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 Jesus and His Jewish Influences (2015)

  150 -HVXVDQG+LV-HZLVK,QÀXHQFHV ƔScholars have observed that Jesus seems to be indifferent to the observance of ritual purity and is far more concerned with emphasizing moral and ethical behavior. The reason may be that ritual impurity is an impermanent condition that can be remedied relatively quickly and easily. As we’ve seen, reversing ritual impurity is a relatively simple process, usually involving immersion in a pool of water and waiting for a certain amount of time to pass. Ɣ+RZHYHU FHUWDLQ PRUDO YLRODWLRQV²VSHFL¿FDOO\ VH[XDO transgressions, idolatry, and murder—are abominations that GH¿OH WKH ODQG DQG FDXVH WKH *RG RI ,VUDHO WR DEDQGRQ KLV sanctuary and his people. ƔMoral impurity cannot be cleansed through a process of ritual SXUL¿FDWLRQ EXW LQVWHDG UHTXLUHV SXQLVKPHQW RU DWRQHPHQW Jesus’s repeated exhortations to refrain from immoral or XQHWKLFDOEHKDYLRUWKHUHIRUHUHÀHFWDIHDURISROOXWLRQWKDWKDG the potential to repel God’s presence—especially for those who believed that God’s kingdom was about to be established on earth. %HOLHIVRIWKH4XPUDQ6HFW ƔLike Jesus, the Qumran sect had an apocalyptic worldview and anticipated the imminent arrival of the eschaton, the end of days. Members of the sect also believed that only pure and unblemished creatures might enter the divine presence. However, in contrast to Jesus, the Qumran sect sought to exclude the blemished and impure. ƔThe Qumran sect believed that the end of days was imminent and would be marked by the arrival of two—perhaps three— PHVVLDQLF¿JXUHVDUR\DOPHVVLDKGHVFHQGHGIURP'DYLGDQGD priestly messiah descended from Aaron. These messiahs would play a part in a violent upheaval, a 40-year eschatological war, that would obliterate evil and usher in a utopian era with the HVWDEOLVKPHQWRIDWHPSOHLQDQHZDQGSXUL¿HG-HUXVDOHP

• From Cult: A Love Story: Ten Years Inside a Canadian Cult and the Subsequent Long Road of Recovery (2013)

  We were always on guard and braced against allowing the Dark into our hearts and minds. We were taught that darkness or negative energy was something one could catch from another person, like the flu. Thus was born an unspoken necessity to shun, to place those who were deemed to have negative energy emotionally and socially at a distance so as not to catch their darkness. Shunning was always initiated because of spiritual work that Limori had done with someone in the group. At a workshop, or on a Wednesday or Thursday night, Limori would rip someone apart for the negative energy they were bringing into the group or for the lousy job they were doing for God. She would often declare that the person in question needed to somehow “change their energy” so that they were no longer negative. In the previous chapter I outlined examples of both Susan and me receiving this type of treatment. The after-effect was that the rest of the members of the group would pull back from the offending party and essentially shun him or her until a time when Limori would declare that the offence had passed and the person was “back in the Light.” These reversals of fortune could be dramatic; someone could go from being shunned and an outcast to being called to fly to Hawaii or Arizona, or wherever Limori was at the time, welcomed with warmth and generosity, brought back into God’s good graces and romanced with jewellery and clothes and, most importantly, Limori’s favour. For those of us who were not on the highest rungs of the group hierarchy, the return to an acceptable status would be less dramatic, but no less profound. Limori might be talking to Michael or Gary on the phone one day and say, “Karen has done a lot of good work lately and her energy is clear again.” Gary or Michael would pass this kernel of truth onto the offending person, word would trickle out through the group and the outcast would once again be back in everyone’s good graces. The shunning by the group was most dramatic at Wolf’s Den, where the person who was being shunned would be forced to live separately from the rest of the “family” and not be allowed into the lodge for meals or connection with anyone. In the Vancouver group, shunning was much less dramatic than this, but no less effective. As a group we would treat an offending person as if they weren’t in the room. We would talk to that person only when necessary. They would not be invited to social gatherings because of their negative energy. It felt like being absent while present. When the person’s offensive status had been removed by word from Limori, or by more subtle indications such as her inviting the offending person to “tune in to Spirit,” then connection and warmth toward the person would be restored and life for that person would return to normal.

• From Jesus and His Jewish Influences (2015)

