Looking at Ozodi Thomas Osuji`s Article, a Christmas and New Year Cadeau to Africans

The author of the attached article Ozodi Thomas Ozuji, PhD is my hero. I admire his prolific writing and his erodism. I have been following him by reading some of his key articles. I enjoy them as many relate to Africa where my heart and probably my soul lie. I browse this and I want my readers to read it too.
Dr. V. Viban Ngo.


This essay is my Christmas and New Year gift to Africans. I hope that it helps them stop living in fear and seeing themselves as rags and dressing and acting like rags, and change their self concepts and now see themselves as the children of God, the children of a wealthy father and work for wealth and get it. And, on this note, I end my self- assigned task of giving expensive information for free. Now, if you want it you come get it and pay for it; as they say, what we do not work and pay for we do not appreciate; if you value the type of information I give buy my books and or pay for consultation with me. Ozodi Thomas Osuji, PhD

UNDERSTANDING FEAR AND HOW TO REDUCE IT

Ozodi Thomas Osuji

ABSTRACT

This paper points out that human beings live in insecurity and experience fear and therefore are easily intimidated by those who do not mind exercising violence on them. The paper says that the individual must try to understand his fears and try to overcome it so that he is not easily terrorized by other persons and by governments.



INTRODUCTION



Human beings are those creatures with two basic emotions: love and fear. Love leads them to join one another, to unify. Love unifies people into corporate wholes. Fear, on the other hand, points out the harm that other people and (things) could do to them and urge them to run away from them. Fear leads to separation from other persons (those perceived as capable of harming one). Fear leads to separation while love leads to union.

Because of its critical role in human survival in separated ego state housed in body, fear response mechanism is built into our bodies and seems involuntary. We instinctively perceive what could harm us and our bodies respond with either flight or fight to it. In flight we run from the perceived source of danger; in fight we stop and fight it. The goal of both responses is for the individual to survive. If he perceives danger he sends information to his memory bank asking whether he has a history of fighting and overcoming similar dangers and if the answer is yes he stops and fights it but if not he flees from it. Either way the goal is for him to survive.

Fear response is mediated by complex biochemical responses in the body. Briefly, adrenalin, an excitatory neuro-chemical is released and it speeds up the body’s processes: the heart pounds faster releasing blood which is quickly carried to all parts of the body; sugar (carbohydrates, energy) is released and blood carries it to the muscles preparing them to fight or run; the lungs work faster inhaling more oxygen and blood carries it to all parts of the body and carries the heat and carbon dioxide generated by a fast working body away from the internal organs and exhales them (or gets rid of them through the skin). The nervous system works very fast sending and receiving information from the brain, information as to whether to stay and fight, or run from the perceived source of threat to the animal organism.

All said, fear response is a mechanism for the animal’s survival as a biological organism and all human beings respond with fear to threats to their biological integrity (and to their pride, vanity and ego).

Children born with deficiency of fear and pain response mechanism tend not to quickly perceive danger and continue doing what they are doing and easily get hurt and die from their injurious; they seldom live into adulthood.

Just as some children have slower fear response mechanism others have faster fear response mechanism. Having experienced some threats in their lives, as we all do, such children tend to over anticipate what could harm or kill them and avoid them. They tend to develop the various anxiety disorders and develop the personality disorders characterized by anxiety, fear and avoidance (such as avoidant, obsessive-compulsiv e and dependent personality disorders). I will not explicate the biochemistry of anxiety disorders but suffice it to say that the current hypothesis is that such persons’ bodies have less inhibitory neurotransmitters, such a GABA, and more excitatory neurotransmitters, such as neuropiniphrine.



Human beings must have some fear to take measures to survive on planet earth. If they did not have fear at all they would not seek to defend their bodies and egos and would be snuffed out by the myriad of things trying to do exactly that: destroy them. At this very moment millions of micro-organisms, germs, are trying make ones body their dinner and ones immune system is fighting and killing them; some persons apparently enjoy harming and or killing folk and if one did not defend ones self they would satisfy their sadistic inclinations by harming and or killing one.

As long as the individual wants to live in body and have a separated self he must have fear for fear defends separated state and the body that houses it.

If the individual has absolutely no fear in him he would die and get out of the abode of separated self, ego, and return to the realm of unified self (unified life, aka unified spirit). He would still have consciousness but not the separated consciousness that we have in bodies. (To assert that there is unified consciousness after our physical death is an unsubstantiated assumption; take it or leave it.)

