Chapter II: Part 2

All knowledge is measured by comparison. The most effective teaching is done through parable or simile. A so-called magnetic orator or writer reaches his hearers or readers by aid of apt simile. In this the orator has the advantage. If one simile does not convey the point he wishes to make, he tries another and yet another until he has detected sympathetic signs of approval in the majority of his audience. If there are present a hundred listeners, it may require ten stories or ten similes to reach the entire hundred, as there may be ten kinds of interest or sympathy present to be reached. Farmers and gardeners may not be familiar with the terms that describe the experience of the mariner; mechanics may not understand the language of the counting room or of the various exchanges; and men may not appreciate the special accomplishments, sympathies, weaknesses or foibles of women. Each individual is a separate tooth or string in the instrument called society. Heredity and environment have tempered and shaped each individual differently from his fellows. Truth is always the same, but the vibrations that carry it must be regulated to suit the conditions and understandings of each person, or group of persons, to be harmonized by it.

In an attack upon offensive and evil things, offensive similes are best employed. It is an application of the principle that a thief can best catch a thief. The object of this little book is to wage war upon fearthought and its brood of evil children. This is the excuse for writing under such offensive captions as "Don't Be a Sewer," and "Thou Shalt Not Strike a Woman," and also such ungrammatical caption as "I Can't _Not_ Do It."

It is the opinion of the author that we are in the habit of taking evil too seriously. Evil is usually ridiculous, and while it thrives under the stimulation of serious consideration, it cannot stand ridicule. Shrewd politicians know this, and hence depend more upon the political cartoon to kill the political enemy, than upon all the reading matter possible to be printed.

What the terms "God," "Appreciation," "Mother," "Love," "Altruism," "Egociation," "Forethought," "Happiness," etc., stand for, should be reverenced and glorified; while the devil, egotism, selfishness, fearthought, anger and worry, and all of their various expressions, should be ridiculed out of respectability.

There is no intent to make vulgar excuses for the method of presentation of the simple and aged truths which are the subject of the present book. For the same reason that I have asked my readers to agree with me as to the meaning of terms in connection with the discussion, I ask them to allow me to state my reasons for the method of the presentation, if it should seem unusual and, perhaps, undignified.

ANALYSIS OF FEAR.

Professor Angelo Mosso, the eminent physiologist of Turin, Italy, who has experimented with the condition and results of fear to a greater extent than any one else that I know of, has published a volume entitled "Fear."[4]

Professor Mosso writes of much regarding fear that we can all corroborate from personal experience as to the uncomfortableness of the emotion, and also informs us of much that is instructive as to the baleful effects of the mischief it produces upon the tissues of the body. He states that, unconsciously or consciously, the effect of fear is found to be disarrangement, which allows or causes inflammation, fever and other unhealthy conditions that are favorable to the nesting of the microbes of special diseases, such as are sometimes found in the air or in the water that we take in, and which are ever waiting for a chance to nest and breed.

An eminent English physician has also communicated to a leading English magazine a belief that fear directly attacks the individual molecules of the body and causes a disarrangement, a relaxing, a letting-go condition of the molecules in their relation to adjoining molecules, and that the relaxed condition is that in which disease originates. He states that there are means of communication within the body that are as direct and distinct as are the wires that convey the electric fluid from point to point, and that they connect the brain or nervous centers with each pair of molecules. By these means the sense of fear travels, weak or strong, in response to every pulse of its activity.

Within our visible experience, we know how completely the emotion of fear, or any of its various expressions can upset the stomach, suspend the appetite and even cause instant death. So evident are the bad effects of fear, that it is necessary only to refer to them before suggesting a remedy; but there are some powerful illustrations that are interesting, and which will be found under the caption of "Baleful Effects of Fear."

In this connection, what we are most interested in is, how to rid ourselves of the habit of fear. Fear is not a physical thing. It is the result of fearthought, and, being fearthought, has no more substance than other thought.

In animals it is an attribute of instinct, and is a wise provision of protection. In the human young, it is not so. In the helplessness of human foetal existence and infancy, we find a perfectly clean, but wonderfully impressionable, thought-matrix, into which are to be impressed the suggestions whose sum constitutes the intelligence in men which takes the place of instinct in animals.

Fear is no constituent part of the composition of this thought-matrix. Susceptibility to fearthought, as it is susceptible to any and all suggestions, is the nearest approach to inherent infliction of fear that the unfolding soul is burdened with. If the race-habit-of-thought were indelibly pock-marked by fear, and stamped its roughness on the thought-matrix of all mankind, there would be no one free from it; but, as many are born into, and live, a life of great strength and courage, free from any taint of fearthought, this assumption is disproved, and is as absurd as would be the assumption that man must always do whatever, and only what, his ancestors did.

All of the fear-impressions received are the result of either pre-natal or post-natal suggestion. It is within the power of parents and nurses to keep the delicate susceptibility of their charges free from the curse of fearthought; or to cause or allow it to be scared and bruised by the claws of the demon.

President G. Stanley Hall, of Clarke University, Editor in Chief of the _American Journal of Psychology_, and Dr. Colin A. Scott, Professor of Psychology and Child Study at the Cook County Normal School, Chicago, Ill., U. S. A., have rendered greatest service to humanity by searching out and analyzing fears in children, exposing the absurdity of them, showing the sources from which foolish fears are derived, and thereby dragging from ambush the worst enemy of mankind, whose strength is developed by means of secret toleration, but can easily be overcome if uncovered.

