse. It was lower and quicker than ever! and Marianne, still talking wildly of mama, her alarm increased so rapidly, as to determine her on sending instantly for Mr. Harris, and despatching a messenger to Barton for her mother. To consult with Colonel Brandon on the best means of effecting the latter, was a thought which immediately followed the resolution of its performance; and as soon she had rung up the maid to take her place by her sister, she hastened down to the drawing-room, where she knew he was generally to be found at a much later hour than the present. It was no time for hesitation. Her fears and her difficulties were immediately before him. Her fears, he had no courage, no confidence to attempt the removal of:—he listened to them in silent despondence;—but her difficulties were instantly obviated, for with a readiness that seemed to speak the occasion, and the service pre-arranged in his mind, he offered himself as the messenger who should fetch Mrs. Dashwood. Elinor made no resistance that was not easily overcome. She thanked him with brief, though fervent gratitude, and while he went to hurry off his servant with a message to Mr. Harris, and an order for post-horses directly, she wrote a few lines to her mother. The comfort of such a friend at that moment as Colonel Brandon—or such a companion for her mother,—how gratefully was it felt!—a companion whose judgment would guide, whose attendance must relieve, and whose friendship might soothe her!—as far as the shock of such a summons could be lessened to her, his presence, his manners, his assistance, would lessen it.

• From Cults Inside Out: How People Get In and Can Get Out (2014)

  He told Luff to dance nude for him, explaining it was “the way of God.” Cult members described a life so controlled that almost anything they did could potentially be labeled as a “sin.” For example, Lundgren somehow considered sinful such things as eating too much garlic or keeping your own money. Jeffrey Lundgren was criminally convicted and sentenced to death. He was executed on October 24, 2006.261 Unlike the followers of Charles Manson, who have either died in prison or remained confined to this day, five of Lundgren’s followers who were sentenced to prison have been released on parole.262 But Jeffrey Lundgren’s wife, son, and Susan Luff‘s husband, Ronald, remain in prison, serving minimum sentences that exceed one hundred years.263 1989—Roch Thériault Murders The same year as the Lundgren group murders, a Canadian survivalist, cult leader Roch Thériault, was also arrested for murder. Thériault, like David Berg, used the name of Moses and ruled over a commune that included his “concubines,” twenty-two children, and other followers located near Burnt River, Ontario. In 1989 social workers and police were investigating complaints of abuse and torture in Thériault’s group when they found the bodies of an infant and an adult. Solange Boislard had been brutally murdered and partially disemboweled as part of a purported “cult ritual.”264 Thériault engaged in both the physical and sexual abuse of his followers, including the amputation of the hand of one woman, Gabrielle Lavallee. Lavallee later wrote a book about her experience and explained, “The first step that I took was to use writing, to apply myself to deprogramming. Because we were brainwashed. And during the catharsis I was able to recreate the personality that I had before I endorsed his ideology.”265 The French film Savage Messiah , based on the book by Lavallee, was released in 2002.266 Thériault pled guilty to second-degree murder and in 1993 was sentenced to life in prison. During his imprisonment three of Thériault’s still-devoted “wives” were allowed conjugal visits, and the cult leader fathered more children. 267 Two of Thériault’s children wrote a book about their lives while growing up in the cult.268 Another prison inmate killed Roch Thériault, and he was found dead in his cell in February 2011.269 1993—David Koresh and the Waco Davidian Standoff Vernon Howell (also known as David Koresh) was the son a single mother. After dropping out of school in the ninth grade, he moved to Tyler, Texas, and joined a Seventh-day Adventist church at eighteen. Howell, however, had repeated conflicts with church members and left the Adventist church. He then went to Waco, where he found an obscure Seventh-day Adventist splinter group known as the Branch Davidians.270 Originally founded by an excommunicated member of the Seventh-day Adventist church named Victor Houteff, the Branch Davidians were a relatively benign and peaceful group.271 Lois Roden was leading the small community when Howell arrived. The young man cultivated a close relationship with the aging leader and after her death assumed control of the group.

