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.

Page 369 of 529 · 20 per page

• From The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica Volume 10 (2011)

  He kissed and sucked; he also stroked her clit with the tip of his nose. Each time she felt like she would levitate off the bed. His lips sealed to her pussy as his tongue probed the walls of her cunt and she grabbed handfuls of bedclothes in her fists. Tongue, lips, nose — his fingers stroked her pubic hair — he used them all like a master conductor creating a piece of music, and she was singing the aria. She came with a shudder and a squeal and lightning flashed like it was inside the room and blue fireflies danced in her eyes. Paladins Doi It was an exhausting orgasm; she wanted to lie still forever and let it just drain away. But he turned her over and lifted her ass. “Please ...” she mewed, knowing it was futile, knowing that he was going to take her from behind again. “I hate nuns,” he said as he plunged his cock into her. “I never thought I'd enjoy fucking one.” “Unngh! I told you — owwww — I never took my vows.” “No, you’re a nun, and I’m doggy-fucking your nunsensical brains out.-Hear me, Sister Racey Pink-snatch>?” “Oh my God!” “Convent slut! Pll make you do more than say your rosary on your knees.” “God!” she gasped. “You bastard ... fucking ... fuck me ... geeesh ...I can’t... coming again!” She almost bucked him off the bed. His cock slipped out trailing an arc of semen. Afterward, they took a shower together and toweled each other off. Then they fell naked into bed. As she slid into slumber, Rachel whispered, “I have a soul.” “T know.” — She was barely more than half his age, he thought, as his mind crested a wave of coddling comfort on its way to slumber. He liked the way she nestled in his arms; he liked screwing her from behind. He never should have let it get this far. He didn’t care. Now his thoughts veered off on to other avenues, taking him for a ride toward the inchoate realm of dreams. He was a child listening to his mother’s mother, sitting rapt as she spun stories about his great- grand uncle, the Civil War hero, the sniper with a sixth sense. Then a worm bored into his dream, corkscrewing out of the darkness. His eyes snapped open and he bolted up in bed. A woman outside the window, standing on the balcony, held a pistol in a combat grip. It was aimed right at him. He reached for his revolver as metal knocked against his temple. “Move and you’re dead,” the voice said. Another knock against his skull, he could tell that it was the barrel of a gun hitting him. “Who the fuck are you?” Another knock to his scalp, this one opened a wound. Movement in his peripheral vision caused his eyes to slide sideways away from the voice. It moved along the wall like a shadow.

• From Cultish (2021)

  In September 2020, a Daily Kos /Civiqs poll reported that over half of the Republicans surveyed believed either partially or mostly in QAnon’s theories . . . at least the theories they were aware of. Because tumble further down the QAnon rabbit hole, and you’ll find Satanic Panic–esque, flagrantly fascist beliefs that not every subscriber even knows about (at least not at first): theories about Jeffrey Epstein co-conspiring with Tom Hanks to molest hordes of minors, Hillary Clinton drinking the blood of children in order to prolong her life, the Rothschilds running a centuries-old ring of Satan worshippers, and beyond. But QAnon quickly grew to encapsulate much more than stereotypical far-right extremists. Take a soft turn to the left, and you’ll find a more outwardly palatable denomination of conspiritualists whose paranoias might be slightly less focused on Hillary Clinton worshipping Satan and more on Big Pharma forcing evil Western medicine on them and their kids. These believers wield a slightly different glossary of loaded terms, some co-opted from feminist politics—like “forced penetration” (which conflates vaccination with sexual assault) and “my body, my choice” (an antivaxx/anti-mask slogan purloined from the pro-choice movement). Because social media algorithms track people’s keywords in order to feed them only what they’re already interested in, a sprawling spiderweb of customized QAnon offshoots was able to form. In this manner, with language as its matter and energy, QAnon became like a black hole sucking in every breed of cultish twenty-first-century believer that crossed it. That’s part of why its central buzzwords—like the “deep state,” “mainstream media,” and “paradigm shift”—are so lofty and vague; they work to reel in and bond recruits without revealing too much. It’s not unlike how Scientology conceals the language of their bizarre upper levels so as not to lose new followers. Akin to a horoscope, the generic posts allow participants to convince themselves that they’re being spoken to uniquely—like this community singularly holds the answers to the world’s suffering—all the while camouflaging the fact that a unified belief system doesn’t actually exist. Like most manipulative cults, QAnon’s magnetism is largely the promise of special foreknowledge, which is available only to members of its enlightened underground collective. This allure is constructed with (and this will sound quite familiar now) an exhaustive sociolect of insider-y acronyms and keyboard symbols, “us”/“them” labels, and loaded language. In QAnon-speak, CBTS stands for “calm before the storm,” “truth seekers” are followers, and ignorant outsiders are “sheeple” or “agents of the elite.” #Savethechildren is an innocent-sounding QAnon shibboleth stolen from real child trafficking activists, used to hide in plain sight and attract newcomers. “5D consciousness” is a level of enlightenment that becomes available to insiders during turbulent times, “ascension” is a loaded buzzword used to explain away symptoms of anxiety or cognitive dissonance, and “looking at all viewpoints” is one of many euphemisms equating evidence and fantasy. The glossary goes on and on .