The method of securing information was by means of the _questionaire_, the answers to which, although unsigned and unidentifiable, and savoring of exaggeration or romance, furnish splendid texts in a crusade against the toleration of the habit-of-fear in a civilized community. One can scarcely imagine, before reading the answers to the fear _questionaire_, the unreasonable and absurd fears that warp the lives and ruin the health of many of the people among whom we move, and by whom, in some measure, we and our children are unconsciously influenced.

If it were the community-habit-of-thought that fear was an unnecessary thing and an evil thing, and not respectable and not Christian, many of these fears would not exist, owing to the proneness of all persons to imitation and their acceptance of community-of-habit-thought as law and gospel. Fear is a very insidious thing. It will enter the smallest opening, and ferment, and increase, and permeate whatever it attacks, if it be permitted foothold in the least degree.

We have too little time in life personally to investigate all of the causes of things that are pertinent to our living and working, or to learn the reason for their leading to observed results. We are indebted to Professor Mosso, Dr. Hall, Dr. Scott and other painstaking scientists, for observing the habits of our enemies, and for giving the results of their observations in such agreeable forms as are the intimate and frank analyses of fear given in Professor Mosso's book and other treatises on the subject; but what we are most interested in is, how to kill or how to escape fearthought within ourselves and, ultimately, how to protect our children against the evil.

To digress somewhat, and as an excuse for using the terms of parable and homely experience instead of the terms of science: It is said that the use of alum for the settling of impurities out of water was an old housewife's remedy for a very long time before any scientist studied the chemical change that effected the result.

The old housewives knew by experience, as well as did the doctors, that alum _would_ "settle" water, but it was left to the latter to say _why_ it did so. We are, therefore, mainly indebted to a chance discovery, and to the preservation of the formula by housewives, for our ability to purify water by means of alum.

In the same manner we have discovered, perhaps by accident, that certain suggestions will purify our minds, by eliminating special fears by which we have been dominated. We also have learned by experiment that all fear is eliminable by use of sufficiently powerful suggestion made to fit the particular fear experimented against. I _know that the deterrent passions can be eradicated_; and, _easier than not_. Others _know_ this also, and are living lives of beautiful strength, freedom and happiness, who once were slaves to fearthought; and many such there already are, and their number is increasing very rapidly under the influence of the observation of unfailing, profitable results in consequence.

If we _know_ that anything _can be done_, it is not vitally essential that we should know _why_ it is possible.

Experience, in conveying the suggestion, has taught that there is _some_ way to reach, and to dispel, any special fear.

Science will some time, undoubtedly, be able to tell us just how to treat each form of fear in a scientific manner, but in the meantime we _know_ that it is possible to cure all of the separate forms of fear by rooting out the basic fear--the fear of death--and by conveying the all-powerful suggestion that all fear is needless and unprofitable.

FOOTNOTE:

[4] Messrs. E. Lough and F. Kiesow, pupils of Professor Mosso, translated the fifth Italian edition of "Fear" into English, and Longmans, Green and Company published it in 1896.

BALEFUL EFFECTS OF FEAR.

In the last chapter I stated that the bad effects of fear were so well known to every one that it was not necessary to dwell upon them, but second thought suggests stating a few special cases that have been told me by physician friends who are interested in the lay experiments I am making.

In the Southern States of the United States of America, where the black race comes into closest touch with Caucasian civilization under conditions of free expression, is probably the best place to study fear and its opposite, chivalrous courage.

Dr. William E. Parker, of the Charity Hospital of New Orleans, was once called to attend a big negro who had been brought in by the ambulance, and whom the students in charge of the ambulance had frightened nearly to death by telling that he was badly wounded in the stomach, and would probably die.

The negro was big and burly and black, and yet, livid with fear. Both pulse and temperature indicated serious trouble within, and the convulsive tremors that shook him from time to time revealed a state of collapse that might end in death at any time. There was no outward flow of blood, but the probable inward flow seemed more dangerous in consequence.

The account of the case, as related by the students, told of a shooting affray, in which the negro had been hit in the abdomen, as evidenced by a bullet-hole in his clothing.

Dr. Parker began an examination by ordering the clothing of the patient removed, and during which a bullet, much flattened, fell upon the floor. This bullet had done no serious injury, of course, but there might have been two shots and two bullets, one of which had penetrated the body, and hence the bullet that fell upon the floor caused no special attention, till search had been made in vain for a hole in the skin. Complete examination revealed the fact that the negro had been hit, but that the bullet had struck a button, causing a bruised place behind the button, but had lodged in the clothing, in harmless inertia.

As the doctor held up the bullet, and told the patient of the slight extent of his injury and the wonder of his escape, good, warm blood returned to the livid countenance, the pulse and the temperature assumed their normal condition, a grateful sparkle lit up the almost glassy eyeballs, and the broadest possible grin spread over the face of the erstwhile dying man.

The negro got down from the operating-table, arranged his clothing, and, after apologizing for the trouble he had caused, and after thanking the doctor and the students for their attentions, went out into the street as well as ever. He had been, half an hour before, at death's door.

