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 White Oleander (1999)

  Title : White Oleander Author: Fitch, Janet ASIN : B000UV73MC [image file=Image00005.jpg] [image "Book Title Page" file=Image00000.jpg] [image "CoverImage" file=Image00001.jpg] Begin Reading Table of Contents Reading Group Guide Copyright Page In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitute unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at permissions@hbgusa.com. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights. To the man from Council Bluffs Explore book giveaways, sneak peeks, deals, and more. Tap here to learn more . [image "Little Brown logo" file=Image00002.jpg] 1 [image "image" file=Image00003.jpg] THE SANTA ANAS blew in hot from the desert, shriveling the last of the spring grass into whiskers of pale straw. Only the oleanders thrived, their delicate poisonous blooms, their dagger green leaves. We could not sleep in the hot dry nights, my mother and I. I woke up at midnight to find her bed empty. I climbed to the roof and easily spotted her blond hair like a white flame in the light of the three-quarter moon. “Oleander time,” she said. “Lovers who kill each other now will blame it on the wind.” She held up her large hand and spread the fingers, let the desert dryness lick through. My mother was not herself in the time of the Santa Anas. I was twelve years old and I was afraid for her. I wished things were back the way they had been, that Barry was still here, that the wind would stop blowing. “You should get some sleep,” I offered. “I never sleep,” she said. I sat next to her, and we stared out at the city that hummed and glittered like a computer chip deep in some unknowable machine, holding its secret like a poker hand. The edge of her white kimono flapped open in the wind and I could see her breast, low and full. Her beauty was like the edge of a very sharp knife. I rested my head on her leg. She smelled like violets. “We are the wands,” she said. “We strive for beauty and balance, the sensual over the sentimental.” “The wands,” I repeated. I wanted her to know I was listening. Our tarot suit, the wands. She used to lay out the cards for me, explain the suits: wands and coins, cups and swords, but she had stopped reading them. She didn’t want to know the future anymore. “We received our coloring from Norsemen,” she said. “Hairy savages who hacked their gods to pieces and hung the flesh from trees. We are the ones who sacked Rome. Fear only feeble old age and death in bed. Don’t forget who you are.” “I promise,” I said.

• From In an Unspoken Voice (2010)

  In the example of the theater fire you could, before running, assess the situation independently. If you smell smoke then there should be no hesitation; on the other hand, if you see a group of teenagers laughing, then your rational brain might tell you to check things out some more before running full steam toward the exit. Rational assessment can be an efficient tempering of the extreme instinctual command when the person next to us (whom we are mirroring) is mistaken or overreacting. However, often in therapy the attempt to place reason over instinct is a serious failure, a likely disaster. In the therapy situation, the therapist must strike a balance between mirroring a client’s distress enough for them to learn about the client’s sensations, but not so much as to increase the client’s level of fear as in contagion panic. This can only happen if the therapist has learned the ins and outs of his or her own sensations and emotions and is relatively comfortable with them. Only then can we really help clients contain their troubling sensations and emotions so that they can learn that, no matter how horrible they feel, it will not go on forever. Fear Paralysis On the Serengeti, one herd member’s startled reaction cues the other gazelles to anticipate the worst and vigilantly scan the environment in an attempt to locate the potential source of threat. If, however, they fail to detect the stalking predator, they readily let down their guard and innocently return to grazing. § Moments later, another gazelle arrests to the sound of a twig snapping and, once again, the herd is alerted, the animals’ “collective nervous system” activated, tuning and readying them for all-out action. They stiffen in unison as their muscles tense in preparation for maximal exertion in flight. Seizing the moment, a stalking cheetah leaps from its cover of dense shrubbery. The herd springs together as one organism, darting away from the advancing predator. One young gazelle falters for a split second, then recovers its footing. In a blur, the cheetah lunges toward its intended victim. The chase is on at a blazing sixty-five miles an hour! At the moment of contact (or just before, as it senses that the end is near), the young gazelle collapses to the ground. The stone-still animal has entered an altered state of consciousness shared by all mammals when death appears imminent. It is not “pretending” to be dead and may, in fact, be uninjured. 18 It is in a state of fear paralysis . Paralysis, an Ancestral Root We die so that we can live. —A father opossum to his children in the animated film Over the Hedge One’s first line of defense against a predator, an attacker or other source of danger is generally an active defense .

• From In an Unspoken Voice (2010)