• From House of Holes: A Book of Raunch (2011)

  Harry shook his head despairingly. “The more porn we’ve sucked out of the world, the larger the monster has grown,” he said. “This wasn’t in our forecasts. We thought there might be small anomalies of spontaneous generation, of course. But this—this is a personification of polymorphousness unlike anything the world of human suck-fuckery has ever known. I used to work as a trainer at Ocean Playground. The squid show there was nothing compared to this.” At that moment an enormous arm reached out of the oily liquid, and a huge hand grasped at nothing in the air. Five penises hung dangling off the forearm—it looked like a bizarre bagpipe. The hand was made up of half a dozen clustered vaginas. “That’s gross,” said Rhumpa. Harry made a little fatalistic laugh. “They’re pumping so much porn in here that it’s just feeding and feeding, and it grows a new appendage every few days. It’s got about ten arms. One’s really long, but a lot of them are smaller.” “I can see that it’s not pretty,” Rhumpa said. “But is it good or is it evil?” “Nobody knows,” said Harry. “Nobody knows its language.” “I’m going to try to talk to it,” said Rhumpa. She put her hands to her mouth. “Hey, longdog!” she called with loud authority. “Jizm! Weeperhole!” The pornhand paused for a moment, ceased groping, then subsided under the vermilion waves of mingling smut imagery. “You really know languages,” said Harry, impressed. Rhumpa knew she could talk to the pornmonster given enough time and quiet. “I can’t engage with it here,” she said. “Do you have a side chamber where we can go?” “Sure,” said Harry. “The sluice gate has an overflow tank, and sometimes the monster goes in there to rest.” Suddenly, several fountains of what looked like sperm, but orchid and navel orange in color, jetted up from the froth. Rhumpa looked at Harry questioningly. “It masturbates constantly,” Harry said. “You’ll have to put on a wetsuit.” Rhumpa nodded. They went to the room off the overflow tank. Rhumpa shucked off her shirt and pants and stepped into the suit. “Be careful,” said Harry. “Our containment system is only as good as its weakest link.” “Do you think it can feel love?” asked Rhumpa. “I doubt it,” said Harry. “I was reading Hawking’s book about the first seconds of the universe. I think our monster is as close as I’ll ever come to knowing what that’s like.” Harry hesitated. He looked a little green around the gills. “I’m going to have to leave you on your own here. I’ll be watching on the monitor. Men can’t take pornfumes for very long without fainting. We need breathing equipment. Women seem more immune.” Harry withdrew. Rhumpa walked out onto the tiled edge of the ancillary holding tank. She called out, “Hey, pornmonster! Cuntcall! Here it is!” She cupped her crotch through the wetsuit.

• From House of Holes: A Book of Raunch (2011)

  Then one day they were jostled greatly and thrown into confusion. They looked at each other with alarm; it was clear that their enclosure was being tossed around on some ocean or tumbled down some steep incline. There was a sudden sharp concussion and an inrush of blinding searing light, which poured in as their fluid suspension slowly leaked away. They lay cupped and sprawling in one half of a silver egg that had cracked apart. After a moment, they stood. Their hands found each other. They were a couple, newly hatched. Loud sounds blossomed from enormous fleshy flushed faces, and Gallanos and Mellinnas were frightened. Moreover, their silver skin began to dry, and as it did they felt an almost unbearable warmth. They held on to each other tightly for protection but also because it soothed the burning of their acclimatizing skin. Gallanos’s penis was swollen and hot, and it seemed almost without their knowing it to slide inside Mellinnas. Then they were tightly embraced, a writhing ball of silver. The huge faces came closer to watch, and the silver couple could hear enormous booming noises, which they later understood were speech. But all they could do was move together to try to adjust to the shock of being exposed to air. Gallanos lay down on the surface of something hard and smooth, with a grain to it—the wooden tabletop—and his eggmate squashed herself to him and moved with amazing flexibility around and around on his molten twig. She opened her mouth, and he opened his, and then as feelings they hardly remembered gushed through them they pushed against the muteness of their throats until finally a series of small cries came out, strange uncertain sounds that increased in volume and pace until, as they reached the final throes of their lovemaking, they became groans of joy. The faces, watching, blinked and smiled. Gallanos and Mellinnas crawled onto a folded washcloth and fell asleep. More from the Author [image file=image_rsrc2SY.jpg] [image file=image_rsrc2SZ.jpg] The Way the World WorksThe Anthologist [image file=image_rsrc2T0.jpg] Human SmokeWe hope you enjoyed reading this Simon & Schuster ebook. Get a FREE ebook when you join our mailing list. Plus, get updates on new releases, deals, recommended reads, and more from Simon & Schuster. Click below to sign up and see terms and conditions. CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP Already a subscriber? Provide your email again so we can register this ebook and send you more of what you like to read. You will continue to receive exclusive offers in your inbox.