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

  M. Renouvier calls this belief of a thing for no other reason than that we conceive it with passion, by the name of mental vertigo.[327] Other objects whisper doubt or disbelief; but the object of passion makes us deaf to all but itself, and we affirm it unhesitatingly. Such objects are the delusions of insanity, which the insane person can tit odd moments steady himself against, but which again return to sweep him off his feet. Such are the revelations of mysticism. Such, particularly, are the sudden beliefs which animate mobs of men when frenzied impulse to action is involved. Whatever be the action in point—whether the stoning of a prophet, the bailing of a conqueror, the burning of a, witch, the baiting of a heretic or Jew, the starting of a forlorn hope, or the flying from a foe—the fact that to believe a certain object will cause that action to explode is a sufficient reason for that belief to come. The motor impulse sweeps it unresisting in its train. The whole history of witchcraft and early medicine is a commentary on the facility with which anything which chances to be conceived is believed the moment the belief chimes in with an emotional mood. 'The cause of sickness?' When a savage asks the cause of anything he means to ask exclusively 'What is to blame?' The theoretic curiosity starts from the practical life's demands. Let some one then accuse a necromancer, suggest a charm or spell which has been cast, and no more 'evidence' is asked for. What evidence is required beyond this intimate sense of the culprit's responsibility, to which our very viscera and limbs reply?[328] Human credulity in the way of therapeutics has similar psychological roots. If there is anything intolerable (especially to the heart of a woman), it is to do nothing when a loved one is sick or in pain. To do anything is a relief. Accordingly, whatever remedy may be suggested is a spark on inflammable soil. The mind makes its spring towards action on that cue, sends for that remedy, and for a day at least believes the danger past. Blame, dread, and hope are thus the great belief inspiring passions, and cover among them the future, the present, and the past. These remarks illustrate the earlier heads of the list on page 292. Whichever represented objects give us sensations, especially interesting ones, or incite our motor impulses, or arouse our hate, desire, or fear, are real enough for us. Our requirements in the way of reality terminate in our own acts and emotions, our own pleasures and pains. These are the ultimate fixities from which, as we formerly observed, the whole chain of our beliefs depends, object hanging to object, as the bees, in swarming, hang to each other until, de proche en proche, the supporting branch, the Self, is reached and held. BELIEF IN OBJECTS OF THEORY.

• From The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica Volume 10 (2011)

  In her free hand she held a rubber dildo, one end long and curved like a scimitar, the other thick and stubby. As he watched, as her grip on his hair insisted he watch, she worked this shorter end into her cunt, first stroking it back and forth against her wet lips to lubricate it, then screwing it deep inside. ~ “Kiss,” she said, her hips thrusting forward to offer it to his mouth when she felt it was seated firmly enough. Pouting his lips, Brian touched them to its wicked bulb, seeing her labia swollen around its root where it was buried inside her. “Now lick, for if it is not to cause you too much pain it needs to be moister,” she continued, pressing the weapon against his lips until they parted. His tongue licked at the rubber until it was forced aside as she bucked her hips again, inserting an inch of the thing inside him, then another inch, until he was choking on it, salivating over it. “Good enough, I think,” she decided, finally withdrawing it, and in the brief moment he was allowed to catch his breath she had moved around and behind him, was on her knees and pressing it against his arse. 264 Severin Rossetti “No! Please don’t!” he begged, on feeling that first contact, but her body bearing down on him, her breasts flattened against his chest would allow him no escape. “You expect pity from a cruel heartless bitch? Silly man!” she laughed. There was no subtlety about the way she inserted the dildo into his arse, she simply forced it forward, slowly but with determination, not seeming to care whether it entered him or rended him in two. Fortunately it filled him rather than ripped him, though this in itself was still painful enough, inch after inch entering him until he knew — and she guessed — that he could take no more. “Enough?” she asked. “Enough!” he answered, his reply little more than a sob. “Then now you will feel what it is to be fucked by a cruel heartless bitch,” she promised, pulling back a little and then pressing forward once more, back again and then forward, her movements short and shallow at first but then becoming more extreme until she was not so much pressing into him as thrusting into him, her hips slapping against his buttocks. His body rocked against the stool, it was only her body pinning his that kept the thing upright on its four legs, and as excruciating as the pain was he marvelled that his erection sustained itself, his rigid cock straining against the underside of the stool. One of her hands worked its way down to grip him, to squeeze him, her nails dug into him and then her fist formed itself around the swollen gland, encouraging his ejaculation at the same time that she seemed intent on preventing it.

• From The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica Volume 10 (2011)

  The rain washes over me and the wave of my orgasm grips me. I’ve never come so hard, but I’m standing outside myself. I don’t recognize the sound coming out of me. I’m not even aware that I’m making the sound out loud, until, abruptly, the tableau shatters. Gerry turns towards the window looking right where I’m standing and hollers, “What the fuck?” He releases the belt and reaches down to pull up his drawers and trousers. I back away, still rocking from my climax, but suddenly grown cold. I glance up just as a bolt of lightning sears the night and blinds me. The crack is almost immediate. So close, so close. It’s struck something nearby. 376 Rose B. Thorny “What, Gerry, what?” Pamela’s screaming. She has no idea what’s happening. “Fucking pervert. There’s a guy out there, a fucking perv.” It can’t be. I can’t be caught. I won’t be. Pamela’s babbling. “Oh, no. No-no-no. Oh, God. Did he see? Oh, my God. Oh, shit.” By the time Gerry gets to the window, I’ve wrapped my slicker around me and dashed down the walk between the house and hedge. The splashes of light are still burned into my retinas, the way a flashbulb leaves a white imprint. I run and stumble, going down on one knee and pain knifes into my leg. My palms scrape the gritty concrete sidewalk. I crawl scrambling to my feet again, tripping and staggering towards the street. I can’t think and just race into the streaming sheets of rain illuminated by streetlights. I hear a door slam. He’s giving chase. He’s going to catch me. He mustn’t catch me. Can I outrun him? No chance. He’s half my age and an athlete. I just run. I have to get away from him. I race towards the wooded park where all the mothers bring their children in the light of day. I can lose him there. I sprint between the trees into a particularly dense copse. He won’t find me there. Gerry Barker bawls through the pouring rain and murk. “You fucking pervert. I catch you, you’re dead.” But I’m hidden now. There’s no way he can find me. The storm is protecting me. The storm always protects me. My heart isn’t thudding any more, but I’m still shivering. Wrapped in my thick chenille robe and huddling in my favourite easy chair, I’ve tried to warm myself. A half-filled snifter of brandy sits close to hand on the end table. It was full when I started it. Even so, I’m still chilled. The shaking won’t stop. The fear feels like ants crawling all over me and worms wriggling inside my gut. I go over the scene again and again, a stuck record playing the words over and over.