To be on earth is to be in separated state which means having separated consciousness, a false consciousness, a dream, illusion and delusion; separated consciousness dies with the death of the body that made it seem real to us.

As long as the individual identifies with body he must fear harm to his body and ego self and be defensive and protect his body and ego. It is only when the individual no longer identify with his body and does not value body, his and others, that he is no longer prone to fear.

No separated self means no fears; there are no fears in unified state; unified state is love; there is no fear in love; fear is the absence of love; where there is fear there is no love; there is attack and hate in fear.

Your intention and action to harm the other produces fear in him and separation from you. If you desire to kill a cockroach and do something about it the cockroach would sense what is in your mind and run away from you; it is when you have the intention of harming it or killing it that it runs from you, separates from you to go protect itself; if you have no intention of harming the cockroach it would not run from you; it would happily coexist with you!

In North America, white folks had the intention and actively did something to enslave or even kill black folk and that made black folk feel fearful around them and separate from them. Because of white folks intention of harming or killing black folks, black folks live in tremendous fear.

Those living in fear use their intelligence only marginally; fear stifles intelligence; black folk’s alleged poor performance at schools and work can be explained by fear and racism.

Fear and racism stunts and warps black folks minds; fear makes them defensive most of the time; their tough guy behaviors is actually efforts to seem tough so as to send signals to white folks that they would not permit them to oppress them; this behavior wastes their mental energies. As they relax they would in fact do as well as other persons in all fields of human endeavor.

Alas, to relax their society must give them the signals that they are accepted and welcome in it; as long as they are given the message that they are unwelcome they will be defensive hence wasting their energies! They are in a Catch 22 situation, a no win situation; they are set up to fail in racist America, and fail and the society that sets them up to fail calls them deficient folk.

In fear folks withdraw from those they are afraid of. Fearful persons eat too much food; food is their solace in their depressed situation (fear leads to sadness and depression); they become fat and die from heart attacks, strokes and other cardiovascular diseases. Black folks are forced to live in fear hence indulge in eating junk food and become fat and die young.

Less fear leads to eating less food hence healthy body and longer living.

Fear affects learning; fear stifles creativity and productivity. Less fear leads to more productivity and creativity and good performance at learning situations.

If society reduces folks fears it would increase their learning speed and accelerate scientific knowledge.

WHY WE HAVE GOVERNMENTS



It is their awareness that they live precarious existence where many things could snuff out their lives that led people to form civil societies (at least that was how Thomas Hobbes saw it in his seminal book, Leviathan). Other people could kill one and one could kill other persons so we live in perpetual insecurity. Life in the state of the wild, in nature, was nasty, brutish and short.

To protect ourselves and reduce our insecurity we formed governments and gave them the power to make laws that punished those who harmed us. Governments were given the power of coercion: to arrest, try and jail, even kill those who threaten other persons’ lives.

Thus, it came to pass that governments have the power of life and death over people.



GOVERNMENTS AS TERRORISTS



Recognizing the enormous power given to them by the people, governments use that power to control the people. Like terrorists they occasionally punish some persons (arrest, try them in kangaroo courts and jail or even kill them) to instill fear of harm and death in the rest of the people, hoping that that would make the people obey the laws of the land, and accept the policies of the rulers. (Machiavelli, in the Prince, actually encouraged leaders to occasionally do this sort of thing so as to get the peoples loyalty; intimidation generates respect, the cynical Italian said.)

Governments are the greatest source of terrorism in human society; they intimidate the people and in so doing get them to do what otherwise they would not like to do.

Thus, everywhere people now live in fear of harm from natural forces and fear of their governments.

The fear of harm from natural objects and governments stifles the people’s emotional growth and makes them not learn and become creative and productive citizens.

If governments (and psychologists) could embark on helping people to understand the nature of fear and anxiety and do what reduces it they would increase the people’s learning capacity by quantum leaps; they would increase human productivity and creativity. The study of science, which tends to thrive where there is less fear in people, would zoom up.

Unfortunately, at present governments use fear to control people, to warp their minds and stunt their emotional growth.

The American government used fear and threat of harm and death to stunt the minds of black Americans. The so-called 15 points IQ difference between blacks and whites can be completely explained by the terror under which African-Americans live in racist America.