Dr. Henry A. Veazie, one of the student-heroes of the yellow-fever epidemic of 1878, who had splendid opportunity to witness the effects of fear during an epidemic, asserts that fear is a certain cause of attack of yellow fever.

I will say, parenthetically, in the way of right information relative to the South, that there has been no epidemic since 1878--twenty years; that it has been proven that yellow fever does not originate in any part of the United States, and that it is very effectively barred out at quarantine, or, if accidentally admitted, that it is easily killed by present means of treatment, and that an epidemic is no longer mentioned as a possibility--only as quite a remote memory--in New Orleans, or elsewhere in the South.

Doctor Veazie's story is corroborated by an able brochure on "The Influence of Fear in Disease," by the much-beloved, the late Dr. William H. Holcomb, of New Orleans; and, so helpful are the suggestions contained in it, that I have secured the privilege from the Purdy Publishing Company, of Chicago, of reprinting largely from it, and have added the matter copied as "Appendix A," to this volume.[5]

Doctor Veazie also called my attention to the unusual fatality attending what are called "frog-accidents." Train-handlers and yardmen employed on railroads are very liable to these "frog-accidents." The frog is that part of a switch where the rails come together, forming a "V." In running about recklessly, as a train-man generally does, he sometimes catches the sole of a boot in the "V," and wedges it in so tightly that the foot cannot be withdrawn. If a locomotive, or a car, happen to be coming towards him, and cannot be stopped in time, cutting off of the foot or the leg by the wheels upon the rails is a certain result.

If it were done instantly, and without a foreknowledge of the owner of the leg or foot, the chances of recovery would be almost assured, because of the present skill of surgery and the efficacy of known antiseptics; but with the few moments of foreknowledge of the impending accident, the poison of fearthought has time to so unnerve the system, relax the tissues, and itself disease the body by shock, that the wounding usually results in death.

There is probably no situation in which a person can be placed where the conditions are more horrible than to be wedged between the rails, and to see an eighty-ton locomotive rolling on to him with irresistible weight. Being condemned to be hanged cannot be as fearful, for the reason that the condemned has been led gradually to contemplate the possibility of death by this means, and has come to expect it with a certain amount of complacency. The terror of the "frog-accident" comes with the suddenness of its possibility and the helplessness of the situation. It is like an ice-water bath thrown on a sweating person. It is the icy hand of death come to clutch at the throat of warmest hope and fondest affections. As such, it must be fearful; but, to the person habituated to _fear_ fear, through knowing the deadly effect of it, the emotion can be prepared for, greatly modified and possibly counteracted, by a prearrangement with the emotional self--that which Hudson calls the "subjective mind."

To be effective in case of surprise, the preparation must come from the habit-of-feeling, "_I must not be afraid; I must not be afraid._" No matter what the surprise, the emotional self must instantly assert, through habit, "_I must not be afraid_."

I have not had experience with "frog-accidents" to test the efficacy of my theory of schooled suggestion, but I have been subject to surprises that have been quite as fearful. As it happened, the incident I speak of was not perilous, but it had all the appearance of being so to me, when I was awakened from sleep, in a hotel in New York City, by suffocation, to find my room full of smoke that poured in through the transom and through the cracks of the door which was my only means of escape.

My room was on the fifth floor of the hotel, and the house had the reputation of being a "fire-trap."

As soon as my reasoning-self had time to take in the situation, the probability of being burned to death seemed almost certain; but before that happened--that is, before the reasoning-self had analyzed the situation--the habit-of-thought self had asserted many times, and constantly, "You _must not be afraid! you must not be afraid_"; and, as a result, I was _not afraid_; and the calm of the moment allowed me to measure chances and arrange expedients, as if there were no danger imminent.

It was a case of much smoke and little fire, but there were those in the hotel who were made very ill by the fright of it.

If I had always been free from the emotion of fear, and had not been a sorry victim to it in some special forms, "natural temperament" could be urged as a cause of the calm I enjoyed during the incident related above; but such is not the case. I have been subjected to shocks of various kinds, incident to an adventurous life, that have been powerful impressions for evil upon my emotional self, and it is personal experience of cure and relief that I am giving in support of my theory.

The experience of Mr. George Kennan, the Siberian traveler, and brilliant writer and lecturer, relative to fear and its cure, is singularly like my own, and was related to me in an exchange of personal confidences, last year.

The _Atlantic Monthly_ for May, 1897, contains an excellent account of Mr. Kennan's case, and I am permitted by the publishers, Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin & Company, to reprint it; which I have done under Appendix "B."

Fear is rarely general as related to different causes for fearthought. I have been told of a case of specific fear that is interesting because of its unreasonableness. It was the case of a filibuster who had been on several raids where death was the almost certain penalty for being caught, and where the chances of being caught were almost certain. On the frontier our subject was known as a dare-devil, not afraid of anything, and yet he was always in mortal terror of a dark room. In infancy he had been scared into obedience by tales of goblins in the dark, and he had never rid himself of their influence. Anything on earth he could see held no terror for him, but he could not see the phantoms he created in the dark, and was therefore a slave to fear of them. It is probable that the bravado of his active life was partly caused by the desire to "average up" on courage, and, if so, the baleful effects of fear in this case were very far-reaching and destructive to the peace of society.