  So, for example, a sudden shadow alerts one to a potential risk, while the large looming contours of a bear or the sleek, crouching silhouette of a mountain lion let one know that one is in grave danger. We also assess threat directly from the state of our viscera and our muscles—our internal sense organs . If our muscles are tense, we unconsciously interpret these tensions as foretelling the existence of danger, even when none actually exists. Tight muscles in the neck and shoulders may, for example, signal to the brain that you are likely to be hit. Tense legs, along with furtive eyes, may tell you that you need to run and escape, and taut arms may signal that you’re ready to strike out. We suffer even greater distress when our guts are persistently overstimulated by the vagus nerve. If we are nauseated, twisted in our guts, feel our muscles collapsing, and lack in energy, we feel helpless and hopeless—even though there is no actual decimating threat. In other words, the churning itself signals grave threat and dread to the brain , even when nothing is currently wrong—at least not externally. Our muscular and visceral states color both our perceptions and our evaluation of the intentions of others. While we may believe that certain individuals will do us no harm, we still feel endangered. s Even something as neutral as a room, a street corner or a sunlit meadow may seem ominous. Conversely, experiencing relaxed (and well-toned) muscles and belly can signal safety even when a person’s daily affairs are in turmoil. As an illustration of this point, I overheard a person saying after receiving a full-body massage, “The world’s not such a bad place after all. I feel terrific.” While a wonderful massage is a great way to give a person a new way of feeling good, it will take a major shift in the ongoing dialogue on the brain-gut highway to free up more than ephemerally the congestion caused by chronic stress and trauma. The intense visceral reactions associated with threat are meant to be acute and temporary. Once the danger has passed, these reactions (be it inhibition of gastric motility by the sympathetic nervous system or violent overstimulation of motility by the primitive vagus nerve) need to cease in order to return the organism to equilibrium, fresh and flowing in the here and now. When balance is not restored, one is left in acute and, eventually, chronic distress. In order to prevent trauma as well as to reverse it when it has already occurred, individuals must become aware of their visceral sensations. t In addition, our gut sensations are vital in orchestrating positive feelings of aliveness and in directing our lives. They are also the source of much of our intuition. As we can learn from traditional, shamanic and spiritual practices, embraced for thousands of years throughout the world, feelings of goodness are embodied directly as visceral sensations.

• From The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma (2014)

  Stan and Ute’s Brains on TraumaOn a fine September morning in 1999, Stan and Ute Lawrence, a professional couple in their forties, set out from their home in London, Ontario, to attend a business meeting in Detroit. Halfway through the journey they ran into a wall of dense fog that reduced visibility to zero in a split second. Stan immediately slammed on the brakes, coming to a standstill sideways on the highway, just missing a huge truck. An eighteen-wheeler went flying over the trunk of their car; vans and cars slammed into them and into each other. People who got out of their cars were hit as they ran for their lives. The ear-splitting crashes went on and on—with each jolt from behind they felt this would be the one that killed them. Stan and Ute were trapped in car number thirteen of an eighty-seven-car pileup, the worst road disaster in Canadian history.[15] Then came the eerie silence. Stan struggled to open the doors and windows, but the eighteen-wheeler that had crushed their trunk was wedged against the car. Suddenly, someone was pounding on their roof. A girl was screaming, “Get me out of here—I’m on fire!” Helplessly, they saw her die as the car she’d been in was consumed by flames. The next thing they knew, a truck driver was standing on the hood of their car with a fire extinguisher. He smashed the windshield to free them, and Stan climbed through the opening. Turning around to help his wife, he saw Ute sitting frozen in her seat. Stan and the truck driver lifted her out and an ambulance took them to an emergency room. Aside from a few cuts, they were found to be physically unscathed. At home that night, neither Stan nor Ute wanted to go to sleep. They felt that if they let go, they would die. They were irritable, jumpy, and on edge. That night, and for many to come, they drank copious quantities of wine to numb their fear. They could not stop the images that were haunting them or the questions that went on and on: What if they’d left earlier? What if they hadn’t stopped for gas? After three months of this, they sought help from Dr. Ruth Lanius, a psychiatrist at the University of Western Ontario. Dr. Lanius, who had been my student at the Trauma Center a few years earlier, told Stan and Ute she wanted to visualize their brains with an fMRI scan before beginning treatment. The fMRI measures neural activity by tracking changes in blood flow in the brain, and unlike the PET scan, it does not require exposure to radiation. Dr. Lanius used the same kind of script-driven imagery we had used at Harvard, capturing the images, sounds, smells, and other sensations Stan and Ute had experienced while they were trapped in the car.

• From The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma (2014)

  Ivan Pavlov and the Instinct of PurposeAnother early giant who made major contributions to understanding the effects of trauma was the Russian scientist Ivan Pavlov. In 1904 he received the Nobel Prize for his work on the “conditioned reflex,” a phenomenon covered in most introductory psychology courses: your mouth starts to water when you hear a dinner bell, which signals that food is about to be served. However, if the ringing of the bell becomes random, and you keep finding an empty buffet whenever you go to fill your plate, you gradually learn to ignore that bell, and its ringing no longer makes you salivate. Loosing such automatic trained associations between bell and food is known as “extinction.” This is the cornerstone of Cognitive Behavioral Treatment (CBT), in which people are repeatedly exposed to signals that remind them of past trauma until the interpretive system in their brains realizes that they are, in fact, safe, and that whatever is going on is simply a noise, sensation, or image that no longer constitutes a threat. What is less well-known is that in 1924 Pavlov made another momentous scientific discovery related to trauma. The thaw in St. Petersburg during the spring of that year caused the River Neva to flood Pavlov’s basement laboratory, inundating the cages of his experimental dogs who were trapped in the icy water with no means of escape. The dogs survived, but after the water receded the dogs continued to be terrified, even though they were physically uninjured. A significant proportion, though physically unscathed, “broke down” emotionally, behaviorally, and physiologically. Many of them laid around motionless, barely paying attention to what was going on around them. Pavlov interpreted this as a sign of ongoing terror, which had obliterated any curiosity in their surroundings. We now know that physical immobility and loss of curiosity are also typical of frightened, traumatized children and adults. Some of the dogs sat shaking in the corner of their cages, while other, previously tame, animals struck out viciously at their handlers—again, behaviors well-known today in traumatized adults and children. Pavlov showed that after exposure to extreme stress, animals find a new internal equilibrium different from the previous organization of their internal housekeeping. The traumatized dogs kept acting as if they were in grave danger long after the waters of the Neva had receded. When he measured their physiology he found both markedly increased and depressed heart rates in response to minor stresses, signs of instability of the autonomic nervous system, as well as full-blown startle reactions in response to slight changes in their environment, like approaching laboratory assistants.

