The Spirit of Fear Religions, Landscapes and Other Uncertain Boundaries BASR annual conference Bangor 2009 Terence Palmer School of Theology and Religious Studies Bangor University

Fear as the antithesis of love “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love” (I John 4:18).

Fear and love  Love is the spirit of God (I John 4:2)  Denial is the spirit of anti-Christ (I John 4:3)  God is the spirit of truth (I John 4:6)  Denial is the spirit of error (I John 4:6)  God is Love (I John 4:8)  No fear of being judged (I John 4:19)  The reversal of fear is faith (Hickman 1983)

The spirit of fear  Wherefore I put thee in remembrance that thou stir up the gift of God, which is in thee by the putting on of my hands. For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.  (II Timothy 1:6-7)

Laying on of hands  Spiritual healing  Deliverance ministry  Religious exorcism

Fear as emotional energy  Emmanuel Swedenborg (1758)  Allan Kardec (1857)  William James (1912) radical empiricism  Sympathetic resonance  Like attracts like

Soul loss through fright  Shamanism  Quechua Indians of Peru  Susto  Not a superstition  A medical condition

Clements table of primitive disease theory

Neo-shamanism & dissociation  Villoldo (2005)  Dissociation theory  Depersonalisation / detachment  Fragmentation of consciousness  Frederick Myers (1884)  Pierre Janet (1889)  William James (1890)

SRT & dissociation theory  Neo-shamanism  Detachment – fragmentation – soul retrieval  Spirit release therapy – multiple personality or spirit attachment?

Emotional frequency  All emotions have a frequency  Laws of attraction (Hicks 2006)  Affect-laden complex (Bleuler 1905)  Jung (1906)  Janet – fixed idea associations lead to dis- association

Trauma induced dissociation  Trauma – fear – weakens the self (ego)  Fragmentation of a part of consciousness  Fixed idea – complex  Attribution to a cause  Intention – attracts energy from the core  Further weakens the self (ego)  Self-reinforcement of fixed idea (complex)  Alter-ego. Sub-personality

SRT sympathetic resonance  Fright or trauma  Dissociation  Sympathetic resonance  Attracted entities  Earthbound  Dark force entity