• From The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica Volume 10 (2011)

  pale, his chin in his palm, the computer screen before him blank. Was he sick again? she wondered. Or just afraid to acknowledge her? Soon she noticed a general absence of people around. When she looked out in the hall, many doors were shut, others open to reveal no one and a briefcase or bag hastily, even indifferently tossed in a corner or on a chair. It was like a science fiction film in which a plague breaks out — or a bomb drops — that kills people but not things. She wondered if a meeting had been called without her knowing; but now that she knew Owen, she was always in the loop. Isabel walked out and, after a few steps, began passing others. All were either heading toward Owen’s office or returning from having been there. There was a feeling of people drifting to and from a crime scene or a free outdoor concert at which some were turned away. Isabel could not remember there ever being this kind of purposeful movement in the office, such urgency, concern and curiosity. Had the company been sold? Owen been fired? One woman was in tears. Isabel heard someone say, “I can’t believe it,’ and another, “They found him in his house,” and a third, somewhat snottily, “I would have thought it would have been his wife.” Isabel began running through the hall, her feeling of fear in action, and soon was nearly flying. She knew that if Owen’s door was closed, it would be bad news — or would it be if his door was open and people were in his office crying the way she was not yet allowing herself to cry? Now she was running faster than anyone ever should inside, with too much speed to be contained in the office, as if she were about to burst out of it at any instant, and it was true: she would be, in a way, exploded into life by death as soon as she rounded the corner at the end of the hall. Perfect Timing Kristina Wright She should have called before she drove over to the university. Charlotte tapped her nails on the steering wheel as Henry’s phone rang. She hoped he wasn’t in a meeting. Or teaching a class. She had been so preoccupied with getting her weekly reports finished and getting out of the library that the thought hadn’t crossed her mind to make sure he was available. Finally, after four rings, he answered. “T’m in the faculty parking lot. Last row by the trees,” she said, by way of a greeting. ““Can you meet me?” He sighed, but there was a hint of amusement in his voice. “I’m in the middle of student advisement meetings.” Neither his reluctance nor the overcast sky would deter her. “Can’t you take an early lunch break? Please?”

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

  There are certain other pathological fears, and certain peculiarities in the expression of ordinary fear, which might receive an explanatory light from ancestral conditions, even infra-human ones. In ordinary fear, one may either run, or remain semi-paralyzed. The latter condition reminds us of the so-called death-shamming instinct shown by many animals. Dr. Lindsay, in his work 'Mind in Animals,' says this must require great self-command in those that practise it. But it is really no feigning of death at all, and requires no self-command. It is simply a terror-paralysis which has been so useful as to become hereditary. The beast of prey does not think the motionless bird, insect, or crustacean dead. He simply fails to notice them at all; because his senses, like ours, are much more strongly excited by a moving object than by a still one. It is the same instinct which leads a boy playing 'I spy' to hold his very breath when the seeker is near, and which makes the beast of prey himself in many cases motionlessly lie in wait for his victim or silently 'stalk' it, by rapid approaches alternated with periods of immobility. It is the opposite of the instinct which makes us jump up and down and move our arms when we wish to attract the notice of some one passing far away, and makes the shipwrecked sailor frantically wave a cloth upon the raft where he is floating when a distant sail appears. Now, may not the statue-like, crouching immobility of some melancholiacs, insane with general anxiety and fear of everything, be in some way connected with this old instinct? They can give no reason for their fear to move; but immobility makes them feel safer and more comfortable. Is not this the mental state of the 'feigning' animal?