• From House of Holes: A Book of Raunch (2011)

  He was alarmed, and he looked over at her, but her eyes were closed, and she was sleeping. Soon the stiffness went away, and he went back to sleep. Then one day they were jostled greatly and thrown into confusion. They looked at each other with alarm; it was clear that their enclosure was being tossed around on some ocean or tumbled down some steep incline. There was a sudden sharp concussion and an inrush of blinding searing light, which poured in as their fluid suspension slowly leaked away. They lay cupped and sprawling in one half of a silver egg that had cracked apart. After a moment, they stood. Their hands found each other. They were a couple, newly hatched. Loud sounds blossomed from enormous fleshy flushed faces, and Gallanos and Mellinnas were frightened. Moreover, their silver skin began to dry, and as it did they felt an almost unbearable warmth. They held on to each other tightly for protection but also because it soothed the burning of their acclimatizing skin. Gallanos’s penis was swollen and hot, and it seemed almost without their knowing it to slide inside Mellinnas. Then they were tightly embraced, a writhing ball of silver. The huge faces came closer to watch, and the silver couple could hear enormous booming noises, which they later understood were speech. But all they could do was move together to try to adjust to the shock of being exposed to air. Gallanos lay down on the surface of something hard and smooth, with a grain to it—the wooden tabletop—and his eggmate squashed herself to him and moved with amazing flexibility around and around on his molten twig. She opened her mouth, and he opened his, and then as feelings they hardly remembered gushed through them they pushed against the muteness of their throats until finally a series of small cries came out, strange uncertain sounds that increased in volume and pace until, as they reached the final throes of their lovemaking, they became groans of joy. The faces, watching, blinked and smiled. Gallanos and Mellinnas crawled onto a folded washcloth and fell asleep. More from the Author The Way the World WorksThe Anthologist Human Smoke We hope you enjoyed reading this Simon & Schuster ebook. Get a FREE ebook when you join our mailing list. Plus, get updates on new releases, deals, recommended reads, and more from Simon & Schuster. Click below to sign up and see terms and conditions. CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP Already a subscriber? Provide your email again so we can register this ebook and send you more of what you like to read. You will continue to receive exclusive offers in your inbox.

• From Notes of a Native Son (1955)

  Otherwise, the rock claimed me. Or, to put it another way, my inheritance was particular, specifically limited and limiting: my birthright was vast, connecting me to all that lives, and to everyone, forever. But one cannot claim the birthright without accepting the inheritance. Therefore, when I began, seriously, to write—when I knew I was committed, that this would be my life—I had to try to describe that particular condition which was—is—the living proof of my inheritance. And, at the same time, with that very same description, I had to claim my birthright. I am what time, circumstance, history, have made of me, certainly, but I am, also, much more than that. So are we all. The conundrum of color is the inheritance of every American, be he/she legally or actually Black or White. It is a fearful inheritance, for which untold multitudes, long ago, sold their birthright. Multitudes are doing so, until today. This horror has so welded past and present that it is virtually impossible and certainly meaningless to speak of it as occurring, as it were, in time. It can be, and it has been, suicidal to attempt to speak of this to a multitude, which, assuming it knows that time exists, believes that time can be outwitted. Something like this, anyway, has something to do with my beginnings. I was trying to locate myself within a specific inheritance and to use that inheritance, precisely, to claim the birthright from which that inheritance had so brutally and specifically excluded me. It is not pleasant to be forced to recognize, more than thirty years later, that neither this dynamic nor this necessity have changed. There have been superficial changes, with results at best ambiguous and, at worst, disastrous. Morally, there has been no change at all and a moral change is the only real one. “ Plus ça change ,” groan the exasperated French (who should certainly know), “ plus c’est le même chose .” (The more it changes, the more it remains the same.) At least they have the style to be truthful about it. The only real change vividly discernible in this present, unspeakably dangerous chaos is a panic-stricken apprehension on the part of those who have maligned and subjugated others for so long that the tables have been turned. Not once have the Civilized been able to honor, recognize, or describe the Savage. He is, practically speaking, the source of their wealth, his continued subjugation the key to their power and glory. This is absolutely and unanswerably true in South Africa—to name but one section of Africa—and, as to how things fare for Black men and women; here, the Black has become, economically, all but expendable and is, therefore, encouraged to join the Army, or, a notion espoused, I believe, by Daniel Moynihan and Nathan Glazer, to become a postman—to make himself useful, for Christ’s sake, while White men take on the heavy burden of ruling the world. Well. Plus ça change.

• From The City of God

  437 Augustine’s Vision of Hell (Book 21) A ugustine focuses on the idea of hell in terms of the continuity and distance between sinning in time and being damned. Augustine thinks the doctrine of hell is not only just but gives us good reason to believe that hell is a creation of God’s goodness. Belief in hell has declined in the past century. We have a hard time imagining why anyone would suffer endlessly in a lake of fire for crimes they committed while on earth. So unlike most people in his own time, we face an initial blockage in struggling to see what Augustine was propounding. Immortal Suffering „In addressing hell, Augustine first distinguishes between two big issues that should be separately addressed: ›First is the question of how the situation of hell is possible at all; how plausible it is that we can imagine immortal bodies continually consumed but continually recreated in ceaseless fire. ›Second is the question of the precise nature of the punishment of the human soul and body. „On the issue of plausibility, Augustine appeals to the wide range of realities in that extend beyond our everyday experience. Sure, he says; consider salamanders, creatures who in Augustine’s age were widely considered to live in fire and volcanoes. The crucial point of his claim is that the world is much stranger than our normal experience would suggest. „On the issue of immortal bodies that suffer endlessly, he responds that demons certainly have suffered permanently since Creation Lecture 21