AMERICANS CONTROL THEIR PEOPLE THROUGH FEAR AND TERRORISM



The rulers of America not only control African-Americans but white folk through fear and terrorism. Americans are terrorized folk hence their annoying dependency on their leaders to tell them what to do (while claiming to be individualistic and independent they are very dependent).

Americans are too fearful to insist that their government do what it ought to do for them, what governments in other industrialized countries have done for their people, such as provide them with free education at all levels and provide them with publicly paid health care. Instead, they are passive and allow themselves to be used as mere tools, fodder, to fight wars for the elites of the political system.

America must be turned around; it must learn to liberate folks from the fear that holds them down instead of manipulating that fear and using it to control the people and in the process stunt their growth.

If America continues being a society that stifles folk’s growth and uses fear and terrorism to control the people it must necessarily fall and be discarded, as past civilizations, such as Rome and the Soviet Union, were discarded. The time for using primitive religions and political systems to control the people is over; human civilization now requires liberation of people from fear and control. If America’s government does not reduce its manipulation of fear to control the people obviously at some point some Americans would rebel and throw it out and another evil empire dies. On the other hand, if the American government transforms itself to serving people’s real needs and reducing their fear instead of exploiting it there is no doubt in my mind whatsoever that it would live for many centuries to come. (If you point out that many other countries are more oppressive than the USA, use fear and intimidation to control their people, such as China, my response is that those are not at the cutting age of civilization; China, for all its economic progress, is a primitive country; would you like to live in China? America remains the best country in the world; we just have to make it better. This century is not going to be the Chinese century, as some think; even if the USA falls Asian countries will not replace her; look at Brazil for that role; Brazil has the same population mix as the USA: blacks and whites, not the homogenous and boring Asian countries.)



AFRICAN GOVERNMENTS CONTROL THEIR PEOPLE THROUGH TERRORISM



In Africa the people live in tremendous fear of what their governments could do to them. If they dared criticize the thugs that rule them the thugs’ goon squads visit them at night and they go missing (or wound up in jail and are tortured). The people live in total fear of what their so-called leaders could do to them.

Africans are a special case. For some reasons they so want to live and fear death that they are willing to tolerate social abuses. They accepted slavery. Arabs enslaved them and Europeans enslaved them. Each of these two terrorist groups (slave masters are terrorists) threatened to kill them if they did not go along as slaves’ and they, fearing harm and death, went along and became slaves.

What Africans did in the past they are still doing in the present, allowing fear of harm and death to deter them from seeking their civil liberties and freedom?

Their criminal leaders recognizing how cowardly they are easily intimidate them. The thugs randomly arrest or kill some of them and thus instill the fear of harm and death in the many and in so doing get the many to accept their criminal leadership (all they do is steal from the public treasury but do nothing to improve the peoples welfare or create jobs for the people).

Clearly, as long as Africans are afraid of harm and death they would continue to be oppressed and abused by their kleptocratic so-called leaders. The only way to stop the criminality that passes for governments in Africa is for a substantial portion of the people to look death in the face and accept it and fight and die for their freedom. As Thomas Paine said in his “Common Sense”, the tree of liberty is watered with patriots’ blood. There has never been a place where governments willingly and voluntarily gave the people liberty without their fighting for it.

Until Africans fight and die for their freedom I doubt that we can have clean governments in Africa. A people get the government they deserve. Cowards get the ruler ship of criminals; courageous persons get a government of the people by the people and for the people, a government that serves their needs rather than abuses them.



INDIVIDUALS MUST OVERCOME THE FEAR THAT MAKES THEM TOLERATE GOVERNMENTS’ ABUSE



So far I have talked about governments and society helping the individual to understand the nature of fear and what fear makes him do, seek survival by tolerating those who threaten to harm and or kill him, and work to get him to overcome his fears so that he no longer tolerates abuses. Alas, human beings are more likely to take advantage of other folks rather than help them. Human beings are not angels; they are egotists (which is what folks mean by Satan and devil).

If folk wait for their governments to help them overcome their fears they would probably wait forever before it happens; what is more likely to happen is governments exploiting their fears and using their tendency to fear to control them.

Therefore, the individual must study the nature of fear and how fear is manifested in him and then decide that since fear disposes him to tolerate others abuse so as to avoid their harming and or killing him that he would rather accept harm and death than give in to the threats of those who want to enslave, abuse and oppress him. The individual must look fear in the face and say: go to hell; I must do what serves my civil liberties rather than live under the slavery, abuse and oppression that fear gives those it claims to protect.