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

  1605–27) had to put down one rebellion after another, and Aurangzeb (r. 1658–1707) seems to have believed that political unity could be restored only by greater discipline within the Muslim ruling class. He therefore outlawed laxities such as wine drinking, made Muslim cooperation with their hindu subjects impossible, and engaged in the widespread destruction of their temples. These violent policies, the result of political insecurity as much as religious zeal, were reversed immediately after Aurangzeb’s death but were never forgotten. Sikhs had suffered from this imperial violence. By this time Sikhs, who had once eschewed all external symbols, had developed some of their own. The fifth guru, Arjan Dev, had made the Golden Temple at Amritsar in the Punjab a place of pilgrimage and had enshrined the Sikh scriptures there in 1604. Sikhism had always abstained from violence. Guru Nanak had said: “Take up arms that hurt no one; let your coat of mail be understanding; convert your enemies to friends.” 99 The first four gurus had had no need to bear arms. But Jahangir had tortured the fifth guru to death in 1606, and in 1675 Aurangzeb beheaded Tegh Bahadur, the ninth guru. His successor, Gobind Singh, therefore faced an entirely different world. Henceforth, the tenth guru declared, there would be no more human leaders: in the future the Sikhs’ only guru would be their scripture. In 1699 he instituted the Sikh Order of Khalsa (the “purified” or “chosen”). Like Kshatriya warriors, its members would call themselves Singh (“Lion”), carry swords, and distinguish themselves from the rest of the population by wearing soldiers’ garb and keeping their hair unshorn. Yet again, imperial violence had radicalized an originally irenic tradition and had also introduced a particularism that was entirely alien to the original Sikh vision. Gobind is believed to have written to Aurangzeb that when all else failed, it was only right to lift the sword and fight. Militancy might be necessary to defend the community—but only as a last resort. 100 The Hindu, Sikh, and Muslim communities were now in competition for British favor, resources, and political influence. Their leaders discovered that the British were more receptive to their ideas if they believed that they represented a larger group and realized that in order to prosper under colonial rule, they would have to adapt to the Western understanding of religion. So new reform movements tended to adopt contemporaneous Protestant norms in a way that distorted these traditions. Luther had tried to return to the practice of the early church, so the Arya Samaj (“Society of Aryans”), which was founded in the Punjab in 1875 by Swami Dayananda, attempted a return to Vedic orthodoxy. He also tried to create an authoritative scriptural canon, which had no precedent in India. The Arya was, therefore, an extremely reductive form of “Hinduism,” since the Vedic tradition had long been the faith of only a small elite, and very few people were able to understand ancient Sanskrit.

• From The Historical Jesus (Great Courses) (2000)

  traditions of Israel’s exodus from Egypt. The Roman governor sent forth his troops, slaughtered Theudas and his followers, and displayed the prophet’s head in Jerusalem. 2. About a decade later, another prophet arose (also mentioned in Acts), called “the Egyptian.” He led a huge following (30,000 people, according to Josephus) outside of Jerusalem and predicted that he would make the “walls come tumbling down” — a clear allusion to Joshua and the Battle of Jericho. The Roman troops again were sent forth, and a huge slaughter occurred. 3. John the Baptist should probably be seen as a prophet of this sort, predicting that God would soon intervene on behalf of his people and wreak massive destruction and judgment: “Who warned you to flee from the wrath that is coming? Behold, the axe is lying at the root of the tree; every tree that does not bear fruit will be cut down and cast into the fire” (Luke 3:7, 9). He, too, was executed. 4. Other Jewish prophets arose and experienced similar fates. Roman administrators of Judea had no qualms about destroying anyone whose predictions about God’s intervention gained them a large, and potentially riotous, following, especially in Jerusalem. IV. An even more widespread response to Roman rule involved a kind of religious ideology that became popular during the period, what modem scholars call “apocalypticism.” This ideology originated, probably, during the time of the Maccabean revolt, but became enormously popular among the Jews of Palestine under Roman rule. A. This ideology may have undergirded some of the self-styled prophets I mentioned (almost certainly John the Baptist), and it was widely held among large numbers of Jews. B. The name comes from the Greek term apocalypsis, which means an “unveiling” or a “revealing.” Jews who subscribed to this world view maintained that God had revealed to them the future course of events, in which he was soon to overthrow the forces of evil and establish his good kingdom on earth. C. We know about Jewish apocalyptic thought from a number of ancient sources: the Book of Daniel in the Hebrew Bible, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and numerous “apocalypses” written at the time— i.e., books that describe the course of future events as “revealed” to their authors. D. Jewish apocalypticists subscribed to four major tenets: 1. They maintained a view of cosmic dualism, in which there were two forces in the world — good and evil — and everyone and everything sided with one of the two forces. The present age was ruled by the forces of evil and the age to come would be ruled by the forces of good. 2. They were completely pessimistic about the possibilities of life in the present evil age. 4 ©2000 The Teaching Company Limited Partnership 3. Apocalypticists believed, though, that God would intervene in the course of history, overthrow the forces of evil, and bring in his good kingdom with a judgement of the entire world, both the living and the dead.

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

  "I was reading a newspaper, and the indication of the approaching delirium was an inability to keep my mind fixed on the narrative. Directly I lay down upon a sofa there appeared before my eyes several rows of human hands, which oscillated for a moment, revolved and then changed to spoons. The same motions were repeated, the objects changing to wheels, tin soldiers, lamp-posts, brooms, and countless other absurdities. This stage lasted about ten minutes, and during that time it is safe to say that I saw at least a thousand different objects. These whirling images did not appear like the realities of life, but had the character of the secondary images seen in the eye after looking at some brightly-illuminated object. A mere suggestion from the person who was with me in the room was sufficient to call up an image of the thing suggested, while without suggestion there appeared all the common objects of life and many unreal monstrosities, which it is absolutely impossible to describe, and which seemed to be creations of the brain. "The character of the symptoms changed rapidly. A sort of wave seemed to pass over me, and I became aware of the fact that my pulse was beating rapidly. I took out my watch, and by exercising considerable will-power managed to time the heart-beats, 135 to the minute. "I could feel each pulsation through my whole system, and a curious twitching commenced, which no effort of the mind could stop. "There were moments of apparent lucidity, when it seemed as if I could see within myself, and watch the pumping of my heart. A strange fear came over me, a certainty that I should never recover from the effects of the opiate, which was as quickly followed by a feeling of great interest in the experiment, a certainty that the experience was the most novel and exciting that I had ever been through. "My mind was in an exceedingly impressionable state. Any place thought of or suggested appeared with all the distinctness of the reality. I thought of the Giant's Causeway in Staffa, and instantly I stood within the portals of Fingal's Cave. Great basaltic columns rose on all aides, while huge wares rolled through the chasm and broke in silence upon the rocky shore. Suddenly there was a roar and blast of sound, and the word 'Ishmaral' was echoing up the cave. At the enunciation of this remarkable word the great columns of basalt changed into Whirling clothes pins and I laughed aloud at the absurdity.