• From The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma (2014)

  Not long afterward, she was walking home from the library after midnight when three men jumped out of some bushes, yelling: “Bitch, give us your money.” She later told me that she took that same karate stance and yelled back: “Okay, guys, I’ve been looking forward to this moment. Who wants to take me on first?” They ran away. If you’re hunched over and too afraid to look around, you are easy prey to other people’s sadism, but when you walk around projecting the message “Don’t mess with me,” you’re not likely to be bothered. Integrating Traumatic MemoriesPeople cannot put traumatic events behind until they are able to acknowledge what has happened and start to recognize the invisible demons they’re struggling with. Traditional psychotherapy has focused mainly on constructing a narrative that explains why a person feels a particular way or, as Sigmund Freud put it back in 1914 in Remembering, Repeating and Working Through:[32] “While the patient lives [the trauma] through as something real and actual, we have to accomplish the therapeutic task, which consists chiefly of translating it back again in terms of the past.” Telling the story is important; without stories, memory becomes frozen; and without memory you cannot imagine how things can be different. But as we saw in part 4, telling a story about the event does not guarantee that the traumatic memories will be laid to rest. There is a reason for that. When people remember an ordinary event, they do not also relive the physical sensations, emotions, images, smells, or sounds associated with that event. In contrast, when people fully recall their traumas, they “have” the experience: They are engulfed by the sensory or emotional elements of the past. The brain scans of Stan and Ute Lawrence, the accident victims in chapter 4, show how this happens. When Stan was remembering his horrendous accident, two key areas in his brain went blank: the area that provides a sense of time and perspective, which makes it possible to know that “that was then, but I am safe now,” and another area that integrates the images, sounds, and sensations of trauma into a coherent story. When those parts of the brain are knocked out, you experience something not as an event with a beginning, a middle, and an end but in fragments of sensations, images, and emotions. A trauma can be successfully processed only if all those brain structures are kept online. In Stan’s case, eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) allowed him to access his memories of the accident without being overwhelmed by them. When the brain areas whose absence is responsible for flashbacks can be kept online while remembering what has happened, people can integrate their traumatic memories as belonging to the past.

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  At eleven in the morning, my father rushed home in spite of his asthma, carrying an armful of provisions, including meats and sugar. Usually, he lunched in his store, but it was said that fights had already started not far from the ghetto. My mother ran to the grocer’s just as the store was closing down. Then we barricaded our doors and windows, the front door with two bars of wrought iron. After that, we sat and listened for any unusual sounds. But we were far from the ghetto and could only study the deathly silence of our own neighborhood, periodically broken by the rattling noise of empty streetcars. My father had an occupation for such stay-in periods: he then made heavy canvas feed bags for horses. From time to time, he dropped his work and rushed to the window. As he grew paler, I recognized on his face the marks of the terror which he had transmitted to me in my earliest childhood. Will I ever be able to rid myself of that cold clamminess at the back of my neck, and of the absurd feeling of being paralyzed and disarmed in the face of a humiliating death? It was in high school that I discovered how painful it is to be a Jew. Until then, the world had been alien to me, hostile of course, but no more so than anything unknown. I was not the cause of my own suffering, I did not feel alien to myself as I do today. Can I make myself more clear? Anti-Semitism seemed to be a characteristic of the others, much as they might have a way of speaking or of dressing. They were not Jews, as I was, so they were anti-Semites. Naturally, it was not very pleasant, but no less so than the brutality of Sicilians or the prerogatives of the French. It did not fit any particular characteristic of my own, for I did not feel Jewish in any way that might provoke anti-Semitism. In short, I felt neither accused nor guilty.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  Objection 3: Further, to see images of bodies, as occurs in sleep, belongs to imaginary vision which is in the sensitive part. Now it happens that the separated soul sees images of bodies in the same way as when we sleep. Thus Augustine says (Gen. ad lit. xii): “For I see not why the soul has an image of its own body when, the body lying senseless, yet not quite dead, it sees some things which many have related after returning to life from this suspended animation and yet has it not when it has left the body through death having taken place.” For it is unintelligible that the soul should have an image of its body, except in so far as it sees that image: wherefore he said before of those who lie senseless that “they have a certain image of their own body, by which they are able to be borne to corporeal places and by means of sensible images to take cognizance of such things as they see.” Therefore the separated soul can exercise the acts of the sensitive powers. Objection 4: Further, the memory is a power of the sensitive part, as proved in De Memor. et Remin. i. Now separated souls will actually remember the things they did in this world: wherefore it is said to the rich glutton (Lk. 16:25): “Remember that thou didst receive good things in thy lifetime.” Therefore the separated soul will exercise the act of a sensitive power. Objection 5: Further, according to the Philosopher (De Anima iii, 9) the irascible and concupiscible are in the sensitive part. But joy and sorrow, love and hatred, fear and hope, and similar emotions which according to our faith we hold to be in separated souls, are in the irascible and concupiscible. Therefore separated souls will not be deprived of the acts of the sensitive powers. On the contrary, That which is common to soul and body cannot remain in the separated soul. Now all the operations of the sensitive powers are common to the soul and body: and this is evident from the fact that no sensitive power exercises an act except through a bodily organ. Therefore the separated soul will be deprived of the acts of the sensitive powers. Further, the Philosopher says (De Anima i, 4), that “when the body is corrupted, the soul neither remembers nor loves,” and the same applies to all the acts of the sensitive powers. Therefore the separated soul does not exercise the act of any sensitive power.