When an individual is ready to fight and if necessary die at any minute rather than tolerate abuse no one can enslave, oppress or abuse him. We are abused, oppressed, enslaved and socially marginalized because of our tendency to fear.

In the final analysis, we are not victims of fear and abusers because we can understand the psychology of fear and abusers and fight them rather than permit them to enslave us. Our civil liberties are in our hands.



FEAR DRIVEN ISSUES



In fear one takes measures to survive as a separated self housed in body and perhaps lives for a hundred years or so and dies. Upon death ones body decays and ones ego disappears since it is coterminous with ones body.

In love, on the other hand, one lives forever and ever in unified spirit.

Without fear, which can only be possible if human beings were not insecure, and did not perceive environmental factors trying to harm them, such as germs trying to eat their bodies and other people trying to destroy their bodies, human beings would live lovely lives.

If people did not live insecure lives and did not live in fear they would not need governments. The fact that human beings have governments means that they live insecure lives and have fear.

Shall we ever get to a point where people are fearless hence need no governments? The answer is that this is not possible while people live in body and separated state. As long as people live in bodies, that is, in separated states, in space and time, they will experience insecurity and fear and need governments to protect them. It is only when they return to the awareness of unified spirit that they would not live in insecurity and fear and not need governments to protect them from each other. It is fantasy, silly idealism to believe that while on earth, in space and time that human beings can be secure and have fearlessness and no government to protect them from their evil nature.

In body people are evil and will be evil and need protection from each other. To live in body people made a choice to not be spirit, to separate from unified spirit. Unified spirit is love and body is designed to be its opposite, hate, hence in body people must be evil and must live in insecurity and fear and the most that they can do is understand their fear and try to reduce it but not eliminate it; fear can only be eliminated when people return to living in non-material spirit state.

FEAR AND PARANOIA ARE LINKED

In fear one withdraws from the source of fear (often other persons and physical stimuli), avoids it. In isolation one feels weak and inadequate and tries to feel adequate by wishing for adequacy and power. One imagines ways that one could become adequate and powerful; so as to overcome what made one feel inadequate. Often one posits a powerful self that enables one overcome whatever makes one fearful. The posited powerful self, what Alfred Adler called the superior self, is an imaginary, fictional self. Often one takes ones mere imaginations as real hence the grandiosity of fearful and deluded persons.

Paranoia is fear based thinking; here the person is in intense fear and feels insecure; he wants to reduce his insecurity and fear and wants to predict what would happen to him in the future. If one could predict the future and take measures to adapt to it one would feel secure. Prediction of the future, unfortunately, is impossible so the fearful person speculates on what could happen to him and takes his hypotheses as true. His goal is to reduce his intense insecurity and feel secure. But security is impossible in this world so one has to live with insecurity.

FEAR, DRIVE FOR ACCEPTANCE AND SEX

In fear the individual desires other persons to accept him; he believes that if other persons accept him that he would be less insecure and fearful; thus, he pleases other persons hoping that they would accept him. In the area of sex he thinks that if a woman permits him to have sex with her that she accepts him and that that would reduce his insecurity (which is not true). In effect, he does not approach a woman for sex out of love for her but to get security from her acceptance of him; this is a chimera.

The fearful person is incapable of loving a woman or himself and other persons for in fear one cannot love (fear is the absence of love and love is the absence of fear, it is only in love when one has no fear that one can love one’s self and other persons).

IT SEEMS THAT BIOLOGY CAUSED FEAR AND ANXIETY

If one has a problematic body, say, has a body that is easily aroused one may feel fear. Consider: the ambient temperature goes up, say, you are in an overheated room or an electric bulb is shining right above your head and excites your brain cells and you feel uncomfortable and withdraw from it. You associate the cause of the withdrawal with noxious feeling and develop fear around it (avoidance of physical factors); if in the midst of other people and you feel anxious you associate people with anxiety and avoid them, too. Now you anticipate that such factors would make you fearful and you avoid them. That is to say that first is the noxious physical and or social experience and then fear follows. Fear then seems secondary to primary biological factors. This makes fear seem biologically determined rather than mentally determined.

Mind and body are the same, the lower mind anyway. Body affects mind and determines its responses. If the body dies mind dies. We are talking about the lower mind, the ego mind that adapts to the exigencies of the physical and social world. There is a higher mind, part of the spirit self that watches the dances of the lower ego mind.