General experience teaches that whenever you find a bully, you find a yellow streak of cowardice somewhere in his composition; and, more than probable, bravado is assumed by him, in order to "square" himself with his own self-respect.

FOOTNOTE:

[5] Two other brochures by Dr. Holcomb are published by the Purdy Company. They are "Condensed Thoughts about Christian Science" and "The Power of Thought in the Production and Cure of Disease."

HOW TO ELIMINATE FEAR.

It has been observed that the rooting out of any particular phase of fearthought, weakens the strength of all of the other phases. For instance, suppression of _anger_ and _worry_ tends to suppress all suspicion, and even fear itself, while special attack upon the fearthought called envy will perceptibly diminish the tendency to jealousy and avarice. There seems to be such close relationship between all of the forms of fearthought, that whatever affects one, affects all.

Fear of death undoubtedly underlies all fearthought. Fear of poverty, fear of accident, fear of sickness, all reach further than these calamities, to the possibility of death resulting from them. In this way we can trace all expressions of fear, either directly or indirectly, through the different forms of selfness, to fearthought of death.

In _Menticulture_ I suggested the elimination of _anger_ and _worry_ as the roots of all the evil passions. On page 17, however, I gave "fear" as the tap-root of the evil emotions, including anger and worry, and stated my reason for attacking the surface roots best known and associated together, rather than the tap-root itself. It was because I believed at the time _Menticulture_ was written, with people in general, that fear was a constituent weakness of all consciousness, and only expressions of it were eliminable.

I find in my later experience in practice, however, and in conveying the suggestion to others, that fear itself is possible to be rooted out by the force of counter-suggestion of one sort or another, and that there is no mental habit or impression that cannot be counteracted by some other more powerful habit or impression, and that it is best to attack the bottom cause of all weaknesses at once, and thereby wage warfare upon their innermost citadel.

As fearthought is the parent of all the evil emotions, so is fear of death the first of all the causes of fearthought.

It is not a difficult matter to eliminate the fear of death. It is first necessary to do away with any dread of a lifeless human body. There are few who feel dread of the flesh of animals as they see it hanging in the stalls of the butchers. There is no more reason to have a feeling of fear in connection with the sight of dead human flesh than there is to feel uncomfortable in the presence of the flesh of a lifeless lamb or a lifeless chicken.

There have lived people who were as accustomed to seeing human flesh exposed in butchers' shops as we are accustomed to see the flesh of animals so exposed, and there is an engraving of a cannibal meat-stall in Huxley's "Man's Place in Nature," copied from an old book of travel to the coast of Africa, which Mr. Huxley offers authoritatively.

The subject may seem to be a grewsome one to many readers, and reference to the customs of cannibals may shock their supersensitive habits of thought, but the object is sufficient justification. Such may, however, soothe their injured feelings by remembering that our meat-selling and meat-eating customs seem as inhuman to many Buddhists as do the customs of cannibals to us.

If we value essentials impartially, soul and mind count above everything, and tissue which they once animated counts for nothing when they have left it, no matter what have been the associations, especially if dread of the dead tissue inspires emotions that are detrimental to the welfare of soul or mind.

My object in suggesting a systematic reversal of our feeling towards lifeless human flesh is because it is a basic cause of fear. Remove this dread, and half of the terror of death is removed with it.

In this connection, the suggestion should be urged, that separation--as in death--is unessential as compared with the privilege of having known a beloved one, and that appreciation and gratitude should always outweigh regret in relation to an inevitable change.

All of the observed processes of nature teach that every normal change is for the better, and the change called death is as normal as the change called birth. The full term of human life is but a pin-point in the great span of evolution. How unreasonable it is to protest the measurement of the breadth of a pin-point with Him who doeth all things well!

Life is like the ticking of a clock; each passing of the pendulum may be a day or a year; when the clock strikes, one period only is ended, but a new period is also begun. Why mourn at the striking of the clock! A new and happier hour has begun. Why mourn the passing on of a beloved one! For to Christian, or to Buddhist, as well as to all sentient beings, a new and a better life has then begun.

The attitude towards the separation called death should be such as to induce the thought, and even the expression, "Pass on, beloved; enter into the better state which all of the processes of nature teach are the result of every change; it will soon be my time to follow; my happiness at your preferment attend you; my love is blessed with that happiness; and what you have been to me remains, and will remain forever. Amen."

Sorrow was dignified by Christ. He has been wrongfully called "The Man of Sorrow." His sorrow was for the evils which men suffered, and never was caused by any of the beneficent decrees of the Father. Protest against the decrees of the Father is blasphemy. Some forms of sorrow are blasphemy.

Sorrow and optimism do not go together. Christ was (and is) the Supreme Optimist, and taught nothing but optimism. Tears do not always express sorrow. Wherein tears express selfishness, especially in the form of anger, they are bad. Wherein tears are free from selfishness, they may do no great harm. In such case, what may seem to be sorrow may be an expression of loving sympathy, and, as such, may be good.

Without careful analysis of the quality of the emotion, love may be thought to be righteous cause for fearthought. This is a vicious thought. Nothing is righteous that is harmful, and fearthought is harmful. Love, without any element of fearthought in it, is infinitely better than love that is tinctured with fearthought. Forethought is the necessary accompaniment of perfect love, but fearthought is its enemy.