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

  Zoroaster concluded that there must be a malevolent deity, Angra Mainyu, the “Hostile Spirit,” who was equal in power to the Wise Lord but was his polar opposite. Every single man, woman, and child, therefore, must choose between absolute Good and absolute Evil. 105 The Wise Lord’s followers must live patient, disciplined lives, bravely defending all good creatures from the assault of evildoers, caring for the poor and weak, and tending their cattle kindly instead of driving them from their pastures like the cruel raiders. They must pray five times a day and meditate on the menace of evil in order to weaken its power. 106 Society must not be dominated by these fighters ( nar- ) but by men ( viras ) who were kind and dedicated to the supreme virtue of truth. 107 So traumatized was Zoroaster by the ferocity of the raiders’ attacks, though, that this gentle, ethical vision was itself permeated with violence. He was convinced that the whole world was rushing toward a final cataclysm in which the Wise Lord would annihilate the wicked daevas and incinerate the Hostile Spirit in a river of fire. There would be a Great Judgment, and the daevas’ earthly followers would be exterminated. The earth would then be restored to its original perfection. There would be no more death and disease, and the mountains and valleys would be leveled to form a great plain where gods and humans could live together in peace. 108 Zoroaster’s apocalyptic thinking was unique and unprecedented. As we have seen, traditional Aryan ideology had long acknowledged the disturbing ambiguity of the violence that lay at the heart of human society. Indra may have been a “sinner,” but his struggles against the forces of chaos—however tainted by the lies and deceitful practices to which he had to resort—had contributed as much to the cosmic order as the work of the great ahuras. Yet by projecting all the cruelty of his time onto Indra, Zoroaster demonized violence and made him a figure of absolute evil. 109 Zoroaster made few converts in his lifetime: no community could survive in the steppes without the fighters whom he had rejected. The early history of Zoroastrianism remains obscure, but we do know that when the Avestan Aryans migrated to Iran, they took their faith with them. Suitably adapted to the needs of the aristocracy, Zoroastrianism would become the ideology of the Persian ruling class, and Zoroastrian ideals would infiltrate the religion of Jews and Christians living under Persian rule. But that lay in the distant future. In the meantime, the Sanskrit-speaking Aryans began to bring the cult of Indra to the Indian subcontinent. a In Avestan, the Sanskrit devas became daevas. 7 The Muslim Dilemma I n 610, the year that saw the outbreak of the Persian-Byzantine war, a merchant from Mecca in the Arabian Hejaz experienced a dramatic revelation during the sacred month of Ramadan.

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

  The sense of impotence inhibits the volition. Only by abstracting from the thought of the impossibility am I able energetically to imagine strongly the table sliding over the floor, make the bodily 'effort' which I do, and to will it to come towards me. It may be that some people are unable to perform this abstraction, and that the image of the table stationary on the floor inhibits the contradictory image of its moving, which is the object to be willed. [507] A normal palsy occurs during sleep. We will all sorts of motions in our dreams, but seldom perform any of them. In nightmare we become conscious of the non-performance, and make a muscular 'effort.' This seems then to occur in a restricted way, limiting itself to the occlusion of the glottis and producing the respiratory anxiety which wakes us up. [508] Both resolves and beliefs have of course immediate motor consequences of a quasi-emotional sort, changes of breathing, of attitude, internal speech movements, etc.; but these movements are not the objects resolved on or believed. The movements in common volition are the objects willed. [509] This volitional effort pure and simple must be carefully distinguished from the muscular effort with which it is usually confounded. The latter consists of all those peripheral feelings to which a muscular 'exertion' may give rise. These feelings, whenever they are massive and the body is not 'fresh,' are rather disagreeable, especially when accompanied by stopped breath, congested head, bruised skin of fingers, toes, or shoulders, and strained joints. And it is only as thus disagreeable that the mind must make its volitional effort in stably representing their reality and consequently bringing it about. That they happen to be made real by muscular activity is a purely accidental circumstance. A soldier standing still to be fired at expects disagreeable sensations from his muscular passivity. The action of his will, in sustaining the expectation, is identical with that required for a painful muscular effort. What is hard for both is facing an idea as real. Where much muscular effort is not needed or where the 'freshness' is very great, the volitional effort is not required to sustain the idea of movement, which comes then and stays in virtue of association's simpler laws. More commonly, however, muscular effort involves volitional effort as well. Exhausted with fatigue and wet and watching, the sailor on a wreck throws himself down to rest. But hardly are his limbs fairly relaxed, when the order 'To the pumps!' again sounds in his ears. Shall he, can he, obey it? Is it not better just to let his aching body lie, and let the ship go down if she will?