When you feel fearful your muscles feel weak; when you feel loving your muscles feel strong and powerful

PARANOID THINKING

Paranoid thinking is thinking done under fear; paranoia is fear based thinking. It is also thinking done from the perspective of the false, grandiose self. When the individual identifies with the false, important and powerful self, a self that hides his feeling of inadequacy, he thinks in a deluded manner and is in the hold of fear. A girl boasts about how bright and intelligent she is; this is thinking from her false, grandiose self. By the same token deluded Igbos think from their prideful selves and from it boast about how they are superior to all people. Such thinking alienates other persons and makes them to hate and attack one; it has to be corrected by thinking from the real self.

PERSONALITY AS FALSE SELF

Persona means mask; personality therefore means a mask, a false self. All thinking done from the human personality is done from the masked self, from the false self. What people do from their egos and bodies are false, not real; these need to be corrected by thinking and doing from the real self.

BODY AS FALSE SELF

Body is projected out into a dream and consciousness sees it as who one is and sees other bodies as who they are and proceed to relate to them as such. One has to overlook folk’s egos and bodies and personalities and relate to them at the spirit level; spirit knows only love.

PARANOID SERIOUSNESS

To be serious is to see one’s self as the important false self one wants to become, a deluded self and try to be it and think and behave from it. When one identifies with the false, big self one cannot laugh or play for the important self does not laugh or play,

SPIRITUALITY NOT FORCE WILL UNIFY AND DEVELOP AFRICANS

Africa is going to be unified not through military force but through non-violent means, such as positing and teaching them a new metaphysics that emphasizes peace and love. Jesus Christ unified the Christian world through his metaphysics; Mohammed unified Muslims through his metaphysics; we will unify mankind through a new spirituality. Teachings on spirituality are more potent than political exercise of force. Real power lies in spirit and its methodology of love; love conquers the world.

FEAR IMPRISONS US

Fear protects the ego and body and makes them seem real to one. But in the process fear disconnects one from other persons and makes one live alone. Fear separates one from other persons.

FEAR IS NEGATIVELY FUNCTIONAL

Fear makes ego and body real so it is functional for one. One chose to have fear, ego and body to separate from other persons; fear is not what happens to one but what one chooses to experience because of what it does for one: give one a sense of separated self and specialness, all delusions.

One accepts fear and feels threatened and defends ones ego and body and separates from other persons. The anxious person chose fear to make his ego seem real.

By the same token the manic and schizophrenic chose their psychoses to make their egos seem real to them but their egos are not real and underneath their mental illness their real selves, joined to all selves, is still healthy. Because their egos and bodies give them a sense of having separated selves no external person can heal the psychotic; only the psychotic can voluntarily drop his identification with a false ego and body. The most that one can do is drop ones own ego and body and then model an egoless, bodiless living and its attendant peace and happiness and leave it to psychotics to copy or not. Ones primary function is to heal ones self and live in peace but not to heal other persons (ones ego urges one to heal other persons and ignore healing ones self; this is the ego of the unhealed healer; real healing of others lies in healing ones self and modeling a healed egoless, peaceful and loving existence for all to see and emulate) .

FEAR PROTECTS THE SEPARATED SELF CONCEPT

Fear based adaptation to the world serves the egos purpose. One is born as a separated self and uses fear to protect it. One develops a false self concept that says that one is separated from the whole and defends it with fear. The self concept, aka personality, is always fear based.

The self concept sees itself as powerful, feels proud, anger, fear, shame, and guilt and is delusional in the sense that it is belief in a self that is not true as true.

To be realistic is to accept the unified self and from it live fearlessly for one knows that it is eternal and immortal.

THE PURPOSE OF PSYCHOLOGY AND PSYCHOTHERAPY

What is the point in studying psychology and its applied form, psychotherapy? It is to understand the human mind and behavior and the obstacles to living fully and remove those obstacles to living fully. Then if you understand these things live fully. In this case if you understand the nature of fear and how it blocks your living fully then reduce your fear and live fully.

FEAR LEADS TO LOW SELF ESTEEM

Fear makes one have low self esteem and respond with a false, big deluded self and avoid other people to protect the false big self.

Forgiveness destroys fear.

Fear proposes to defend your ego, to protect you but in fact what it gives you is living in hell, in prison.