Separation can be made to gladden love through self-sacrifice. Separation--as in death--can be made to gladden love by supreme self-sacrifice to the beloved one who is preferred by death, and thereby made to disarm that underlying fear of all fears--the fear of death.

If, however, the fear of lifeless human flesh is eliminated, the fear of death itself will be found to be greatly modified. From this point the elimination of special pet fears, whether of the individual or of the community sort, will become an easy matter, as the greater is but the sum of the lesser.

In looking for means with which to attack so great an enemy as fear, either in one's self or in another, any weapon is a good weapon that is found to be effective. Logic is more respectable, but such is the foolishness of many forms of fear that ridicule is more often effective. Appeal to honor, self-respect, love, logic, ridicule, and to _fear itself_, may be had in so worthy a cause as the vanquishing of the arch-enemy of growth and happiness.

Old soldiers sometimes admit that their courage in battle has been the result of their fear of seeming to be cowards. When the far-reaching and poisonous effect of the evil of fearthought is properly understood, and the possibility of its elimination generally believed in, people will be _afraid_ to be afraid--afraid of ridicule and criticism, as well as afraid of evil and unhealthful effects. The cure will have been homoeopathic, in that like has been employed to cure (or kill) like.

Logic is the most rational weapon, but ridicule is sharper. Logic may not cure a robust woman of the woman-habit-of-thought that a mouse is a fearsome thing, but reference to the fact that it is ridiculous for a five-foot woman to be afraid of a two-inch mouse may effect the result, especially when it is known that the mouse is more afraid of the woman, according to his capacity for fear, than it is possible for the woman to be afraid of the mouse.

Acquaintance is another effective cure. It may not be necessary that all afflicted ones should serve an apprenticeship at undertaking in order to be cured of fear of a lifeless human body, but if the fear of a corpse cannot be eradicated by other means, it is worth while to do that or _anything else_, no matter how uncanny or disagreeable, in order to accomplish the object. So necessary is the eradication of the germ principle of fear to the cultivation of growth and happiness, that if it is found that fear of the lifeless human body cannot be cured otherwise, even a real apprenticeship in a hospital dissecting-room would be a profitable expedient as a last resort. To seek the acquaintance of fearsome insects and animals, through close observation and study of their habits, is better than to suffer harm from a needless prejudice against them.

Cure of the fear of one dreaded insect or reptile is sure to modify the fear of all other things dreaded, so that the difficult part of the cure is acquiring the belief that it is possible, and making the resolve to attempt it.

If parents realized the full importance of the eradication of fearthought from the minds of their children, they would stop immediately all other occupation, and rest not nor be content until the germ of fearthought in their children had been located and killed; and those skilled in such search and cure would become the physicians most in demand.

HOW TO CURE SPECIAL FORMS OF FEAR.

Exciting interest in the intrinsic beauties and usefulness of things thought to be disagreeable or dreadful, is an excellent way of curing fear of them.

I once had an opportunity of experimenting with this method of curing particular fears by testing it on a mother and children whose _bête noir_ was a thunderstorm.

I had seen them at the World's Columbian Exposition, wrapt in the enjoyment of the great displays of fireworks that were operated on the lake front of the Exposition grounds each evening. I also happened to be provided with statistics, showing that the chance of being struck by lightning was only one in a great many thousand, and that if one were to seek to be struck, he would have to wait about ten thousand years for his average turn. I recalled the greater real beauty of the natural fireworks of the summer season, and their comparative harmlessness. This was the logic of it, and modified somewhat the attitude of the children, as well as the fear of the mother, relative to lightning and thunder; but the real cure came through appreciative suggestion and acquaintance.

On the approach of a storm wherein lightning might be expected, and even before it was visible, the mother had been in the habit of assuming a frightened expression, of gathering the children together, of cowering in a corner, and sometimes in a closet, in fear and trembling, until the storm had passed. From infancy the children had been in the habit of associating something fearful with the idea of lightning and thunder, and had never had a chance to observe their beauties.

I started in to correct the bad impressions, and to teach the attractiveness of storm phenomena, by calling out, on the approach of a storm, somewhat in this wise: "Oh! children, do you remember the beautiful fireworks at the Exposition? Come here quick! let's watch; we are going to have something ten times more beautiful, and, oh! such big booms and bangs. Watch now! ah! that wasn't much, but keep a-watching and we'll have some beauties. Crash! bang! blizzard! My! but wasn't that a beauty? Watch sharp, now, or you'll miss the best one,--what! afraid? Why, Alice, afraid of a beautiful thing like that! Nonsense! Come here, dear, and sit in my lap and watch out sharp, and then you _can't_ be afraid. There! that's a little lady. Splendid! I reckon you know how to enjoy something beautiful, as well as any one. Boom, boom, boom! Did you ever hear anything so grand? Great big drums up yonder. I wonder what sort of a Fourth of July they are having? Wouldn't World's-Fair fireworks seem tame beside this? And think of it!--they don't cost a cent, and they are clearing the atmosphere so that the sun will shine brighter to-morrow than it ever did. It will shine for us, and for the plants, and for the butterflies. My! but aren't we lucky to have good eyes and good ears when such things are going on! and don't we pity the poor little blind and deaf children! Does lightning sometimes strike people and kill them? Why, yes, once in a great, great long while; but when it does, they say it is the pleasantest sensation possible. Don't you mind when you have pleasant shivers, what a delightful feeling it is? Well, they say being struck by lightning is like that--only more so. I have never had the experience of being killed by lightning, of course, but when my turn to enter the next life comes, I hope it will be that way; but the chances of being that lucky are very slim. Somebody, some great schoolmaster that knows almost everything, has calculated that if a man wanted to be struck by lightning he would probably have to wait about ten thousand years. That is too long. Life is delightful as it is; but if I had to wait even a thousand years or even an hundred years more for my promotion that way, I think I would rather choose a more common and less agreeable way"; and so on, governed by the interest and the effect upon the children. I impressed on them the real beauty of the storm, and taught them appreciation, to take the place of fear.