  109 Lecture 17—The Reign of Herod the Great 0XUGHURI$ULVWREXOXV,,, ƔAlexandra then contacted Cleopatra in Egypt to enlist her help in having Mark Antony force Herod to appoint her son to the post. Cleopatra was a threat to Herod from the very beginning of his reign because she coveted Herod’s kingdom. Of course, by this point, Cleopatra was involved with Mark Antony. Ɣ$OH[DQGUD¶VVWUDWHJ\ZRUNHG²DW¿UVW$QWRQ\VKRZHGDQLQWHUHVW in Aristobulus III, and Herod capitulated and replaced Hananel with Aristobulus III, who was only 17 years old. Aristobulus III WRRNRI¿FHSUHVLGLQJDVKLJKSULHVWRYHUWKHKROLGD\RI6XNNRW the Feast of Tabernacles. According to Josephus, Aristobulus was well-loved by the people: “And so there arose among the people an impulsive feeling of affection for him .... They called out to him good wishes mingled with prayers.” ƔHerod’s worst fears were realized. Herod himself was insecure about his position as king of Judea because he was not descended from the Hasmoneans. He was afraid of the support that the Hasmoneans had among the Jewish population. When Aristobulus inspired a wave of affection and support from the people, Herod reacted. ƔJosephus tells the rest of the story: “For although he had given him the high priesthood at the age of 17, he killed him quickly after he had conferred that dignity upon him.” What’s more, four years later, in 31 B.C., Herod also had Hyrcanus II put to death. This left Mariamne the pivotal Hasmonean in Herod’s personal life. &OHRSDWUDDQG0DUN$QWRQ\ Ɣ&OHRSDWUD²VSHFL¿FDOO\&OHRSDWUD9,,²ZDVDGHVFHQGDQWRIWKH Ptolemies, whose kingdom had also been absorbed by Rome. In 37 or 36 B.C., Cleopatra married Mark Antony. At this point, Mark Antony was administering the eastern half of the Mediterranean on behalf of Rome. He set up his base of operations in Alexandria in Egypt, and that’s where he met and fell in love with Cleopatra.

• From Talk Dirty to Me: An Intimate Philosophy of Sex (1994)

  One of the unique human aspects of sex is our association of sex with fear, sex with power, sex with pain. And with death. We fear sex in a psychic way, which is often the way we desire it. (Certainly that’s how the romantic ideal has told us to desire sex.) This meld of fear and desire, writes William Irwin Thompson, is what gives human sexuality its obsessive quality. “Gone is the casual ten-second coitus of the animal; present for good is the sexualization of human culture, and an association of erotic excitement with a thrilling sense of danger.” Sexuality, not sex, is the new thing, the human addition. Sexual forms “unfold like the petals of shrapnel in an explosion. Sexuality explodes in every direction and will light upon any available appendage, orifice, or symbolic article.…” There’s no safe place for the sexual human, no solid barricade behind which we can hide from sex, no defense so strong that the possibility of intimacy can’t slip through. Sometimes I long for that release of the ego into the other, my lover, and I can’t let go no matter how I try. But I remember more than once longing to be left intact, and being released against my will, like slipping at the top of an icy slide and knowing there’s no way to stop until I come to the ground. Where did the fear begin? Thompson might say it was the result of the radical cultural changes that followed the end of visible estrus and the resulting changes in mating and family patterns. The end of estrus completely changed the meaning of sex, which ceased being simply a vehicle for sperm to meet egg. Because we had to engage in sex all the time in order to “catch” the egg, the nature of sex changed, took on new qualities. What began as a biological drive ended, if it has ended at all, as something very different. Desire became constant, and the constancy is what we fear. It never goes away for long. So humans learned to ritualize sex and formalize sexual relationships, began to tell stories about sex—explanations needed to incorporate shifting and unpredictable urges into our lives. We’ve been doing that for a long time. When sexual acts became symbols, romance was born. If sex is a problem for me, it’s an unsolvable problem, repeating, immortal. Since I can’t make sex go away, I can only hope to find out how to live with it, how to make it be not a problem. That makes facing fear even more important than facing shame; it means paying attention to my self, my desires and concerns, a lot more than to the voices and concerns of those around me.

• From Another Country (1962)

  Nobody wants to hear my story.” Rufus looked at him. “Don’t let me start talking to you about my profession.” “Things are tough all over,” said Vivaldo. Rufus looked out over the sun-filled park. “Nobody ever has to take up a collection to bury managers or agents,” Rufus said. “But they sweeping musicians up off the streets every day.” “Never mind,” said Leona, gently, “they ain’t never going to sweep you up off the streets.” She put her hand on his head and stroked it. He reached up and took her hand away. There was a silence. Then Cass rose. “I hate to break this up, but I must go home. One of my neighbors took the kids to the zoo, but they’re probably getting back by now. I’d better rescue Richard.” “How are your kids, Cass?” Rufus asked. “Much you care. It would serve you right if they’d forgotten all about you. They’re fine. They’ve got much more energy than their parents.” Vivaldo said, “I’m going to walk Cass home. What do you think you’ll be doing later?” He felt a dull fear and a dull resentment, almost as though Vivaldo were deserting him. “Oh, I don’t know. I guess we’ll go along home——” “I got to go uptown later, Rufus,” said Leona. “I ain’t got nothing to go to work in tomorrow.” Cass held out her hand to Leona. “It was nice meeting you. Make Rufus bring you by to see us one day. ” “Well, it was sure nice meeting you. I been meeting some real nice people lately.” “Next time,” said Cass, “we’ll go off and have a drink by ourselves someplace, without all these men .” They laughed together. “I really would like that.” “Suppose I pick you up at Benno’s,” Rufus said to Vivaldo, “around ten-thirty?” “Good enough. Maybe we’ll go across town and pick up on some jazz?” “Good.” “So long, Leona. Glad to have met you.” “Me, too. Be seeing you real soon.” “Give my regards,” said Rufus, “to Richard and the kids, and tell them I’m coming by.” “I’ll do that. Make sure you do come by, we’d dearly love to see you.” Cass and Vivaldo started slowly in the direction of the arch. The bright-red, setting sun burned their silhouettes against the air and crowned the dark head and the golden one. Rufus and Leona stood and watched them; when they were under the arch, they turned and waved. “We better be making tracks,” said Rufus. “I guess so.” They started back through the park. “You got some real nice friends, Rufus. You’re lucky. They’re real fond of you. They think you’re somebody.” “You think they do?” “I know they do.