• From The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma (2014)

  How can people open up to and explore their internal world of sensations and emotions? In my practice I begin the process by helping my patients to first notice and then describe the feelings in their bodies—not emotions such as anger or anxiety or fear but the physical sensations beneath the emotions: pressure, heat, muscular tension, tingling, caving in, feeling hollow, and so on. I also work on identifying the sensations associated with relaxation or pleasure. I help them become aware of their breath, their gestures and movements. I ask them to pay attention to subtle shifts in their bodies, such as tightness in their chests or gnawing in their bellies, when they talk about negative events that they claim did not bother them. Noticing sensations for the first time can be quite distressing, and it may precipitate flashbacks in which people curl up or assume defensive postures. These are somatic reenactments of the undigested trauma and most likely represent the postures they assumed when the trauma occurred. Images and physical sensations may deluge patients at this point, and the therapist must be familiar with ways to stem torrents of sensation and emotion to prevent them from becoming retraumatized by accessing the past. (Schoolteachers, nurses, and police officers are often very skilled at soothing terror reactions because many of them are confronted almost daily with out-of-control or painfully disorganized people.) All too often, however, drugs such as Abilify, Zyprexa, and Seroquel, are prescribed instead of teaching people the skills to deal with such distressing physical reactions. Of course, medications only blunt sensations and do nothing to resolve them or transform them from toxic agents into allies. The most natural way for human beings to calm themselves when they are upset is by clinging to another person. This means that patients who have been physically or sexually violated face a dilemma: They desperately crave touch while simultaneously being terrified of body contact. The mind needs to be reeducated to feel physical sensations, and the body needs to be helped to tolerate and enjoy the comforts of touch. Individuals who lack emotional awareness are able, with practice, to connect their physical sensations to psychological events. Then they can slowly reconnect with themselves.[27] Connecting with Yourself, Connecting with OthersI’ll end this chapter with one final study that demonstrates the cost of losing your body. After Ruth Lanius and her group scanned the idling brain, they focused on another question from everyday life: What happens in chronically traumatized people when they make face-to-face contact?

• From The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma (2014)

  Shakespeare was writing at a time of transition, when the world was moving from primarily oral to written communication—when most people were still signing their name with an X. These kids are facing their own period of transition; many are barely articulate, and some struggle to read at all. If they rely on four-letter words, it’s not only to show they’re tough but because they have no other language to communicate who they are or what they feel. When they discover the richness and the potential of language, they often have a visceral experience of joy. The actors first investigate what, exactly, Shakespeare is saying, line by line. The director feeds the words one by one into the actors’ ears, and they are instructed to say the line on the outgoing breath. At the beginning of the process, many of these kids can barely get a line out. Progress is slow, as each actor slowly internalizes the words. The words gain depth and resonance as the voice changes in response to their associations. The idea is to inspire the actors to sense their reactions to the words—and so to discover the character. Rather than “I have to remember my lines,” the emphasis is on “What do these words mean to me? What effect do I have on my fellow actors? And what happens to me when I hear their lines?”[13] This can be a life-changing process, as I witnessed in a workshop run by actors trained by Shakespeare & Company at the VA Medical Center in Bath, New York. Larry, a fifty-nine-year-old Vietnam veteran with twenty-seven detox hospitalizations during the previous year, had volunteered to play the role of Brutus in a scene from Julius Caesar. As the rehearsal began, he mumbled and hurried through his lines; he seemed to be terrified of what people were thinking of him. Remember March, the ides of March remember: Did not great Julius bleed for justice’ sake? What villain touch’d his body, that did stab, And not for justice? It seemed to take hours to rehearse the speech that begins with these lines. At first he was just standing there, shoulders slumped, repeating the words that the director whispered in his ear: “Remember—what do you remember? Do you remember too much? Or not enough? Remember. What don’t you want to remember? What is it like to remember?” Larry’s voice cracked, eyes to the floor, sweat beading on his forehead. After a short break and a sip of water, back to work. “Justice—did you receive justice? Did you ever bleed for justice’s sake? What does justice mean to you? Struck. Have you ever struck someone? Have you ever been struck? What was it like? What do you wish you had done? Stab. Have you ever stabbed someone? Have you ever felt stabbed in the back? Have you stabbed someone in the back?” At this point Larry bolted from the room.