It is needless to say that that family no longer dreads the storm cloud. The suggestion reversed their way of looking at storms, and they then found great beauty in them and ceased to fear them.

Another experience: I once had the privilege of spending some time in close relations of friendship to a family composed of a widowed mother and several children, sons, daughter, nephews and nieces. A sister of the mother, who was pronounced to be an incurable invalid, had come from her Northern home to seek relief in the climate of the Southland. It is impossible to imagine more tender care of an invalid. Each member of the family vied with the others in offering gentle attentions, so that the waning life was filled with happiness that made invalidism almost a pleasure, as being the cause of so much loving consideration.

One morning the life-light flickered for a little and then went out. The usual funeral preparations which are the custom were attended to, and the remains were sent away to the far-distant home, and the family burial-lot.

While the remains were awaiting the appointed time of removal, the children of the family, of all ages and both sexes, passed in and out of the death-chamber, by day or by night, as if there had been no death, and there was not a semblance of dread, nor fearthought nor mourning. It was such a beautiful expression of loving consideration, unmarred by dread or fearthought, that one might well choose such a time and such a place and such environment on the occasion of one's passing on to the better life.

If it be possible to be a spirit, conscious of material environment, and in such guise to attend one's own funeral, which would be the environment of choice? Egotism, disembodied, would undoubtedly choose a scene of violent mourning, long drawn out, and painful to as many as possible. Loving Unselfishness would as certainly choose a funeral scene such as I witnessed in the house of my friends. Which would you choose? And if, as is most reasonable to suppose from observing the sequences of nature's processes that show that the seed of a flower has a more nearly perfect flower enfolded within itself, spirits also become purer by each unfolding through the release called death, and being made pure and unegotistic by the change, they must prefer, if they have the privilege, to have their old home remains viewed with loving and fearless consideration, rather than with fearsome dread and ostentatious emotion.

Then let us abjure fear in connection with death, and also in connection with the mortal remains of the beloved.

If the conventional premises relative to death be correct, the common attitude towards it is useless; and if the hypothetical premises be correct, as it is better to suppose, even if we cannot assert it, the common attitude is worse than useless, for it is both harmful and unjust. If we cultivate fear and mourning in connection with death, we are unjust to the dead, we are unjust to the living, we are unjust to ourselves; and, above all, cruel to the tender and impressionable emotions of children, to whom we are constantly leaving legacies of cowardice and ignorant egotism, or legacies of pure suggestion, love and appreciation.

Much might be written about the subject of this chapter, and many illustrations could be given wherein illogical fears have been, or can be, ridiculed away, but inasmuch as some of the following chapters are mainly devoted to this purpose, it is not necessary to more than suggest a line of argument under the present caption.

THE NOW-FIELD.

Let us work together for a season in the Now-Field.

We cannot work in any other field, but we can and do waste much valuable time in trying to work in the past or in the future, and in so doing neglect the precious now.

For recreation we may pleasantly, and perhaps profitably, speculate as to what there may be in the way of atoms finer than star-dust, and as to the possible degree of invisibleness of the ultimate ether. We may also exercise and strengthen our imagination by trying to give form to the Source of it all. Tiring of guessing in these directions, we may vary our recreation by attempts to peep under or through the veil which Nature so persistently holds between the present conscious life and the one we hope for beyond the veil. It can do no harm to think form into a forgotten past and into an uncertain future, if, in so doing, the vital and superprecious now be well guarded against the things we know to be deterrent to the best growth of the life-plant.

In considering the duty of the now, let us, for convenience of comparison, liken life to an agricultural season of one year's duration. We find, in ourselves, that the seed from which we have unfolded has already been sown, and the life-plant pretty well grown before we attain consciousness of duty and begin to think independently. If we are lucky, we have been taught early what the real object of life is, our duties in it, and the true values to be cultivated in connection with it.

We have very sensibly learned to get in out of the wet when it rains, and many other useful aids to comfort as well as to protection, but the most vital assistants of growth have been neglected, and many positive deterrents to growth have been cultivated by those who have been our teachers, and hence it behooves us to look to our habits of thought and of action in order to get rid of those which are detrimental to our growth.

Of first importance is the care of the Now-Field.