• From Another Country (1962)

  He walked in without knocking. Rufus was standing near the door, holding a knife. “Is that for me or for you? Or were you planning to cut yourself a hunk of salami?” He forced himself to stand where he was and to look directly at Rufus. “I was thinking about putting it into you, motherfucker.” But he had not moved. Vivaldo slowly let out his breath. “Well, put it down. If I ever saw a poor bastard who needed his friends, you’re it.” They watched each other for what seemed like a very long time and neither of them moved. They stared into each other’s eyes, each, perhaps, searching for the friend each remembered. Vivaldo knew the face before him so well that he had ceased, in a way, to look at it and now his heart turned over to see what time had done to Rufus. He had not seen before the fine lines in the forehead, the deep, crooked line between the brows, the tension which soured the lips. He wondered what the eyes were seeing—they had not been seeing it years before. He had never associated Rufus with violence, for his walk was always deliberate and slow, his tone mocking and gentle: but now he remembered how Rufus played the drums. He moved one short step closer, watching Rufus, watching the knife. “Don’t kill me, Rufus,” he heard himself say. “I’m not trying to hurt you. I’m only trying to help.” The bathroom door was still open and the light still burned. The bald kitchen light burned mercilessly down on the two orange crates and the board which formed the kitchen table, and on the uncovered wash and bathtub. Dirty clothes lay flung in a corner. Beyond them, in the dim bedroom, two suitcases, Rufus’ and Leona’s, lay open in the middle of the floor. On the bed was a twisted gray sheet and a thin blanket. Rufus stared at him. He seemed not to believe Vivaldo; he seemed to long to believe him. His face twisted, he dropped the knife, and fell against Vivaldo, throwing his arms around him, trembling. Vivaldo led him into the bedroom and they sat down on the bed. “Somebody’s got to help me,” said Rufus at last, “somebody’s got to help me. This shit has got to stop.” “Can’t you tell me about it? You’re screwing up your life. And I don’t know why.” Rufus sighed and fell back, his arms beneath his head, staring at the ceiling. “I don’t know, either. I don’t know up from down. I don’t know what I’m doing no more.” The entire building was silent. The room in which they sat seemed very far from the life breathing all around them, all over the island.

• From Cult: A Love Story: Ten Years Inside a Canadian Cult and the Subsequent Long Road of Recovery (2013)

  That was a deeply radical and rebellious thought, which defied everything I’d been taught by Limori up to this point, and I was afraid while I was writing it. I was embattled that fall, my cult self and my essential self duelling it out for supremacy inside me. In late September or early October 1999, I began asking God to please show me or tell me the truth. “Not Limori’s truth,” I would say out loud during my prayers at night, “I want to know THE truth. Your truth, God. Is this path with Limori the right one? If it is then I’ll accept that, but I want to know for sure, from You. Show me. Get through to me somehow. I want to know Your truth.” Every night for weeks I asked this with an urgency that bordered on desperation. The bright side of that summer and fall was that Michael and I were blissfully happy; after nearly ten years of talking about how much we loved one another we were now able to express it to ourselves and to our friends and family. The relief was enormous and the relationship itself was even better than I’d imagined. The feeling of being soulfully connected to Michael didn’t go away, no matter how much time we spent together. My new personal assistant business was growing and it was especially gratifying to have Michael’s help and counsel about that. It was another point of connection for us; we both had an entrepreneurial spirit and now I was able to nurture mine, and receive his encouragement, as I learned how to be self-employed. The morning of December 30, 1999, dawned crisp and clear and freeze-your-nose-hair cold. I pressed myself against Michael’s back and wrapped my right arm around him, spooning him for warmth. My state of mind was much the same as it had been when we’d gone to sleep the night before: confused, angry but not admitting it, frightened and dreading the next few days I’d be spending here at Limori’s resort, under Limori’s thumb, with Limori inserting herself between my beloved Michael and me. But I tried to suppress those thoughts and feelings and focus on being on vacation, although this was a far, far cry from my experience in Hawaii, earlier that year. The outside temperature alone should have given me a clue that I was a million miles away from avocado trees and peace. The phone call from Limori came shortly after lunch. Michael excused himself to Matthew and Lisa’s bedroom. The long phone cord snaked under the closed door and remained there for most of the afternoon. I spent the ensuing hours, while Michael talked to Limori, drifting around the lodge, trying to feel comfortable but losing that battle. I knew instinctively that Michael and Limori were talking about me; it made sense, especially after what had happened the day before. And my body once again knew that something was wrong.