• From The Day the Revolution Began (2016)

  1:16). The reign of the crucified Jesus only had to be announced for it to become effective. The powers that had held people captive were powerless to stop them believing, to prevent them from becoming part of God’s new creation. The gospel was—and is—the powerful announcement that the world has a new lord and the summons to give him believing allegiance. The reason the gospel carries this power is that it’s true: on the cross Jesus really did defeat the powers that had held people captive. For the early Christians, the revolution had happened on the first Good Friday. The “rulers and authorities” really had been dealt their death blow. This didn’t mean, “So we can escape this world and go to heaven,” but “Jesus is now Lord of this world, and we must live under his lordship and announce his kingdom.” The revolution had begun. It had to continue. Jesus’s followers were not simply its beneficiaries. They were to be its agents. What might it mean for the church today to live by the same belief? It would mean recognizing, for a start, that the “powers,” though defeated on the cross, are still capable of enslaving millions. When we in the Western world think of forces that enslave millions we tend to think of the ideologies of the twentieth century, not least Communism, which until 1989 had half the world in its grip and still controls the lives of millions. Many in southern Africa think back to the terrible days of apartheid and remember with a shudder how racial segregation and the denial of basic freedoms to much of the nonwhite population were given an apparent Christian justification. Similar reflections continue to be appropriate in parts of the United States, where the victories won by the civil rights movement in the 1960s still sometimes appear more precarious than people had thought. It is worth pointing out that in each case the Christian church had a key role to play in the downfall of these different systems. The Polish protests in the early 1980s, led by devout Catholics, slowly but surely began the process of shaking the Eastern European house of cards. The old apartheid system was broken not simply through protests and boycotts from secular moralists in the rest of the world, but through the tireless and costly work and prayer of Desmond Tutu and many other Christians, some working in public view and many under the radar.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  I answer that, This fire of the final conflagration, in so far as it will precede the judgment, will act as the instrument of Divine justice as well as by the natural virtue of fire. Accordingly, as regards its natural virtue, it will act in like manner on the wicked and good who will be alive, by reducing the bodies of both to ashes. But in so far as it acts as the instrument of Divine justice, it will act differently on different people as regards the sense of pain. For the wicked will be tortured by the action of the fire; whereas the good in whom there will be nothing to cleanse will feel no pain at all from the fire, as neither did the children in the fiery furnace (Dan. 3); although their bodies will not be kept whole, as were the bodies of the children: and it will be possible by God’s power for their bodies to be destroyed without their suffering pain. But the good, in whom matter for cleansing will be found, will suffer pain from that fire, more or less according to their different merits. On the other hand, as regards the action which this fire will have after the judgment, it will act on the damned alone, since the good will all have impassible bodies. Reply to Objection 1: Consumption there signifies being brought, not to nothing, but to ashes. Reply to Objection 2: Although the bodies of the good will be reduced to ashes by the fire, they will not suffer pain thereby, as neither did the children in the Babylonian furnace. In this respect a distinction is drawn between the good and the wicked. Reply to Objection 3: The elements that are in human bodies, even in the bodies of the elect, will be cleansed by fire. But this will be done, by God’s power, without their suffering pain. Reply to Objection 4: This fire will act not only according to the natural power of the element, but also as the instrument of Divine justice. Reply to Objection 5: There are three reasons why those who will be found living will be able to be cleansed suddenly. One is because there will be few things in them to be cleansed, since they will be already cleansed by the previous fears and persecutions. The second is because they will suffer pain both while living and of their own will: and pain suffered in this life voluntarily cleanses much more than pain inflicted after death, as in the case of the martyrs, because “if anything needing to be cleansed be found in them, it is cut off by the sickle of suffering,” as Augustine says (De Unic. Bap. xiii), although the pain of martyrdom is of short duration in comparison with the pain endured in purgatory. The third is because the heat will gain in intensity what it loses in shortness of time.