MEDICAL DISORDERS INDUCE ANXIETY

Many medical diseases cause fear and anxiety. Here, anxiety disorder is not primary but secondary to underlying medical disorders that dispose the child to feel that his life is threatened. For example, my inherited Cytochrome c oxidase deficiency made me feel like my life was threatened and I felt fear and in the process developed anxiety secondary to it. My over sensitive body that reacts with excitation when exposed to heat and light energy makes me feel anxious and want to get away from heat and light and eventually from people.

DESIRE TO BE IN CHARGE AND FEAR

Ultimately, fear is rooted in the individual’s desire to be in control, to be in charge of his life. The individual cannot control all the exigencies of living; he is only a small part in a large universe where everything affects everything. He must accept that he is not in charge and accept God or a higher power as being in charge and live with that trust and accept whatever comes his way. In effect, to heal fear one must accept God (spirituality, not necessarily religion for religion is manmade rituals).

IDEALISM IS REALLY DEFEATISM

Idealism is given up when one accepts the nothingness of being, the nothingness of this world and of the ego and body. On earth we shall always be imperfect and cannot be perfect. Heaven and perfection lies only in spirit, not in body, not on earth.

FEAR LEADS TO DEPRESSION AND PARANOIA

Fear leads to depression and paranoia. Fear and depression go together for in fear the individual feels weak and responds with depression, which he then tries to deny and flee from by positing a false important self and pretending to be it hence paranoia; William Meisner made this point better than other persons.

CERTAIN VOCATIONS SUIT THE ANXIOUS PERSON

The fearful, anxious person has limited range of vocations: philosophy, psychology, psychiatry and the social sciences.

SCIENCE AND IDENTIFICATION WITH BODY

White men identify with the body, and like their bodies; they like sex. The result of this love of body is their science, the study of physical bodies and material objects. This people identify with body, matter, with nothingness.

Those who deny body and seek spirit tend not to be good at science not because they lack the intelligence to do science, but because body and matter (the physical world) does not make sense to them and does not satisfy the craving of their soul for spiritual matters.

NORMAL VERSUS NEUROTIC FEARS

Most people on earth have masked fears and only about ten percent of the population experience fear consciously, is anxious. This means that only one in ten persons will listen to any teachings on fear, for they need such teachings but the other ninety percent of the people are not consciously fearful and therefore do not need information on fear and anxiety disorders.

FEAR OF SOCIAL REJECTION



Some persons have inordinate fear of rejection by other persons. They feel that as they are that they are not good enough and that if other persons get to know them as they are that they would reject them. Fearing rejection by other persons they avoid other persons. They withdraw from other persons and in social isolation maintain some semblance of self esteem, a false self esteem that is not to be presented to other persons lest they reject it. These people are those society call shy persons. Psychiatry calls them persons with avoidant personality disorder. Whatever it is called the salient point is fear of social rejection (socio-phobia) and tendency to feel anxious around people for people are perceived as always judging and rejecting them. These people are afraid to apply for jobs or go to interviews lest they are rejected. If employed they tend to do their jobs well at the technical level but are afraid of telling other persons what to do lest they offend them and are rejected by them hence are unassertive and as a result do not get promoted to managerial level. Thus, despite having good technical skills and understanding how to do the job better than other persons they are seldom made supervisors, managers and leaders. In leadership situation they feel anxious and often panic and run from it for they are preoccupied with social rejection.

Now what is the self that fears social rejection? It is the false, ideal self; the false superior self that fears others seeing that it is not really superior, ideal and perfect and rejecting it. If one did not posit and identify with a false grandiose self one would not fear social rejection.

Since it is the false, big self that fears rejection what one should do is crave rejection. One should put ones self in situations where other persons reject one. One should say to folks: go ahead and reject me. If they reject one, one learns that social rejection does not harm one. The entire world of people, as Albert Ellis pointed out in his rational emotive therapy, could reject the false ideal self and it would not make a difference to ones survival.

One should determine what one wants to do with ones life and go do it and let other people reject ones false, big self if they want to.

Folks cannot reject ones real self. In fact, it is when the false ideal self is rejected that ones real self is affirmed.

Ones real self is the unified spirit self, the Christ self. This self is always holy, that is, unified with all selves and its creator, God, and no human being can reject it.

Rejection of the false ideal ego leads to giving up craving for the ideal, false self; therefore if you are egotistical please crave people’s rejection of it so that you learn that rejection would not kill you, that it would lead to your discovery of your right self.

White folks rejected black folks ideal egos and thought that they destroyed them by making them feel unimportant, but all they did was hasten black folks discovery of their real self, their spirit self and in validating that real self feel peaceful and happy.