• From Cult: A Love Story: Ten Years Inside a Canadian Cult and the Subsequent Long Road of Recovery (2013)

  “Do you know where he is?” “I think he’s in the living room.” “Thanks.” I went through the swing doors that divided the kitchen and living room with my heart in my throat and tears threatening behind my eyes. Michael was seated in one of the dining room chairs in front of the fireplace, reading a book about hockey that his brother had given him for Christmas. He looked up when he saw me approaching, and a rush of thoughts and feelings crowded together inside me, jostling for dominance. I couldn’t believe that he could sit so calmly, reading, as though nothing was happening. I felt ashamed about how afraid of him I felt. He had gone from my closest ally to someone I was petrified of in a few short hours. And his face was so calm, like he had not a thought in the world besides what he was reading in his book. I felt frightened of that too; his expression was so eerily calm that it was like he wasn’t even there. Our eyes met and I saw that his seemed as hard and vacant as glass. It was as though all that we’d shared and every intimacy we’d experienced together was erased from his memory. Just like that, I was the enemy. Someone he now needed to manage and instruct and, most important of all, keep at a distance. Rather than provide me with any hope of reconciliation, or a shred of compassion, he took a firm grasp on the knife lodged in my heart and twisted it. “I’m not allowed to hug you,” he said, when I reached a distance of two or three feet from his chair. “Oh,” I said. “Okay.” I knew from years of indoctrination that this meant my energy was so bad, so dark and devilish, that if I touched Michael, or anyone for that matter, I would contaminate them, the same as if I’d physically been covered in tar. “I’m leaving now, so I guess we’ll talk when you get home.” “Yes,” he said, and that was it. Awkward silence. “Okay, then,” I said. I didn’t know what to do with my body. I realized I was holding my hands at waist height, intertwining and unwinding my fingers with nervous energy. I took half a step back and turned slightly back toward the kitchen. “See you . . . I guess.” “‘Bye,” he said. I walked back toward the kitchen doors, the tears in my eyes threatening to spill over, but I refused to wipe at them until I was out of Michael’s sight. I waited, alone, in the kitchen foyer until Matthew was ready to drive me to the airfield to catch my flight. He talked as we drove and chuckled at me again, as he had earlier in the day.

• From Cult: A Love Story: Ten Years Inside a Canadian Cult and the Subsequent Long Road of Recovery (2013)

  I was questioning the one sacred premise that Limori had taught us in so many ways never to question. “Is Limori doing God’s work or not?” I asked myself. “What do I believe?” I sat there, quiet and afraid, and after a few minutes realized that for me, the bottom line was this: What I believe in, at the deepest parts of myself, are love and compassion. It seems to me that Limori is teaching us to act without those two values, though she talks about them. If she IS representing God on Earth, then that means that God does not value love and compassion. I am beginning to recognize that I value these things enough that I cannot operate without them. Limori’s values and my values are not lining up, and I don’t think I can be a hypocrite and continue to follow her while that is going on. I took another deep breath and faced the most terrifying aspect of this conundrum: That means that I am willing to choose love and compassion over Limori’s god. If she turns out to be right, and I am turning my back on actual God, then so be it. I can’t live without love and compassion any longer. I’m paraphrasing, of course, as I recount this moment. It was as much felt as thought. I honestly believed at the time that I was turning my back on God, but the pressure from within myself to resolve the contradictions I was beginning to perceive in Limori’s teaching was strong enough to make me willing to try and resolve my conflict. When this moment was over and I knew I had come to what was for me the centre of the matter, I opened my eyes and took another huge breath— and actually felt lighter. A few tears of relief trickled down my face and slowly my hands stopped trembling and my body began to relax slightly in the chair. I was still afraid, because now I was living without the doctrine I had held so dear for so long, but it was a different kind of fear. It was the fear of the unknown, rather than the fear that had been created because another human being was in control of my life. For the first time in a very long time I was free. Part IIIIt Ain’t Pretty but it’s RealAlthough the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it. —Helen Keller The long road of recoveryA fter having made my decision to leave Limori’s cult, I shared my decision with the group at our next meeting and was met with the indifference that I’d suspected I would receive. I was, after all, an outcast at that point; the fact that I dared to speak out loud to the group was the most energy-charged moment of that evening.

• From Cult: A Love Story: Ten Years Inside a Canadian Cult and the Subsequent Long Road of Recovery (2013)

  If we were participating in this spiritual work of Limori’s, and not simply observing her, then we were naturally inclined to feel more involved with her and with God and to defend the practices/abuse to ourselves. By having us take an active part in workshops, like the one about to occur, we became partly responsible for them.) Gary was quiet while he continued to tune in. The silence in the room was, as they say, deafening. I felt almost faint with fear, but worked as hard as I could to quash my feelings. Fear had no place in God’s house, I believed, and once again I asked myself how I could properly serve God if I was afraid of what He had to say. Finally, Gary spoke up. “It’s Susan,” he said. Ohthankgod , I said to myself, with a relieved but quiet exhale. I was safe for the moment. We all opened our eyes and looked at Susan. “What’s going on with you lately, Susan?” Limori asked. Susan looked like someone trying not to look guilty or afraid. “Nothing,” she said. “Nothing, I’m perfectly fine. I’ve had a good week. I had a judgment of Alice yesterday but I caught myself and I’ve felt fine since then . . .“ She stumbled to a halt under Limori’s raptor eyes. “Hmmm, really?” Limori nodded and turned her head from Susan and made meaningful eye contact with Alice. She closed her eyes again briefly and then asked, “How do you feel about Alexandra moving into the house?” Alice, who had been quiet up to this point, made a grunt of assent. She met Limori’s eyes again and they nodded conspiratorially. She was affirming that Limori was on the right track with this line of questioning. Susan answered, “Good. Fine. It’s been nice to have her here. She brings a new, fresh energy into the house.” There was a pause and Limori waited until Susan continued. “I had a judgment about her when she moved in. She gets her own room and she gets to come and go as she pleases and that bothered me a bit. I was feeling like she’s the spoiled baby. But I have released that and I feel good about her being here now.” Partway through this explanation Limori closed her eyes again. She remained still when Susan finished, so we waited for her next move. The atmosphere in the room had changed from the casual, comfortable feeling of earlier, when we were chatting, to the more familiar strained and charged energy that was always present when Limori was working with anyone. We were all on high alert; we each sat as still as possible, with hands clasped in our laps and feet flat on the floor. No one ever lounged or slouched when this type of spiritual work was going on. I was, as usual, rigid with fear, and my posture reflected that.