• From The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica Volume 10 (2011)

  you have her for a good price.” , “To keep?” “Sure ... until you want to sell her to someone else. Or, if she’s all worn out by then, just leave her someplace. I’ll let her go for $500.” He stepped over to the girl and raised her chin in his hand. He held her for a moment, assessed the touch of her skin, and peered into her eyes. “She looks kinda,young. What is she? Thirteen?” “She'll be 14 come September. And, Ill be honest, she ain’t no virgin, but she’ll do things for you and the missus that won’t make you care what the weather’s like anytime. Truth is, ’ve had her myself. You won’t get a much tighter, slippery-slidin’ pussy and a cocksucking tongue like that little girl got. And don’t let her size fool you; she’ll keep going *till you and the missus pass out and then clean ya’ll up while you’re sleepin’. So, whadya say? Five hundred dollars?” “Three hundred dollars.” “Four hundred dollars.” “Three-fifty.” “T hate to let her go for that, but we’re a bit low on gas and provisions, so I guess you talked me into it, mister. You sure know how to jew a man down.” The fat man chuckled and offered his hand, which was ignored. He counted out the bills and dropped them into the hammy hand. “Come along, sweetie.” He guided the girl by her shoulder toward his cabin. As they stepped on to the porch and approached the screen door he shouted, “Baby, I’m back . . . with a little treat.” The girl preceded him without hesitation. As the screen door slapped behind him, a brunette came out of the bathroom. She held a formidable syringe. 212 Robert Buckley The girl turned on one heel, her hair shot up toward the ceiling like a hundred streamers; the streamers transformed into ribbons of leaves that lashed at his face like razor grass. As he pushed her away he found his hands clasped around a green stalk, a series of mouths along its length bristling with spike-like teeth. His cheeks stung where the razor-leaves nicked him. “Spike it!” The brunette came up behind the creature and pushed the syringe into the stalk. “It won’t go in!” she cried. “Push harder!” There was a hiss, then the thing shuddered and an ear-splitting shriek made his spine jangle. The thing seemed to wither and rot in his hands. He let it fall. “Holy shit!” the woman said. “You let it see the syringe.” “T know; I screwed up. I’m sorry. I was getting it ready just as you came in.” “Tt’s little mistakes like that that’ll get you killed . .. or worse.” “T know. Sorry. What the hell was that stuff we injected it with?” “You didn’t get any on your hands, did you?” “No, I used the whole hazmat get-up. That’s why it took me so long. So what the hell was it?”

• From The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica Volume 10 (2011)

  254 : Severin Rossetti the bunch of keys she held resting lightly against her thigh, shining like a weapon against the dark material of her trousers. She had removed her jacket and the polo neck she wore was sleeveless, cut high at the shoulders to leave bare arms which he could see were firm and muscled. “So many keys, for just the one door? Didn’t you wonder?” she asked, a gentle twist of the wrist making the keys chime against each other, and her head turned slowly to the left, to the right, inviting Brian to take in his surroundings. This room at least had some rugs to make its bare stone floor more comfortable, hangings hid the naked brick of the walls, and in one corner was a large bed which seemed inviting enough. But such other more disturbing “furnishings” there were that he was momentarily lost for words! What he first took to be a child’s cot beside the bed he saw to be more like a cage, enclosed not just on its four sides but also on top, and apparently constructed of cold steel rather than polished wood; a large upholstered stool might have been unremarkable if it had not been for the shackles fixed to each of its four legs; a large wooden chair as grand as a throne was so intricately carved that it could surely not afford a comfortable seat, and hung with all manner of straps and chains and restraints. ‘These were everywhere, in fact, fastened not just to each item of furniture but also hanging from the walls, the low ceiling, even curled up on the floor, fixed there by stout bolts driven through the rugs, into the stone. And everywhere, too, the padlocks of assorted sizes, as many and as varied as the keys she held in her hand. “So, where shall I have you first?” she wondered, coming slowly towards him, and when he took a step back she grinned humourlessly. “Oh come on, don’t be shy,” she coaxed. “I told you, I may be a cruel heartless bitch, but at least I’m good at it.” “Look, this really wasn’t what I had in mind,’ Brian said, still backing away from her. - “No, I can guess just what you had in mind,” she said, and there was something mesmerizing about her voice, her cold gaze, that as he thought he was backing towards the door he found himself moving instead in a lazy arc, as if they were two wrestlers circling each other in the ring. Then his retreat was blocked as wood dug into his calves, her face came within inches of his and she grinned. A Giiel Heartless Bitch . 255 “Ah! So it’s to the heartless bitch’s throne?” she said, her body bumping into his, knocking him off balance and toppling him arse first into the large chair.

• From Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma (1997)

  The shake annihilated fear, and allowed no sense of horror in looking round at the beast. This peculiar state is probably produced in all animals killed by the carnivore; and if so, is a merciful provision by our benevolent creator for lessening the pain of death.” [Italics mine] The best way to define dissociation is through the experience of it. In its mildest forms, it manifests as a kind of spaciness. At the other end of the spectrum, it can develop into so-called multiple personality syndrome. Because dissociation is a breakdown in the continuity of a person’s felt sense, it almost always includes distortions of time and perception. A mild variety of this symptom is responsible for the experience many people have when driving home from the corner store; suddenly, they find themselves arriving home with no memory of how they got ther e - the last thing they remember is driving away from the store. Dissociation is also operating when we put our keys down “somewhere” and then can’t remember where. At such times, we may tacitly acknowledge the momentary absence of the felt sense by facetiously referring to ourselves or others as having been “spaced out,” or “out to lunch.” In other words, out of our bodies. These are some of the forms that dissociation takes in our everyday lives. It enters into our experience specifically when we are faced with life-threatening situations. Imagine driving your car around a sharp curve on a narrow mountain road. Suddenly, you have to swerve to avoid a head-on collision with a truck coming straight at you. As you skid toward the narrow shoulder, watch the images unfold in slow motion. Then, with a fearless calm, notice that you are viewing someone else from the sidelines instead of confronting your own death. Similarly, the woman being raped, the soldier facing enemy fire, or the victim of an accident may experience a fundamental disconnection from his or her body. From a corner of the ceiling, a child may watch him/herself being molested, and feel sorry for or neutral toward the defenseless child below. Dissociation is one of the most classic and subtle symptoms of trauma. It is also one of the most mysterious. The mechanism through which it occurs is less easily explained than the experience of it or the role it plays. In trauma, dissociation seems to be a favored means of enabling a person to endure experiences that are at the moment beyond enduranc e - like being attacked by a lion, a rapist, an oncoming car, or a surgeon’s knife. Dissociation can become chronic and evolve into more complex symptoms when the hyperaroused energy is not discharged. Individuals who have been repeatedly traumatized as young children often adopt dissociation as a preferred mode of being in the world. They dissociate readily and habitually without being aware of it.