FEAR EMMANATES FROM DESIRE TO HAVE AND PROTECT A SEPARATED SELF



Fear is a device for protecting the false big self; this protection of the false, ideal self is a means of avoiding awareness of ones real Christ self. So one must give up fear to know ones real Christ self. When the false, ideal self is let go one discovers that one has a real self, a unified self, aka Christ. The real self, the Christ self, is eternal, immortal and changeless.

Fear is a device for hiding the glorious son of God, the light of God in all of us, a light that were it allowed to shine saves one and all the world. The ego hides the Christ, a Christ that must be let out to save the world. When one let go of the ego, the false self and its grandiosity and allows the self that God created, the Christ, to shine through one, one becomes a light for the world, a lit lamp placed on a hill for the world to see. But this self is not the self one invented to replace the self that God created; this Christ self is not of ones making, it is the creation of God.



I am aware that I am employing religious and spiritual categories. I am also aware that those who employ spiritual categories are said to be non-scientific. Spiritualized persons who believe that their real selves are Christ are often said to be deluded by ego psychiatrists.

The ego calls Christ (God) deluded. Fear of being seen as grandiose and deluded disposes folks to desist from claiming their Christ self; they do not want folks to see them as crazy.

Jesus claimed to be the son of God, Christ, and said that he and God are one as all of us are (Gospel according to John Chapter 14), and for that claim he was accused of blasphemy and of being insane and eventually killed. Therefore, if one wants to reclaim ones Christ self one must be willing to be called crazy by the world.

It is actually the ego that is insane. The ego is denial of ones real spirit self and identification with a false separated self housed in body. The ego is a false self; belief in the false is delusion, insanity, so the ego is insane. But the insane ego calls the sane son of God insane to mask its insanity.

One must therefore be careful in listening to secular psychiatrists and psychologists calling religious persons deluded for they are the ones who are deluded. I used to see religious persons who claim to be the sons of God as insane but now I accept that there is some truth in their belief systems.

One should not call African persons who claim to be resurrecting their people’s religions deluded person, as I did in the past; these people are unto something useful.



FEAR SLOWS LEARNING



Fear stifles learning. In learning situations the fearful and anxious person feels that if he made mistakes that other people would laugh at him and to avoid making mistakes and being laughed at (so as to preserve his ideal, perfect self that does not make mistakes) he avoids learning situations.

Here, it is the false, big self that is at work. Wherever there is anxiety disorder there is a false, big ego. It is the false, big ego self that fears making mistakes and being laughed at.

To overcome fear and anxiety one must give up ones grandiose ego and replace it with ones real self which is the Christ self, the unified son of God, the Holy son of God who is one with God and all his brothers.

To learn effectively one must not identify with a false, big ego; one must embrace a humble self, the small self that knows that he is created by God and in that knowledge is very grand and holy.

DEPENDENCE ON GOD HEALS FEAR

One needs to depend on God to protect one rather than depend on other people to protect one. When one depends on God, not people, one feels peaceful and joyous (other people are fearful and insecure and cannot protect one hence one does not need to depend on them).



FEAR IS NOT LINKED TO THE PSYCHOSES

In extreme fear state, especially panic disorder and some of the major phobia, the individual appreciating the irrationality of his fear suspects that he is losing his mind. But he is not insane. Whereas some fearful persons develop some delusions, usually mild ones but not the bizarre ones found in psychoses.

In psychoses, such as mania and schizophrenia, there is always hallucination and bizarre delusions, whereas there are no hallucinations in anxiety, and if delusions exist in anxiety it is mild (all human beings, even the most normal ones have some mild delusions).

The manic person feels like he is the most important person in the world, is grandiose and deluded; he is excited and euphoric and does not make sense (a poor man who tells you that he is a millionaire is not making sense).

A schizophrenic does not make sense (such as a guy coming to you and asking you why you are fooling him around just because he saw you twice in a bus…this is schizophrenia, paranoid type). The point is that anxiety disorder is not psychoses.



CONCLUSION

This paper has explored fear in its many guises and suggested ways to cope with it. Some folks attempt to heal fear with medications, especially the anti anxiety medications, anxiolyptics, such as Valium, Librium, Xannax, Klonopin etc. These medications are habit forming and are difficult to withdraw from. Moreover, they do not cure anxiety but merely mask its symptoms.

