Law of Fear

The Law of Fear and the Law of Love describe two great oppositional forces. One repels, the other attracts. One separates, the other unifies.

At the lowest points of evolution, fear predominates—for a creature, an organization, a culture, or a planet. Here survival is the issue. Reaction to all that is unfamiliar or appears to threaten this survival is instinctual and conditioned.

Fear initiates a visceral, protective action. It impels instant response with no complex higher cognition. All things in fear contract and react—from organisms to organizations. When you are in fear, you regress. You are less wise, less perceptive, less of your potential. You become a smaller version of yourself.

All fear-based strategies are devolutionary and increase the power of darkness on the planet. This includes the many forms of fear so often used in the seeming service of good—the fear of rejection used to prompt obedience, the fear of economic annihilation used to drive initiative, the fear of an enemy used to solidify group identity, even the fear of damnation used to propel good behavior.

Fear circulates in the thought stream and possesses a viral nature, infecting and inhabiting things like itself. This is the problem with much media which creates a resonant vibration of fear through the power of sound and image.

Fear finally fails. When a culture evolves far enough, fear becomes ineffectual. Fear depends upon the perception of threat. At some point in our growth, we realize that what is ultimately real cannot be destroyed. Most of what appears to be a loss, even the loss of the body itself, is no real loss. You realize you are not your body, not your occupation, not your title, not your possessions. You are not even your personality. The hooks for fear-based strategies dissolve and you become immune from manipulation and control.

When enough people move to this point, old structures held together by fear lose their power. It is no longer possible to gain a political office, build an organization, sell a product, or leverage power by playing on other’s insecurities.

Ultimately there are only two ways to exercise power—fear and love. Taken to its ultimate extension, fear finally separates everything. It fractures and scatters the entire universe from itself, alienating all from all. This is the destination of rightness, superiority, differentiation, and fundamentalism. One right way leads on inevitably to one right organization, then one right sub-group within the organization, and ultimately one right person cut off and different from all others. Driven far enough by fear, you finally exist in complete isolation.