• From Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma (1997)

  We don’t know that the centrifugal law of physics will prevent us from falling and being killed or injured. When we re-enact we may experience terror and/or the exhilaration of surviving it. We may also become addicted to the relief and thrill that ensues when we confront our deepest fears. However, we will not learn the true mastery and surrender that occurs when our traumas are transformed. In renegotiation we gradually get to understand these laws and forces so that we can learn to trust them and surrender to them. We can experience excitement without becoming tense or terrified. We can acquire a true sense of mastery. In Somatic Experiencing, renegotiation revolves around learning to experience the natural restorative laws of the organism. Marius (Chapter Nine) and Margaret (this chapter) experienced their sensations in going through the loop of the trauma and healing vortices. In surrendering to natural laws, they gained mastery. The forces they learned to master are centrifugal - like the forces that are set up when moving between the healing and trauma vortices. By moving through the warble and entering the healing vortex, then moving rhythmically back and forth between the two, these traumatized individuals gradually became certain that they would not be sucked into a black hole and burned to a cinder, or propelled into outer space. In re-enacting their experiences, Marius and Margaret may have learned that they could survive. They would not, however, have learned the new responses that would allow them to master the powerful forces set into motion by traumatic events. When we set up our initial conditions correctly and come into alignment (like the Galileo Probe ), we can put our trust in the natural laws to guide us on our healing journey. One of the most profound and conceptually challenging aspects of healing trauma is understanding the role played by memory. Many of us have the faulty and limiting belief that to heal our traumas we must dredge up horrible memories from the past. What we know for certain is that we feel damaged, fragmented, distressed, shameful, unhappy, etc. In an attempt to feel better we search for the cause(s) of our unhappiness, hoping that finding them will ease our distress. Even if we are able to dredge up reasonably accurate “memories” of an event, they will not heal us. On the contrary, this unnecessary exercise can cause us to re-enact the experience and get sucked into the trauma vortex once again. The search for memories may engender more pain and distress, while further solidifying our frozen immobility. The vicious cycle then escalates as we are compelled to search for other explanatory events (“memories”) to account for our additional distress. How important are these memories?

• From Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma (1997)

  Johnny, age five, proudly riding his first bicycle, hits loose gravel and careens into a tree. He is momentarily knocked unconscious. Getting up amid a flow of tears, he feels disoriented and somehow different. His parents hug him, console him, and put him back on the bike, all the while praising his courage. They do not realize how stunned and frightened he is. Years after this apparently minor incident, John, driving with his wife and children, swerves to avoid an oncoming car. He freezes in the midst of the turn. Fortunately, the other driver is able to maneuver successfully and avoid catastrophe. One morning several days later, John begins to feel restless while driving to work. His heart starts racing and pounding; his hands become cold and sweaty. Feeling threatened and trapped, he has a sudden impulse to jump out of the car and run. He acknowledges the “craziness” of his feelings, realizes no one was hurt, and gradually, the symptoms subside. A vague and nagging apprehension, however, persists most of the day. Returning home that evening without incident, he feels relieved. The next morning, John leaves early to avoid the traffic and stays late to discuss business with some colleagues. When he arrives home, he is irritable and edgy. He argues with his wife and barks at the children. John goes to bed early. He is awakened in the middle of the night and faintly recalls a dream in which his car is sliding out of control. He is drenched in sweat. More fretful nights follow. John is experiencing a delayed reaction sensitized by the bike accident he had as a child. Incredible as it may seem, post-traumatic reactions of this type are common. After working for more than twenty-five years with people suffering from trauma, I can say that at least half of my clients have had traumatic symptoms that remained dormant for a significant period of time before surfacing. For many people, the interval between the event and the onset of symptoms is between six weeks and eighteen months. However, the latency period can last for years or even decades. In both instances, the reactions are often triggered by seemingly insignificant events. Of course, not every childhood accident produces a delayed traumatic reaction. Some have no residual effect at all. Others, including those viewed as “minor” and forgotten incidents of childhood, can have significant after effects. A fall, a seemingly benign surgical procedure, the loss of a parent through death or divorce, severe illness, even circumcision and other routine medical procedures can all cause traumatic reactions later in life, depending on how the child experiences them at the time they occur.