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  Objection 2: Further, nothing is the beginning of itself. “Now fear of the Lord, that is wisdom,” according to Job 28:28. Therefore it seems that fear of God is not the beginning of wisdom. Objection 3: Further, nothing is prior to the beginning. But something is prior to fear, since faith precedes fear. Therefore it seems that fear is not the beginning of wisdom. On the contrary, It is written in the Ps. 110:10: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” I answer that, A thing may be called the beginning of wisdom in two ways: in one way because it is the beginning of wisdom itself as to its essence; in another way, as to its effect. Thus the beginning of an art as to its essence consists in the principles from which that art proceeds, while the beginning of an art as to its effect is that wherefrom it begins to operate: for instance we might say that the beginning of the art of building is the foundation because that is where the builder begins his work. Now, since wisdom is the knowledge of Divine things, as we shall state further on ([2468]Q[45], A[1]), it is considered by us in one way, and in another way by philosophers. For, seeing that our life is ordained to the enjoyment of God, and is directed thereto according to a participation of the Divine Nature, conferred on us through grace, wisdom, as we look at it, is considered not only as being cognizant of God, as it is with the philosophers, but also as directing human conduct; since this is directed not only by the human law, but also by the Divine law, as Augustine shows (De Trin. xii, 14). Accordingly the beginning of wisdom as to its essence consists in the first principles of wisdom, i.e. the articles of faith, and in this sense faith is said to be the beginning of wisdom. But as regards the effect, the beginning of wisdom is the point where wisdom begins to work, and in this way fear is the beginning of wisdom, yet servile fear in one way, and filial fear, in another. For servile fear is like a principle disposing a man to wisdom from without, in so far as he refrains from sin through fear of punishment, and is thus fashioned for the effect of wisdom, according to Ecclus. 1:27, “The fear of the Lord driveth out sin.” On the other hand, chaste or filial fear is the beginning of wisdom, as being the first effect of wisdom. For since the regulation of human conduct by the Divine law belongs to wisdom, in order to make a beginning, man must first of all fear God and submit himself to Him: for the result will be that in all things he will be ruled by God. Reply to Objection 1: This argument proves that fear is not the beginning of wisdom as to the essence of wisdom.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  Reply to Objection 6: This supposition is impossible [*Cf. [5030]FS, Q[89], A[6]]. If, however, it were possible, such a one would be punished in hell eternally: for it is accidental to venial sin that it be punished temporally in purgatory, through its having grace annexed to it: wherefore if it be annexed to a mortal sin, which is without grace, it will be punished eternally in hell. And since this one who dies in original sin has a venial sin without grace, it is not unfitting to suppose that he be punished eternally. Reply to Objection 7: Diversity of degrees in punishments or rewards does not diversify the state, and it is according to the diversity of state that we distinguish various abodes. Hence the argument does not prove. Reply to Objection 8: Although separated souls are sometimes punished in the place where we dwell, it does not follow that this is their proper place of punishment: but this is done for our instruction, that seeing their punishment we may be deterred from sin. That souls while yet in the flesh are punished here for their sins has nothing to do with the question, because a punishment of this kind does not place a man outside the state of meriting or demeriting: whereas we are treating now of the abodes to which souls are assigned after the state of merit or demerit. Reply to Objection 9: It is impossible for evil to be pure and without the admixture of good, just as the supreme good is without any admixture of evil. Consequently those who are to be conveyed to beatitude which is a supreme good must be cleansed of all evil. wherefore there must needs be a place where such persons are cleansed if they go hence without being perfectly clean. But those who will be thrust into hell will not be free from all good: and consequently the comparison fails, since those who are in hell can receive the reward of their goods, in so far as their past goods avail for the mitigation of their punishment. Reply to Objection 10: The essential reward consists in the glory of the soul, but the body’s glory, since it overflows from the soul, is entirely founded as it were on the soul: and consequently lack of the soul’s glory causes a difference of state, whereas lack of the body’s glory does not. For this reason, too, the same place, namely the empyrean, is assigned to the holy souls separated from their bodies and united to glorious bodies: whereas the same place was not assigned to the souls of the Fathers both before and after the glorification of souls. OF THE QUALITY OF THE SOUL AFTER LEAVING THE BODY, AND OF THE PUNISHMENT INFLICTED ON IT BY MATERIAL FIRE (THREE ARTICLES)We must next consider the general quality of the soul after leaving the body, and the punishment inflicted on it by material fire. Under this head there are three points of inquiry:

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  AUGUSTINE. (in Ps. 32. enar. 2.) Christ thus as man shews a certain private human will, in which He who is our head figures both His own will and ours when He says, Let it pass from me. For this was His human will choosing something as apart for Himself. But because as man He would be righteous and guide Himself by God’s will, He adds, Nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt; as much as to say to us, Man, behold thyself in Me, that thou canst will somewhat apart of thyself, and though God’s will is other, this is permitted to human frailty. LEO. (Serm. 58, 5.) This speech of the Head is the health of the whole body, this saying is instruction to the faithful, animates the confessor, crowns the martyr. For who could vanquish the hatred of the world, or the whirlwind of temptations, or the terrors of the persecutors, if Christ did not in all and for all say to the Father, Thy will be done. Let all the sons of the Church then utter this prayer, that when the pressure of some mighty temptation lies upon them, they may embrace endurance of the suffering, disregarding its terrors. ORIGEN. And though Jesus went but a little forward, they could not watch one hour in His absence; let us therefore pray that Jesus may never depart even a little from us. CHRYSOSTOM. He finds them sleeping, both because it was a late hour of the night, and their eyes were heavy with sorrow. HILARY. When then He returned to His disciples and found them sleeping, He rebukes Peter, Could ye not watch one hour with me? He addresses Peter rather than the rest, because he had most loudly boasted that he would not be offended. CHRYSOSTOM. But as they had all said the same, He charges them all with weakness; they had chosen to die with Christ, and yet could not even watch with Him. ORIGEN. Finding them thus sleeping, He rouses them with a word to hearken, and commands them to watch; Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation; that first we should watch, and so watching pray. He watches who does good works, and is careful that He does not run into any dark doctrine, for so the prayer of the watchful is heard. JEROME. It is impossible that the human mind should not be tempted, therefore He says not Watch and pray that ye be not tempted, but that ye enter not into temptation, that is, that temptation vanquish you not. HILARY. And why He thus encouraged them to pray that they might not enter into temptation, He adds, For the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak; this He says not of Himself, but addresses them.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  CHRYSOSTOM. He not only soothed His disciples, by this declaration of punishment against His enemies, but convinced them that it was voluntarily that He suffered, Thinkest thou that I cannot pray to my Father, &c. Because He had shewn many qualities of human infirmity, He would have seemed to say what was incredible, if He had said that He had power to destroy them, therefore He says, Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father? JEROME. That is to say, I need not the aid of the Apostles, though all the twelve should fight for me, seeing I could have twelve legions of the Angelic army. The complement of a legion among the ancients was six thousand men; twelve legions then are seventy-two thousand Angels, being as many as the divisions of the human race and languaget. ORIGEN. This shews that the armies of heaven have divisions into legions like earthly armies, in the warfare of the Angels against the legions of the dæmons. This He said not as though He needed the aid of the Angels, but speaking in accordance with the supposition of Peter, who sought to give Him assistance. Truly the Angels have more need of the help of the Only-begotten Son of God, than He of theirs. REMIGIUS. We might also understand by the Angels the Roman armies, for with Titus and Vespasian all languages had risen against Judæa, and that was fulfilled, The whole world shall fight for him against those foolish men. (Wisd. 5:21.) CHRYSOSTOM. And He quiets their fears not thus only, but by reference to Scripture, How then shall the Scriptures he fulfilled that thus it must be? JEROME. This speech shews a mind willing to suffer; vainly would the Prophets have prophesied truly, unless the Lord asserts their truth by His suffering. 26:55–5855. In that same hour said Jesus to the multitudes, Are ye come out as against a thief with swords and staves for to take me? I sat daily with you in the temple, and ye laid no hold on me. 56. But all this was done, that the Scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled. Then all the disciples forsook him, and fled. 57. And they that had laid hold on Jesus led him away to Caiaphas the High Priest, where the Scribes and the elders were assembled. 58. But Peter followed him afar off unto the High Priest’s palace, and went in, and sat with the servants, to see the end.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  PSEUDO-JEROME. Or else, the folly which is connected with the softness of the flesh, is healed by fasting; anger and laziness are healed by prayer. Each wound has its own medicine, which must be applied to it; that which is used for the heel will not cure the eye; by fasting, the passions of the body, by prayer, the plagues of the soul, are healed. 9:30–3730. And they departed thence, and passed through Galilee; and he would not that any man should know it. 31. For he taught his disciples, and said unto them, The Son of man is delivered into the hands of men, and they shall kill him; and after that he is killed, he shall rise the third day. 32. But they understood not that saying, and were afraid to ask him. 33. And he came to Capernaum: and being in the house he asked them, What was it that ye disputed among yourselves by the way? 34. But they held their peace: for by the way they had disputed among themselves, who should be the greatest. 35. And he sat down, and called the twelve, and saith unto them, If any man desire to be first, the same shall be last of all, and servant of all. 36. And he took a child, and set him in the midst of them: and when he had taken him in his arms, he said unto them, 37. Whosoever shall receive one of such children in my name, receiveth me: and whosoever shall receive me, receiveth not me, but him that sent me. THEOPHYLACT. It is after miracles that the Lord inserts a discourse concerning His Passion, lest it should be thought that He suffered because He could not help it; wherefore it is said, And they departed thence, and passed through Galilee: and he would not that any man should know it. For he taught his disciples, and said unto them, The Son of man is delivered into the hands of men, and they shall kill him. BEDE. (in Marc. 3, 39) He always mingles together sorrowful and joyful things, that sorrow should not by its suddenness frighten the Apostles, but be borne by them with prepared minds. THEOPHYLACT. After, however, saying what was sorrowful, He adds what ought to rejoice them; wherefore it goes on: And after that he is killed, he shall rise the third day; in order that we may learn that joys come on after struggles. There follows: But they understood not that saying, and were afraid to ask him.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  BEDE. Thus it is said in Job, the pillars of heaven tremble and are afraid at his reproof. (Job 26:11.) What then do the boards do, when the pillars tremble? what does the shrub of the desert suffer, when the cedar of Paradise is shaken? EUSEBIUS. Or the powers of heaven are those which preside over the sensible parts of the universe, which indeed shall then be shaken that they may attain to a better state. For they shall be discharged from the ministry with which they serve God toward the sensible bodies in their perishing condition. AUGUSTINE. (ad Hes. ut sup.) But that the Lord may not seem to have foretold as extraordinary those things concerning His second coming, which were wont to happen to this world even before His first coming, and that we may not be laughed at by those who have read more and greater events than these in the history of nations, I think what has been said may be better understood to apply to the Church. For the Church is the sun, the moon, and the stars, to whom it was said, Fair as the moon, elect as the sun. (Cant. 6:10.) And she will then not be seen for the unbounded rage of the persecutors. AMBROSE. While many also fall away from religion, clear faith will be obscured by the cloud of unbelief, for to me that Sun of righteousness is either diminished or increased according to my faith; and as the moon in its monthly wanings, or when it is opposite the sun by the interposition of the earth, suffers eclipse, so also the holy Church when the sins of the flesh oppose the heavenly light, cannot borrow the brightness of divine light from Christ’s rays. For in persecutions, the love of this world generally shuts out the light of the divine Sun; the stars also fall, that is, men who shine in glory fall when the bitterness of persecution waxes sharp and prevails. And this must be until the multitude of the Church be gathered in, for thus are the good tried and the weak made manifest. AUGUSTINE. (ut sup.) But in the words, And upon the earth distress of nations, He would understand by nations, not those which shall be blessed in the seed of Abraham, but those which shall stand on the left hand.