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

  Nero, owing to his youth, beauty, dash, and prodigality, and the startling novelty of his wickedness (Tacitus calls him "incredibilium cupitor," Ann. XV. 42), enjoyed a certain popularity with the vulgar democracy of Rome. Hence, after his suicide, a rumor spread among the heathen that he was not actually dead, but had fled to the Parthians, and would return to Rome with an army and destroy the city. Three impostors under his name used this belief and found support during the reigns of Otho, Titus, and Domitian. Even thirty years later Domitian trembled at the name of Nero. Tacit., Hist. I. 2; II. 8, 9; Sueton., Ner. 57; Dio Cassius, LXIV. 9; Schiller, l.c., p. 288. Among the Christians the rumor assumed a form hostile to Nero. Lactantius (De Mort. Persecut., c. 2) mentions the Sibylline saying that, as Nero was the first persecutor, he would also be the last, and precede the advent of Antichrist. Augustin (De Civil. Dei, XX. 19) mentions that at his time two opinions were still current in the church about Nero: some supposed that he would rise from the dead as Antichrist, others that he was not dead, but concealed, and would live until he should be revealed and restored to his kingdom. The former is the Christian, the latter the heathen belief. Augustin rejects both. Sulpicius Severus (Chron., II. 29) also mentions the belief (unde creditur) that Nero, whose deadly wound was healed, would return at the end of the world to work out "the mystery of lawlessness" predicted by Paul (2 Thess. 2:7). Some commentators make the Apocalypse responsible for this absurd rumor and false belief, while others hold that the writer shared it with his heathen contemporaries. The passages adduced are Apoc. 17:8: "The beast was, and is not, and is about to come up out of the abyss and to go into perdition" ... "the beast was, and is not, and shall be present" (kai; pavrestai, not kaivper ejstivn, "and yet is," as the E. V. reads with the text. ec.); 17:11: "And the beast that was, and is not, is himself also an eighth, and is of the seven; and he goeth into perdition;" and 13:3: "And I saw one of his heads as though it had been smitten unto death; and his death-stroke was healed: and the whole world wondered after the beast." But this is said of the beast, i.e., the Roman empire, which is throughout clearly distinguished from the seven heads, i.e., the emperors. In Daniel, too, the beast is collective. Moreover, a distinction must be made between the death of one ruler (Nero) and the deadly wound which thereby was inflicted on the beast or the empire, but from which it recovered (under Vespasian). § 38. The Jewish War and the Destruction of Jerusalem. A.D. 70.

• From Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953)

  Then he had come to his senses—after nine days God gave him the power to tell her this thing could not be. She took his decision with the same casualness, the same near-amusement, with which she had taken his fall. He understood about Esther, during those nine days: that she considered his fear and trembling fanciful and childish, a way of making life more complicated than it need be. She did not think life was like that; she wanted life to be simple. He understood that she was sorry for him because he was always worried. Sometimes, when they were together, he tried to tell her of what he felt, how the Lord would punish them for the sin they were committing. She would not listen: ‘You ain’t in the pulpit now. You’s here with me. Even a Reverend’s got the right to take off his clothes sometime and act like a natural man.’ When he told her that he would not see her any more, she was angry, but she did not argue. Her eyes told him that she thought he was a fool; but that, even had she loved him ever so desperately, it would have been beneath her to argue about his decision—a large part of her simplicity consisted in determining not to want what she could not have with ease. So it was over. Though it left him bruised and frightened, though he had lost the respect of Esther for ever (he prayed that she would never again come to hear him preach) he thanked God that it had been no worse. He prayed that God would forgive him, and never let him fall again. Yet what frightened him, and kept him more than ever on his knees, was the knowledge that, once having fallen, nothing would be easier than to fall again. Having possessed Esther, the carnal man awoke, seeing the possibility of conquest everywhere. He was made to remember that though he was holy he was yet young; the women who had wanted him wanted him still; he had but to stretch out his hand and take what he wanted—even sisters in the church. He struggled to wear out his visions in the marriage bed, he struggled to awaken Deborah, for whom daily his hatred grew. He and Esther spoke in the yard again as spring was just beginning. The ground was still with melting snow and ice; the sun was everywhere; the naked branches of the trees seemed to be lifting themselves upward toward the pale sun, impatient to put forth leaf and flower.