• From Wild (2012)

  I began panting and sweating immediately, dust caking my boots and calves as the trail turned north and began to climb rather than undulate. Each step was a toil, as I ascended higher and higher still, interrupted only by the occasional short descent, which was not so much a break in the hell as it was a new kind of hell because I had to brace myself against each step, lest gravity’s pull cause me, with my tremendous, uncontrollable weight, to catapult forward and fall. I felt like the pack was not so much attached to me as me to it. Like I was a building with limbs, unmoored from my foundation, careening through the wilderness. Within forty minutes, the voice inside my head was screaming, What have I gotten myself into? I tried to ignore it, to hum as I hiked, though humming proved too difficult to do while also panting and moaning in agony and trying to remain hunched in that remotely upright position while also propelling myself forward when I felt like a building with legs. So then I tried to simply concentrate on what I heard—my feet thudding against the dry and rocky trail, the brittle leaves and branches of the low-lying bushes I passed clattering in the hot wind—but it could not be done. The clamor of What have I gotten myself into? was a mighty shout. It could not be drowned out. The only possible distraction was my vigilant search for rattlesnakes. I expected one around every bend, ready to strike. The landscape was made for them, it seemed. And also for mountain lions and wilderness-savvy serial killers. But I wasn’t thinking of them. It was a deal I’d made with myself months before and the only thing that allowed me to hike alone. I knew that if I allowed fear to overtake me, my journey was doomed. Fear, to a great extent, is born of a story we tell ourselves, and so I chose to tell myself a different story from the one women are told.O I decided I was safe. I was strong. I was brave. Nothing could vanquish me. Insisting on this story was a form of mind control, but for the most part, it worked. Every time I heard a sound of unknown origin or felt something horrible cohering in my imagination, I pushed it away. I simply did not let myself become afraid. Fear begets fear. Power begets power. I willed myself to beget power. And it wasn’t long before I actually wasn’t afraid. I was working too hard to be afraid.

• From Boys & Sex (2020)

  Then there was that night the spring of his sophomore year when he decided to meet a guy he’d been talking to on Grindr. In retrospect, Zane said, he probably should’ve turned back when his Uber collided with a bicyclist: Wasn’t that an omen? Plus, he’d been smoking weed earlier in the evening; he wasn’t really high, but it had made him anxious. It was clear, as soon as he entered the guy’s apartment, that something was off: the man had Googled Zane and would randomly bring things up about him in a way Zane found “creepy.” Zane sat on the couch, and the man flipped on the TV. Then, without any warning, he shoved Zane against the cushions and jammed his tongue down Zane’s throat. Zane tried to pull away, but the other guy, who was taller and heavier, pinned him. “I could not move,” Zane recalled. “I felt like I was using all my strength to get him off and he wasn’t budging.” Finally, he wriggled away and said he needed a moment. “I sat on the couch in silence for what felt like forever, but was maybe ten minutes,” Zane said. He had, since his freshman year, been active in his school’s anti–sexual assault efforts. “My mind-set at that time had been that in the larger discussion we needed to move some of the conversation away from these low-level situations. We weren’t paying enough attention to the more violent scenarios, the kind that women of color face, the kind that are legally actionable. And I still think about that. But I didn’t really understand how coercive words and actions could be.” When the man asked if Zane wanted to go into the bedroom, he went. “I just couldn’t say no for some reason.” He performed oral sex on the man, and then the man reciprocated, though Zane just lay there, wondering why he was allowing it. Afterward, all he wanted was to go home. But when he tried to leave, the guy grabbed him by the wrist, pulled hard, and said, “No! Stay here awhile!” It felt more like a command than a request. When Zane tried to get up again, the man lifted him off the ground and threw him back onto the bed. “I never imagined that something like that could happen to me,” Zane said. “I’m not going to call it assault, but I’m not going to not call it assault.”

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

  These were the last words he spoke to his worthy successor. As he left, a mysterious personage, clothed in a snow-white robe, suddenly appeared, and after frightening the guards at the gate plunged into the water, and vanished. He had a strong foreboding of an approaching calamity, and did not expect to survive it. Halley’s comet, which returns every seventy-six years, appeared in the skies from the middle of August to the 3d of September, burning like the fire of a furnace, and pointing southward with its immense tail of pale yellow color. Zwingli saw in it the sign of war and of his own death. He said to a friend in the graveyard of the minster (Aug. 10), as he gazed at the ominous star, "It will cost the life of many an honorable man and my own. The truth and the Church will suffer, but Christ will never forsake us."282 Vadian of St. Gall likewise regarded the comet as a messenger of God’s wrath; and the famous Theophrastus, who was at that time in St. Gall, declared that it foreboded great bloodshed and the death of illustrious men. It was then the universal opinion, shared also by Luther and Melanchthon, that comets, meteors, and eclipses were fireballs of an angry God. A frantic woman near Zürich saw blood springing from the earth all around her, and rushed into the street with the cry, "Murder, murder!" The atmosphere was filled with apprehensions of war and bloodshed. The blockade was continued, and all attempts at a compromise failed. The Forest Cantons had only one course to pursue. The law of self-preservation drove them to open war. It was forced upon them as a duty. Fired by indignation against the starvation policy of their enemies, and inspired by love for their own families, the Waldstätters promptly organized an army of eight thousand men, and marched to the frontier of Zürich between Zug and Cappel, Oct. 9, 1531. The news brought consternation and terror to the Zürichers. The best opportunity had passed. Discontent and dissension paralyzed vigorous action. Frightful omens demoralized the people. Zürich, which two years before might easily have equipped an army of five thousand, could now hardly collect fifteen hundred men against the triple force of the enemy, who had the additional advantage of fighting for life and home. Zwingli would not forsake his flock in this extreme danger. He mounted his horse to accompany the little army to the battlefield with the presentiment that he would never return. The horse started back, like the horse of Napoleon when he was about to cross the Niemen. Many regarded this as a bad omen; but Zwingli mastered the animal, applied the spur, and rode to Cappel, determined to live or to die with the cause of the Reformation.