I believe that the best way to cure fear is to understand it and approach it from some of the ways explored in this paper. Cognitive behavior therapy, as taught by Aaron Becks, also does help. I also believe that religion, especially spirituality, is called for in the effort to heal fear. Fear emanates from our identification with a false, separated ego self and our belief that we can be in charge of our lives. In fear one believes that one is in control of the exigencies of life and feels anxious from the recognition that one is in charge of nothing. Powerlessness makes one feel anxious. If one accepts a higher power to be in charge of ones life and allows it to know best what is good for one it does make one feel calm, peaceful and happy.

Religion is psychotherapy in that when folks pray they accept a higher power to be in charge of their lives hence reduce their swollen egoism and feel humble. It is in humility that mental health lies.

Ultimately fear emanates from belief that one has a false, big ego self. To heal fear one must reduce ones ego. If one does not want to feel any kind of fear at all one must give up the entire ego.

The purpose of psychotherapy is to shrink the ego, to reduce the ego. The ego self concept, the separated self, is not our true self and as long as we assume that it is our true self and defend it we must feel anxious and experience the other mental disorders. Therapy lets one understand the nature of the ego and relinquish it and from so doing feel peaceful and happy.

Initially one reduces the ego self concept, changes the self concept and makes it a loving and forgiving one but ultimately one must let the ego go so as to feel totally peaceful and happy.

One must change ones attitude to life and become appreciative and grateful to life. When you appreciate other persons since they are your extension you appreciate you; when you are grateful to other persons since they are your extension you are grateful to you; when you say thank you to other persons since they are your extension you thank you. But when you ignore others or hate them since they are your extension and are part of you, you hate and ignore you. What you give to other persons, good or bad, you literally give to you and receive.

I believe that Africans are held down by fear; their fear of harm and death makes them tolerate dictatorial governments instead of rise up and fight them and if needs be die in the process. Africans allowed fear to dispose them to tolerate slavery. I believe that they must overcome fear if they are to go anywhere. Is solving their fear all that they need to do to move forward? How about the neocolonial relationships they have with the West with the West insisting on exploiting their material resources and keeping them backward, keeping them a plantation economy? I know that there are many obstacles to Africa’s development but I choose to focus on one of those obstacles and leave the rest to other Africans to focus on and solve.



REFERENCES AND FURTHER READING



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Adler, A. (1956). The Individual Psychology of Alfred Adler. H. L. Ansbacher and R. R. Ansbacher (Eds.). New York: Harper Torchbooks.

Adler, A. (1964). Superiority and Social Interest: A Collection of Later Writings. H. L. Ansbacher and R. R. Ansbacher (Eds.). Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.

American Psychiatric Association, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. Forth Edition. (2005) (Washington, DC. American psychiatric Press.)

Becks, Aaron (1975) Cognitive Therapy and the Emotional Disorders. Intl Universities Press.

Beck Aaron and, A.T., Rush, A.J., Shaw, B.F., Emery, G., (1979) Cognitive Therapy of Depression. The Guilford Press.

Ellis, Albert (2005) Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy: A Therapist's Guide (2nd Edition), with Catharine MacLaren. Impact Publishers.

Hobbes, Thomas. (1665) Leviathan.

Horney, Karen. (1950) Neurosis and Human Growth. (New York: W.W. Norton.)

Kelly, George. (1955) The psychology of personal constructs. Vol. I, II. Norton, New York. (2nd printing: 1991, Routledge, London, New York.)

Lincolm, Abraham. Gettesburg Address defining American democracy as Government of the people by the people for the people.

Machiavelli, Nicollo. The Prince.

Marks, Isaac. (1978) Living with Fear: Understanding and Coping with Anxiety.

Marks, Isaac. (1988) Cure and Care of Neuroses.

Marks, Isaac. (1991) The Practice of Behavioral and Cognitive Psychotherapy.

Meisner, William. (1980) The Paranoid Process; (1982) Psychotherapy for the Paranoid Process. (New York: Aronson.)

Mill, John Stuart. On Liberty.

Paine, Thomas. Common Sense.

Schucman, Helen. (1976) A Course in Miracles. (Tiburon, California: Foundation for Inner Peace.)

Shapiro, David. (2009) Autonomy and the Rigid Character. (New York: Basic Books.)

Swanson, David. (1970) The Paranoid. (New York: Little, Brown.)



Ozodi Thomas Osuji, PhD

December 17, 2009

ozodiosuji@gmail. com