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

  M. Renouvier calls this belief of a thing for no other reason than that we conceive it with passion, by the name of mental vertigo. [327] Other objects whisper doubt or disbelief; but the object of passion makes us deaf to all but itself, and we affirm it unhesitatingly. Such objects are the delusions of insanity, which the insane person can tit odd moments steady himself against, but which again return to sweep him off his feet. Such are the revelations of mysticism. Such, particularly, are the sudden beliefs which animate mobs of men when frenzied impulse to action is involved. Whatever be the action in point—whether the stoning of a prophet, the bailing of a conqueror, the burning of a, witch, the baiting of a heretic or Jew, the starting of a forlorn hope, or the flying from a foe—the fact that to believe a certain object will cause that action to explode is a sufficient reason for that belief to come. The motor impulse sweeps it unresisting in its train. The whole history of witchcraft and early medicine is a commentary on the facility with which anything which chances to be conceived is believed the moment the belief chimes in with an emotional mood. 'The cause of sickness?' When a savage asks the cause of anything he means to ask exclusively 'What is to blame?' The theoretic curiosity starts from the practical life's demands. Let some one then accuse a necromancer, suggest a charm or spell which has been cast, and no more 'evidence' is asked for. What evidence is required beyond this intimate sense of the culprit's responsibility, to which our very viscera and limbs reply? [328] Human credulity in the way of therapeutics has similar psychological roots. If there is anything intolerable (especially to the heart of a woman), it is to do nothing when a loved one is sick or in pain. To do anything is a relief. Accordingly, whatever remedy may be suggested is a spark on inflammable soil. The mind makes its spring towards action on that cue, sends for that remedy, and for a day at least believes the danger past. Blame, dread, and hope are thus the great belief inspiring passions, and cover among them the future, the present, and the past. These remarks illustrate the earlier heads of the list on page 292. Whichever represented objects give us sensations, especially interesting ones, or incite our motor impulses, or arouse our hate, desire, or fear, are real enough for us.

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

  It was conceived they thus destroyed about 400 at this time. It was a fearful sight to see them thus frying in the fire, and the streams of blood quenching the same, and horrible was the stink and scent thereof, but the victory seemed a sweet sacrifice, and they gave the prayers thereof to God, who had wrought so wonderfully for them. 20 When the Puritans negotiated the Treaty of Hertford (1638) with the few Pequot survivors, they insisted on the destruction of all Pequot villages and sold the women and children into slavery. Should Christians have behaved more compassionately? asked Captain John Underhill, a veteran of the Thirty Years’ War. He answered his rhetorical question with a decided negative: God supported the English, “so we had sufficient light for our proceedings.” 21 Thirty years later, when Europeans were recoiling from the violence in the Thirty Years’ War, some Puritans had begun to question the validity of these Indian campaigns. 22 After the murder of an Indian convert to Christianity in 1675, the Plymouth authorities, on very shaky evidence, pinned the blame on Metacom, chief of the Wampanoag, whom the English called “King Philip.” When they executed three of his aides, Metacom with his Indian allies promptly devastated fifty out of the ninety English towns in Plymouth and Rhode Island; by the spring of 1676 the Indian armies were within ten miles of Boston. In the autumn the war turned in the colonists’ favor. Yet they were facing a hard winter and the Narragansetts on Rhode Island had food and supplies. Accusing them—again on dubious grounds—of aiding Metacom, the English militia attacked and looted the village, massacred its inhabitants—most of them noncombatant refugees—and burned the settlement to the ground. The war continued with atrocities on both sides—Indian warriors scalped their prisoners alive; the English disemboweled and quartered theirs—but in the summer of 1676, both sides abandoned the struggle. Almost half the prewar Indian population had been eliminated: 1,250 were killed in battle, 625 died of wounds, and 3,000 died of disease in captivity. The colonies, however, suffered only about 800 casualties, a mere 1.6 percent of the total English population of 50,000. The Puritan establishment believed that God had used the Indians to punish the colonists for their backsliding from godly ways and for the decline in church attendance and were therefore unconcerned about the Indian casualties. But many of the colonists were now less convinced of the morality of all-out warfare.

• From My Life and Loves, Vol. 1 (of 4) (1922)

  One of the first evenings when Vernon was complaining that Raleigh hadn’t come in or sent, my father said: “Why not try, Joe?” (my nickname!) In a jiffy I had the gloves on and got my first lesson from Vernon who taught me at least how to hit straight and then how to guard and side-step. I was very quick and strong for my size; but for some time Vernon hit me very lightly. Soon, however, it became difficult for him to hit me at all and then I sometimes got a heavy blow that floored me. But with constant practice I improved rapidly and after a fortnight or so put on the gloves once with Raleigh. His blows were very much heavier and staggered me even to guard them, so I got accustomed to duck or side-step or slip every blow aimed at me while hitting back with all my strength. One evening when Vernon and Raleigh both had been praising me, I told them of Jones and how he bullied me; he had really made my life a misery to me: he never met me outside the school without striking or kicking me and his favorite name for me was “bog-trotter!” His attitude, too, affected the whole school: I had grown to hate him as much as I feared him. They both thought I could beat him; but I described him as very strong and finally Raleigh decided to send for two pairs of four ounce gloves or fighting gloves and use these with me to give me confidence. In the first half hour with the new gloves Vernon did not hit me once and I had to acknowledge that he was stronger and quicker even than Jones. At the end of the holidays they both made me promise to slap Jones’s face the very first time I saw him in the school. On returning to school we always met in the big schoolroom. When I entered the room there was silence. I was dreadfully excited and frightened, I don’t know why; but fully resolved: “he can’t kill me”, I said to myself a thousand times; still I was in a trembling funk inwardly though composed enough in outward seeming. Jones and two others of the Sixth stood in front of the empty fire-place: I went up to them: Jones nodded, “How d’ye do, Pat!”