• From Talk Dirty to Me: An Intimate Philosophy of Sex (1994)

  Homosexual institutions are natural and universal, intense same-sex friendships the norm rather than the exception. We form all our small communities, and many of our bigger ones, largely by gender and the stereotypical myths of gender. (Witness the homoerotic, homophobic, American military.) We celebrate sameness in the fraternity, the sorority, the football team, the bridge club, the shopping trip, the dance class. Every tribe of humanity makes its male and female divisions, myriads of them, and I don’t particularly care if the motivation has often as not been male fear of female power, or if the original purpose of some of these divisions was to strip women of political control. I can acknowledge that—and acknowledge with it how fearful men really are, especially of being found out to be fearful—and still be glad for the institutions. Looked at through a long lens, nothing is more unnatural than the heterosexual nuclear family. No other social institution puts two fundamentally different people together with no net, no support, no one else to turn to for love and understanding. Marriage separates where the human animal naturally groups. Perhaps all sex is dualistic at heart. And all dualisms are sexual. Perhaps the most interesting divisions and connections have nothing to do with gender. My attraction to any particular woman, if not to women, is also fundamentally about difference. I am talking not about specific attractions, but our fantasies of attraction, the stories we tell each other and ourselves about why one person pulls, another doesn’t, why we get worked up over someone when it makes no sense, why we all spend so much time concerned over the anatomical details of whoever interests us at the time. The fantasies of sexual attraction probably take up as much time in our lives as the attractions themselves, and I’m not sure they ever die completely. All relations spark with conflict from the movement toward anyone outside ourselves, since all others are inevitably apart from us, separate, ultimately unknowable. For all the ease in female friendships, my romantic and sexual attractions toward women have never felt safe or bland or controlled. They are just as risky and terrifying and pregnant with possibility as any involvement with men. Not because women necessarily are as terrifying as men—but because all my sexual attractions are. Much as I dream (and my body dreams) of sex without relation or affection, sex that is just sex, I can’t do it. I don’t know how, and I don’t think I want to learn, if only because learning such a thing would require a complete renovation of personality. Only from a distance can I have the hope of sex without emotional risk and personal responsibility, without the incredible baggage of gender and social pressure and ingroup demands. But I can dream.

• From The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness (2004)

  Intellectually, everything was fine. I lived at the convent but attended lectures and tutorials with the other students, and did very well. I got a distinction in the preliminary examinations, which we sat in the spring of 1968, won a university prize, and was awarded a college scholarship. So far, so good. But as a religious, I felt torn in two. My elderly superior was bitterly opposed to the new ideas, and I fought her tooth and nail throughout the entire year. I am sure that I was quite insufferable, but I found it well nigh impossible to think logically and accurately in college, where I was encouraged to question everything, and then turn off the critical faculty I was developing when I returned to Cherwell Edge, and become a docile young nun. The stringent academic training I was receiving at the university was changing me at just as profound a level as the religious formation of the noviceship, and the two systems seemed to be irreconcilable. I was also increasingly distressed by the emotional frigidity of our lives. This was one of the areas of convent life that most desperately needed reform. Friendship was frowned upon, and the atmosphere in the convent was cold and sometimes unkind. Increasingly, it seemed to me to have moved an immeasurably long distance from the spirit of the gospels. Nevertheless, I struggled grimly on. To say that I did not want to leave would be an understatement. The very idea of returning to secular life filled me with dread. At first I could not even contemplate this option, which was surrounded with all the force of a taboo. But the strain took its toll, and in the summer of 1968 I broke down completely. It was now clear to us all that I could not continue. Everybody was wonderfully kind to me at the end, and in a sense, this made it even more distressing. It would have been so much easier to storm out in a blaze of righteous anger. But my superiors let me take as long as I needed to make my decision. I returned to college, and after a term of heart searching, I applied for a dispensation from my vows, which arrived from Rome at the end of January 1969. Writing Through the Narrow Gate, some twelve years later, was a salutary experience. It made me confront the past, and I learned a great deal. Most important, I realized how precious and formative this period of my life had been, and that despite my problems, I would not have missed it for the world. Then I attempted a sequel: Beginning the World was published in 1983. It is the worst book I have ever written and I am thankful to say that it has long been out of print.