We have already suggested, and it cannot be too often repeated, that the condition favorable and necessary to growth is that of harmony--an harmonious present is the living heir and parent of all harmonies--that growth is the evident object of life, and that when anything ceases to grow it begins to die--there is no growth except in the present, and no cultivable field other than the Now-Field--that harmony, through one's ability to always furnish the concordant note, one's self, is within the power of each, regardless of environment or physical conditions, if _only_ present conditions and environment are considered, and that growth is the certain result of harmony; that our function relative to growth is only to keep deterrent influences out of the present; that, if we do this, Nature never fails to develop better results from the unfolding of each succession. We have learned that all of the deterrents we have been able to discover and classify are phases of fearthought; that fearthought is no creation of the present, but is sought in the future and nourished on the life-blood of the present--an excrescent and altogether parasitic abnormality, unnecessary to the thing it feeds on.

We have discovered, in our search for deterrents, that, if encountered in the now, they are easily routed. We have also discovered that the longest life is but a succession of nows. If so, how easy becomes the problem: Work diligently in the Now-Field.

In arguing against the potency of anger and worry and other expressions of fearthought, where the contention has been persisted in that they were necessary evils, and amenable only to suppression, not to elimination, I have invariably won my point when suddenly asking the question, "Are you angry or worried at this moment?" by the admission of my opponent, "No; not at this moment, because my mind is occupied with something which has no element of worry or anger in it." The replies vary, of course, but are to the same effect. I immediately return with the question: "Is not all time but a succession of nows, and, if so, cannot all of the nows, as well as this one, be exempt from apprehension and irritation, by continuing to think of pleasanter and more hopeful and helpful things?"

Each succeeding now is easier of control than the preceding one from which it learns the habit-of-control, and, if the immanent now is guarded, all the nows that follow will take care of themselves.

As we have observed, we need not think of the growing if we are only diligent in keeping fearthought out of our minds. Nature will do abundant growing for us, and if we do not seek fearthought beyond the now, we will have nothing to keep out. _It is easier than not!_

Does it not seem _very_ easy when one thinks reasonably about it? If we confine our efforts to the Now-Field, we leave our enemy out in the cold by the comfortable process of non-invitation. Therefore, let us work together for a season in the Now-Field.

PERTINENT PAGES.

PERTINENT PAGES.

FEARTHOUGHT.

Fear is fear_thought_ only.

Fear is caused by the _self-imposed_ or _self-permitted_ suggestion of _inferiority_.

Fear is not a physical thing, but it causes physical derangement.

Fearthought is _self-imposed_, and is therefore unnecessary.

Fearthought, being evil and unnecessary, is therefore _not-respectable_.

Fearthought is a habit which is altogether irrational and illogical.

Fearthought is a parasite which, in civilized man, is entirely abnormal.

_Fearthought can be eliminated from the mind._

* * * * *

Fearthought is the tap-root of all evil and trouble.

_Anger_ and _worry_ are expressions of fearthought.

All forms of worry are directly caused by fearthought.

Anger is directly or indirectly caused by fearthought.

All of the evil passions which group themselves under the class-names of anger and worry are therefore the result of fearthought.

Fearthought is the result of egotism. Egotism is the reverse, or, rather, perverse, of Egociation. It is caused by self-separation from Co-operative-Strength, from Universal-Good--from God.

Selfishness is the fruit and the evidence of egotism.

Fearthought is the first expression of selfishness.

_Fearthought is_, therefore, _the tap-root of evil and consequent unhappiness_.

* * * * *

Forethought invites success.

Fearthought invites failure.

The future is the vital part of life--the dead past furnishing only food for reminiscence and experience.

Consideration of the future must partake of either forethought or fearthought--it cannot partake of both at the same time.

Fearthought is in no way related to forethought except as the shadow is related to the tree behind which it hides from the light--the light of right-thinking.

Forethought stimulates, aids, fosters, encourages, and insures success of honest aims--its child is growth.

Fearthought relaxes, hampers, strangles, and thereby retards growth, to the end of dwarfing, if not killing, it--its children are paralysis, disease, unhappiness and death.

Forethought is a producer.

_Fearthought is a robber._

* * * * *

Forethought is constructive.

Fearthought is destructive.

Forethought suggests the building of houses for shelter wherein there can be no fearthought about storms.

Fearthought fusses and worries over the possibility of not getting the shelter ready in time to protect against inclement weather, and thereby wastes the available energy, and delays the completion of the shelter.

Forethought calmly proceeds to perform a useful task without fearthought of the extent of it. It does all that it can do--it can do no more.

Fearthought wrings its hands, and wastes its time in saying, "How can I ever do it?"

There is no difficulty in determining between forethought and fearthought.

Whatever thought is constructive, is forethought.

_Whatever thought is destructive or wasteful is fearthought._

* * * * *

Fearthought is the devil.

Fearthought is the arch-enemy of man, whose influence can be traced in every form of calamity and unhappiness.

Fearthought is the cause of indecision, suspicion, apprehension, jealousy, envy, indifference, self-degradation and all other forms of weakness which separate the afflicted from the tide of success and happiness, and which condemn them to the whirling and restless eddy of isolation and non-progression.

Fearthought is blasphemy, because it gives the lie to the fixed promises of God, as evidenced by experience.

Fearthought is like carbonic-acid gas pumped into one's atmosphere. It causes mental, moral and spiritual asphyxiation, and sometimes death--death to energy, death to tissue and death to all growth.

_Fearthought is a liar, and the father of lies._

* * * * *

Quarantine against Fearthought first.