• From The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma (2014)

  The central function of the amygdala, which I call the brain’s smoke detector, is to identify whether incoming input is relevant for our survival.[11] It does so quickly and automatically, with the help of feedback from the hippocampus, a nearby structure that relates the new input to past experiences. If the amygdala senses a threat—a potential collision with an oncoming vehicle, a person on the street who looks threatening—it sends an instant message down to the hypothalamus and the brain stem, recruiting the stress-hormone system and the autonomic nervous system (ANS) to orchestrate a whole-body response. Because the amygdala processes the information it receives from the thalamus faster than the frontal lobes do, it decides whether incoming information is a threat to our survival even before we are consciously aware of the danger. By the time we realize what is happening, our body may already be on the move. [image "Diagram illustrating the pathways of sensory information processing in the brain. Sensory input from sight, smell, sound, and kinesthetic senses converges on the thalamus, which processes the information and sends it to the amygdala for emotional significance evaluation. The amygdala can trigger the hypothalamus to release stress hormones if a threat is detected. A secondary pathway leads from the thalamus to the hippocampus, cingulate, and prefrontal cortex for conscious elaboration and refined interpretation. Labels include 'Thalamus,' 'Amygdala (significance),' 'Hippocampus (categorization),' 'Cingulate,' 'Prefrontal Cortex (conscious elaboration),' and 'Hypothalamus Stress hormones.'" file=image_rsrc77A.jpg] The emotional brain has first dibs on interpreting incoming information. Sensory Information about the environment and body state received by the eyes, ears, touch, kinesthetic sense, etc. converges on the thalamus, where it is processed, and then passed on to the amygdala to interpret its emotional significance. This occurs with lightning speed. If a threat is detected the amygdala sends messages to the hypothalamus to secrete stress hormones to defend against that threat. The neuroscientist Joseph LeDoux calls this the low road.” The second neural pathway, the high road, runs from the thalamus, via the hippocampus and anterior cingulate, to the prefrontal cortex, the rational brain, for a conscious and much more refined interpretation. This takes several microseconds longer. If the interpretation of threat by the amygdala is too intense, and/or the filtering system from the higher areas of the brain are too weak, as often happens in PTSD, people lose control over automatic emergency responses, like prolonged startle or aggressive outbursts. The amygdala’s danger signals trigger the release of powerful stress hormones, including cortisol and adrenaline, which increase heart rate, blood pressure, and rate of breathing, preparing us to fight back or run away. Once the danger is past, the body returns to its normal state fairly quickly. But when recovery is blocked, the body is triggered to defend itself, which makes people feel agitated and aroused.

• From The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma (2014)

  This neglect lasted for only a few years, though, because the outbreak of World War in 1914 once again confronted medicine and psychology with hundreds of thousands of men with bizarre psychological symptoms, unexplained medical conditions, and memory loss. The new technology of motion pictures made it possible to film these soldiers, and today on YouTube we can observe their bizarre physical postures, strange verbal utterances, terrified facial expressions, and tics—the physical, embodied expression of trauma: “a memory that is inscribed simultaneously in the mind, as interior images and words, and on the body.”[1] Early in the war the British created the diagnosis of “shell shock,” which entitled combat veterans to treatment and a disability pension. The alternative, similar, diagnosis was “neurasthenia,” for which they received neither treatment nor a pension. It was up to the orientation of the treating physician which diagnosis a soldier received.[2] More than a million British soldiers served on the Western Front at any one time. In the first few hours of July 1, 1916 alone, in the Battle of the Somme, the British army suffered 57,470 casualties, including 19,240 dead, the bloodiest day in its history. The historian John Keegan says of their commander, Field Marshal Douglas Haig, whose statue today dominates Whitehall in London, once the center of the British Empire: “In his public manner and private diaries no concern for human suffering was or is discernible.” At the Somme “he had sent the flower of British youth to death or mutilation.”[3] As the war wore on, shell shock increasingly compromised the efficiency of the fighting forces. Caught between taking the suffering of their soldiers seriously and pursuing victory over the Germans, the British General Staff issued General Routine Order Number 2384 in June of 1917, which stated, “In no circumstances whatever will the expression ‘shell shock’ be used verbally or be recorded in any regimental or other casualty report, or any hospital or other medical document.” All soldiers with psychiatric problems were to be given a single diagnosis of “NYDN” (Not Yet Diagnosed, Nervous).[4] In November 1917 the General Staff denied Charles Samuel Myers, who ran four field hospitals for wounded soldiers, permission to submit a paper on shell shock to the British Medical Journal. The Germans were even more punitive and treated shell shock as a character defect, which they managed with a variety of painful treatments, including electroshock.