• From Another Country (1962)

  He leaned down and helped Vivaldo to rise. Half-leaning on, half-supporting each other, they made it to the door. Jane came behind them. “Let me help you.” Vivaldo stopped and tried to straighten. They leaned, half-in, half-out of the door. The bartender watched them. Vivaldo looked at the bartender, then at Jane. He and Rufus stumbled together into the blinding rain. “Let me help you,” Jane cried again. But she stopped in the doorway long enough to say to the bartender, whose face held no expression whatever, “You’re going to hear about this, believe me. I’m going to close this bar and have your job, if it’s the last thing I ever do.” Then she ran into the rain, and tried to help Rufus support Vivaldo. Vivaldo pulled away from her touch, and slipped and almost fell. “Get away from me. Get away from me. You’ve been enough help for one night.” “You’ve got to get in somewhere!” Jane cried. “Don’t you worry about it. Don’t worry about it. Drop dead, get lost, go fuck yourself. We’re going to the hospital.” Rufus looked into Vivaldo’s face and became frightened. Both his eyes were closing and the blood poured down from some wound in his scalp. And he was crying. “What a way to talk to my buddy, man,” he said, over and over. “Wow! What a way to talk to my buddy!” “Let’s go to her place,” Rufus whispered. “It’s closer.” Vivaldo did not seem to hear him. “Come on, baby, let’s go on over to Jane’s, it don’t matter.” He was afraid that Vivaldo had been badly hurt, and he knew what would happen at the hospital if two fays and a spade came bleeding in. For the doctors and nurses were, first of all, upright, clean-living white citizens. And he was not really afraid for himself, but for Vivaldo, who knew so little about his countrymen. So, slipping and sliding, with Jane now circling helplessly around them and now leading the way, like a big-assed Joan of Arc, they reached Jane’s pad. He carried Vivaldo into the bathroom and sat him down. He looked in the mirror. His face looked like jam, but the scars would probably heal, and only one eye was closed; but when he began washing Vivaldo, he found a great gash in his skull, and this frightened him. “Man,” he whispered, “you got to go to the hospital.” “That’s what I said. All right. Let’s go.” And he tried to rise. “No, man. Listen. If I go with you, it’s going to be a whole lot of who shot John because I’m black and you’re white. You dig? I’m telling it to you like it is.” Vivaldo said, “I really don’t want to hear all that shit, Rufus.” “Well, it’s true, whether you want to hear it or not. Jane’s got to take you to the hospital, I can’t come with you.” Vivaldo’s eyes were closed and his face was white. “Vivaldo?”

• From Another Country (1962)

  Don’t you let this lousy ex-expatriate come here and turn your head.” He walked over to the bar and poured himself a drink. “Did you leave many broken hearts over there?” “They were very restrained about it. Those centuries of breeding mean something, you know.” “That’s what they kept telling me when I was over there. It didn’t seem to mean much, though, beyond poverty and corruption and disease. How did you find it?” “I had a ball. I loved it. Of course, I wasn’t in the Army—” “Did you like the French? I couldn’t stand them; I thought they were as ugly and as phony as they come.” “I didn’t feel that. They can be pretty damn exasperating—but, hell, I liked them.” “Well. Of course, you’re a far more patient sort than I’ve ever been.” He grinned. “How’s your French?” “ Du trottoir —of the sidewalk. But fluent.” “You learn it in bed?” He blushed. Richard watched him and laughed. “Yes. As a matter of fact.” Richard carried his drink to the sofa and sat down. “I can see that traveling hasn’t improved your morals any. You going to be around awhile?” Eric sat down in the armchair across the room from Richard. “Well, I’ve got to be here at least until the play opens. But after that—who knows?” “Well,” said Richard, and raised his glass, “here’s hoping. May it run longer than Tobacco Road .” Eric shuddered. “Not with me in it, bud.” He drank, he lit a cigarette; a certain familiar fear and anger began to stir in him. “Tell me about yourself, bring me up to date.” But, as he said this, he realized that he did not care what Richard had been doing. He was merely being polite because Richard was married to Cass. He wondered if he had always felt this way. Perhaps he had never been able to admit it to himself. Perhaps Richard had changed—but did people change? He wondered what he would think of Richard if he were meeting him for the first time. Then he wondered what Yves would think of these people and what these people would think of Yves. “There isn’t much to tell. You know about the book—I’ll get a copy for you, a coming-home present—” “ That should make you glad you’ve returned,” said Cass. Richard looked at her, smiling. “No sabotage, please.” He said to Eric, “Cass still likes to make fun of me.” Then, “There’s a new book coming, Hollywood may buy the first one, I’ve got a TV thing coming up.” “Anything for me in the TV bit?” “It’s cast. Sorry. We probably couldn’t have afforded you, anyway.” The doorbell rang.