Fearthought is more contagious than any other disease.

Fearthought is the chief distributer and promoter of other contagious diseases.

Fearthought can be guarded against by anti-toxic means, just as smallpox and diphtheria can be guarded against.

The serum to be used against fearthought is intelligent, persistent right suggestion.

Fearthought can also be quarantined against, the same as other contagious diseases.

Society can quarantine against fearthought by refusing to tolerate it as a necessity of civilized life--by classing it as not-respectable, and by refusing to feed it with sympathy.

Quarantine against fearthought in the individual is an easy matter to any one who will learn that it is only evil and never good.

_Fearthought should be kept "without the gates."_

* * * * *

Forethought for others is the most intelligent altruism.

Forethought is the natural condition, but can exist only in the absence of fearthought.

Forethought growing out of disagreeable or disastrous experience is a useful and worthy fruit; but fearthought taken from the same experience adds to the evil.

If a child be guarded against fearthought, he will enjoy immunity from it during life--a life twice or thrice prolonged in consequence. Parents should note the responsibility.

* * * * *

The consensus of the experience of parents, of physicians, of biologists, and of everyone who has observed child-life, is that the premises and deductions here given are correct, but as yet there has been no systematic effort made to eliminate fearthought out of the atmosphere of children, as there has been to eliminate weeds, malaria, contagious diseases, and other evils. Society should unite for defense against, and the extermination of, _childhood's worst enemy_.

* * * * *

Fearthought is the most pregnant cause of disaster and death.

Whoever teaches fearthought to a child, by either legend or example, may be a murderer by so doing.

Whoever permits or nurses fearthought within himself, sows the seed of suicide.

Whoever robs a child of the freedom of mind with which nature prefers to endow it, whether it be through pre-natal suggestion or through suggestion given after birth, is more a thief than one who robs it of its patrimony of goods or lands.

Whoever teaches or permits a child to suffer fearthought may never know the end of the disturbance caused thereby. Lying, stealing, avarice, suicide and murder may lie within the wake of its influence.

If parents have wronged their children unwittingly, they may yet correct the infliction by right example and by right counter-suggestions, lovingly, patiently, persistently and religiously given until the evil has been eradicated.

_Fearthought is the seed of Suicide._

* * * * *

Freedom is a Birthright.

Civilized Society insures Freedom.

The author has had much experience within the past few years which teaches that fearthought itself, and tendency to fearthought, are bad habits of the mind, that can be entirely counteracted if so desired, and if the desire be accompanied by reasonable assistance on the part of the afflicted ones.

Fearthought is the last relic of animal suspicion to be located, analyzed and dispelled. When it is entirely killed; then, and only then, will man become free--free to grow, free to appreciate his divine inheritance and free to enjoy it as ordained. As in agriculture and in horticulture, so in menticulture, and its contingent, physiculture, will it be found that deterrents to perfect growth can be eradicated, and that if attention to the germ-eradication of the deterrents is intelligent and persistent, God will surely develop perfect growth and the perfect fruit of happiness.

_Freedom is easier than not._

* * * * *

Fearthought is the result of ignorance or perversity.

Fearthought which is perverse is criminal.

Fearing for others is criminal, because it not only depresses and weakens them, but because it robs them of some part of the strength that encouragement and hopeful thought would give them.

Parents who do not wish to poison the natural energy of their children by depression and weakness, should learn the effect of telepathic influence for good or for evil, and thereby know that all of the expressions of fearthought are rank poisons.

Parents hold the key to character.

Whenever parents allow or teach their children to have fearthought, they foster in them the temptation to lie and steal.

_Crime lurks in fearthought._

* * * * *

Ignorance is _not_ bliss.

Ignorance can no longer be accepted as an excuse for the toleration of fear.

Thought precedes every emotion and every act of life. It must have no element of fear in it, if it is to lead up and on.

_Habit-of-thought_ asserts itself on all occasions. _Habit-of-feeling_ is the truer description, for the reason that it is the emotional self and not the thought-self that first responds to surprise.

Habit-of-thought or habit-of-feeling can be trained to respond to surprise with "I _must not be_ afraid," as easily as it is permitted to respond with the cowardly dictum, "I _am_ afraid."

If one have the habit-of-fearthought in any form or degree, surprise may cause it to inspire rash action which may end in disaster. More lives are lost through jumping _into_ danger under the impulse of fearthought, than are ever saved by it. Calm forethought is the better friend in a case of peril than quaking fearthought.

_I must not be afraid!_

* * * * *

Fearthought is a dissembler.

Fearthought is a very dangerous enemy, because it habitually masquerades in the garb of forethought.

Many earnest persons who desire to cultivate only the best thought, believe that fearthought is forethought, and invite and nurse it as such.

The lexicographers even, have failed to separate fearthought from forethought, and hence it does not appear in the dictionaries under its specific descriptive appellation.

* * * * *

Let fear be disguised no longer. It is a child of ignorant or perverse imagination. It is fear_thought_ only. It is always irrational and illogical. It has no element of good nor of protection in it. Separated from forethought, fearthought causes only paralysis and death, and neither energizes nor saves life. It is the devil. It is the result of false premises or impressions, but can be counteracted by logical premises and right impressions.

_Fearthought is a masquerader._