• From The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness (2004)

  In some bewilderment, I stared around the art gallery. A student was copying William Dyce’s Pegwell Bay, and one or two other people were strolling round the Tate’s Pre-Raphaelite exhibits. I was stiff, as though I had been sitting for some time in an uncomfortable position. I got up and stretched. In front of me, John William Waterhouse’s Lady of Shalott reared up in her fragile little boat. Her tapestry, the fruit of so much dedicated toil, floated away downstream, waterlogged, stained, and ruined. The lady’s face had already assumed the pallor of death and her skin looked as gray as the sky behind her—Tennyson’s Lady of Shalott, who for so long had been my alter ego. She had tried to break out of her prison, as I had mine, but the effort had destroyed her. Waterhouse had caught the lady at the moment when she realized the folly of her rebellion. I shook my head hard and looked around the room again. On the other side of the gallery was John Millais’s Ophelia, who lay supine in the water. Having succumbed to madness, she too was about to die. Her hands were lifted slightly, as though she welcomed her fate; her expression was one of surrender. They were disturbing pictures, but that was not what was bothering me. My head was aching and my mind was foggy. I groped through the mists and suddenly—there it was. What on earth was I doing in the Tate? I was supposed to be in Greenwich with Richard and Jackie. We were taking a group of students to a matinee performance of Jean Genet’s The Maids. I looked at my watch. Too late: the play had started almost an hour ago. Weak with fright and trembling slightly, I sank back onto the leather banquette, staring at the Lady of Shalott without really seeing her. What had happened? The last thing that I could remember clearly was getting onto the tube train at Highgate. I had been due to meet the party at Charing Cross station at 2:15, but I had no recollection of the intervening period. My mind racing now, I realized that I must have left the tube at Charing Cross, and instead of taking the escalator up to the Mainline station, I must have walked all the way down the Embankment to the Tate. As I struggled to remember, I thought I could dimly recall the steely gray Thames, the wet cloudy sky, umbrellas, and mackintoshed figures. But nothing else, nothing at all.

• From The Erotic Engine (2011)

  The group is more than a craven PR gambit, though. Many people working in the industry are genuinely concerned about protecting children. This is not to ignore reality: if you imagine the worst possible form of degrading, exploitative, damaging pornography, somebody out there will inevitably be ready to sell you something ten times worse. Estimates place the illegal trade in child pornography (primarily involving girls between the ages of eight and twelve, but with a significant portion of children under the age of four) at about $3 billion per year worldwide. But that does not mean that all or even most mainstream pornographers would sell child pornography if it weren’t illegal. A great number of people in the porn industry—women in particular—are quite certain of what they do and do not find acceptable. It is neither true nor productive to treat the tens of thousands of people who work in the adult industry as though they were all cut from the same cloth. Former sex therapist and ASACP’s CEO Joan Irvine monitors emerging technologies to help the adult industry set up best practices early on to ensure that children and pornography stay in their separate corners. She is American, but we met in Europe and Canada—she spends much of her time on the road working to establish consistent international standards for the industry. One of the first things she wanted to talk to me about was her concern over a perfect storm that was brewing around the confluence of high-speed wireless Internet access and GPS-enabled smartphones. Internet access means a pedophile could reach children whenever and wherever they were. And the GPS means that the pedophile could pinpoint his target’s location. “It’s frightening because they are actually looking at developing some applications on social networking groups so that you can use the GPS to find out, ‘Oh, my friend is around here,’” Irvine said. “Well, could you imagine if you as a parent don’t know who these people are? You could have a pedophile tracking your child. The phones are already built with this capability. It just has to be turned on.” Through ASACP, Irvine is working to anticipate these kinds of dangers, and trying to collaborate with the consumer electronics industry to develop systems to protect children. They have already gained ground with some earlier projects.

• From The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness (2004)

  Consequently I Rejoice I have no idea how it happened, but it was the result of a wor-rying new development. At least, it was of concern to me. Dr. Piet had greeted the news with his usual nonchalance, but this latest symptom had been yet another sign to me that my mind was breaking down completely. I had started to lose control over my actions—only for a short period of time, and only infrequently, but I still found it very disturbing. The first time it occurred, I had been working in my room in Manor Place and decided that it was time for coffee. “Another cup, Karen?” Nanny smiled as I came into the kitchen and lit the gas under the kettle. “You must be thirsty this morning!” “Sorry, Nanny? What do you mean?” Nanny looked puzzled, as well she might. “Well, you were here just half an hour ago.” I must have looked blank. “I saw you going upstairs with your mug while I was tidying the drawing room. Surely you remember, Karen?” she added, disturbed about her own powers of memory. “I saw you quite distinctly,” she added, to convince herself as much as anything. “Oh yes, of course. I do apologize, Nanny. I was miles away.” Poor Nanny, I thought, as I returned to my room. She was getting on in years, and old people were notoriously forgetful. But when I opened the door to my room, I saw the mug on the windowsill; when I examined it, I found it full of coffee that was not yet entirely cold. Try as I would, I could not recall making it. I must have gone downstairs, boiled the water, poured it onto the coffee granules, and returned to my desk. And I had no recollection at all of any of this. Then, a few weeks later, I found myself unexpectedly sitting in the English Faculty Library. There I was, at a table in the upstairs reading room, with a copy of the journal Notes and Queries (known to us irreverently as Quotes and Drearies) open in front of me. And again, I had no recollection of leaving the house, taking the short walk down Manor Place, crossing the road, and entering the library. No recollection at all. I was scared. It seemed obvious to me that I was breaking up. Yet again, I could see the locked ward, the padded cell, and a life in the twilight of consciousness. And there did not seem to be anything that I could do about it. Dr. Piet, however, did not seem perturbed. “You’re just becoming an absentminded professor, Karen,” he said cheerily, grinning at me across his desk. “This is what all you academics do, right? You’re just reverting to the stereotype.” “No,” I protested. “It’s not like that. I didn’t just forget. I really didn’t know what I was doing!” “My dear Karen”—Dr.